BEHIND THE BARS

Liberace’s Lover To Watch His HBO Biopic From The Comfort Of Jail

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liberace-thorsonBehind the Candelabra is best viewed from behind bars, at least that’s what Scott Thorson — Liberace’s longtime lover and the author of the book on which the movie is based — is telling himself.

According to a recent profile in The New York Times, Thorson will miss the May 26 premiere of the movie because the Washoe County Jail where he is currently an inmate doesn’t have HBO:

Mr. Thorson has been held here since February, when he was charged with burglary and identity theft, after buying about $1,300 worth of computer and cellphone merchandise using a credit card and license that weren’t his. He was arrested at the Ponderosa Hotel, where he and a man he had just met rented a room for $33.90 a night.

Thorson needs $15,000 to bail him out of jail, but his funds, much like his friends, have all dried up. He pleaded guilty to the charges against him on Wednesday and asked to enter a rehabilitation program. Thorson could face up to 30 years in prison and combined fines of $110,000.

Except that Thorson is no longer “Scott Thorson”; since entering the Witness Protection Program in 1989, he’s gone by Jess Marlow. And Jess Marlow has Scott Thorson’s old face since one of them removed the chin implant Liberace got him in a bid to remake the younger man in his image. Yeah, we’re talking that kind of creepy.

Thorson, Marlow or whatever you call him has been on and off (mostly on) drugs and in and out of jail since being unceremoniously dumped by “Mr Showmanship” in 1982. Over the years he’s shacked up with anyone who’ll have him, including a woman in Maine he lived with for 12 years. He even proposed to her, but a stolen ring with a pearl instead of a diamond was the last straw in that relationship. The first might have been Thorson’s drinking and/or homosexuality.

Back to the Marlow story — Thorson got embroiled in something along these (coke) lines in the late-80s and testified in court against his former drug dealer, Eddie Nash, whom Thorson claims put a hit on his head. The veracity of this story is debatable since Thorson eventually ended up in a homeless shelter, where he supposedly found religion. He soon found something more compelling than God’s love, however — crack — and almost lost his life after being shot three times at a Howard Johnson in Jacksonville, Florida.

Thorson now claims he’s broke from undergoing treatment for what he describes as Stage 3 colon cancer. However, he netted nearly $100,000 from the HBO deal, but that was gone in a matter of two months — blown on mostly cars and jewelry. So we guess the old adage is true: you can kick the trash out of the Beverly Hills mansion, but not the Beverly Hills mansion out of the trash. That elegance was learned and learned well.