Michael Douglas as LIBERACE - Really?
The film is called Behind The Candelabra, and it’s about the rather colourful relationship between the musical star, Liberace, and his much younger chauffeur and lover, Scott Thorson, 39 years his junior. Scott had worked with Liberace for several years before they became lovers, but the relationship ended badly when Thorson sued the entertainer for $113m, famously including a palimony suit.
Despite this, Liberace never came out publicly as being gay. But after the pianist’s death in 1987, Scott Thorson (played in the film by Matt Damon) wrote a memoir about his life with the entertainer, and it is this book on which the film is based. It’s a tell-all tale that leaves little to the imagination.
Liberace, who would go on to become the highestearning entertainer in the world, and was widely known as Mr Showmanship, came from a humble background. Born in Wisconsin, his twin died at birth and times were often hard on the family. Despite this, his father, a musician, sparked in him an interest in music that would transform this awkward child with a speech impediment into a dazzlingly flamboyant entertainer. Indeed, by the late 1940s he was modestly billing himself as ‘Liberace: the most amazing piano virtuoso of the present day’.
He certainly lived a superlatively lavish life. By the mid-1950s he was earning $50,000 per week. Clark Gable, Shirley Temple and President Harry S Truman were fans. He built opulent mansions, drove limousines and embraced spectacle, saying with typical understatement, ‘I’m a one-man Disneyland’.
‘I don’t cry all the way to the bank any more,’ he once told American television host Johnny Carson. ‘I bought the bank.’ In fact, it’s amazing that it’s taken so long to make this biopic. I have a personal interest in the film because my acquaintance Michael Douglas is playing Liberace. Or at least I think it’s him. The first photographs of the stars in character have been released and thanks to the extraordinary make-up, glorious wigs and crystaltrimmed clothes, Michael looks exactly like, well, Wladziu Valentino Liberace (to give him his full name).
Michael did meet Liberace, who was a neighbour of his father, Kirk Douglas, in Palm Springs. ‘I remember meeting him just in passing, in his convertible with the top down – his hair not moving,’ he told Entertainment Weekly. He also got some advice from his co-star Debbie Reynolds, who was a friend of Liberace and plays the role of his mother in the film. ‘She just told me, your voice can never be too nasal,’ he revealed.
It’s easy to forget how much research actors must do. Michael hired piano teachers, and watched hours of performance footage to perfect his hand and body movements. Of course, no actor could ever fully replicate Liberace’s musical genius – after all, he started the piano aged four and was playing hugely complex pieces from memory by the time he was just seven. Indeed, for some of the scenes featuring the more complicated musical numbers, which Liberace often played on his opulent Mirror Chandler Baldwin Grand Piano, Michael’s face was even digitally superimposed on to a pianist’s body.
It’s incredible that producer Jerry Weintraub worked for a solid five years to get this film to the screen. Many distributors were leery of the subject matter – a gay romance – but HBO had the guts to take it, obviously impressed by the enormous talent involved.
And I’m very glad they did. As a novelist, I love a colourful story. Deep down, we all do. And if it just happens to be true… well, so much the better.
Behind The Candelabra is on general release from 14 June.
In my own defence...
I love receiving letters from my readers. But perhaps unusually, in all the years I’ve been a writer I have never received a nasty missive – until just the other day. Had its author been brave enough to supply her address, I would have replied privately. But as she didn’t, I must discuss it here, for she attacked my character and my professionalism and I feel I must defend myself.
The letter concerned was in reference to my 5 April column about Joan Collins. I was chastised, castigated, accused of not being a lady, of having bad manners and being a bad friend to Joan.
Having accused me of breaking confidences, I must point out that everything I wrote about Joan Collins is already public knowledge. Other journalists have written in depth about exactly the same things I mentioned in passing, and indeed, so has Joan herself.
I wrote my tribute to Joan with affection and admiration. And Joan knows that, which is what really matters. She even thanked me for my ‘lovely words’, as she called them.
As a young journalist, I was told by my editor to never rush to judgement, not to start writing until I had the facts, and then to check the facts again. It is, perhaps, a lesson we should all learn before putting pen to paper.
Despite this, Liberace never came out publicly as being gay. But after the pianist’s death in 1987, Scott Thorson (played in the film by Matt Damon) wrote a memoir about his life with the entertainer, and it is this book on which the film is based. It’s a tell-all tale that leaves little to the imagination.
Liberace, who would go on to become the highestearning entertainer in the world, and was widely known as Mr Showmanship, came from a humble background. Born in Wisconsin, his twin died at birth and times were often hard on the family. Despite this, his father, a musician, sparked in him an interest in music that would transform this awkward child with a speech impediment into a dazzlingly flamboyant entertainer. Indeed, by the late 1940s he was modestly billing himself as ‘Liberace: the most amazing piano virtuoso of the present day’.
He certainly lived a superlatively lavish life. By the mid-1950s he was earning $50,000 per week. Clark Gable, Shirley Temple and President Harry S Truman were fans. He built opulent mansions, drove limousines and embraced spectacle, saying with typical understatement, ‘I’m a one-man Disneyland’.
‘I don’t cry all the way to the bank any more,’ he once told American television host Johnny Carson. ‘I bought the bank.’ In fact, it’s amazing that it’s taken so long to make this biopic. I have a personal interest in the film because my acquaintance Michael Douglas is playing Liberace. Or at least I think it’s him. The first photographs of the stars in character have been released and thanks to the extraordinary make-up, glorious wigs and crystaltrimmed clothes, Michael looks exactly like, well, Wladziu Valentino Liberace (to give him his full name).
Michael did meet Liberace, who was a neighbour of his father, Kirk Douglas, in Palm Springs. ‘I remember meeting him just in passing, in his convertible with the top down – his hair not moving,’ he told Entertainment Weekly. He also got some advice from his co-star Debbie Reynolds, who was a friend of Liberace and plays the role of his mother in the film. ‘She just told me, your voice can never be too nasal,’ he revealed.
It’s easy to forget how much research actors must do. Michael hired piano teachers, and watched hours of performance footage to perfect his hand and body movements. Of course, no actor could ever fully replicate Liberace’s musical genius – after all, he started the piano aged four and was playing hugely complex pieces from memory by the time he was just seven. Indeed, for some of the scenes featuring the more complicated musical numbers, which Liberace often played on his opulent Mirror Chandler Baldwin Grand Piano, Michael’s face was even digitally superimposed on to a pianist’s body.
It’s incredible that producer Jerry Weintraub worked for a solid five years to get this film to the screen. Many distributors were leery of the subject matter – a gay romance – but HBO had the guts to take it, obviously impressed by the enormous talent involved.
And I’m very glad they did. As a novelist, I love a colourful story. Deep down, we all do. And if it just happens to be true… well, so much the better.
Behind The Candelabra is on general release from 14 June.
In my own defence...
I love receiving letters from my readers. But perhaps unusually, in all the years I’ve been a writer I have never received a nasty missive – until just the other day. Had its author been brave enough to supply her address, I would have replied privately. But as she didn’t, I must discuss it here, for she attacked my character and my professionalism and I feel I must defend myself.
The letter concerned was in reference to my 5 April column about Joan Collins. I was chastised, castigated, accused of not being a lady, of having bad manners and being a bad friend to Joan.
Having accused me of breaking confidences, I must point out that everything I wrote about Joan Collins is already public knowledge. Other journalists have written in depth about exactly the same things I mentioned in passing, and indeed, so has Joan herself.
I wrote my tribute to Joan with affection and admiration. And Joan knows that, which is what really matters. She even thanked me for my ‘lovely words’, as she called them.
As a young journalist, I was told by my editor to never rush to judgement, not to start writing until I had the facts, and then to check the facts again. It is, perhaps, a lesson we should all learn before putting pen to paper.