It was back in mid-October, 2011 that we first heard reports of a Liberace biopic to be directed by Steven Soderbergh, for HBO. It may or may not be the last offering from the director, who also helmed, among other things, Sex Lies, and Videotape, Erin Brokovich, Traffic, and the Oceans trilogy: Soderbergh has, on more than one previous occasion, claimed to be "retiring," a declaration he repeated with the making of Behind the Candelabra. Time will tell.
The film, as you point out, stars Michael Douglas as Wladziu Valentino Liberace. The actor has a prior relationship with Soderbergh, via Traffic, and is said to excel in the role -- he certainly looks the part from the few photographs that have been released (check out some sneak peeks courtesy of Huffington Post and the U.K.'s Daily Mail.
The new movie is an adaptation of the memoir of the same name written by Scott Thorson, Liberace's paid companion/secret lover of several years, whose part is played by the somewhat unlikely choice of Matt Damon (who also has a relationship with the director that stretches back through all three Oceans movies).
In addition to Douglas and Damon, Behind the Candelbra stars the equally surprising lineup of Dan Ackroyd as Liberace’s manager, Debbie Reynold's as the flamboyant singer's mother, and Rob Lowe as the plastic surgeon hired to remodel Thorson in his lover's likeness.
The relationship was a somewhat disturbing one, with the young Thorson meeting his mentor in 1976, when he was just 17 years old. The employer/employee role was apparently a front for five-year romance that disintegrated in the face of the performer's promiscuity and his protege's drug addiction, and while the ever-flamboyant Liberace denied his homosexuality until his death (from AIDS, in 1987), in 1982 Thorson sued for $113 million in a case that immediately became infamous due to its palimony suit. Four years later, the couple agreed to settle out of court for $95,000, two cars, and two pet dogs; they apparently later reconciled in person, at his behest, not long before Liberace's death.
Thorson went on to lead a continuously checkered life, including cooperating as a pivotal witness in the prosecution of gangster Eddie Nash in the 1981 quadruple murders of the so-called "Wonderland Gang" (also the subject of a movie that features Val Kilmer in the role of porn star John Holmes and Lisa Kudrow as his wife -- one of the more daring post-"Friends" roles undertaken by any of the principals). Thorson was granted a place in the federal witness-protection program, but it was not enough to save him from being shot five times in 1990 when a drug dealer broke into his Florida hotel room. Thorson survived the attack somehow, only to be found guilty in 2008 of felony drug and burglary charges, for which he received a four-year sentence but was subsequently released. He's appeared on a few TV talk shows over the years and will doubtless appear on a few more once this much-anticipated movie debuts sometime next year.
In terms of the making-of aspect, we contacted the questioner, who explained that they'd been staying in an unrefurbished retro-style suite ("Murphy bed in one room, wicker furniture, '70s dining-room table") on the 29th floor of the former Hilton and had found a call sheet from a member of the film crew, which evidently had been filming in that room the previous day. We're assuming this was sometime late last summer -- we reported in "Today's News" on August 2 that the movie was seeking extras for "an upcoming location shoot at the LVH" that was taking place from Aug. 24-30.
Aside from that and the photos, there's not much more we can tell you about the movie, which also filmed on location in Palm Springs, Beverly Hills, and Bel Air, including at the home of Prince Frederic von Anhalt and wife Zsa Zsa Gabor), other than reports that Douglas "dazzles" as Liberace and a disclosure from Soderbergh that he thinks it's going to be really funny. "It lands in a really unexpected way. The ending is surprisingly emotional," he has stated. Stay tuned. We confess to being intrigued.
