I remembered another from that era, when you said “I just haven’t met the right girl.” That’s what Victor Buono (King Tut on Batman, stock company member in Robert Aldrich campy masterpieces) used to say, knowing that everyone fully understood the joke. Through my actor roomates way back when, I knew people who knew him, and all said withot reserve that he was a great person
Matt Damon getting naked and playing a gay guy (again)? Count me in.
Believe me, as a One Direction fan there are a MASSIVE amount of 18-25 year olds wishing to explore the issue.
Might I suggest that the same applied to David Bowie, back in the 70’s? I don’t think he would have been half so popular or interesting without the “is he gay? is he bisexual?” intimation. If he was just another straight, boring pussy hound, I sincerely think he would not have had so many female fans.
It wasn’t an act. 
Only Liberace knew for sure when he became sexually active with men, but it’s not at all impossible that when he sued the tabloids he hadn’t actually gotten his gay on with others. He was in his late 30s at the time of the lawsuits, and while I have no idea if he was still in denial to himself about his sexuality I do know that he certainly wouldn’t have been the oldest guy ever to convince himself he was straight or bi; I’ve known plenty of guys as gay as gay can be, some even sexually active, who actually are that deep in denial.
Per Thorson, and probably valid anyway, is that in his later years when he was richer than Croesus and bigger than ever careerwise and surrounded all the time by male dancers and gay was becoming more visible and even to a degree more acceptable and- perhaps most importantly- Mama Liberace was dead*- Lee went wild. He was probably incomparably more promiscuous in his early 60s than he was when he was half that age (when he was living with his mother who accompanied him even on the road*- and of course that put him just in time to be having promiscuous unprotected sex with other promiscuous partners just in time for the “gay cancer” outbreak.
*According to one of his former sister-in-laws [one of Brother George’s many wives] Mama L suspected her son’s orientation but was VERY not-cool with it, even once arranging for a call girl to visit his room. The family rarely talked about it, never around Liberace himself, and Liberace was at all out around George or the family (this being '50s/'60s).
My father was a huge admirer of Raymond Burr. I never told Daddy the truth about Burr, I’m not sure that he could have survived it.
Wait. Raymond Burr was gay?!
(Not a joke. I’d never heard that before.)
Yep. Kind of a sick story: he really was married and divorced once, but to really give himself a beard he (with, I’m sure, some help from his publicist) made up a second wife and a son who were dead (!!!). This not only helped reinforce the straight lie, but explained why he didn’t date women: he was still traumatized from the deaths of his wife and child.
In real life his private life was happier. He lived with another actor, Robert Benevides (never a successful one), for more than 30 years. They were a very open couple to their close friends, among the closest of whom was Barbara Hale, who played Della Street. Interview with his partner, who still runs the vineyard the two started. (He was the heir to Burr’s very complicated estate [i.e. lots of assets, lots of debts], though Burr’s niece unsuccessfully challenged the will [greedy biatch].)
If the Liberace movie is a huge success, I really really really hope it doesn’t lead to a studio exec saying “It was about a flaming but closeted major star from the '60s and '70s leading a secret gay life while popular with the hicks… and it made money… alright, that squares it, greenlight our movie! The Jim Nabors Story: Gomer Pile on the Homo Mile!- see if Clay Aiken is available for the lead because he can sing, get Jim Parsons if he isn’t, and the other one had Damon so get Ben Affleck for the much younger boyfriend he met in the '70s and married on his 106th birthday a couple of months ago.”
Or, Behind The Candelabra II - Armed and Fabulous
Anybody else watch?
First off: kudos to the most amazing performer in this- Matt Damon’s butt. Boyo is 42 but his ass doesn’t know it.
Second, Michael Douglas, who absolutely was Liberace- not just an imitation, you believed him as the character. It was also very brave for a man his age and in his physical shape to do as many unclothed and non-glamorous bedroom scenes as he did when he could have used a double.
Ultimately, though, I saw the movie as a big “Meh”.
I don’t consider Liberace:Thorson a love story but rather a dysfunctional relationship between rich old man and his ridiculously young concubine in which both tried to ignore the fact that it was first and foremost a money-for-sex relationship. Neither partner was likable and neither was blameless and it was ultimately fit for tabloid stories rather than a tragic romance novel.
Thoughts?
I heard on NPR (actually, a BBC program that airs on my local NPR affiliate) that the studios weren’t interested in a movie that they felt would have an almost exclusively gay audience.
:smack: :rolleyes:
As for Michael Douglas dying, yes, he was diagnosed with cancer a while back but it appears to be in remission.
Very well done from a technical standpoint – I mean, they missed nothing about the time or the people or Liberace’s fashion statements, all that was spot on. (Piece of Hollywood trivia: All the scenes of Liberace’s overdone mansion were actually recreated and filmed at ZsaZsa Gabor’s house. I love silly factlets like that.)
The unexpected actors in supporting roles – Scott Bakula, goodgodamighty, I didn’t recognize him at all! Likewise Dan Ackroyd or Debbie Reynolds. All excellent, though with the prosthetics it was like Reynolds was being held hostage.
Not a love story, no. They used one another in various creepy ways – who would want to make someone over like that? Who would consent to it?
Last I heard Thorson was still in jail in Reno and facing more prison time. Possible second volume of his memoirs in the works – he claims to have been peripherally involved in the Wonderland Murders. I’m not sure I believe that as he is still living. (For those who aren’t sure what the Wonderland Murders were, see “Boogie Nights.”)
Fans of 1970s arena rock might like to read “The Grand Illusion” by former Styx bassist Chuck Panozzo, who is gay. The book is mostly about what it was like for him growing up gay in an Italian Catholic family in the 1950s and 1960s, being that way in the world of 1970s arena rock, and later his diagnosis with AIDS about 20 years ago. The book contains minimal profanity and no explicit descriptions of sexual activity or drug use, and would be suitable for readers of junior high age or older.
Yeah, girls flashed him and threw their undergarments at him, despite having no idea that he was more interested in their boyfriends (assuming, of course, that the boyfriends were gay, KWIM?).
My mother still has a hard time believing that Rock Hudson was gay.
Not long before he announced that he had AIDS, he did a show with Doris Day, and my mom hollered to my dad to come in the room: “Wow, look at Rock Hudson. He’s really sick.” He was initially said to have liver cancer, which he may have had, but the truth was eventually revealed. This was before we even knew what really caused AIDS in the first place.
Recent video and “in its prime” video of his real house in Las Vegas. It passed through several owners (most recently a catering company) and is now in foreclosure and disrepair, but the Liberace touches are still there.
His favorite house was The Cloisters in Palm Springs; it was a motel and diner when he bought it and remodeled it.
When I lived in Mexico in the 1990s, I learned about Juan Gabriel, a pop singer (now in his 60s) who reminded me a lot of Liberace – including his appeal to 40-70-year-old women who thought he was such a sweet man. Anyway, I wonder if HBO has plans to show a dubbed version of the Liberace-Thorson film in Mexico. It might be quite a hit.
A lot of youngsters got hip on Ray Charles after “Ray”. Maybe Liberace will get the same treatment.