Michael Douglas & Matt Damon Will Gay It Up For Soderbergh’s Liberace Biopic on HBO

FACT: Phobe Cates was a lesbian for two weeks after this photo was taken.

Just go ahead and give Michael Douglas and Matt Damon Emmys now: the two will star in a Liberace biopic directed by Stephen Soderbergh that will air on HBO. The name of the film — I kid you not — is Behind the Candelabra.

[The film is] about the relationship between Liberace (Douglas), the flamboyant pianist, and his live-in lover Scott Thorson (Damon), who later filed a palimony suit against him… The film is written by Richard LaGravenese (“Water for Elephants,” “The Fisher King”); its executive producer is Jerry Weintraub, and it will be produced by Gregory Jacobs.

Mr. Weintraub, the veteran producer of “Nashville,” “Diner” and Mr. Soderbergh’s “Ocean’s” movies, and who was friendly with Liberace while he was alive, said in a telephone interview that the movie would be about the performer’s “dark side and his light side.”

Liberace’s sexuality, Mr. Weintraub said, “is not a delicate subject, but it was a taboo subject when he was a young man, not like today.” [NYT]

People in the 1970s have to be some of most gullible morons in the history of modern civilization. David Bowie put on a little bit of makeup, and suddenly people had no idea what gender norms were. They had NO IDEA that Liberace and Elton John and Freddie Mercury were gay. I mean, come ON. I liked Rocky Horror Picture Show too, but not every guy in makeup and fishnets is banging Susan Sarandon.