Steven Soderbergh Headed Back To Vegas For 'Oceans 14: The Liberace Project'
In keeping with the current indie trend in which every 20th Century Gay of Note gets their own biopic (first came Capote, then Milk, and in the works are Taylor Hackford Tennessee Williams project, Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock, and James Franco channeling Alan Ginsberg in Howl), we can now add a little razmatazz to the mix, as Steven Soderbergh is developing a Liberace biography. From Variety:
The filmmaker said he has drafted his "Traffic" star Michael Douglas to play the flamboyant pianist. Richard LaGravanese is writing the script, and Jerry Weintraub will produce.
Soderbergh is in discussions with Matt Damon to play Scott Thorson, who sued Liberace in 1982 for $113 million in palimony, claiming he was the entertainer's companion for five years. Even though Liberace never wavered from career-long denials that he was gay, Thorson reportedly settled for $95,000 in 1986.
While we're eager to see how master biopicicist Soderbergh recreates Liberace's pink-fur-lined limo trysts and candelabra shopping sprees, it seems we'll have to wait awhile: He has two projects in the queue before this one, including the real-call-girl-starring, real-sex-featuring The Girlfriend Experience. That should give Douglas plenty of time to practice his best, "When the reviews are bad, I cry my way to the bank!" In the meantime, all this talk of Liberace movies has made us wistful for 1988—the Golden Age of Dueling Liberace MOWs—when Andrew Robinson and Victor Garber both gave their own memorable spins on the life of Mr. Showmanship. Remember?
