Liberace: The Hologram Show

Via the Hollywood Reporter:

In partnership with the Liberace Foundation for the Performing and Creative Arts, Hologram USA reported that it has started work on a hologram-like version of the famous entertainer for a feature-length live show that be would staged in such a way that "Liberace" would be able to interact with the audience. “This is a major step in the evolution of this medium for entertainment,” Hologram USA CEO Alki David said in a statement. “With our partners at the Liberace Foundation we’ll be able to stage a show so lifelike — the room will be filled with all of the great singer’s charm and charisma.” Hologram USA was responsible for the recent appearance of a virtual Jimmy Kimmel, and said it holds the North American license for the system that was used to place a virtual Tupac at Coachella in 2012.

After a launch in Las Vegas, the show is expected to tour worldwide.

Liberace On His Outfits

Slate recaps this newly-animated interview posted by PBS:

Liberace explains his kitschy sartorial choices to journalist Jay Kent Hackleman in the summer of 1968. The conversation, which crackles with a kind of adversarial energy from the start, is telling: The interviewer’s initial annunciation of “garb” is soaked in knowing hostility, and Liberace immediately defends his super-gay style in terms of currents in men’s fashion: “The male peacock is beginning to show his true plumage.” Indeed. By the end, Liberace’s determination to contextualize his campy, effeminate clothes in any terms other than homosexuality leads to a rather bizarre discussion of social welfare programs and the moral value of the entertainer in society. The snippet is a fascinating look inside the closet (both kinds) of the man, and one that proves Liberace was as talented a rhetorician as he was a piano player.

Liberace's Ex Sentenced To Prison

Scott Thorson, who was played by Matt Damon in HBO's Liberace biopic  Behind The Candelabra, has been sentenced to 8-20 years in prison for failing drug tests while on probation for identity theft.

Washoe District Judge Patrick Flanagan sentenced Scott Thorson on Wednesday after a string of bad drug tests capped by his failure to show up at a court-ordered treatment facility. Flanagan originally suspended the prison sentence in July and gave Thorson a second chance in September after testing positive for methamphetamine, but he failed tests twice in October and again on Nov. 1. He was arrested Nov. 19 after violating an order to enter an inpatient treatment facility in Reno two weeks earlier, court records show. Thorson, 54, whose real name is Jess Marlow, had admitted he was an addict but insisted he was determined to get sober when he tearfully appealed to the judge in September to spare him from prison. "I’m just asking for another chance,” Thorson said, explaining he was dealing with his newfound celebrity stature.” “I can’t help who I am,” he told the judge at the time. “I’m in show business. I attract these cameras.” Flanagan said it would be his “last chance.”

HBO's movie was based on Thorson's 1997 book of the same name, which recounted his five years as Liberace's boyfriend. Last week the film won the Golden Globe award for Best Television Movie.

Morning View - Liberace's Star

Douglas To Damon: You Deserve Half Of This Emmy, You Want Bottom Or Top?

Tweet Of The Day

Bill Murray On Letterman As Liberace

I haven't seen Letterman in a month thanks to the TWC-CBS feud, but this happened last night. Bill Murray was the first guest on Letterman's show when it debuted 20 years ago today.

Liberace Open Thread

So what did you think?

Donny Osmond As Liberace

And Debbie Reynolds as Paul Williams. From a 1979 show dug up by JMG reader Dave Evans.

Another Liberace Trailer

TRAILER: Behind The Candelabra

Matt Damon On Liberace

"These two men were deeply in love and in a real relationship—a marriage—long before there was gay marriage. That’s not an insignificant thing. The script is beautiful and relatable. Their conversations when they’re dressing or undressing or having a spat or getting ready for bed? That’s every marriage. It feels like you’re witnessing something really intimate you would normally see with a man and a woman, but instead it’s two men, which was thrilling. There’s stuff I think will make people uncomfortable. Great. It’s HBO—they can change the channel. We both have a lot of gay friends, and we were not going to screw this up or bullshit it.

"It wasn’t the most natural thing in the world to do, though. Like, for one scene, I had to come out of a pool, go over to Michael, straddle him on a chaise longue and start kissing him. And throughout the script, it’s not like I kiss him just once. We drew it up like a football plan. Michael was a wonderful kisser. My concerns ended up mattering a lot less once we were filming. The dynamic between the men was complex and interesting. Liberace was very powerful and adored, a great showman making $50,000 a week doing his act in Vegas. Scott was much younger and grew up in foster homes, so there was a lot to play." - Matt Damon, speaking to Playboy.

Michael Douglas As Liberace

Boy Culture tips us to the above photo in the current issue of Vanity Fair. Very International Male, which seems about right.

Matt Damon On Kissing Michael Douglas

"I never thought I would get to kiss Michael Douglas. I kind of think of it in algebra terms, back to my high-school days. It's like the transitive property - by kissing Michael Douglas, I am making out with Catherine. I was actually kind of upset that I never got to kiss Catherine. But now I get to kiss Michael. I thought it would have been better if I could have at least kissed them both." - Matt Damon, on his kissing scenes with Michael Douglas in the upcoming Liberace bio-pic.

Wladziu Valentino Liberace

My mom's 70th birthday today reminds me that she shares the date with Liberace, who would have been 91 today. Below are clips from Liberace's famed appearances on Batman, where he played the arch villain pianist Chandell and his evil twin brother, Harry. Many of the show's fans consider Batman and Robin's escape from Chandell's player piano sheet music machine to be the series' most hilarious. TRIVIA: In the 1950s Liberace was the highest paid entertainer in the world.

Casting Set For Liberace Biopic

I don't know how I missed last week's news that director Steven Soderbergh is casting Michael Douglas to play Liberace in a biopic about the famously flamboyant Las Vegas showman. Matt Damon is set to play Liberace's lover who sued him for palimony. Right up until his 1987 death from AIDS, Liberace denied his gayness. (The magazines were always depicting him as dating one starlet or another and a lot of people bought it somehow.)

I remember watching Liberace on Merv Griffin in the '70s and thinking, "What is this nonsense?" But today I'd be quite amused and therefore am rather interested to see Douglas' portrayal, even though I'm sure the movie will be somewhat dark.

TRIVIA 1: Liberace played the "evil pianist" villain Chandell on Batman. His episodes were the highest rated of the series.

TRIVIA 2: In a letter to a critic who derided his ostentatious style, he coined the now-famous phrase, "I cried all the way to the bank."