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"Filmmaker Tony Palmer has said that recent Liberace biopic Behind The Candelabra did the musician a &amp;quot;monumental disservice&amp;quot;. The director of 1976 documentary The World of Liberace, based on the musician&amp;#039;s own coffee table book The Things I Love, told Digital Spy that he had mixed feelings about the biopic.  &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s nowhere near as good a film as some people have said, and it&amp;#039;s nowhere near as bad a film as many people who love Liberace have said,&amp;quot; Palmer said. &amp;quot;Steven Soderbergh is a very good director and its a very skilfully made film. I think Matt Damon has never given as good a performance as Scott Thorson. On one level, I was greatly relieved that it was nowhere near as bad as I feared it was going to be.&amp;quot; He continued: &amp;quot;Of course Michael Douglas does not look like Liberace, that&amp;#039;s not his fault... I don&amp;#039;t give a toss about that. &amp;quot;But he number of times that Michael Douglas, how should I put it, minces across the stage. Liberace never, ever did that. He just wasn&amp;#039;t like that. &amp;quot;Of course you knew he was gay. Of course you knew he wore a wig. But apart from that, he was absolutely &amp;#039;straight&amp;#039;, if you see what I mean. The notion that he minced across anything is ridiculous.&amp;quot; The World of Liberace - trailer      Palmer added: &amp;quot;There was that bubble bath with all the mirrors, which you see in the Michael Douglas film, we filmed it and Liberace&amp;#039;s sitting on the side holding a glass of champagne.  &amp;quot;When we finished filming the little bit there, he said, &amp;#039;Do use it&amp;#039;. I said, looking at the rest of the crew, &amp;#039;Lee, I don&amp;#039;t think it&amp;#039;s really us&amp;#039;. He said, &amp;#039;It&amp;#039;s not me either! I never use it&amp;#039;. &amp;quot;In the film all you see is him in this bloody bubble bath with Matt Damon sipping champagne. I&amp;#039;m sure he used the bubble bath once or twice, but the idea that he hopped in and out of it every single day I know from personal experience isn&amp;#039;t true.&amp;quot; He continued: &amp;quot;When you&amp;#039;re making a biopic, inevitably, you&amp;#039;re making a judgement about the character in front of you. &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t care whether it&amp;#039;s a lookalike, that doesn&amp;#039;t make the slightest difference to me. But what I do mind is when there are serious, I think deliberate, miscalculations as to what this character was really like.  &amp;gt; Leonard Cohen as important as Bob Dylan, says &amp;#039;Bird on a Wire&amp;#039; director &amp;quot;The story of Liberace and Scott Thorson, his chauffeur, is fascinating. He desperately wanted children, he found this guy, he wanted to make him his son - in real life - it all went wrong. &amp;quot;That in itself is a tragedy. That in itself is a great story. Don&amp;#039;t bugger about with it by making him out to be a &amp;#039;raving promiscuous queer&amp;#039;, which he wasn&amp;#039;t, and someone who hopped in an out of a bubble bath all day, which he wasn&amp;#039;t.&amp;quot; Palmer said: &amp;quot;It was disappointing, because it was Steven Soderbergh. If it had been a director we&amp;#039;d never heard of nor cared about, then you think, &amp;#039;Oh well&amp;#039;, but Soderbergh is a much better director than that.  &amp;quot;I wasn&amp;#039;t angry, I was just disappointed. I thought, &amp;#039;They&amp;#039;ve missed a chance here&amp;#039;, and what&amp;#039;s more, they&amp;#039;ve actually done Liberace - who was a good man, a really good man, a genuinely good man - they&amp;#039;ve done him a monumental disservice. &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s how people I suspect will remember him. That&amp;#039;s one reason I&amp;#039;m very pleased the film is coming out again - my little film. Alright, some of it is completely mad! You think, &amp;#039;Crikey, how could he do all these things?&amp;#039;&amp;quot; He added: &amp;quot;Two or three months before he died, he gave 18 performances in Radio City Music Hall, which were completely sold out. He hadn&amp;#039;t ever lost his audience. &amp;quot;Why did he do it? He knew he was dying. I actually went to a couple of performances at Radio City Music Hall, and all I kept thinking when I was watching him on stage was, &amp;#039;My god, he&amp;#039;s tired&amp;#039;. He really was absolutely going for it. Behind the Candelabra - trailer  &amp;quot;When I went to see him backstage, for the first time ever he was lying on the bed looking absolutely knackered. I said, &amp;#039;Are you okay?&amp;#039; &amp;quot;He just looked at me and said, &amp;#039;No, I&amp;#039;m not. But I&amp;#039;ll get through it. I have to get through it. I love my audience and they love me&amp;#039;. That was what was important about him, and that was what was in the end missing from the film.&amp;quot; Tony Palmer&amp;#039;s The World of Liberace is out on DVD via Boulevard Entertainment on July 29. It is released alongside the director&amp;#039;s Leonard Cohen: Bird on a Wire, All You Need Is Love: The Beatles, and Frank Zappa&amp;#039;s 200 Motels. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/news/a500864/behind-the-candelabra-did-liberace-a-monumental-disservice/>