Michael Douglas to play “deadly, winking, sniggering, snuggling, chromium-plated, scent-impregnated, luminous, quivering, giggling, fruit-flavored, mincing, ice-covered heap of mother love”

I suspected this might be a Hollywood hoax, but it seems Michael Douglas really is set to portray Liberace in an upcoming Stephen Soderbergh biopic. ‘Mr Showmanship’ denied his homosexuality his entire life and was so incensed by the description of him above (from The Daily Mirror in 1957) that he sued. He was taken to court himself in 1982 by live-in lover Scott Thorson (supposedly to be played by Matt Damon) who demanded $113 million in palimony.

Bizarre casting decisions are delicious. I’ve never been convinced of the supposed genius of Orson Welles and his decision to cast Marlene Dietrich as a Mexican fortune teller (thick dark pancake and even thicker German accent) in the distinctly odd ‘Touch of Evil’ does nothing to sway me. And why did she say yes?

Just as good is John Wayne as Genghis Khan in “The Conqueror”. Apparently Wayne decided this was the role with which to broaden his & the studio was loathe to refuse him. The film’s desperate tagline “surpasses anything ever filmed before!” says it all.