First look at Michael Douglas as Liberace!

Michael Douglas looks fabulous as Liberace in these first photos from the set of Behind The Candelabra, Steven Soderbergh’s HBO movie about the final years of Liberace.

I’m really interested in this movie, since it’s based on Scott Thorson’s memoir Behind the Candelabra: My Life With Liberace, and Scott Thorson is the guy who:

• started going out with Liberace in 1976 when he was aged seventeen
• was treated like a king by Liberace, and incorporated into the Vegas stage shows (see clip below)
• battled addictions and Hepatitis C
• filed a $113 million lawsuit against Liberace in 1982 amid allegations that Liberace “knowingly exposed him to AIDS”
• settled out of court for $95,000, two cars, and two pet dogs
• visited and reconciled with Liberace shortly before the entertainer’s death (at Liberace’s request)
• appeared as a pivotal witness for the prosecution in the quarduple murder trials of the head of the Wonderland Gang
• was put into witness protection
• but was found and shot five times
• told Larry King in 2002 that while living with Liberace he’d undergone a nose job, cheekbone lift and chin implant to look more like Liberace
• but later had the chin implant removed
• pleaded guilty to felony drug and burglary charges in 2008 and was sentenced to four years prison
• was rumoured to have had sex with Michael Jackson
• now lives with his wife in New England.

And this is before we’ve gotten to Liberace himself, much less the watermelon diet.

Plus, Matt Damon looks spunkier than ever, as if it were possible, done up to Dynasty as Thorson: