THE relationship between the flamboyant U.S. pianist Liberace and his young lover dazzled at the Cannes Film Festival on Tuesday and threw the spotlight on gay rights at the movie industry’s largest annual gathering.

    Director Steven Soderbergh said he struggled five years ago to secure funding for “Behind the Candelabra” because some financiers thought the film would only appeal to a gay audience and, at a cost of US$25 million, would be a financial risk.

    Eventually he received financing from Time Warner’s HBO cable channel and made the film with Michael Douglas playing Liberace and Matt Damon as Scott Thorson with whom the pianist had a secret five-year affair.

    Soderbergh said it was a coincidence that the film was being released during a global debate on gay rights and same sex marriage but acknowledged that it was very timely.

    Liberace (1919-1987), a huge celebrity during his lifetime, publicly denied his homosexuality at a time when being gay was widely considered taboo.

    “In making the film, the socio-political aspect of it was not really in my mind but I was focused on ... trying to make this relationship as believable and realistic as we could,” Soderbergh told a news conference, flanked by Douglas and Damon.

    “When this issue comes up, of equal rights for gays, I am hoping 50 years from now we will look back on this and wonder why this was even a debate and why it took so long.”

    Douglas and Damon said they were both also impressed by the script based on Thorson’s autobiography, “Behind the Candelabra: My Life With Liberace,” which was released in 1988, a year after the entertainer’s death at age 67 from an AIDS-related disease.

    In the film, Thorson, a naive 18-year-old farm boy from Wisconsin, meets 58-year-old Liberace in Las Vegas in 1977 and moves in with him, joining his glamorous lifestyle of champagne, jewel-encrusted cars and spectacular wardrobe.

    The two actors made light of their love scenes, with Douglas joking about asking Damon what flavor lip balm he preferred and Damon saying he could swap stories with Sharon Stone, Glenn Close and Demi Moore after sharing a bed with Douglas.

    Douglas, whose performance as the primped, toupeed pianist was lauded by critics, said he met Liberace once, in a Rolls Royce convertible while in Palm Springs with his father, the movie star Kirk Douglas.

    “Behind the Candelabra” will premiere on HBO in the United States on May 26 and open in foreign theaters from June 7.

    The film is one of 20 movies in the main competition at Cannes vying for the Palme d’Or award for best picture that will be presented Sunday.

    (SD-Agencies)