The world-renowned pianist and entertainer extraordinaire
Liberace once remarked, “Too much of a good thing is wonderful.” While he may
have borrowed the line from Mae West, the Glitter Man’s personal creed served
as the design theme for the sets of the upcoming HBO biopic Behind the
Candelabra. Directed by Academy Award winner Steven Soderbergh and starring
Oscar-winning actors Michael Douglas and Matt Damon as the flamboyant showman
and his companion and chauffeur Scott Thorson, respectively, the film explores
the pair’s tempestuous and secretive five-year affair. Production designer
Howard Cummings—this marks his fifth collaboration with Soderbergh—and set
decorator Barbara Munch Cameron (Glee) had only six weeks to design and
decorate 30 glitz-and-glam-rich sets that included Liberace’s self-described
“palatial kitsch” mansion in Las Vegas, a penthouse pied-à-terre in Los
Angeles, and a Spanish-style 1920s retreat in Palm Springs known both as the
Cloisters and Casa de Liberace. Behind the Candelabra airs May 26 on HBO.
Photographs by Architectural Digest
BEHIND THE CANDELABRA in SetDecor online
set decorator
Barbara Munch Cameron SDSA
production designer
Howard Cummings
HBO Films
“Too much of a good thing is wonderful!”
—Liberace
The raves keep coming for the rhinestone-encrusted Liberace
biopic BEHIND THE CANDELABRA and the sets that brought his world to the screen!
The Steven Soderbergh film opened Cannes Film Festival to a wildly enthusiastic
response and continued on to its home run on HBO.
Soderbergh once again entrusted Production Designer Howard
Cummings and Set Decorator Barbara Munch Cameron SDSA [HAYWIRE, MAGIC MIKE]
with creating the visual foundation for his film. This time, there was the
added twist of depicting a legendary personage…it would be the re-creation of
the last 10 years of the flamboyant entertainer’s life, 1977-87, focusing on
Liberace’s [Michael Douglas] lavish
lifestyle as well as his stage performances and his closeted relationship with
the much younger Scott Thorson [Matt Damon].
Liberace’s exuberance extended offstage as well as on. He
was fond of quoting Mae West, “Too much of a good thing is wonderful.” Cummings
notes, “She said it. Liberace lived it.” Excess was his signature, along with
crystals and rhinestones. “We had fun with the excess,” Munch Cameron says with
a twinkle. “Liberace collected any number of things. I tried to find things in
pairs because he never seemed to buy just one of anything. If there were 2, he
would buy them. If there were 6, he would buy them. If he liked something, he’d
buy all of that were available.”
Chandeliers and candelabras…
“100 large candelabras and chandeliers were required to
achieve the amount of dazzle we needed,” she adds. For Liberace’s stage sets,
she had two 50-foot trailers filled entirely with chandeliers sent to Las
Vegas. “There are 8 chandeliers hanging over the stages, I think there were a
dozen up in the air in Las Vegas…they were all the big ones at Omega Cinema
Props. We had every single one of their large chandeliers. The key thing with
Liberace is the matching, and Omega had multiples of the chandeliers. So we
took those 8, and 4 of another, plus 2 really huge ones, and then 4 pairs of a
different style chandelier…also, pairs and pairs of wall sconces and their 4
large standing candelabrums on gold pedestals, expensive, but phenomenal. House
of Props had beautiful candelabras and candelabrums that lit up…the two hero
candelabras on Liberace’s pianos were antiques from there. We got pieces from
all over Hollywood, but Omega and House of Props were our main resources
because of the multiples and the quality. And they both had items that Liberace
had actually owned!”
“Buyer Libby Morris and I went to the same people that
Liberace dealt with…as much as possible. For instance, Lester Carpet had made
the original zebra-striped carpet for his penthouse in Beverly Hills. They
pulled out the floor plan of the apartment and were able to give us the exact
same carpet.”
Liberace had shopped at design boutique Phyllis Morris in
West Hollywood, where among other objets d’art, he had purchased a large poodle
lamp. With that info, Munch Cameron said she then bought every poodle statue
she could find, “The bigger the better!” From Phyllis Morris, she rented a
reproduction of an ornate 19th-century French piano with filigreed ormolu that
she used in the re-creation of his opulent Las Vegas home.
Pianos…
“Liberace had an exclusive deal with Baldwin regarding
pianos,” reveals Munch Cameron. “He never had to buy one! We discovered that
Baldwin Piano is now owned by Gibson Guitar. The mirrored glass grand piano
that Liberace had in his penthouse currently resides in the Gibson showroom at
their corporate offices in Beverly Hills. They loaned us the piano, which we
had to have hoisted by crane up to the penthouse, and which we were later able
to send to Las Vegas to pair with a matching one (of course!) that he had used
in a dueling piano scene on stage.”
“The Liberace Foundation has ownership of the companion
piano and several of his others, all of which they generously loaned us for the
stage scenes.”
Pianos also appear in the two Palm Springs houses. Although
we only see a glimpse, the living rooms in both houses were fully dressed and
included pianos, a white one in his mother’s house and burnished wood in his
last home, The Cloisters.
Art…
The sets are filled with statuary, interiors and exteriors.
Sculptures appear in every room and around every pool. A full-scale Hermes
stands outside the bedroom window at his Las Vegas mansion. [It was also used,
gilded, in MAGIC MIKE.] “That’s from Greenset,” Munch Cameron says. “We took
all they had and gathered all we could from other places, and then had
everything painted fresh.” She laughs, “We swooped up every single naked David
statue in Hollywood, from mini to giant.”
Copies of Liberace’s portraits, with Michael Douglas as
Liberace and Debbie Reynolds as his mother, were commissioned, painted by Alex
Tavoularis. The Liberace Foundation holds the originals.
Las Vegas house…
Liberace described his style as “palatial kitsch”. In the
film he says, “I just love it!” His Las Vegas home, 15,000 square feet,
20 rooms, was “…his interpretation of Versailles,” says Cummings. It also
reflected his enchantment with King Ludwig II, the mad king of Bavaria’s, sense
of décor.
The ceiling of the master suite was painted as homage to the
Sistine Chapel, the bathroom an homage to himself…a painting of his head floats
among keyboards and cherubim on the bathroom ceiling. Marble Grecian columns
flank the stepped marble tub. There was much press during Cannes re: the tub,
not always accurate. Munch Cameron clarifies, “Libby found the guy whose father
made that tub for Liberace…the son still has the company. He said, ‘I have the
recipe and the drawings, so I’ll just make the whole thing, with the columns
and everything’…and he did!”
Liberace’s crest adorns the canopy of the Venetian
four-poster bed, which is centered between two huge Baroque mirrors and two
Italianate dressers serving as bedside tables. Munch Cameron recalls, “We
bought the bed from Charles & Charles, but then we had the posts built up
to that huge height and everything made oversized, including the custom-made
bedding and all the drapery.” She adds, “Drapery foreman Bob Renna was amazing,
he had to deal with a sea of draperies…it would be difficult to estimate the
yards and yards of fabric we used on this production!”
The sitting area of the suite contains matching sets of
crystal chandeliers, fireplace chairs and silk-upholstered daybeds. The chaises
were made by Omega, as was the ottoman in the bathroom and its matching pouf in
the adjoining walk-in closet. The room-sized closet has its own custom
draperies [that match the pouf as well] and pairs of crystal sconces. Hanging
in special niches are many of Liberace’s rhinestone and crystal-covered
original costumes, on loan from the foundation.
These areas of the home were built onstage, but for much of
the rest of the house, including exteriors, Zsa Zsa Gabor’s Beverly Hills home was
used as a stand-in, her husband Prince Frederic serving as host.
“We had the pool emptied so piano keys could be painted
around the edge and the logo on the bottom,” reveals Munch Cameron. “Howard had
a wall built, and we added greenery to hide the views of Capitol Records and
Hollywood below…after all, this was supposed to be his home in Las Vegas! The
living room became gold and silver wallpaper, and we filled the house with new
draperies.” After filming, Prince Frederic did not require anything to be
restored. “He said he loved it all, and we loved him for that,” she smiles.
“I just had to have Liberace’s eyelash sofas for the living
room, which Omega made for us. He loved draperies and upholstery, along with
mirrors and crystal, but his taste was ridiculous…he would take a $40,000
chandelier and spray-paint it gold! We think he had somebody do the penthouse,
it actually had some taste…”
Beverly Hills pied-à-terre…
“In the early ‘80s, Liberace bought a 6-story brick building
on Beverly Boulevard and moved into the penthouse. He still owned it when he
died,” she points out. Cummings adds, “The penthouse had a black lacquer
Chinese look, very 1980s. That was his city look.”
This was the only actual Liberace property the production
was able to film in, and it came with an added bonus. The owner was a fan and
had photographed every room in detail when he purchased it, so the BTC design
and décor team were able to do an almost exact re-creation. Not easily, though!
There was only a two-person elevator. Everything had to be lifted by crane to
the 6th-floor deck, on which a kidney-shaped pool takes up much of the
“floor-space”!
Munch Cameron remembers, “Looking at all the original
pictures, I kept thinking, ‘Why is this furniture so little?’ He had tons of
little pieces. It’s because he would buy something that could fit in the
elevator! Otherwise he would have to hire a crane to get it up on the deck,
which is what we did. In fact, we had a crane for two days. Can you imagine,
the neighbors…walking their dog or trying to get to their garage, and the
alleyway is blocked off because we’re craning up this jewel-encrusted grand
piano! But there was no other way to get stuff up there, the camera included.
They tried to put it in the elevator and the elevator wouldn’t even go up,
consequently they had to repair the elevator a few times. But we actually had
very, very little L&D, and nothing big was damaged.”
Scott’s house…
“Liberace owned many other homes,” says Cummings. “He didn’t
invest in stocks, but he bought houses, often for other people. He fixed up
ramshackle places, and he shopped and shopped, filling them up with stuff.” He
bought a house in Las Vegas for Scott Thorson, as an insurance should anything
happen to the significantly older Liberace, who even pursued the idea of
adopting the younger man. This house had a more masculine style, with nods to
Thorson’s experience as an animal handler and intent to become a veterinarian. In the film’s re-creation, a none-too-subtle
water buffalo’s head punctuates a rugged stone fireplace wall, contemporary
furnishings are mixed with the usual kitsch.
Liberace’s mother’s house in Palm Springs…
The house Liberace bought for his mother was aptly referred
to as “The White House”, more for the color choices than the political prowess,
although his mother was a profound influence throughout his life. The location
used for her home was a Hearst family property, complete with a pool
reminiscent of the one at Hearst Castle.
“We had every bit of period patio furniture we could find
anywhere, for all of the film’s exterior sets. Then it was a matter of having
the appropriate cushions made for each one,” Munch Cameron notes. “This set was
Hollywood Regency style.”
The Cloisters, Liberace’s final home in Palm Springs…
A Spanish-style 1920’s house, complete with a Catholic
chapel, became Liberace’s retreat and hospice. He died there of AIDs-related
complications, after a lengthy, but secret, battle with the illness. The scene
focuses on his oversized bed, with its custom linens made to match the heavy
draperies. Munch Cameron relates, “We did a lot of work for this set, but you
don’t get to see much of it in the movie, so I’m happy to publish these
photos.”
Liberace’s stages & additional sets…
“The stages were a big deal,” she acknowledges, “…the
chandeliers, pianos, candelabras, obviously…but also, the stage curtains! We
had Dazian make a $17,000 Austrian curtain, which weighed 400 pounds and served as
the backdrop for his piano. Thankfully, we were able to sell it back to Dazian
when we wrapped! In the theater house, we took all of the stadium seating out
and had the shop at Sony build 16 booths to match the 8 that we got from Omega.”
Additional sets included the theater backstage and dressing
room, the drug dealer’s ultra ‘70s pad, Liberace’s agent/manager Seymour
Heller’s [Dan Ackroyd] office, plastic surgeon Dr. Jack Startz’s [Rob Lowe]
office suite, hospital rooms, Thorson’s ranch foster home, Thorson’s post-L
apartment, a men’s sex club, adult bookstore, jewelry store, lawyers’
conference room and the memorial service chapel.
“We all worked really hard on this,” says Munch Cameron. “I
had a great crew…crews, actually! I had 4 leadmen, each with their own crew:
one in Las Vegas, one in Palm Springs and two in Los Angeles, but one of those
was mainly a strike person and oversaw all the strikes of the whole show.”
Munch Cameron estimates that, even with a budget of $900K,
“We rented probably 70% because there was so much stuff! And we got deals
because we were doing so many multiples. We bought a few chandeliers that were
a different style to put in the penthouse…and we bought some candelabras, just
because they were there and were perfect. Of course, we had to buy the bathroom
accessories, all the bedroom linens, and things like that…and they were all
expensive, but you can’t cheat on those details.”
Soderbergh embraced the sets. As usual, he showed absolute
confidence in the team. Munch Cameron smiles, “Working with Howard on the
Soderbergh films and on projects like RENT is always a fabulous experience, but
this was a set decorator’s dream.”
Peek ‘Behind the Candelabra’ at the costumes and sets of the
new Liberace movie
By GREGORY E. MILLER
It’s fitting that for a crazy whirlwind of a film about
Liberace, Zsa Zsa Gabor’s Bel-Air home would be one of the set locations.
Production designer Howard Cummings fell in love with her house, given its
similar decorative aesthetic to Liberace’s, and used it as a basis for
re-creating his Las Vegas home.
The only problem? The pool had a stunning view of the ocean,
which you can’t see in Nevada.
“I had to erect this wall and put up all the greenery in
order to obscure the incredible view the house actually had,” says Cummings.
“That’s when we started to find every Greek-themed garden statue in the greater
LA area. I did collections of [Michelangelo’s] Davids. Because that’s something
he’d do. One is not enough. More is better.”
This philosophy sums up the challenge the producers faced in
designing the sets and costumes for Steven Soderbergh’s shimmering new Liberace
movie, “Behind the Candelabra,” which premieres Sunday at 9 p.m. on HBO.
Twenty-five years after the world-famous pianist’s death, the biopic follows
the star (played by Michael Douglas in a wig and rhinestones) and his
relationship with boy-toy Scott Thorson (Matt Damon).
Costume designer Ellen Mirojnick made 60 looks for the
actors in just eight weeks.
“I didn’t copy anything. I used [his outfits] as a
springboard,” she says.
Mirojnick breathes new life into several of Liberace’s most
famous looks, such as the elaborately embroidered and appliqued
clam-shell-collared King Neptune outfit he first wore at the 1984 World’s Fair
in New Orleans.
Luckily, Mirojnick has been fitting Douglas for films since
1987’s “Fatal Attraction” — it helped her meet the tight deadline to pull
together a platter of sequins, embroidery and fur to fit Douglas precisely.
“When you see these transformations happen [to the actors]
with the help of a costume,” says Mirojnick, “it’s magic.”
The costumes also get a thumbs-up from the people who might
know Liberace’s clothes better than anyone else: costumers Connie Furr Soloman
and Jan Jewett, who wrote “Liberace Extravaganza,” the essential Liberace
costume bible.
“She had a really tough job, and she did a great job with
it,” says Furr Soloman.
It was production designer Cummings’ job to create the
Liberace glamour beyond his outfits — 36 sets worth in five weeks.
“Fortunately, Liberace was such a big self-promoter, he
liked to talk in front of the camera and show off his houses,” says Cummings.
“So going into it, I had a really good picture.”
In many cases, Cummings was able to track down Liberace’s
actual furnishings — some purchased by LA prop houses from his estate sale. The
Liberace Foundation also loaned the filmmakers his pianos, cars and, of course,
candelabras.
With more than 100 candelabras and chandeliers in the film,
Cummings laughs, “We got angry letters saying, ‘You’ve tied up every chandelier
in LA!’ ‘Lincoln’ was in production there, and they were doing the White House
in the 1800s and they needed chandeliers — and [we] had snagged them all.”
As Liberace always said, borrowing a line from Mae West, “Too
much of a good thing . . . is wonderful!”
