Did you know, the Liberace went through life believing that everyone thought he was really straight?

 Liberace thought  he kept his gayness  carefully concealed from his public.
True, there was no paparazzi in those days – to expose his gay pool parties and male companions…but come on….straight? really?!

Next year  HBO airs the movie Behind the Candelabra, now filming with a cast-against-type Michael Douglas as the gilded showman and Matt Damon as his much-younger lover, Scott Thorson – who exposed his life with Lee in a tell-all book and also sued for $113 million in palimony.

“He thought his personal life was nobody’s business,” the real-life Thorson told PEOPLE in 1987, when Liberace, 67, died from AIDS.

Oscar winner Steven Soderbergh (Traffic, Ocean’s 11 and Magic Mike),
directs the HBO production, whose title comes from the elaborate décor
with which Liberace surrounded himself, including his trademark
candelabra on the piano. Also in the cast: Rob Lowe, Debbie Reynolds,
Dan Aykroyd, Scott Bakula and Cheyenne Jackson. 
WHAT A CAST!!

And HE LOVED TO SHOP and Spend money!  As described by PEOPLE in 1982:
“He has realized the dreams of a most common man. His Las Vegas act,
concert tours and records (60 million sold to date) have brought him an
average gross income of $5 million for each of the last 30 years, and he
has worked his bejeweled tails off to make it so. In his portfolio are
many mansions (three in Las Vegas alone), pianos (18 at latest count,
including Chopin’s and Gershwin’s), cars (20, two of them Rollses), gems
(he wears about $3 million worth onstage and has one $35,000 Tiffany
watch that plays his theme song, “I’ll Be Seeing You”), furs (including a
$150,000 black diamond mink coat lined with Austrian rhinestones),
antiques (don’t ask) and real estate.

FABULOUS!!