By Filmmaker Tony Palmer has said that recent Liberace biopic Behind The Candelabra did the musician a "monumental disservice".
The director of 1976 documentary The World of Liberace, based on the musician's own coffee table book The Things I Love, told Digital Spy that he had mixed feelings about the biopic.
"It's nowhere near as good a film as some people have said, and it's nowhere near as bad a film as many people who love Liberace have said," Palmer said.
"Steven Soderbergh is a very good director and its a very skilfully made film. I think Matt Damon has never given as good a performance as Scott Thorson. On one level, I was greatly relieved that it was nowhere near as bad as I feared it was going to be."
He continued: "Of course Michael Douglas does not look like Liberace, that's not his fault... I don't give a toss about that.
"But he number of times that Michael Douglas, how should I put it, minces across the stage. Liberace never, ever did that. He just wasn't like that.
"Of course you knew he was gay. Of course you knew he wore a wig. But apart from that, he was absolutely 'straight', if you see what I mean. The notion that he minced across anything is ridiculous."
The World of Liberace - trailer
Palmer added: "There was that bubble bath with all the mirrors, which you see in the Michael Douglas film, we filmed it and Liberace's sitting on the side holding a glass of champagne.
"When we finished filming the little bit there, he said, 'Do use it'. I said, looking at the rest of the crew, 'Lee, I don't think it's really us'. He said, 'It's not me either! I never use it'.
"In the film all you see is him in this bloody bubble bath with Matt Damon sipping champagne. I'm sure he used the bubble bath once or twice, but the idea that he hopped in and out of it every single day I know from personal experience isn't true."
He continued: "When you're making a biopic, inevitably, you're making a judgement about the character in front of you.
"I don't care whether it's a lookalike, that doesn't make the slightest difference to me. But what I do mind is when there are serious, I think deliberate, miscalculations as to what this character was really like.
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"The story of Liberace and Scott Thorson, his chauffeur, is fascinating. He desperately wanted children, he found this guy, he wanted to make him his son - in real life - it all went wrong.
"That in itself is a tragedy. That in itself is a great story. Don't bugger about with it by making him out to be a 'raving promiscuous queer', which he wasn't, and someone who hopped in an out of a bubble bath all day, which he wasn't."
Palmer said: "It was disappointing, because it was Steven Soderbergh. If it had been a director we'd never heard of nor cared about, then you think, 'Oh well', but Soderbergh is a much better director than that.
"I wasn't angry, I was just disappointed. I thought, 'They've missed a chance here', and what's more, they've actually done Liberace - who was a good man, a really good man, a genuinely good man - they've done him a monumental disservice.
"That's how people I suspect will remember him. That's one reason I'm very pleased the film is coming out again - my little film. Alright, some of it is completely mad! You think, 'Crikey, how could he do all these things?'"
He added: "Two or three months before he died, he gave 18 performances in Radio City Music Hall, which were completely sold out. He hadn't ever lost his audience.
"Why did he do it? He knew he was dying. I actually went to a couple of performances at Radio City Music Hall, and all I kept thinking when I was watching him on stage was, 'My god, he's tired'. He really was absolutely going for it.
Behind the Candelabra - trailer
"When I went to see him backstage, for the first time ever he was lying on the bed looking absolutely knackered. I said, 'Are you okay?'
"He just looked at me and said, 'No, I'm not. But I'll get through it. I have to get through it. I love my audience and they love me'. That was what was important about him, and that was what was in the end missing from the film."
Tony Palmer's The World of Liberace is out on DVD via Boulevard Entertainment on July 29.
It is released alongside the director's Leonard Cohen: Bird on a Wire, All You Need Is Love: The Beatles, and Frank Zappa's 200 Motels.
