Ansel Elgort, the dreamy male lead in*The Fault in our Stars, had been cast as popular 1950s pianist Van Cliburn, who won the prestigious International Tchaikovsky Competition at age 23. An American embraced by the Russians, Van Cliburn was considered a hero for helping to soften American-Soviet relations at the height of the Cold War.
But he was also gay.
Unlike Liberace, though, he was what The New York Times called “discreet in his homosexuality.”
In the late 1990s, a former boyfriend tried to sue Van Cliburn, unsuccessfully, for palimony, putting his sexuality on display in the tabloids. He spent his final years with longtime partner Thomas Smith, before dying of bone cancer in 2013 at age 78.
Throughout his career, Liberace publicly denied his homosexual orientation
He successfully sued various people for claiming that... I don't see how you can be 100% sure he was gay when there's no proof of it and he vehemently denied it.
Idgi.
