Peter Allen was overshadowed in life by the mega-famous company that he kept, such as best friend Judy Garland, who considered him a protégé, and his ex-wife, Garland's daughter Liza Minnelli. When Peter won his Oscar for “Arthur’s Theme (The Best That You Can Do)”, he shared it with two legendary songwriters - Burt Bacharach and Carole Bayer Sager – as well as Christopher Cross, still a hot star at the time from his huge 1979 hit “Sailing”. Even now, in death, Peter’s name and image is subsumed by the mega-stardom of Hugh Jackman, who won a Tony Award for playing Peter in “The Boy From Oz” on Broadway.

All this is a bit of a shame, as Peter was a sterling songwriter (“Don’t Cry Out Loud”, “I Go To Rio”, “I Honestly Love You”) and a fabulously flamboyant performer who is also an untapped gay superhero, an ocker Liberace. It’s unfortunate that Peter, who’s stacked life reads like a hard-to-believe modern gay fable, remains so obscure.

This made-for-television doco from Peter biographer Stephen MacLean bullet-points Peter’s unique and fascinating career but brushes over his private life with disappointing brevity.

Narrated by Jack Thompson (The Sum Of Us), the film guides us efficiently through all the main details of Peter’s career, from his boyhood performances at outback pubs all the way to the spectacular failure of his big-budget Broadway show, Legs Diamond. Along the way there were Hong Kong meetings with Garland, collaborations with Bayer Sager and Melissa Manchester, the Oscar, and a sellout run at Radio City Music Hall.

The film is packed with great footage of Peter’s performances all over the world. His stage act, replete with maracas, acrobatic dives onto the top of his piano, and camp patter about critics, Australian-ness and superstars, was truly one of a kind, and in giving us such a thorough look at it all, this film is a Peter-bonanza.

Highlights include Peter taking a bittersweet curtain call on the closing night of Legs Diamond, and numerous talk-show interviews where he shows off his scintillating wit and apparent warmth. Interviewees include Bayer Sager, Manchester, Bernadette Peters, Harry Connick Jnr., and Ann Margret. At a tribute concert, Bette Midler fluffs the lyrics to one of Peter’s songs. As part of the Radio City gig, Peter takes the stage on the back of a camel, and in other scenes he wears his trademark Hawaiian shirts or skin tight sequined catsuits that showed off his not-very attractive body. It’s great stuff.

Though we do glean some sense of Peter from The Boy From Oz, there are substantial threads of his story that are missing from this film. His death from AIDS is given one or two sentences, while his relationship with long-term boyfriend Greg Connell, who also died of AIDS, is barely mentioned at all.

Anecdotes that give clues as to why Peter never really stuck as a gay icon are contained in MacLean’s biography (also titled “The Boy From Oz”) but are missing here. For example, Peter entered a Sydney gay bar once, and tried to strike up a conversation with an aloof young guy. When the guy gave Peter the brush off, Peter slapped him hard in the face before turning on his heel and storming out.

We see Peter go on an African safari, and pad around his Californian and Queensland beach homes, but these moments aren’t penetrative. Snippets from the Australian “This Is Your Life” tease us with Peter’s obviously deep relationship with his mother, a fascinating woman who raised her son alone after her husband committed suicide and who has said she simply “can’t watch” the musical of Peter’s life, possibly because she isn’t over the grief from his death. Again, though, the film doesn’t delve into this area.

Peter’s life as a performer was strong and vivid enough to carry the day, however, and The Boy From Oz is essential viewing for anyone who wants to marvel at the skills of a truly unique star. But why did Peter marry Minnelli, and how did their relationship work? What did Peter feel about the ambivalence his countrymen felt towards him, especially when he started talking in a hybrid American accent? Did he remember much about his father, who committed suicide when Peter was a boy? Perhaps a less-glitzy treatment – a biopic along the lines of Ray perhaps? – could explore the private life of Peter and find a fruitful way to explore his flamboyance and his introspection simultaneously. .