Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
What early 1960s madness had a multimillion-dollar production convinced it could recreate the magnificent grandeur of a sunlit, ancient kingdom in a rain-sodden location west of London during the first chill of autumn?
By the third day of shooting, Elizabeth Taylor was still ill. Typically, with the health of this troubled star, the cold turned into a fever and for the ensuing five weeks, the star did not leave her suite. Already the future of the film was in the balance; without Miss Taylor, there simply was no Cleopatra.
Taylor had been dogged by illness for most of her adult life. By 1970, she was on her twenty-eighth operation. Among the health issues affecting her was a glandular condition, hypertrichosis, an ulcerated eye, ruptured spinal disc, phlebitis, pneumonia, Asian flu, laryngitis, meningitis and bronchitis.
On the night of the 4 March 1961, the star came perilously close to death. Gasping for breath in her Dorchester suite, she started to turn blue. Fortuitously, a doctor and specialist in respiration techniques was rushed to the room and brought her back to consciousness. Taken to the London Clinic (which was soon besieged by the media), she underwent a tracheotomy so she could breathe, leaving a 2in scar in her throat. The wound was like a medal, a symbol of her unerring ability to survive.
Within a week she had recovered and was swigging champagne with Truman Capote. ‘It was like riding on a rough ocean,’ she told the waspish author of her near-death experience. ‘Then slipping over the edge of the horizon. With the roar of the ocean in my head, which I suppose was really the noise of my trying to breathe.’…
The casting for Cleopatra is a tale in itself. There was fascinating documentation to be found. Twentieth Century Fox in Hollywood wrote to their London office on 6 May 1959, announcing that their Cleopatra project would go into production in June and asking for London’s advice on casting. …
London responded to the Hollywood request with its usual thoroughness on 26 May 1959. In hindsight, it makes for fascinating reading. For the title role, Fox suggested a long list of lovely likelies, including Janette Scott, Lee Remick, Mandy Miller, Jean Simmons, Claire Bloom, Dana Wynter, Cyd Charisse, Kim Novak and Joan Collins. The future dame was a strong contender; she was another one under contract to Fox and let it be known that she was ‘dying to play it’. The studio were equally keen and screen tested the actress.
Producer Walter Wanger wrote witheringly in 1959, ‘Hermes Pan is working with Joan, trying to improve her posture and walk so she will have the grace and dignity of Cleopatra.’ As a flavour of the times, the biographer of Fox head, Spyros Skouras wrote that Collins had ‘eyes bigger than boobs’. …
And there, nestling at No. 17 on the original list, was Elizabeth Taylor. Taylor said she only took the role on as a whim. Newly independent and free from studio contracts for the first time in over fifteen years, the star admitted, ‘I was in my bath when my lawyer called and asked me what I wanted to do about the “Cleopatra thing”. I thought I would dispose of it by asking something impossible. “Tell him I’ll do it for a million against 10 per cent of the gross”.’
In his autobiography, Eddie Fisher claims the credit. ‘Elizabeth was in the bathroom brushing her teeth and I shouted in to her, “Elizabeth, you should do this for a million bucks”.’ It was an impossible demand – Marilyn Monroe only received $500,000 for 1959’s Some Like it Hot and Marlon Brando and William Holden had edged up to the magical million,
but when they reached the mark, it included percentages of the gross.
Elizabeth Taylor was the first screen star to receive a million up front. Serious or not, when Taylor signed that seven-figure contract on 15 October 1959, it made headlines around the world.
