My Life with Cleopatra (13 page)

Liz on time for tests today. She couldn’t be in better spirits or more co-operative.

But we are having problems with the costumes—I fear sabotage. Some of them were mysteriously ripped, seams torn, none of them perfect. Rogell has sent to the Coast for Courtney Haslem, the studio wardrobe chief, to come here and reorganize the costume situation. An excellent idea, since we have 20,000 costumes.

A problem with Rex’s costumes. During the period we were negotiating for him, Rex was working in a play in London and going to fittings after work. Apparently he didn’t pay much attention to the costumes. We are all unhappy about his wardrobe. We have asked Irene Sharaff to re-do his entire wardrobe. Another delay but well worth it.

S
EPTEMBER
13, 1961

Liz was on set before 10
A
.
M
. and in high spirits.

Her dressing room suite is completed. When Liz saw it for the first time she said with some surprise, “Isn’t this a bit much?”

Although she never asked for it, she ended up with an entire building converted for her use. It includes an office for Eddie, a salon, a special room for her wigs, a dressing room, and a make-up room with bath and shower.

S
EPTEMBER
14, 1961

Johnny Johnston has come up with a $14 million budget and a report that Skouras is “upset.”

Skouras claims the budget shouldn’t be more than eight million dollars. JLM, who is always forthright, has told Skouras that we already are committed to more than ten million, but apparently Skouras is keeping some of the facts from the Board of Directors. This means we are making the picture on two budgets: the unrealistic New York budget, and the actual costs.

S
EPTEMBER
21, 1961

Skouras arrived. We spent a difficult day in budget meetings.

Skouras said that unless budget was under eight, the Board of Directors would cancel the production. JLM handed Skouras the phone and said, “Greatest favor you could do the board would be to call them at once and say this film will cost a great deal over ten. Shall I put the call through for you?”

Skouras turned white and put down the phone. “We have to cut the budget somehow,” he said.

That ended the meeting with JLM.

Later in the afternoon Skouras called a big meeting in my office with different department heads. “The budget is cut to ten million dollars,” he said with finality.

Ridiculous—we had spent at least ten million dollars by the time of his announcement.

S
EPTEMBER
22, 1961

Skouras very flattering to me and pleased with JLM, which worries me. He must have something in mind.

Liz and Eddie finally found a villa. It is in a little park, about seven minutes from the studio and near one of the Middle East embassies. The Villa Papa is a magnificent place, more like a California ranch house than an Italian villa.

It stands in eight acres of parklike grounds with beautiful pools and huge trees. The villa itself, California ranch style, contains seven bedrooms, six bathrooms, a huge living room, another smaller salon, and a well-appointed dining room.

The villa—rented for $3,000 a month—is ideal for the Fishers because the children can have one section of the house, and Liz and Eddie the other. The animals—five dogs, including a St. Bernard, collie, three small terriers; and two Siamese cats—have the run of the place.

S
EPTEMBER
23, 1961

L’Unitá
, the Communist daily, headlines that “
Cleopatra
is an Italian Little Rock.” They claim that our white and colored dancers have to take separate buses, eat separately, and use different dressing rooms. Somehow they put the blame on Liz.

We denied the story instantly, but the matter actually came up in the Italian Parliament. Meanwhile, a collective letter signed by over sixty members (both white and colored) of the dance groups, including such people as Leo Coleman and Claude Marchant, protested strongly against the false charges. The letter was sent to left-wing papers which, nevertheless, never made any retraction.

Now it’s elephant and horse trouble.

The horses won’t work with the elephants in the big procession. Magli, our Italian production manager, has a relative who owns a troupe of elephants which we hired. The elephants, however, won’t do what they’re supposed to do, and one of the beasts is, I am sure, mad. He started to pull up some stakes, which caused Cinecitta to tell us we had to get the elephants out. We are writing to England for more elephants.

The cameras haven’t started to turn yet and we already have one lawsuit against us. Santi’s company, Galatea Films, is suing us for “notable damages” of a million dollars for not fulfilling our agreement made with him in 1959. We are in the papers every day without any assistance from the entertainment editor. Something newsworthy always seems to be happening.

S
EPTEMBER
24, 1961

The first scene of the movie, to be shot tomorrow, is of Cleopatra going to the temple to pray to the goddess Isis. JLM and I visited the set today to look it over, and the statue of Isis looks comic rather than imposing. We have a crew working all night remodeling it.

JLM is writing in longhand every day, laboring over the script, trying to get it as near right as possible. We are waiting for the costumes to be completed and fitted. Of the sixty sets needed only one is ready.

Every day that we are not before the cameras costs us $67,000 in overhead. So, tomorrow—ready or not—we start the picture.

BOOK IV
 
CLEOPATRA AND CAESAR
[1961–1962]

S
EPTEMBER
25, 1961

Today, finally, after years of work and headaches, we shot the first scene of
Cleopatra
.

Since our starting date coincided with the 100th anniversary of Italian unification, Treves, who is an enthusiastic Italian-American as well as one of the minority leaders in the Fox fight, promoted a junket to Italy for eleven U. S. Congressmen. As a highlight of the junket he promised to bring them to Cinecitta with their wives.

I said they could come to the studio but not on the set. Liz was working in a revealing costume. I knew that like the rest of us she would be likely to have first-day nerves—we had been through so much for so long in getting the picture started.

Predictably, the band of Congressmen with wives showed up at the studio wanting photographs taken everywhere, most especially with Elizabeth. They were taken on a full tour, finally ending up at our Forum set across the street from the set where we were shooting. I went to the Forum and announced over the loudspeaker that because of the pressure of the first day of shooting Miss Taylor would not be available, but that we had a cocktail party planned for later.

Some of the Congressmen, however, got tired of waiting and angrily left the studio. When Elizabeth heard what happened, she invited the Congressmen and wives who remained to come to her dressing room where they had some drinks and pleasant conversation.

S
EPTEMBER
26, 1961

I learn that our eager publicity department had given out in advance “Press Release No. 2,” which said, “On their tour of the Forum set, the group of Congressmen was accompanied by Elizabeth Taylor, who left her set for the specific purpose of greeting them.” No wonder there was a misunderstanding as the papers reported today, with poor Liz catching the blame.

S
EPTEMBER
28, 1961

Elizabeth is truly Queen of Rome.

Shooting stopped at 5:30 today so Liz could go home to get dressed for an appearance tonight at the Sistine Theater. She is to be awarded the Maschera d’Argento (Silver Mask) for her performance in
Suddenly Last Summer
. A big honor, as the award is the Italian equivalent of an Oscar.

Liz was wearing a fabulous silver evening gown with a neckline that plunged to the waist. The mob went wild when they saw her enter the theater. When she went on stage, it took about forty uniformed and plain-clothes policemen to stop the paparazzi from rushing right up to the stage to take pictures of Liz. About sixty photographers eventually ran into the wings where they took turns standing on each other’s shoulders to get pictures.

After the award ceremonies the photographers literally fought with the police to get pictures, while a mob of 2,000 or more screaming Italians overwhelmed Liz and Eddie.

Eddie pushed Liz into a car that was parked at the curb and locked the door. When their own car came up, the police made a passageway for them to change to it.

Elizabeth’s impact on the public is incredible, which bodes well for our movie.

S
EPTEMBER
29, 1961

Doctors, bankers, and elephants.

Dr. Kennamer left for home amid reports in the Italian press
that he had argued with Liz.
Lo Specchio
quoted Dr. Kennamer as saying that if she didn’t obey him she wouldn’t be able to finish the picture.

I don’t think, however, that Liz and the doctor parted on anything less than friendly terms. She and Eddie gave him a beautiful gold wristwatch engraved affectionately.

Now we are being sued about the elephants.

Circus owner, Ennio Togni—uncle of our production man, Magli—is suing us for $100,000 because we supposedly broke his contract for supplying us with elephants. He is also claiming we slandered his pachyderms when we called them wild.

O
CTOBER
1, 1961

Raining. If the rainy season is starting, we are in real trouble.

Burton’s wife, Sybil, has arrived with his children and brother and taken a villa. Nice family.

Rachel Roberts, Rex Harrison’s fiancée, called me late at night to get a doctor for Rex Harrison. She blames his troubles on food and weather.

O
CTOBER
2, 1961

The location at Lavinia is a mess.

We were shooting a scene in which Cleopatra is encamped facing Ptolemy’s troops. Her own army is close to rebellion and she is working on a plan to get to Caesar for help. The location was on the ocean and it was bitter cold and rainy. The sanitary conditions were so bad, the extras were complaining.

O
CTOBER
3, 1961

JLM caught cold yesterday and spent the day in bed.

O
CTOBER
4, 1961

Rain. The studio reports that the film they have received so far is great.

All the film we shoot is sent by air to Los Angeles to be processed and developed. It is then supposed to be returned to us in a week or ten days. In addition, Shamroy receives daily cable reports on the quality of the photography.

O
CTOBER
7, 1961

Rained steadily the past few days, flooding the Forum, which is our next scheduled sequence. Even our rehearsals were halted by rain. This means JLM has to find something else to shoot.

Ponza has been scheduled as a location for the Tarsus sequence. I found out that Ponza is a rocky, barren island, so rough we would have trouble getting over the ground in jeeps. It has no hotels, no doctor, no accommodations of any kind for a crew. I asked an Italian assistant to suggest another spot. He came up with Ischia, which has been used many times by other productions. We canceled Ponza and are to explore Ischia.

O
CTOBER
8, 1961

Rex Harrison asked for a meeting with JLM. He’s obviously disturbed about something. Since JLM doesn’t want to take time from the script, I took Rex to lunch.

We met at a restaurant in the Villa Borghese, where I discovered that Rex had done a great deal of reading about Caesar. He wanted to discuss the part and his concept of it and he wanted to be reassured that his thoughts coincided with ours.

A terribly serious, meticulous man and a great artist, Rex, like most of the other actors in the company, wanted to feel a part of the entire project and to believe he was important to it. It was easy for me to convince him of that, since next to Elizabeth, he is our most important player in the first half of the movie.

After lunch with Rex I saw Peter Levathes, who is in town to look over our situation. He is “understandably concerned.” Peter, who came to Hollywood from Young & Rubicam, is the kind of
man who would be right at home placing an ad for a shredded-wheat campaign, but he is over his head here.

O
CTOBER
9, 1961

At last, a beautiful day. Good news from the U. S.—the rushes continue to be excellent.

O
CTOBER
10, 1961

Money meeting with Levathes.

Peter charged right in saying things like “God damn it, you’re ruining the studio! You have to fight costs! You have to stop Joe! Cut prices, trim the budget!”

I pointed out that back in July we warned it would be impossible to get everything ready by the time we needed it. I also said it was absolutely unconscionable that a company of Fox’s experience would expect Joe to write a screenplay and direct a picture of the scope of
Cleopatra
and still load him down with all the other problems.

O
CTOBER
12, 1961