I have always had an interest in the filming of Cleopatra...

"Our divorce lasted longer than our marriage," wrote Eddie Fisher in his autobiography.

Eddie was getting a big chunk of their holdings in the divorce. They argued for over a year
about how much money she had actually made filming Cleopatra.

So, how much money did Elizabeth Taylor make filming Cleopatra?

Originally 20th Century FOX wanted to make an inexpensive film, possibly starring Joan Collins.
But while Joan and other actresses were considered, producer Walter Wanger wanted Liz.
He also had dreams of making an epic.

Spyros Skouras, the head of 20th Century Fox, never wanted Elizabeth.
She was well known to be a user of pills to wake up and pills to go to sleep. She had a reputation of becoming ill.
Skouras felt she would be hard to handle.
But Producer Walter Wanger was obsessed with Elizabeth Taylor.

But Elizabeth didn't want to film on the backlot in Hollywood.
She demanded that the film be made in Europe. She also got the famous one-million-dollar salary
and many perks and... ten percent of the movie itself.
Also, with the death of her husband Mike Todd, she now owned the film process created by Todd, Todd-AO.
It made a very good looking picture so the studio had no problem adding that to her deal.

Walter Wanger gave her a contract unlike any other,
and no studio would ever agree to a contract like that again.


Early in the preproduction, Spyros Skouras, the head of FOX,
wrote in his notes that the studio had agreed to a four-million-dollar film,
plus another eight-hundred-thousand for the Todd-AO.

Well, that was just the beginning. Elizabeth got sick in London and almost died.
Production was shut down. The result was a loss of seven million dollars.

Months later, with new director Joseph Mankiewicz, who got his own lucrative deal,
and Elizabeth recovering, production was scheduled to start again, but this time in Rome.
In Rome, Producer Walter Wanger set up Elizabeth in a 14-room chalet, and flew in chili from Chasen's for her.

She had a new renegotiated contract, which called for her to work for 16 weeks.
She was also guaranteed $50,000 for every week past that...

The problem was, Mankiewicz didn't like the script.
He decided to rewrite the entire thing. He was writing and filming scenes never considered originally.
His version of the movie was now over five hours long.
He set a record for most film shot for a movie, and this was expensive film.

Mankiewicz filmed in continuity because he didn't have a completed script.
One study showed this added 7.5 million dollars. Thousands of actors and extras
were kept on payroll for 230 days at a daily cost of $125,000. It almost destroyed the studio.
This, combined with Elizabeth Taylor's unprofessionalism cost another 20 million.

FOX leader Spyros Skouras complained that Wanger, who later was called incompetant,
never took control of the film from Mankiewicz.
Wanger wanted an epic, and he believed Mankiewicz was going to deliver it.

I need to write that I believe if Mankiewicz had finished the script before filming,
none of the delays would have happened, and Liz and Richard Burton
wouldn't have had the time to make a spectacle of themselves.

Spyros was well aware of their romance, and fighting.
They were both heavy drinkers and they both were angry at times. Spyros said that she showed up
for filming one day with 'two black eyes and her nose was out of shape'.
It took 22 days for her to return to filming. She told people she had been in a car accident.

Joseph L. Mankiewicz

The generally accepted final tab for the film was 44 Million dollars, well over 300 million today.
No one knows what the film actually cost. Mankiewicz always claimed that the film did not cost 44 million.
There were no other films in production at Fox so many expenses were just added to the budget.
Producer Wanger said, "Right now in London or Paris, a producer is taking two prostitutes to lunch
and charging everything to Cleopatra."

Mankiewicz called Cleopatra "the toughest three pictures I ever made;
it was conceived in a state of emergency, shot in confusion, and wound up in a blind panic."
But Joe Mankiewicz is the main reason for most of that.

The studio ended up with a film that was well over five hours long.
Joe Mankiewicz said later that he always thought two films were needed.
FOX finally took control of the film and edited it down to a little over three hours, which was what was released to the theaters.

The film footage that was cut out of the film, well, that just disappeared.
This is one of the things that irritate me with Hollywood.
There have always been dumb people in control.
No one ever suggested that they keep the footage and perhaps use it in the future.

In 1997, FOX decided to go looking for it, thinking they could put together the film footage,
and possibly re-release the film to theaters, only this time it would be two films,
Caesar and Cleopatra, and Antony and Cleopatra.

But they had to get the okay from Elizabeth to even start searching for the lost footage,
because as I wrote earlier, she also owned ten percent of the movie.

Film historian Brad Geagley has told an interesting story.
He was assigned to speak with Elizabeth about the matter. At first, she was quite friendly and polite.
But when Brad told her the reason for his visit, she blew up.

"Blow it out your ass. I never made a dime off that damn movie!"

Brad started laughing.
He knew he had a story that he could use at cocktail parties for years.
He figures that with all the overtime, she made close to ten million dollars.

The lost footage was never found. It had been kept for a number of years,
and then effectively, taken out the back door and thrown into a dumpster.
It's an absolute shame.

FOX actually sued Liz and Richard Burton, claiming that these two were responsible
for the vast amounts of money that was spent making Cleopatra.
During the epic 228-day shooting in Rome, Taylor worked only 122 days, 99 of which she was late.

FOX lost in court; she won. As part of the settlement, FOX paid her 2.6 million dollars,
but she agreed that the books were closed on the film and she could not get any more money.

Liz and Eddie Fisher argued and debated for many months over just how much money she had made filming Cleopatra.
At one point she called him and complained about the home they had
bought together in Gstaad Switzerland, but never moved into, in the early 1960s.
"Did you know that there is not a single bathtub in the entire house?"

They finally agreed that she had made around nine-million dollars.
Between nine and ten million is the generally accepted figure by people who have studied and researched her earnings.
It cost the studio more than that as she was living at a chalet in Rome, paid for by the studio,
and her entourage of hairdressers and other people were also paid by the studio.
Studio executives said never again would a movie star get that kind of contract.


I don't know why Elizabeth blew up when she spoke to Brad Geagley.
I don't think she actually thought she could fool anyone about the money.
Maybe the entire memory of the film, with her two marriages to Richard Burton,
along with the fact that she had been married and divorced eight times...
Maybe she was just burned out.

Debbie Reynolds told the story that she never could have a conversation with Liz because
she just wanted to talk about sex. Debbie said, "I thought it was more important to raise my family."
Years later, they spoke again.This time Elizabeth talked of other things, and they had a very pleasant conversation.

I've written this article because of my interest in the filming of Cleopatra, and the missing footage.
I even contacted Brad Geagley about it.
But the bottom line is that Elizabeth Taylor made nine million dollars,
and the two hours or so of film that was cut from the finished movie,
will never be seen again...


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