Next book in my Daily Book Excerpt:
The following book in my true crime section is Marilyn The Last Take (Marilyn Monroe)
The following excerpt describes the disaster that was Cleopatra (I love the story about Marlon Brando below … true story.). I also love how this excerpt shows off how canny and smart Monroe obviously was.
EXCERPT FROM Marilyn The Last Take (Marilyn Monroe)
The inefficiency, waste and eventual scandal that swirled around the Cleopatra set in Rome would soon result in parsimonious controls on the set of Something’s Got to Give. For instance, an enchanting desert island scene between Monroe and Tom Tryon was canceled, and a fanciful dream sequence that was to have involved fog and considerable pyrotechnics was nixed at the last minute. “They sliced away at the Something’s Got to Give budget bit by bit,” recalled William Travilla. “The cash for Marilyn’s seaside idyll went to pay for more elephants or something.”
But it wasn’t only the money itself that angered Monroe. She was furious and deeply resentful that Fox had ignored her own passionate desire to play Cleopatra, a desire which stretched back to the origins of the project. It was early 1959 when Monroe first learned, via the gossip mill, that Spyros Skouras was planning to remake Cleopatra, which Fox’s parent company, William Fox Films, had made with screen vamp Theda Bara in 1917. Monroe launched a vigorous campaign to obtain the part, which included a telephone plea to Skouras in New York.
“Darling,” he said. “This will be a very low-budget affair — using old costumes and even older sets. We’re even castin g a starlet — Joan Collins. Believe me, you don’t want this one.”
When informed that the budget was to be $210,000, even less than the budget of the Theda Bara version, Monroe lost interest. But always wary of executive promises, she told her agent, George Chasin of the powerful MCA Agency, then the largest talent pool in the world, to keep an eye on the project “just in case”. Chasin recalled that Marilyn had fought for, and lost, the leading female role in The Egyptian, the 1954 film that would have placed her opposite Marlon Brando. She had even offered to test in a black wig and period dress. But Gene Tierney got the part. Ultimately, Fox was the loser. When Zanuck refused to cast Monroe, Brando walked off the project, leaving the part to Edmund Purdom. The Egyptian bombed at the box office.
Filming of Cleopatra began in late 1958 on a plaster and papier-mache set with a cast that included Collins, Peter Finch as Julius Caesar and Stephen Boyd as Mark Antony.
Then MGM’s Ben-Hur went into production in Hollywood and abroad. When Skouras was allowed to preview the chariot race with its ten thousand extras, its monumental religious overtones, and its obvious star power, he instantly canceled his makeshift epic, but politely told Collins she would be “strongly considered” for the lead in the new, big-budget version.
Skouras secretly hired producer Walter Wanger, a man whose credits stretched back to the silents, and charged him with fashioning a glitzy, monumental Cleopatra.
True to his word, Monroe’s agent, George Chasin, intercepted a Fox interoffice memo that indicated that the studio was actively courting “major stars” to play the Queen of Egypt.
In May 1959, when Fox forced her to sign for Let’s Make Love, Monroe appealed to Buddy Adler, who had succeeded Zanuck as production chief. She flew into town from the Connecticut farm she shared with husband Arthur Miller and wooed Adler in person. She had chosen a form-fitting black dress, added five strands of faux pearls, and pleaded her case for half an hour. “You’ve got my vote,” said Adler. “But this is a Skouras deal from start to finish; he doesn’t even consult me about it.”
Monroe turned her attentions to Skouras, her former lover. She sent him a color portrait of herself costumed as Theda Bara, whose version the mogul had recently shown to the Fox board of directors. The photograph captured Monroe decked out in a black wig, ropes and ropes of pearls, kohl-ringed eyes, and filmy harem clothes. [Ed: Wanna see the photo? Here it is! Scroll down …] Taken by celebrity photographer Richard Avedon, it was one of a series of photographs that appeared in the December 22, 1958 issue of Life magazine. ..
“She desperately wanted to play that role,” said Monroe’s stand-in, Evelyn Moriarty. “And she could use the portrayal to successfully escape from the typecasting prison Hollywood had built around her.”
Documents in the Skouras collection show that the Fox president held a series of “casting dinners” with Susan Hayward (a last-minute suggestion), Taylor, and Lollobrigida. “Marilyn was never considered for that role,” said William Travilla. “Everyone involved was afraid that she would be laughed off the screen. But, truthfully, she was the only star on Fox’s contract list who could do it.” …
The resounding choice was Taylor. Skouras dispatched Wanger to sign Taylor — no matter the cost.
Super-agent Kurt Frings drafted a history-making contract for Taylor: she was to get $125,000 for the first sixteen weeks, $50,000 a week after that and 10 percent of the gross (meaning she would get her money off the top — whether or not the film ever turned a profit). She was also to receive $3,000 per week living expenses, and would have a secretary, a hairdresser and a physician. (Thanks to the number of weeks it took to shoot Cleopatra, Taylor’s weekly payroll added up to the famous “two-million dollar salary”.)
When the Taylor contract was signed, Monroe was toiling in the broiling Nevada desert shooting The Misfits. She was angry and bitter. “They put me in a disaster, Let’s Make Love, but turn to Elizabeth for the biggest film they have ever made,” she lamented to Rupert Allan.
To Slatzer she said, “I’m the one who’s under contract, and they treat me like hell. Liz isn’t the only star who can act.”
Taylor’s victory — the talk of show-business circles — reawakened the antagonism Monroe had felt for her since the mid-fifties, when Taylor walked off with a series of roles that Monroe had coveted. Most notably, she regretted losing the leads in two Tennessee Williams films, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Suddenly Last Summer, both adapted from Broadway plays. After Monroe met Williams at Rupert Allan’s Bel Air home, he agreed that she would be the perfect Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Both projects, however, were purchased for Taylor.
“There was definitely a feud between the two most famous actresses in the world,” said Randall Riese, author of The Unabridged Marilyn.
Taylor had equally strong feelings. When author Max Lerner wrote in The New Yorker that “Elizabeth Taylor is a legend, but Marilyn Monroe is a myth,” Taylor raged at Lerner: “You have a nerve saying Marilyn is ‘a myth’ and I’m just a lousy ‘legend’. I’m much more beautiful than Marilyn Monroe ever was, and I’m certainly a much better actress.”
Looking back on Taylor’s career and scandalous private life, one can hardly imagine that they ever considered anyone else for Cleopatra. By 1959, she was the world’s most notorious femme fatale. She had already married and divorced hotel scion Nicky Hilton, had married and divorced British actor Michael Wilding, and had then been tragically widowed by the death of the flamboyant producer Michael Todd. Just the year before, she had snatched away the husband of her best and dearest friend, America’s sweetheart, Debbie Reynolds.
Reynolds had dispatched husband Eddie Fisher on a mission of mercy to console “poor Elizabeth” on the death of her husband. A week later, Fisher was in Taylor’s bed. Reynolds appealed to the world press. She even held a front-yard conference, a baby over one shoulder and a diaper over the other. Newspapers and tabloids branded Taylor “an international homewrecker”. The same press that had deemed her a madonna on the death of Michael Todd now conferred upon her the scarlet “A”.
Hedda Hopper predicted ruination. MGM checked its morals clauses. But quickly and quietly, Taylor’s millions of fans tropped back. When she played vixens, as in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Butterfield 8, she sold even more tickets. She was the Queen of Hollywood when Walter Wanger offered her Cleopatra. In a bubble bath, a pink telephone cuddled in one hand, she cooed, “Well, Walter, I’d love to do it — for one million dollars.”
The leadership of Fox gulped. Skouras took another poll, asking, “Is she worth it?” The distributors replied, “Affirmative.” The Fox president soon grew expansive. “This is going to be the biggest hit ever,” he told journalists.
Buddy Adler, production chief at the time, didn’t necessarily agree. The cool, battle-weary producer of From Here to Eternity and other major hits had a luncheon meeting with Taylor and was alarmed by her grandiose ideas for the film. “Watch out,” he warned Skouras. “Elizabeth’s demands may soon become unrealistic. If the studio cannot produce this film without Taylor’s interference, there is absolutely no guarantee that it can be made at a profit.”
It was an ominous warning. But no one listened.
I love this stuff, too!!
Marlon Brando walking away of the project because Marilyn was not cast… CLASSIC. Dean Martin threatened to do the same when Marilyn was fired by Fox for failing to show up for shooting of “Something’s Got to Give”. The studio relented, but sadly Marilyn died before she completed the film. But you know all of this, right Sheila?
Ceci – Of course. I know it all.
But still – I never get tired of talking about it over and over and over. Also – I LOVE it when I meet a kindred spirit who also knows all this stuff! :)