My Life with Cleopatra (12 page)

J
ULY
29, 1961

JLM sent a telegram to Owen McLean, casting director at 20th Century-Fox, complaining that with the starting date of the picture only seven weeks away only six of approximately forty-six principal roles had been cast.

A
UGUST
1, 1961

Irene Sharaff upset because Liz has not yet come in for fittings or given a date when she will come. Irene is not used to working this way. I explained that Liz would come when she felt she was in shape.

JLM now in Rome without a sufficient production staff. He’s
trying to do everything himself, which is ridiculous. It’s unfair to bother him with all these extraneous problems and expect him to turn out a great script which has to satisfy three of the most important artists in the world.

A
UGUST
2, 1961

The villa for Liz and Eddie in Rome is becoming a problem.

In this picture the producer also fills in as janitor and general handy man. At 2
A
.
M
. I finally got through to a Princess in Rome who is in the real-estate business. She said she would look for something for the Fishers.

A
UGUST
4, 1961

Eddie insists that Elizabeth’s personal physician, Dr. Rex Kennamer, go to Rome with them—at company expense. Dr. Kennamer’s fee is $25,000 plus expenses for the six weeks he will be in Rome.

A
UGUST
4, 1961

Excerpts from a letter to JLM:

A
UGUST
9, 1961

Levathes says Kennamer’s fee is outrageous and refuses to okay it.

Irene unhappy because Liz wanted her to come to her bungalow for fittings because her arm hurts from shots. Irene refused. Liz out tonight at Kirk Douglas’ party, and, presumably, is better and ready to work tomorrow.

A
UGUST
10, 1961

Eddie’s birthday.

Liz came to the studio for fittings and was very pleasant and slim. Liz and Irene getting on famously.

A
UGUST
13, 1961

Talked with JLM in Rome, who said we are getting off to a bad start.

England all over again: we do not have a script, the sets aren’t ready, costumes aren’t ready. The props are not ready either and
we need more than a million dollars’ worth. We are being forced to begin shooting next month so Skouras can keep the Board of Directors quiet and because of the starting date on Liz’s contract.

A
UGUST
16, 1961

Unable to make a deal with Trevor Howard as Caesar. I called JLM in Rome and recommended Rex Harrison, who, I think, will be better in the long run. JLM agrees so we are going after him.

A
UGUST
22, 1961

Now the villa for Eddie and Liz has become a crisis. Eddie says they won’t go to Rome unless they have the right place to live. He suggests we send Bob Abrams, a friend and associate of his, to Rome to look. We have agreed to do this—at company expense.

A
UGUST
25, 1961

Enroute to Rome stopped in New York to see Skouras. He was livid over an interview with Elizabeth in a recent
Look
magazine in which she said, “It will be fun to be the first Jewish Queen of Egypt.” The statement was annoying to the Egyptian government, which had promised us co-operation.

A
UGUST
27, 1961

Arrived here embarrassed and discouraged.

Embarrassed because of a story in the
Rome Daily American
which sounded as though JLM was doing nothing until I arrived. We were promised a retraction Tuesday.

Discouraged because once again we were under the gun to start the film. JLM had advised Skouras it would be cheaper
to keep Liz on salary while we took time to prepare, but the attitude as always was, “For God’s sake, get something on film.”

Talking to the people at Fox is like a Kafka play in which you call a number, and no one’s at the other end of the phone. You try to reason but discover no one is listening. Again we were about to attempt to film in opposition to every basic tenet of the professional film maker. We had no sets, no script, and no proper administrative organization. Although Johnny Johnston is in charge of production, the problems were way too big for one man. He is sick as well. When MGM made
Ben-Hur
in Rome they had three powerful production men and a staff working for over a year in advance and still had plenty of problems.

A
UGUST
28, 1961

John DeCuir is complaining about the lack of stage space.

DeCuir, a good-looking, dedicated young man who is an ardent Catholic and goes to church every morning, is working non-stop on the design of sets. He will take all the abuse in the world without listening to anyone; he just goes on building and building. He has a great imagination combined with a terrible habit of elevating everything on platforms, which makes his sets difficult to light and photograph.

When I arrived here, he said we had an awful space problem: there was no room for the throne room on any of the stages at Cinecitta. He suggested we take over the DePaulis Studio, the biggest in Europe. It is, however, three quarters of an hour from Rome and from Cinecitta; it has no heating, no lights and no air-conditioning. When I pointed this out to DeCuir he smiled dreamily and said, “But there is space.”

I told him I wouldn’t hear of using another studio. If we did, Liz would have to make up here, then drive to the other studio. It was just too much trouble for all concerned. DeCuir went away unhappily, muttering that there wasn’t room enough here for his throne room but he’d try to cram it someplace.

Talked with a real-estate man about a villa for the Fishers. Abrams is looking constantly but is having trouble finding the right place—they want a lot of space and a lot of bathrooms. Not everyone with a palazzo is anxious to rent to the Fishers, because they have too many animals and too many children.

A
UGUST
28, 1961

JLM gave the crew of 100 technicians from Hollywood and England a pep talk about relations with Italian workers. He said: “Please bear in mind that if it is difficult to communicate with the Italians, the reason is that
you
do not speak
their
language.
Not
that they do not speak yours …” Good to remember any place and any time.

S
EPTEMBER
1, 1961

Liz and Eddie arrived in Rome today with Dr. Kennamer, whose fee was finally approved.

We had to set squadrons of police to protect Liz from the
paparazzi
—Rome’s jackal-like photographers. Photos of Liz are worth a small fortune and the photographers here are the most aggressive and obnoxious in the world.

The Fishers and the doctor went off immediately for a cruise on Sam Spiegel’s yacht.

S
EPTEMBER
2, 1961

Skouras arrived today looking tired.

For the first time I had the feeling that the operating committee of bankers who had been investigating the studio had gotten to him. They canceled the Stevens picture,
The Greatest Story Ever Told
, without asking for Skouras’ opinion or okay. That picture was a dream of his and he was heartbroken. Apparently the bankers are getting very tough with him. I think he came to Rome to get away from them.

Before we got to Rome a deal had been made with Prince
Borghese to rent his private beach at Anzio for $150,000. After we started to build the Alexandria set there we found the beach was the one where the Allied troops landed. It was still mined!

I went to the beach, where an army of workers was clearing ground. One bulldozer struck an unexploded shell. We had to call in demolition experts to lug live ammunition away. More delays—and danger. All we need is to have a shell blow up and hurt some of our people!

In addition, I learned that the beach is next door to the NATO firing range, which means we will have to arrange our schedule so we are not working when the big guns are blasting. We will have to get NATO permission to be allowed on our own set!

S
EPTEMBER
5, 1961

Abrams called from Naples to say that Liz and Eddie had fallen in love with a 70-year-old Greek cook on the yacht. They want me to arrange to bring him to Rome.

S
EPTEMBER
6, 1961

The press clamor here in Rome is incredible. We are getting requests from all over the world from correspondents who want to interview Liz or see the sets being constructed.

Fathi Ibrahim, head of the Fox operation in Egypt, arrived today. Colorful and influential, Fathi speaks perfect English and handles himself like a character actor in a play. He is smooth, understanding, and able to get things done in a quiet way—but it must be his way. He is also very good on social contacts. His wife, Mary, is a charming woman, a real beauty, and the niece of the Emperor of Ethiopia.

At head of public relations is Giulio Ascarelli, an Italian-born American citizen, a real savvy guy who knows all the press in Rome, Paris, and London.

Tall, thin, and distinguished looking, Giulio is a worldly character who loves good things and a good life. Part of his future,
however, is based on the income he expects to get from the Fox pension plan. He has been with the studio a long time and he intends to do the best job possible for us—without endangering his position. I fear he can be handled easily by Skouras.

S
EPTEMBER
7, 1961

Finally got a chance to look over Cinecitta. The studio where we plan to work is very much like any Hollywood studio—for which I am partly responsible. When I was in Rome in 1936 I stayed with Dorothy de Frasso and her husband, the Count de Frasso at their Villa Madama, a fabulous palace with ceilings by Michelangelo, which was later used by Goering during the war.

One day they arranged for me to meet Mussolini, who was then at the peak of his power. Il Duce told me he wanted to build a film studio in Rome and asked for my suggestions.

I told him he ought to send someone to America—which he did. A very bright and wealthy engineer, Senator Roncaroni, who owned a racing stable in Rome, came to visit me in Hollywood. I showed him around, arranged for him to get blueprints of the major studios, including Fox, and he returned to Rome and designed Cinecitta.

Although we are not the only company shooting at Cinecitta we have certainly brought a circus flavor to the lot and to Rome. In one area an army of Italian men is being drilled to fight mighty land battles. An hour away at Anzio, ships were being constructed for the naval engagement at Actium, and Cleo’s royal barge was being fitted with purple sails just like the ones the real Cleopatra’s barges had.

Our sails, however, were of modern nylon because silk or cotton sails fade in the sun.

On the Borghese hunting estate on the Anzio beachhead, ancient Alexandria was being rebuilt and in Rome, half a mile
from the real Forum, we were constructing a movie Forum larger than the original, where Caesar will welcome Cleopatra.

Our dance director, Hermes Pan, has been rehearsing hundreds of dancing girls for months, preparing them for the big procession scene when Cleopatra enters Rome.

A Negro ballet is on one of the sound stages rehearsing; athletes are practicing pole vaulting and swordplay in the athletic field, with archers shooting nearby; the charioteers—mostly Hollywood stunt men who worked in
Ben-Hur
—are working out on one of the outdoor sets. Some people are in costume, some out of costume, since the wardrobe department can’t keep up with our needs.

S
EPTEMBER
9, 1961

Elizabeth’s dressing room is not ready yet.

An entire building is being redesigned for her. Eddie is upset over his problems, so they have become mine now: a station wagon, a cook, the Greek chef, and an upcoming photographic interview with
Life
.

With the exception of the cast, everyone associated with the film now wears a numbered, silver-dollar-sized badge. They come in three colors: blue for production, yellow for construction, and red for visitors. My badge is Number 11.

S
EPTEMBER
11, 1961

Negotiations finally concluded for Rex Harrison to play Caesar, at $10,000 a week plus expenses, a car and driver, and co-star billing.

Roddy McDowall, Hume Cronyn, and half a dozen others signed for co-starring and feature roles.

Actors are arriving from all over the world every day. Some of them are not met at the plane because of our transportation problems. And the housing department occasionally messes up on getting the right accommodations, which makes for more chaos.

S
EPTEMBER
12, 1961

The handmaidens and the slave girls are on strike!

They claim the costumes they wear in the movie are too skimpy. Thank heavens for Magli, the Italian production manager. He pointed to the line of Italian male workers ogling and cheering the girls in the picket line, and proved that the costumes they wore to picket in were skimpier by far than their movie costumes.