June 12, 1963: The film Cleopatra premieres. It is the biggest entertainment spectacle of the 1960s.
Notice I said, "biggest," not "best"; and "spectacle," not "success." The distinctions do matter.
NOTE: This was the same day that Medgar Evers was assassinated.
Cleopatra VII Philopator, the last Pharoah of Egypt, mistress of Julius Caesar and later of Marc Antony, who life began in 69 BC, whose reign began in 51 BC, both ended in 30 BC, and by far the most famous woman to live BC (Before Christ), had been portrayed on film many times before, including by Theda Bara in 1917, Claudette Colbert in 1934, Vivien Leigh in 1945, Rhonda Fleming in 1953, and a young Sophia Loren in 1954.
The 1963 version was based on the 1957 book The Life and Times of Cleopatra, by Carlo Maria Franzero. It was produced by Walter Wanger, who had long wanted to make a film about her, and when he saw Elizabeth Taylor in A Place in the Sun in 1951, he knew he had his Queen of Egypt. He went on to produce the original version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and I Want to Live! So he had the studio credibility.
Taylor was approached to play the title role, and accepted. Twentieth Century Fox agreed to film it. Alfred Hitchcock was asked to direct, but he turned it down. Instead, Armenian-American director Rouben Mamoulian was hired. He had previously directed the 1931 version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Queen Christina and the 1940 version of The Mark of Zorro, but had directed only 2 films since 1942.
But Taylor was not finalized as Cleopatra. Among those considered were Joan Collins (yes, later from Dynasty), Susan Hayward (who won on Oscar for Wanger's I Want to Live!), and, at Mamoulian's suggestion, black actress Dorothy Dandridge. (For the record: The last several Pharoahs, including Cleopatra, were ethnically Greek, not black Africans as some want to believe.) Dandridge declined, telling Mamoulian there would be no way the studio would approve of her kissing a white Caesar or a white Antony.
So they want back to Taylor, and she asked for the biggest film contract ever: $1 million (about $10 million in 2022), plus 10 percent of the box office gross. She got it. Peter Finch (later in Network) was cast as Caesar, and Stephen Boyd as Antony.
In 1960, sets were built, and the film was already becoming a boondoggle. In November, filming had to stop for weeks because Taylor developed meningitis. The script kept getting rewritten. On January 18, 1961, Mamoulian quit as director.
Taylor had previously worked with George Stevens for A Place in the Sun, and Joseph L. Mankiewicz for Suddenly, Last Summer, and said either one would be good. Fox chose Mankiewicz. That did not settle things, and, finally, production at Pinewood Studios outside London shut down. It cost $600,000 just to dismantle the sets. Mankiewicz ordered them moved to Cinecittà in Rome -- which had not initially been available, due to the 1960 Olympics being held in the Eternal City. But now that the Olympics were over, "Cinema City" was available. As Caesar, Finch was out, and Rex Harrison was in.
And then Taylor went to New York, and saw Richard Burton play King Arthur in the musical Camelot, opposite Julie Andrews, who had starred with Harrison in My Fair Lady. Burton was already a huge star, particularly in period pieces like The Robe.
He was married to actress Sybil Williams. Taylor was married to singer Eddie Fisher, whom she had stolen from his wife, actress Debbie Reynolds. Previously, Taylor had married and divorced hotel heir Conrad Hilton Jr. and stage producer Michael Wilding. The true love of her life had been her 3rd husband, Mike Todd, and they still argued like crazy, until his death in a plane crash.
But Burton was hired to play Antony, and on January 22, 1962, both the filming of his scenes and his affair with Taylor started. Wanger observed in his journal: "There comes a time during the making of a movie when the actors become the characters they play... It was quiet, and you could almost feel the electricity between Liz and Burton."
It began the greatest "Couldn't live with each other, couldn't live without each other" story in the history of show business. By late February, word had reached the outside world. Laurence Olivier, whom Burton had started to rival for the title of the greatest living British actor, sent Burton a telegram: "Make up your mind, dear heart. Do you want to be a great actor or a household word?" Burton's response: "Both."
He got his wish. Bennifer? Brangelina? Kimye? In that era, before "ship names" -- no one ever called them "BurTay," or anything like that -- they became known as "Liz and Dick," and they were the biggest couple of all time, generating more press than any in history. More even than Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe, mainly because, unlike DiMaggio, who was 2 years retired from baseball before he married Monroe, Burton and Taylor were both still in their prime.
Interestingly, this film had an actress named Jacqui Chan. Not "Jackie": Instead of the Hong Kong martial-arts star, this Jacqui Chan was born on the Caribbean island of Trinidad to Chinese parents, and made her name dancing on Broadway. She played a character named Lotus.
Jacqui Chan as Lotus, with Rex Harrison as Julius Caesar
The cost of filming, including some scenes actually in Egypt, continued to rise. It almost brought the Fox studio down. On July 28, 1962, filming was finally finished. There was 5 hours and 20 minutes' worth of footage. This was going to make Gone with the Wind look like a short subject. By February 1963, Cleopatra had been cut down to 3 hours and 4 minutes, still over twice as long as most movies released in those days. Even historical epics tended to stay close to the 2-hour mark.
Total cost: $31.1 million, easily a record to that point. In 2022 money, a little over $300 million. It would take until 1978, when the 1st Christopher Reeve Superman move was released, for a movie to cost more in straight dollars: $55 million. The current record, in both straight and constant dollars, is Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides: When released in 2011, $378.5 million; with inflation, in 2022, $491.8 million.
Cleopatra premiered at the Rivoli Theatre in New York on June 12, 1963, with an estimated audience of 10,000 spectators congregated outside. Burton and Taylor were not in attendance: They were in London, where Burton was filming Becket, another historical epic. Ticket price: $5.50, a new record. (About $52.50 today. For a movie. A very long movie with very big stars, but a movie, not a live play.)
Reviews were mixed. Some greatly praised the film, others ripped it. A common complaint was that it was too big, that the huge sets and the huge cast dwarfed even those big performers. Perhaps the harshest criticism was this: "They had cut out the heart, the essence, the motivations, the very core, and tacked on all those battle scenes. It should have been about three large people, but it lacked reality and passion. I found it vulgar." The person who made this pronouncement? None other than Elizabeth Taylor.
Having obtained divorces from their respective spouses, Liz and Dick were married on March 15, 1964, at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Montreal. They made 11 films together. Other than Cleopatra, the most notable was a 1966 studio version of Edward Albee's play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Their schedules, their egos (in each case, sometimes strong, sometimes fragile), and their copious drinking led to lots of fights. They divorced in 1974, remarried in 1975 -- making Burton both Taylor's 5th and her 6th husband -- and divorced again in 1976, always in the tabloids.
Burton married twice more, to British model Suzy Miller and British author Sally Hay, who is still alive as of June 12, 2022, and still calls herself Sally Burton. Dick died in 1984, only 58 years old, and Sally kept Taylor and his other ex-wives away from the funeral.
Taylor also married twice more, to Senator John Warner and construction worker Larry Fortensky, and lived until 2011, having won over a new generation of fans through her massive fundraising for research into AIDS treatment and her friendship with singer Michael Jackson -- whom, despite all her health difficulties, she outlived.
Warner died in 2021, the last survivor among Taylor's 8 husbands. Of her children: Michael Wilding Jr. became an actor, specializing in soap operas; Christopher Wilding became a film editor; and Liza Todd and Maria Burton, whom she adopted with Dick, have largely stayed out of the spotlight. Elizabeth Taylor had 10 grandchildren, some of whom have gone into show business.
Cleopatra made more money than any other film that was released in 1963. But it did not quite earn enough to make a profit. So it is widely considered a "bust." It, and the next year's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, helped end the era of historical epics "with a cast of thousands."
And while Cleopatra continues to be a subject explored in historical TV shows with smaller budgets, few films about her have been made since. Chilean actress Leonor Varela starred in an ABC TV-movie in 1999, and Italian superstar Monica Bellucci in a 2002 feature film.
In 1997, Gina Torres, a black New Yorker of Cuban descent, played Cleopatra in an episode of Xena: Warrior Princess, before joining the starring cast of a show produced by the same people, the sci-fi dystopia Cleopatra 2525, but she did not play the character named Cleopatra, who shared a name with the ancient Egyptian queen, and little else.
As of 2022, Patty Jenkins, who directed Israeli actress Gal Gadot in the Wonder Woman films, is trying to put together a new Cleopatra film, to star Gadot.
UPDATE: In an August 2023 interview, Gadot said the project was still in the planning stage, with Jenkins to produce and Kari Skogland to direct: "It’s a beautiful script. We're not rushing ourselves, because you have to be responsible when you deal with such an incredible, iconic, legendary woman."
In March 2025, Universal Pictures announced that the film was still something they wanted to produce. Given everything that goes into making a film, don't expect filming to being prior to 2026, or a release before 2028. Gadot is already older than the real Cleopatra lived to be.
In a 2012 episode of the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History, Angela Trimbur played Cleopatra, against Kimmy Gatewood playing Marilyn Monroe. A 2015 episode featured "Nice" Peter Shukoff as Julius Caesar, against early 19th Century South African Chief Shaka Zulu, played by DeStorm Power. The Cleopatra episode mentioned Caesar, and vice versa.
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June 12, 1963 was a Wednesday. These baseball games were played that day:
* The New York Yankees beat the Baltimore Orioles, 3-2 at Yankee Stadium. Roger Maris singled home the winning run in the bottom of the 10th inning, making Marshall Bridges a winner in relief of Ralph Terry. Mickey Mantle was injured, and did not play. Yogi Berra, in his last season with the Yankees, only appeared as a pinch-hitter, unsuccessfully.
* The New York Mets lost to the Milwaukee Braves, 9-0 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Lew Burdette pitched a 3-hit shutout. Hank Aaron and Del Crandall hit home runs. Duke Snider, playing out the string with the Mets, went 0-for-3, although he did draw a walk.
* The Boston Red Sox beat the Washington Senators, 5-3 at Fenway Park in Boston. Carl Yastrzemski went 1-for-3 with a solo home run.
* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 3-0 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Jim O'Toole pitched a 3-hit shutout. Frank Robinson went 2-for-3 with an RBI. Rookie Pete Rose went 2-for-4. Roberto Clemente went 1-for-4.
* The Cleveland Indians beat the Detroit Tigers, 12-6 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Al Kaline went 3-for-5 with 2 RBIs, but it wasn't enough.
* A doubleheader was split at Comiskey Park in Chicago. The Chicago White Sox won the opener, 3-1. The Los Angeles Angels won the nightcap, 5-0. Former Yankee Cy Young Award winner Bob Turley allowed only 1 hit, a 6th-inning single by Pete Ward.
* A doubleheader was split at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. As Harmon Killebrew went, so went the Minnesota Twins: In the 1st game, he went 0-for-4, and the Kansas City Athletics beat the Twins, 12-4; in the 2nd game, he went 1-for-3 with a home run, 2 walks and 2 RBIs, and the Twins won, 8-1.
* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 6-2 at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. (It had been known as Sportsman's Park from 1909 to 1953.) Stan Musial went 2-for-3 with an RBI.
* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Houston Colt .45s, 9-1 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. (The Colts became the Houston Astros in 1965.)
* And the San Francisco Giants beat the Chicago Cubs, 3-1 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Willie McCovey hit 2 home runs, Willie Mays went 1-for-4, and Ernie Banks went 0-for-3.
