In the spring of 1961, Joe Mancowicz was furiously writing a new screenplay for Cleopatra. But he had a problem. His cast, specifically his leading men. Cleopatra had two great loves in her life. Julius Caesar. Hail Caesar. And Mark Antony. Do you trust this, Mark Antony? Originally, she wanted to rule the world with Caesar. After he was assassinated on the Ides of March, Cleopatra switched to Mark Antony. Actors for the two roles had already been cast by the time Joe took over production. Mark Antony was being played by an Irish actor named Stephen Boyd. It's a Roman world if you want to live in it, you must become part of it. Boyd had just been in Ben Hur, a hugely popular biblical epic from 1959. But when writing Mark Antony, Joe had a specific voice in mind. And it wasn't Stephen Boyd's. It was another actor, a Welsh actor named Richard Burton. What a piece of work is a man. Burton came blazing onto the London theatrical scene in the early 1950s. He made Shakespeare sexy. Patrick Humphries wrote a book about Cleopatra. He was pulling in young people to the classic Shakespeare plays. He was almost like this sort of, you know, James Dean figure. It was incredibly charismatic. Richard Burton had a pockmarked face, dark, messy hair and deep, greenish blue eyes. He was famous for his drinking and for sleeping with his wife. He was famous for sleeping with his leading ladies. But really it was his voice that mesmerized people. Here's Richard in a BBC interview. This extraordinary voice of yours, would you say that in fact it's a kind of Welsh voice? Is it such a thing? Oh yes, it's the deep, dark answer from the values to everybody. I can't help. I can't help the voice. It's far to me and I didn't cultivate or anything. It was given to me. I'm very lucky to possess it, I suppose. There's a great lyricism to the Welsh. It was his Welshness that gave him that depth to his speaking voice and his oratory. To be or not to be. That is the question. Richard grew up poor. His father was a coal miner, his mother a barmaid. They had 13 children together. Richard's mother died when he was just two. As a child, Richard memorized the Bible. In his teenage years, he turned that talent to Shakespeare. Then moved on to London to perform at the Old Vic. Winston Churchill was one of his biggest fans. Richard Burton signed with 20th Century Fox in 1952. He told the BBC why he liked making films. I do it because I rather like being famous. I rather like being given the best seat in the plane, best seat in the restaurant. The character of Mark Antony needed to be sexy, rebellious, a hard drinker. One of these days, you may want to come back. I want to be there that day. I want to stand up in your tears and splash about in them. In Joe's mind, Richard was born to play the part. So Joe asked Spiros Scuros to hire him. Scuros was the president of 20th Century Fox. His response was unequivocal. No, they'd already paid Steven Boyd. But Joe wouldn't let up. He wanted Richard and no one else. So Scuros negotiated. He said yes to casting Richard Burton, but made his own demand. Shooting would begin on September 18th, which was four months away. Not a production this big, that wasn't nearly enough time to get everything ready. Joe hadn't cast Julius Caesar yet. Elizabeth Taylor was still recuperating in Los Angeles. And the script? Not even close, as my Uncle Joe put it. I was down in the hold of this ship, shoveling coal like a son of a bitch. And I said to them, gentlemen, let me finish the script. I'm your host, Ben Mankowitz. You're listening to Season 6 of the Plot Thickens, a podcast from Turner Classic Movies. Each season we bring you an in-depth story about the movies and the people who make them. This season, Cleopatra, how an epic production pushed my Uncle to his breaking point. This is Episode 3. The Girl is on Salary. Episode 3 London to New York, New York to Athens, Athens to Cairo, Cairo to Rome, Rome to London, London to New York, New York to LA. Joe spent the spring of 1961 criss-crossing the globe. All that travel was to scout new locations. Filming in London made no sense. This was the perfect moment to reset. Joe finally made up his mind. He wanted to film in Italy. Because it's warmer, basically. And because it's cheaper to shoot in Rome. This is film historian Scott Eiman. Roman technicians didn't get as much money. It's sunnier. The food's better. There's all sorts of reasons to shoot in Rome. And the wine is also better. Spiros Scuros thought Joe was nuts. Scuros wanted to shoot in Los Angeles. Fox had just blown $5 million in London on Cleopatra Version 1.0. Joe told him, let's do it at Cinecita. Cinecita Film Studios, built in Rome in 1937. Cinecita was Italy's largest studio. Founded by Benino Mussolini. Joe's main selling point was that Cinecita was cheap. Italian crews were non-union. And they had a six-day work week. So Scuros, again reluctantly, agreed to Italy. Cinecita might have been a cheap place to make a movie. But Fox spent a lot of money that summer. Richard Burton's paycheck was $250,000. Plus $50,000 to buy him out of his contract on Broadway. Where he was playing King Arthur in Camelot. Other expenses came as a surprise. For example, they wanted to build the city of Alexandria on the shores of Anzio, 40 miles south of Cinecita. Anzio has beautiful beaches. But it's best known as the site of a bloody battle in 1944 during the Allied invasion of Italy. The Allies stormed the beaches in World War II. And left behind all these live landmines. My cousin Nick Davis says at first nobody on the production knew about these active landmines. When the production crew realizes this, they have to blow up all these landmines and lose however many days or weeks of shooting and build an entirely new replica of Alexandria somewhere else. Another unanticipated expense, Elizabeth Taylor's doctor from Los Angeles. Fox ponied up $25,000 for him to live in Rome for several weeks. And suddenly, there came the date when Elizabeth Taylor was supposed to go on salary. The Fox execs were hounding Joe, finish the script and get filming by September 18th. But Joe wasn't having it. He realized he couldn't possibly finish the script by the 18th with everything he had on his plate. They said, can't you make the script shorter? I said, I can't make the script shorter that I haven't finished yet. I don't have time to write a shorter script. But they did not let up. Filming needed to start on the 18th of September. Turns out there wasn't just some random date. It was the day Elizabeth Taylor began working. The girl is on salary. You've got to start. If shooting didn't start by the 18th, Fox stood to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars a week on Elizabeth alone. So Joe heard this a lot. The girl is on salary. You've got to stop. Of course, it's ridiculous that the men running 20th Century Fox would refer to Elizabeth Taylor as the girl. She was the top paid actress in the world. An Oscar winner, a major box office draw, more powerful in many ways than any of them. But to the suits, she was still the girl. The girl who everything revolved around, including the start date. John DeCure came to Rome to rebuild the ancient temples and statues. On the London shoot, these sets were massive. But my uncle Joe wanted them even bigger this time. He told DeCure to make the Roman Forum three times the size of the actual Roman Forum. It was mind-boggling and breathtaking even to be standing in these sets. That's Martin Landau on the DVD commentary. He played Rufio, a Roman genman. When you got up close to anything, the detail in even the statuary was quite exquisite. You look at the staircase, I mean the width of it, and the kind of finishing and the stones on the floor. And every scene is detailed so carefully and so elegantly. It's astonishing. Patrick Humphries said the costs piled up. There were 30 period buildings painstakingly erected. 26,000 costumes. There was $100,000 spent on paper cups. They cost so much that eventually someone posted a sign in the studio commissary. In the interest of economy it read, we would encourage you to share your paper cups. I haven't even gotten to the props. Crowns, sceptres, daggers, everything custom made. Goblets were forged out of fiberglass then laced with gold leaf and faux gemstones. But what really blows my mind are the wigs. They spent thousands and thousands of dollars on wigs for the Roman centunions, but you couldn't see the wigs because they were all wearing helmets. It was just madness. September 1st rolled around. The wigs and the props and the sets weren't finished. September 8th? Still not done. Same with September 15th. September 18th finally came, but the sets weren't up to Joe's standards. Spiros Scuros gave him one more week. That's it. He told Joe, time's up. You roll film on the 25th. They said to me, you got to stop money because we stopped paying to go to money. And I said, we are not ready. You see, when you start a film, when you start a big production like that, it's like starting an invasion of France. You better have the goddamn tanks ready. My uncle Joe had his Cleopatra and his Marc Antony. But what about Caesar? Peter Finch, a highly respected English actor, was originally cast as Caesar, but Finch got him a little bit sick of all the waiting around and left the production. Walter Wanger, the producer, suggested a replacement. Joe agreed. The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain. Rex Harrison was enjoying a career revival after creating the role of Professor Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady. He played it first on Broadway, then on London's West End. Rex had a long face with beady eyes. And like Richard Burton, one of the all-time great voices. Every night before you get into bed, where you used to say your prayers, I want you to say the rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain 50 times. Rex Harrison was a concierge actor. Very used to cinema for many years, delivers some great performances. Not an easy man. It could be temperamental. He was very arrogant. He rubbed people up the wrong way on an hourly basis. I think that Rex and Joe have a love-hate relationship. Joe's agent, Robbie Lance, compared Rex to a very fine, very expensive musical instrument. Rex Harrison, I'd say, is an incredible master of high comedy. The marvelous performer is a selfish rock, a spoiled son of a bitch. To Joe, Rex is what, to high-feds, must be study-virus, you know. And it may be cumbersome to carry, and it's high to ensure, but it's irresistible as an instrument. Rex Harrison officially joined the cast to play Julius Caesar just days before the start of shooting. He was 53, no spring chicken, and almost 24 years older than Elizabeth Taylor. His salary was $10,000 a week, plus expenses. And even though Julius Caesar is assassinated halfway through the film, Rex was promised star billing, right up there with Liz and Richard Burton. Rex came on board not having read a script. That's because no one had read a script. We all took it on faith because it was Joe. I hadn't seen a word. Burton hadn't seen a word. And we were really banking on Mankiewicz. Everyone was banking on Mankiewicz. That's after the break. There was a big party the night before the first day of shooting. Joe wanted to spend the night writing, but felt the need to show up, make an appearance. Joe's secretary, Adelaide Wallace, remembers that night. She and Joe stopped by Chinachita to double-check the set. And he looked at it and he said, no way. Joe was inspecting the interior of an Egyptian temple. Cleopatra and her high priestess were supposed to be filmed praying there the next morning. But Joe didn't like what he saw, not at all. He immediately called his crew to fix the set, which they did. That's one thing the Italians are good at. They don't call up the union boss and say, can I do it? They do it. The next day, my uncle wrote in his diary, Monday, September 25, 1961. Shoot day number one. Start Cleopatra exclamation point. Studio at 9.30. Rex Harrison off to a good-natured start. Miss Taylor late, even with 1 p.m. shooting call. First shot at 2.20. Whenever my uncle felt annoyed about the shooting, he referred to her as Miss Taylor. Miss Taylor late, even with a 1 p.m. shooting call. That's how Cleopatra began. One year, one hour, and 20 minutes late. Already $5 million over budget. And Miss Taylor arriving well past her 1 p.m. shooting call. But when Miss Taylor finally did walk in front of the camera, her look was striking. I summoned you yesterday to an audience in my throne room. When audiences first got a look at the Cleopatra makeup, they were probably bowled over by the glamour of it. This is Rysa Britannia. I did my Cleopatra eye for you today, but I toned it down. Rysa is the author of Moxie, the daring women of classic Hollywood. She's a fashion historian and a big fan of Cleopatra's eye shadow. She wears an exaggerated winged eyeliner that extends past the eye onto the temple, dramatically arched eyebrows, and just a swath of blue eye shadow from her famous double lash line all the way up to the crook of her brow. And legend has it. It took her two hours to put this makeup on. Every day they shot. Colorful makeup was actually common in ancient Egypt. So Elizabeth's iconic makeup was quite possibly historically accurate. And Liz herself likely had a hand in designing it. It's commonly known that Elizabeth Taylor liked to do her own makeup for her films. She knew what shades of blue eye shadow and her eye shadow were the most common. The shades of blue eye shadow would best feature the unique color of her eyes. On that first day of shooting, Cleopatra kneels in front of a fire. Julius Caesar stands quietly by. An Egyptian high priestess looks into the fire. A sun shall be born to Isis. A sun shall be born to Isis. Cleopatra leans her head forward close to the ground. She's overjoyed at this news. She takes Caesar by hand, stands up, and they walk off set. In his diary, my uncle wrote, Good day's work all considered. The first two days of filming went well enough. Joe got the shots he needed. The next day was a different story. Joe wrote in his diary Wednesday, September 27th. No shooting, that's in caps. Officially called rehearsal day, he continued. Actually, no set is ready. I can take the rap for going over schedule, just as I will go over the absurd and unrealistic budget, which cannot possibly be met. Instead of shooting, Joe used the day to work on the script in his hotel room. The day after that, things got worse. Thursday, September 28th, shoot day three. A disorganized, squeltering set. Miss Taylor in a snit about some adverse publicity. Miss Taylor to leave at five, having started theoretically at one to receive an award. Air conditioners requested by me weeks ago will be here, Domani. Amicrade, move to position one for rehearsal. When it got really hot, Joe walked around shirtless. I found a picture of him on the set of Cleopatra. He's wearing high-waisted pants, a bucket hat. He's got a pipe in his mouth, but no shirt. It is quite a look. He's also wearing a necklace. It looks like a little coin, but when I zoom in, I can see it's actually a St. Christopher Medal. It was a gift from his production secretary, Rosemary Matthews. She was very close to my uncle. St. Christopher is the patron saint of travelers. The medal is supposed to protect people who go on journeys. My uncle Joe was not Catholic, but maybe he figured on this movie, he'd take all the help he could get. On Thursday, October 12th, rehearsals started the biggest scene in the movie. What they call the money-shotting Cleopatra is Cleopatra's entry into Rome. Joe's plan went like this. Create a stunning sight for the people of Rome as Cleopatra arrives in the city for the first time. They'd shoot it on the outdoor set of the Forum, Rome's largest gathering place. Extras were hired to play the Romans clamoring to see Cleopatra. Thousands of screaming extras. And to this day, nobody's sure how many extras there actually were. Joe wanted trumpeters on horseback announcing Cleopatra's arrival. They'd be followed by an over-the-top entourage, animals, dancers, acrobats. Joe understood the magnitude of the moment. He wrote in his diary, the size of it staggering. Then a massive wooden black sphinx would enter the Forum. Let me clarify here. A moving sphinx. It was on wheels, 35 feet high, 70 feet long, pulled by rows of Egyptian slaves, hundreds of them. High atop the sphinx, Cleopatra, sitting on a golden throne. When Cleopatra processes into Rome, she is wearing perhaps the most iconic look in the film, which is gold from head to toe and topped with a really, really extravagant headdress. Risa Britannia again. She's wearing a pretty show-stopping cape that was designed to resemble the wings of a phoenix. And this cape is said to be made from gold leather and then embroidered with thousands upon thousands of gold bugle beads and seed beads. That was the plan. Given the complicated logistics, Joe scheduled two days of rehearsal. Managing the animals alone was a nightmare. Adelaide Wallace says they hired a local circus troupe to supply elephants for women to ride into Rome. They kept swearing, yes, they were trained. They would walk trunk to tail. Well, the damn elephants came and they didn't know their front from their end. They were not trained at all. Nobody had time to train them. They built a tent for them. They broke out of the tent and knocked down fences. It was horrible. Joe used every minute of rehearsal, making decisions on the fly and solving problems as quickly as possible. On Monday, October 16th, it was time for the cameras to roll. My uncle wrote in his diary, on forums set at 8.15 a.m. Taylor, half an hour late, decided not to ignore it, showed my annoyance. Everyone is on set. The entire cast, the crew, the extras, the animals, filming begins. First, the trumpeters, followed by soldiers riding chariots, archers shooting arrows high into the sky, ribbon dancers, and what are supposed to be African tribal dancers. Most of the female dancers were basically naked. The scene feels very operatic, but it also feels very Las Vegas to me. There are some showgirls amongst those dancers for sure. Nothing like this has come into Rome since Romulus and Remus. Rex Harrison and Richard Burton were there, waiting for Elizabeth's grand entry. There were Black Panthers and there were elephants and 80 Nubian slaves who weren't black enough, so they were painted blacker than they were. This is Richard from a 1983 documentary. There were 40 dwarfs painted as zebras, sitting on 40 donkeys also painted as zebras, so they had to start 2 o'clock in the morning making up these people. And the dancers had been rehearsing for months. And so Joe Mankiewicz, the director, said, OK, Roland, we had something like, I think, five cameras going, man, the whole thing starts, the music starts, the tambourines go, and all come the dancers, and the panthers and the elephants, these thousands of extras, and suddenly Joe Mankiewicz said, cut, cut, cut, tell him it. He said, get that guy out of here. There was a chap selling ice cream in the crowd. Filming continued into the next day. Just five seconds of footage took hours to set up. They finished filming the acrobats when the skies opened up. Rain delayed shooting for two more days. When the rain finally stopped, Joe found that water had damaged the sets. They couldn't resume filming until the following Wednesday. When they started back up, the rain returned. 20th Century Fox was told that it didn't rain a great deal at that time of year in Europe. Martin Landau remembers everyone being surprised, except the locals. The Italians, in this instance, did not tell the entire truth, and it does rain a lot, and quite a tempestuous rain storm that occurred, you know, for days and days and days. Coordinating this kind of scene is incredibly challenging. To set all that up and then call it on account of rain must have been demoralizing. Not to mention expensive. Every rain delay cost Fox between $40,000 and $75,000. Finally, they gave up. They decided to shoot the scene again in the spring. So the end of production was now delayed by months. While Uncle Joe kept at it, he filmed during the day, weather permitting, and rode at night. Some days, sets weren't ready on time, so Joe improvised reluctantly. Friday, October 20th, a nonsensical quote-unquote shooting day, one of those idiotic as long as we're working or let's get something on film days. Watched rushes, still not overjoyed. In fact, depressed. One of Joe's hardest jobs was managing the cast. He was thrilled with Richard Burton's performance, but Miss Taylor was always late, and Rex Harrison was either a dream or a nightmare. Monday, October 30th, Harrison incapable of remembering his lines. I used every psychiatric approach this side of shock treatment. Rex was not known as being the most pleasant fellow in the world, but dad got along with him. They were both very intellectual people. That's Joe's son, Tom Mankiewicz, on the Cleopatra DVD commentary. Tom, who later became a successful writer and director himself, visited the Cleopatra set while on break from college. They would have disagreements. I remember at one point, Rex had to say, the army is arriving on schedule as Caesar, and he said, the army is arriving on schedule, and after the first take, dad said, you know, Rex, maybe you should say schedule. It's a little jarring to have the British pronunciation. And Rex said, well, it is schedule. I mean, it can't be anything else but schedule. And dad said, well, I really wish you'd say schedule. And the script supervisor was standing there and said, well, which is it going to be? And dad said, let him say whatever he learned in shul. Around this time, just a month into production, executives at Fox started writing to Joe, asking what could be trimmed from the budget. Joe had to justify every decision he made. With the pressure on him intensifying, my uncle started to self-medicate. There was somebody who would wake me up at six o'clock and I would gulp down a dexadrine. Dexadrine is a stimulant. It's like caffeine on steroids. After lunch, I would be given a shot to keep me going in the afternoon. I was then given a shot after dinner, before I could write until about two in the morning. I was then given a shot to put me to sleep at about two o'clock in the morning. At Judy Garland? Well, I was given shots, alternate shots, to wake me up and put me to sleep, because I would write at night and shoot the next day. Why would you let them do this to you physically? There was no other... Who else was going to do it? While Joe stayed up all hours writing, his cast was having a blast. They'd go out to eat, drink, smoke, cavort. The dollar was strong against the Italian lira, and every production delay meant another week of salary. Perhaps the man having the best time of all was Richard Burton. He had a real drink problem. At the time, there was this group of actors called Hellraises. Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Oliver Reed, Peter O'Toole, legendary drinkers, and Burton was up there with the best of them. One of the reasons Richard Burton liked making movies was that it gave him more time to drink. For him, film was an easy option. I mean, you didn't have to remember whole chunks of speech. You could do one, two, three-minute shots, and then move on to the next thing. Plenty of time for drinking between, you know. Richard regularly stayed out late, sometimes with his wife, sometimes with another woman. The next morning, he'd show up to set completely wasted, or still drinking, or with a hangover, like he did when he filmed his first one-on-one scene with Elizabeth Taylor. You're quite sure what it is you want? So, desperately? I've always been true. It was Monday, January 22, 1962. They were on a set called Cleopatra's Villa. The plan was to shoot close-ups and reaction shots. Elizabeth told Larry King she knew Richard's reputation as a womanizer. I'd met him before, but I thought, I'm not going to be a scalp on his belt, because he was a terrible flirt. And the first scene we had on Cleopatra, he was so hungover, he was pathetic. He drank a lot. No kidding. Oh, well, it's what you want to do. And I felt my heart just went, oh, poor baby. Richard was trying to chase away his headache with a cup of coffee. He said, could you help hold this cup up to my lips, please? My hands are shaking too much. So I did, and I looked into those green eyes, and it was like... Ah! Belt, here I am. That is how the affair of the century started. A hangover, a trembling hand, and a cup of coffee. I had a scene with Richard, and we were the only two actors on call. One of their co-stars, Martin Landau, remembers exactly when he found out. I walked into makeup at 7.30 in the morning, and Elizabeth was sitting in a makeup department. I mean, there were days with, or with 10,000 people, but there were days where we were all dressed up. There were people, but there were days where we were two actors. And then I went back into the chair, and I said, what the heck is she doing here? You know, it was very early in the morning. Richard came in, said, Morning, Martin, went to her, kissed her on the forehead, and sat down in the chair next to me, and I said, oh, boy. Oh, my God. MUSIC We'll be back after the break. MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC Richard and I fell in love on the set of Cleopatra, and we tried not to. That's Elizabeth Taylor on Larry King. Was Cleopatra a difficult shoot? Very. Considering that we were in love and trying not to show it. The truth is, there was already a lot of gossip on set about whether Liz and Richard were having an affair. Joe learned it wasn't a rumor on Friday, January 26, 1962. He wrote this in his diary, before lunch, heard from Elizabeth about her problems. Elizabeth came to him and said, I think there's something you should know, Richard and I are in love. Sidney Stern is the author of The Brothers' Mankiewicz. And Joe immediately said, well, don't tell Eddie Fisher. Keep it out of your marriage. And she goes, oh, it's too late. And I told him. Eddie Fisher, Elizabeth's fourth husband, he started calling Joe for advice almost every night. Joe, the father figure slash therapist, becomes the counselor for all of them. Eddie called Joe. Richard called Joe. Elizabeth called Joe. He was surrounded on all sides by this love triangle. His diary entries are riddled with notes about their therapy sessions. Saturday, February 3, early call from Eddie Fisher. He was about to take off for Paris, depressed and unhappy. Then Elizabeth, she said, after five months of this, I'll either be with Fisher or Burton or kill myself. My guess, none of the three. I don't think Burton had any concept at what he was getting into. In his memoir, Eddie Fisher said he hated Richard Burton. I thought he was an arrogant slob. He once marched into the makeup trailer and pronounced loudly, I have just fucked Elizabeth Taylor in the backseat of my car. One night, Elizabeth came home late. Richard was with her. Eddie invited him in. We sat down in a little office off the dining room, and there he played one of the great scenes of his life. He was bold, he was dramatic, forceful, but mostly he was drunk. The three of them, husband, wife and lover, continued to drink for hours. One bottle of brandy after another. Finally, Richard confronted Elizabeth. He looked right at her and snarled, Elizabeth, who do you love? Who do you love? She looked at me, then at Burton, and said softly to him, you. That's the right answer, he snapped. Eddie and I were not in love. My marriage was already falling apart. Elizabeth was torn, not because of Eddie, because Richard was married. I did not want to break up. Richard's married to Sybil, who was an extraordinary woman. Sybil Williams and Richard Burton married in 1949. The two met on a film set and had been together for close to 15 years. They had two young daughters. Liz already had a reputation as a homewrecker, and Eddie, of course, left Debbie Reynolds to be with Liz. Elizabeth hated the idea of splitting up another family, but saying no to Richard was particularly difficult. Richard, when he wanted to turn on the charm, was the most captivating guy in the world. He was a man's man and a lady's man. That's my cousin again, Tom Mankiewicz. Men wanted to be Richard, and women wanted to sleep with him, and he had a reputation. Joe thought Richard was out for conquest. He made up his mind to get hard. I don't think Elizabeth went out to break up Burton's home, or went out to get Richard Burton. I think she fell in love with him, yes. He was a goddamn attractive guy and was capable of making up all the money with what he did. But I think that Richard went out to make a fall in love with him and succeeded. Joe was living every director's nightmare. His two married leads were having an affair, and he was the one who had to keep it secret. Basically an impossible task. Elizabeth and Richard had all this pent-up passion, and they were playing lovers on screen. This is Fox publicist Jack Brodsky on the DVD commentary. One day when Richard and Elizabeth were doing a love scene, Joe said cut, and they didn't stop. And he said cut. He finally had to shout cut for the two of them to realize what they were doing. When he couldn't take it any longer, Joe confided in producer Walter Wanger. Film professor Matthew Bernstein says Joe asked Wanger to come to his hotel room and come alone. Joseph Mankiewicz told Wanger, I've been sitting on a volcano all alone for too long, and I want to give you some facts you ought to know. He said Liz and Burton are not just playing Anthony in Cleopatra. Wanger's biggest concern was that the affair would upset Taylor. Burton might do something or somehow it wouldn't go well, and it would upset her so she couldn't act and keep working on the film. Telling Wanger took some of the burden off Joe. Now Elizabeth, Richard and Eddie had someone else to call with their problems. Wanger remembers Eddie calling a lot. He was in horrible shape. Wanger was worried he could get violent. There's a story which I can't confirm that he pulled a gun on Burton. Burton took the gun out of his hand. It was a crisis situation. Elizabeth Taylor confirmed that Eddie had a gun. In an HBO documentary, she said she felt threatened. Eddie at night time would sit up and he had a gun. Every time I'd start to close my eyes or nod out, you would like stroke my arm and say, I'm not going to kid you. I wouldn't shoot you, you're much pretty. All night long. Eddie never used his gun. He later said he wouldn't even know how to use it. Instead, on Valentine's Day, Eddie skipped town, drove to Switzerland in a green Rolls Royce. As soon as he was gone, Elizabeth and Richard turned up the heat. They were like love struck kids. Richard at 36, Liz at 29. They'd scurry off together every lunch, every camera set up. Joe wrote in his diary that Liz even showed up to work when she wasn't in a scene. Wednesday, February 14th. Miss Taylor, surprise, surprise, a visitor to the set before the lunch break. I wonder why. And then he went on. After lunch, the disaster, the news from Burton that Eddie Fisher had called Sybil and told her every detail of what was and had been going on. Sybil responded by storming one of the set and confronting Burton. Mankowitz suspended production for the day at a cost of $100,000. Richard was outraged. On the phone, he threatened to kill Eddie. Eddie in a panic called Joe. Joe promised he wouldn't get killed. Thursday, February 15th, Joe wrote, Taylor and Burton both reported they were too ill to work, spoke to Burton, deep Welsh remorse. He too wants to come see me. I must get an appointment book. My prognosis, the situation cannot be cured. Taylor is a very sick woman. She deeply wants disaster, particularly to herself. Sybil Burton gave her husband an ultimatum. Leave Liz or I'm out of here. So Richard told Elizabeth it's over. Liz didn't take the news well. The next morning, Wanger and Joe went to Elizabeth's villa. Liz talked for most of the day. She felt dreadful about Sybil. Around five that evening, Elizabeth excused herself and headed upstairs. After a few minutes, Wanger went up to check on her. She was in bed, looking exhausted. She told him she took sleeping pills. Someone on staff called an ambulance. No one is quite sure if this was a suicide attempt. Years later, Liz called it a cry for help. She claimed she took enough to knock herself out, but that's it. Again, Tom Mankiewicz. It was touch and go there for a while and they called Dad to come down to the hospital. And he leaned in and he said to her, Elizabeth, how many did you take? How many did you take? And she mumbled something like 14. And he said she'll be fine. She could count them. Joe was right. Elizabeth would be fine. But she was out of commission for the next few days. And then things got really messy. We had kept this whole affair under wraps. There were rumors, but nobody could print them. And then, Mankiewicz, the Italian press, was circling. They offered to pay crew members for scoops. There were whispers of spies on the set. I said to Joe one day, how can you be so placid when all of this is happening? And he gave me a great phrase. He said, when you're in a cage with lions, you never let them know that you're afraid of them or they'll eat you. But a couple of days later, February 19th, 1962, the press finally got what they were waiting for. I saw a Burton's publicist and he said to me, I'm going to straighten all this out. I'm going to have a press conference and deny it. I said, don't deny it. That'll give them cause to print it. And as he walked away, it looked to me like a guy with a match walking into a forest. The set of fire and it's surely that's exactly what happened. The denial turned a rumor into a story, something they could print. After that, photographers started stalking both Elizabeth and Richard. And a couple of weeks later, one of the paparazzi hit pay dirt. The 1988 press, the press, and the press, The 988 suicide and crisis lifeline is for individuals in crisis or for those looking to help someone in crisis. Speak with a trained listener called 988. For more information, visit 988lifeline.org. Angela Carone is our director of podcasts. Story editor is Rob Rosenthal. Yaakov Friedman is our senior producer. Script writing by Yaakov Friedman, Natalia Winkleman, and Angela Carone. Research and fact checking by the indispensable James Sheridan. Audio editing and sound design by Mike Volgaris. Mixing by Glenn Mutulo. Production support from Liz Winter, Allison Fire, Matthew Ownby, Julie Beton, Emma Morris, Jordan Chips, Nicole Hill, and David Corwin in Patches. Thanks to our legal team, John Renau and Kristen Hassel. The following TCM staffers help us get the word out about our podcast. So thank you to Alina Novick, Katie Daniels, David Byrne, Diana Bosch, Caroline Wigmore, Michelle Height, and Stephanie Thames. Our executive producer is Charlie Tavish. And a special thank you to the Archivists at the American Film Institute, the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, and Boston University. We could not make these podcasts without the work of Archivists around the country. Special thanks to my family, especially my cousins, Alex Mankiewicz and Nick Davis. I regret that I never got to interview my cousins Tom and Chris Mankiewicz. They died before we started production. Thomas Avery of Tune Welders composed our theme music. I'm your host, Ben Mankiewicz. Thanks for listening. See you next time.
