This has nothing to do with me. You son of a bitch. This is me. This is all about me. It was late June 1962 when my uncle Joe Mankiewicz finally erupted in anger. Every fucking thing that's happened has happened to me. Joe lost it while filming Elizabeth Taylor's final scene. When it came time to shoot Richard Burton's last scene a month later, things got even worse for Joe. They'd wrapped production in Rome. Joe and a small crew were now shooting in Egypt in the desert outside Alexandria. At the first light of the day, they would attack. Richard Burton was nailing every scene, but my uncle, he was in rough shape. He'd been writing at night and directing during the day for 10 straight months, and July in Egypt was especially hot. Some days over 100 degrees. Joe still needed a dexadrine shot to wake up, then another shot in the afternoon to keep going. Joe had gotten so many shots on Cleopatra, he was a walking pincushion. On the second to last day of filming, Joe got a shot in his rear end. It missed the mark. The nurse that hit the cyanic nerve, and I just couldn't walk, and it was an agony. So much agony, Joe was forced to use a wheelchair, which was not ideal for getting around in the desert. On the way to the set, John DeCure says Joe needed to be carried on a stretcher. I'm walking alongside of the stretcher. He's scribbling a little thing. He's writing. I said, Joe, how's it going? He said, I'm writing the last page. Script was still being written the last day when we carried Joe on a stretcher across the sands of Alexandria. I remember him being dragged through the sand and plopped out in his chair, and I thought, oh my god, is this ever going to end? I was really seriously concerned for his health. It is hard to get that image out of my head. My uncle Joe, 53 years old, younger than I am now, in so much pain, he couldn't walk, willing himself to see this through, to finish the movie. And he did. Somehow. The final shot was a simple one. Richard Burton, all alone in the desert. Here's my cousin, Tom. And dad held the slate. And on the slate, the scene number that was being shot, it just said, this bleep is through. Joe's job, though, wasn't finished. He still had post-production to deal with. This movie had already pushed him harder than any he'd ever made. He'd lost his cool. He'd lost the use of his legs. And though he didn't know it yet, Joe Mankiewicz was about to lose his movie. I'm your host, Ben Mankiewicz. You are 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 5, Mankiewicz vs. Zanuck. While Joe's body was falling apart, so was 20th Century Fox. The stock was in the toilet. Profits were down 53% from the previous year. Ticket sales were dismal. The company was on the brink of collapse. The studio's board of directors needed someone to blame. It was the end of Spyrus Scouris as head of 20th Century Fox. Under his direction, production losses had come to some $70 million in five years. $70 million in losses. And that didn't include the budget for Cleopatra, which was still climbing and climbing. Film historian Scott Eiman. They were in for $30 million. That's $30 million in 1962. In today's dollars, that's $319 million. Just for Cleopatra. This is unheard of. People clutched their chests and called for oxygen. I mean, God, the wind cost four. Scouris had been, without mincing words, a complete catastrophe. One man in particular kept bad mouthing Scouris. Darryl F. Zanuck. We are in the New York office of Darryl F. Zanuck, producer of The Longest Day. Darryl Zanuck looked like a chipmunk. He was small. He was about five, six, five, seven. He had a gap between his teeth. He had a high-pitched voice. Ladies and gentlemen, this June 6th. He was the archetypal cigar-chomping studio head. He would walk around the lot at Fox with a riding crop. When he was in a conference with writers or producers, he paced back and forth, slamming the riding crop against his leg. He thought he was Napoleon, and he kind of was. But make no mistake, Zanuck knew how to make movies. He could motivate. He could produce. He could direct writers. He could direct directors. And especially, he was good in the cutting room. And he could run a company. How many guys could do that? Zanuck had it in for Scouris, and he had a personal reason. He was about to release a World War II epic called The Longest Day. There it is, man. Omaha Beach, dead ahead. Zanuck thought Scouris would screw up the release, and he said as much to the Fox board of directors. No doubt Scouris was rubbing his worry beads. So the board called a meeting. But before they could vote, Scouris resigned, claiming health reasons. He just had prostate surgery, and he was tired. 20th Century Fox needed a new CEO. I think it played to his element of Napoleon returning from Elba and saving the Third Republic. He had formed a studio, been by God, he would save it. Zanuck wasted no time consolidating power. He took over Fox's New York office and fired a slew of executives. Then he put his own son in charge of production. While Zanuck was slashing and burning, my uncle Joe flew to Los Angeles, still in his wheelchair. It was August 6th, and he was there to edit Cleopatra. When Joe arrived, the Fox Studio lot was a ghost town. Zanuck had shut down every production. It was depressing. My cousin, Nick Davis, wrote the book, Competing with Idiots, about Herman and Joe Mankiewicz. Nick says Joe was relieved that Zanuck had taken over. Zanuck came in to run the studio. Joe felt like, okay, good, now there's a picture maker in charge, and we're going to get this done. But editing Cleopatra was going to be tough. Joe's screenplay topped out at 466 pages. Most two-hour movies are around 120 pages. Joe shot over 600,000 feet of film, a ton of footage. He had to go through all of it, choosing the best takes, the best angles. He worked with an editor nonstop for nine weeks. Then in early October, Zanuck demanded Joe come to Paris. That's where Zanuck was living at the time. The new boss wanted to see Cleopatra. Joe flew to Paris on October 11th. He brought with him 25 heavy reels of film. It was a rough cut of the movie. The sound wasn't perfect, and it didn't have music yet. It was what Hollywood called a work print. Joe actually walked off the plane, which was a big deal. His legs had mostly recovered during his two months in LA. Joe had two things on his agenda. First, he had to re-record dialogue with Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and Rex Harrison, who were also in Paris. Second, he needed to sell Zanuck on his vision, and it was a bold vision. Joe wanted Cleopatra to be two movies, an epic movie with an epic sequel. Scorus was going to let me cut the two films, so everybody was going to make infinitely more money out of the two films, and it was going to be a terribly exciting thing to do. The story had a natural split. Cleopatra's two loves, Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. In essence, each leading man would get his own film. The first movie ended with the death of Caesar. The second movie was the rest of the plot, ending with the death of Anthony and Cleopatra. Today, studios would love this idea. Two movies for the price of one? Heck, nowadays, studios would want three movies, or four. They'd consider this the start of a franchise. They'd call it the sword and sandal cinematic universe, or some bullshit like that. Michael Joe was ahead of his time. I mean, that's seriously. Joe pitched his idea to Zanuck, writing in his diary, Saturday, October 13th, my first meeting with Zanuck at his home, at his peak of megalomania. Zanuck rejected the idea of releasing the film in two parts. Zanuck said, you know, no one's going to want to watch Rex Harrison making love to Elizabeth Taylor for an entire movie, and then pay again to see the one that we want to see with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. He said, no, this is going to be one movie. People are not going to get two sales out of this. On the DVD commentary, my cousin Chris Mankiewicz says there was another reason to make only one film. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton were on the tips of everybody's tongue around the world. There was tremendous interest to see this movie. So there was a great rush to get it out to the public as soon as possible. Plus, Fox needed the money and needed it fast. They were closed down. They were in financial trouble, and everybody was dying to see what these two great lovers looked like on the screen. Joe held out hope. Maybe Zanuck would change his mind once he saw the two films. Joe held a screening at the Bologna Studios in Paris. Bologna was a small studio, and its screening room wasn't big either. My uncle was anxious about showing Cleopatra in such a small room. He'd shot it in widescreen in beautiful, vibrant color. It was meant to be seen in a huge theater in front of a crowd. Instead, Joe had an unfinished print in a cramped little room. The only audience was a few jaded studio executives Zanuck brought with him. Joe sat near the back, smoking his pipe. The first half of the movie began at 7.30 p.m. Part one finished well after 10. Then Joe made an unforced error. He wrote in his diary, Zanuck thought we should see the second half tomorrow. Mistakenly, I urged the group to return after dinner. During dinner, Zanuck spoke about his war movie The Longest Day. It had just opened to great reviews. Nobody said a word about Cleopatra. By the time they finished dinner and returned to the screening room, it was nearly midnight. The second half of Cleopatra ended at 2.15 in the morning. The lights went up and Zanuck turned around and he says, if any woman ever acted to me the way you have her acted to him, I'd cut her balls off. In Joe's Cleopatra, Elizabeth Taylor totally dominates Richard Burton's Mark Antony. Zanuck hated it. Richard did some beautiful work. He had some marvelous scenes of self-pity, you know, mortals and drunken self-pity. There were some marvelous things that Richard Burton did that Zanuck just didn't tolerate. In other words, if you came to Dara with a picture in which a woman dominated a man that completely, Dara couldn't tolerate it. He couldn't tolerate it. And Zanuck came to the conclusion that a boring four-hour movie is better than a boring six-hour movie. This has to be one picture. It's going to be four hours, one movie, not two movies, three hours a piece, one movie of four hours. Zanuck made his decision, but he didn't tell Joe. Instead, he strung Joe along saying he needed a couple of days to crystallize his thoughts. Those were Zanuck's exact words. I need to crystallize my thoughts. So Joe went away, uneasy to say the least, and waited for a response and waited and waited. Sidney Stern is the author of The Brothers' Mankowitz. She says Joe called Zanuck's office repeatedly. And when he called to ask, his assistant would say he's crystallizing his thoughts. This went on for days. And Joe is getting more and more upset and frightened. What he did not know was that Zanuck had called his editor and brought in his own editor, and they were re-editing already behind his back. Re-editing a movie without the director's consent is considered the ultimate betrayal in Hollywood. Zanuck was 60 years old, and he'd been working in movies since he was 20. He surely knew he was breaking one of the cardinal rules of filmmaking. Joe was in the dark about what Zanuck was up to. But he had his suspicions. Friday, October 19th, I mistrust the entire situation. I think Zanuck intends to take over, but only after I have finished dubbing with the three stars. Joe kept busy recording dialogue and visiting with the cast. He had drinks with Elizabeth and Richard. One night, Joe met up with Audrey Hepburn and her husband, the actor Mel Ferrer. Audrey was in Paris filming charade with Cary Grant. Joe wrote in his diary, a fine dinner with Audrey and Mel at their absolutely enchanting villa. I find her not very bright, but then neither is Mel. A week after the screening in Paris, Zanuck finally responded with a letter that blamed Joe for pretty much everything. It's all your fault. You shot it without having a script. There's so much waste, etc., etc., which was just shocking to Joe because he had already told Zanuck that it was just a travesty to have been shooting without a screenplay. He had big scarus to shut down filming more than once over the years that they'd been doing it. Zanuck knew that perfectly well, so it's bad enough to be castigated for something, but when it's the opposite of what you did, it was just devastating to him. Joe wrote in his diary, Sunday, October 21st, a long missive from Zanuck, an incoherent outline of his plans for re-editing Cleopatra, then into a wild account of my complete responsibility for the cost of Cleopatra and winding up with a curt termination of my services after I finished the dubbing. Cleopatra was now in the hands of Daryl F. Zanuck. Joe described it as an act of piracy, and he was pissed. Joe realized if this film was going to be his movie, he needed to fight for it. That's coming up. Joe was stuck in a hotel room in Paris, seething. He was furious at Zanuck. Joe considered Cleopatra a work in progress, and now he was blocked from working on it. So Joe attacked. He went public to defend himself. Two days after getting fired, Joe told the New York Times what happened, how Cleopatra had been taken from him, how Zanuck shut him out and then fired him for failing to control the budget, which wasn't his job. It was just devastating to him. And remember, he's in a physical and mental and psychological state of devastation to begin with. Elizabeth Taylor also came out swinging. She told the New York Times, I'm terribly upset. Mr. Mankiewicz took Cleopatra over when it was nothing, when it was rubbish, and he made something out of it. He certainly should have been given the chance to cut it. Zanuck had heard enough. He flew to New York to Fox headquarters in Manhattan. On Friday, October 26th, Zanuck invited reporters to his office. Anyway, to begin with, I do thank you for coming. He sat behind a desk covered with screenplays and ashtrays. He lit a cigar, then mounted his defense. Zanuck had a press conference, and it basically accused Joe of megalomania and trying to have the final cut. In a job where you hire or you fire people, sometimes you have to step on their toes if you believe you're right. This is Zanuck a couple of months later, talking about his clash with Joe. I suppose I can be very savage, but I believe I have retained respect even in moments of violence that always comes when creative people clash. Joe had known Zanuck could be savage, but he'd never been on the receiving end of it before. The two were never close pals, but once upon a time, Joe and Zanuck had a strong working relationship. Zanuck was the man who hired Joe to direct after years of being a frustrated producer. Their first major hit together was a letter to Three Wives. The winner is Joseph Elmanckis for a letter to Three Wives. But before it became an Oscar winner, a letter to Three Wives was a mess. My father could not get the screenplay down properly. Here's Joe's son Chris. And he went to Zanuck and he said, Darrell, I don't know what the hell I can do about this script. I've tried and tried and tried and I've shortened every scene. This doesn't work. And the script which was then known as a letter to Four Wives, Zanuck said, it's very simple, my dear boy. Just take out one of the wives. Brilliant. And that idea which he credits Zanuck of having had saved the movie. I've been a good wife. The best wife your money could buy. Strictly cash and carry. The next year, Joe name dropped Zanuck in his next Oscar winner, all about Eve. It was a tip of the hat, a way to honor him. I start shooting a week from Monday. Zanuck is impatient. He wants me. He needs me. Zanuck, Zanuck, Zanuck, what are you two lovers? Only in some ways. When Zanuck came back to Fox in 1962, Joe worried he wasn't getting the same Darrell Zanuck he used to work with, the super producer from the 1940s who helped Joe so much on the letter to Three Wives and all about Eve. According to Joe, Zanuck had changed. But does Zanuck in Paris, he'd made one picture after another with one French flusie after another, which was disastrous. One after another. He caught lightning in a bottle with this dreary documentary called The Longest Day. This revived all of his ego, but none of the talent. He was a completely changed man. He was not remotely Zanuck, because I'd known him. And to make matters worse, Joe couldn't even get Zanuck on the phone to talk about this like adults. Instead, the two of them continued fighting in the press. Joe had a competing press conference and tried to push back and Zanuck responded. Zanuck told reporters that a little bit of Caesar had rubbed off on Joe. Joe responded, saying he and Caesar had met a very similar end. In public, Joe was witty behind the scenes and he felt humiliated. Because he was portrayed and continues to be portrayed as the director of the film that broke 20th Century Fox. But ultimately, it was Fox's movie, not Mancoitz's. Because it was Fox's money, not Mancoitz. Mancoitz didn't have Final Cut. So all he could do was brood and kick and be bitter, which he was, understandably. My uncle Joe lost. Cleopatra stayed in the hands of Zanuck and it remained one movie. We'll never know if two would have been better than one. But according to Scott Eiman, based on what we have seen, it's quite possible that Zanuck was right. It's a slow movie. At six hours, it'd be paralytic. I mean, I can't conceive of two more hours of Richard Burton breathing heavily and Elizabeth Taylor wafting through the scenes. Because the air goes out of the picture when Rex Harrison croaks at the end of part one. I mean, I think Zanuck was probably correct in his estimation. A slightly boring four hour movie is infinitely preferable to a stupefyingly boring six hour movie. With nothing left to do, Joe flew home to New York. It was Saturday, October 27th, the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis. By the presence of these large, long range and clearly offensive weapons constitutes an explicit threat to the peace and security of all the Americas. The world was on edge. Joe's sons, Chris and Tom, met him at the airport, waving American flags and blowing horns. Sunday, October 28th. Wonderful to wake up in my wonderful house to tackle the wonderful Sunday papers over a wonderful Sunday brunch with my wonderful sons. That same morning, the Cuban Missile Crisis ended. In the face of US determination, the Soviets dismantled their missiles and bombers and shipped them home. With nuclear war averted, America turned its attention back to Cleopatra. What's My Line? Talk to you by Gerriton. In November, my uncle Joe appeared on a TV game show, What's My Line? Joe disguised his voice while blindfolded panelists tried to guess his identity. Have you ever produced motion pictures or directed them? Yes? Is that it? Is that a yes? Yes. One of those panelists quickly figured it out. Did you have something to do with a picture that the cutting of which has been withdrawn from your hands and put in someone else's hands? Unfortunately. Yes, yes. Is it the gentleman that directed Cleopatra with Mr. Burton, Mr. Taylor? Is it Joe Maculant? Joe Maculant. Joe was now just as famous for losing Cleopatra as he was for making it. Then Joe did something no one expected, something optimistic and something a bit out of character. I was fascinated with him. I thought he was an extremely interesting man and of course to listen to him talk was amazing, you know. That's Rosemary Matthews talking about Joe. She was introduced to Joe the way most people were by watching one of his movies. I was in London working in some stage thing and I went to see all about Eve. A lamb loose in our big stone jungle. It completely bowled me over. I thought it was the most brilliant thing I'd ever seen but I never dreamed that I would meet him two years later. Rosemary was from London. Her father was an Episcopalian Archdeacon and her mother an eye surgeon. She met Joe in 1953 while he was married to Rosa Strodner. He was 44. Rosemary, 24. She loved the movies and she had been working in Italy and she got a job as a production assistant on Barefoot Contessa. The Barefoot Contessa will shock you, provoke you, excite you as no motion picture before it ever has. The Barefoot Contessa, a big hit for Joe. He shot it in Rome at Cinecita. One of Rosemary's jobs on the movie was dialect coach. She spoke fluent Italian. She also looked after my cousins. Tom was 11, Chris 13. She would drive the two boys around town showing them Rome, scaring them to death because she drove like an Italian. She was very good with taking up the country she was in but she was not beautiful. She was just young and fresh and efficient and during the shooting which was a very bad period of Joe and Rosa's marriage, he had an affair with Rosemary and she was completely smitten and it was very glamorous and exciting for Rosemary. After the Barefoot Contessa wrapped, Rosemary moved to the States. My cousin Chris says she wanted to be near Joe. She basically used to hang around New York waiting to have a night with them when my mother would throw them out. She would hang around waiting for Joe to call to say where they should get together. When Joe decided Cleopatra would be shot in Rome, he hired Rosemary again, this time as a production secretary. Rosemary stood by Joe through all the difficult months in Rome. The man was deteriorating physically and she helped with the medicine, she took care of him. Rosemary stayed by Joe's side through the debacle with Xanaq and they remained together when they returned to New York. By then, Joe was weak and beaten down. One night around Thanksgiving in November, they were watching a game on TV and smoking his pipe and he said, well, we might as well get married. This word Smith, that was his proposal and so Rosemary started jumping up and down. She told me that. I love that story. Again, being Rosemary, she put together a wedding and maybe 10 days, got her parents over from England for it and his kids were stunned that he would marry somebody like Rosemary. This PA, this production assistant, this non-glamour post. Joe told his son Chris the news over the phone. And he said, you know, I know that you all don't think of Rosemary very, very, you know, highly, but time has come in life that I want to just relax. I don't want to have a woman who's challenging me or who's on a sort of high class or mucho glamour kind of level. He'd been with a lot of volatile actresses, which is, you know, not hard to find. I mean, most actresses are pretty volatile. This is my cousin Alex, Joe and Rosemary's daughter. My mother was curious. She was up for things and she was capable of running a small country. She adored my father and it was mutual. And there was not overt affection. They were deeply respectful, good partners. She knew when to be there and when not to be there. Joe and Rosemary married on December 14th, 1962. It was a small gathering at Joe's house. While Joe was getting married, Theril Zanik continued to cut away at Cleopatra. At some point, though, he realized he cut too much. The context was missing. The movie no longer made sense. Zanik decided to shoot a new battle scene and hire back the director he had just fired. Joe was about to leave on his honeymoon to the Bahamas when Zanik called. Joe, when can we start shooting? Theril asked me whether I would cooperate, which I should never have agreed to do. I should have just really stayed separate from it. But I did agree. The two agreed to stop attacking each other in the papers. But could they work together? Could Joe Mankiewicz and Theril Zanik get Cleopatra across the finish line? That's coming up after the break. If you want to save a few quid, British gas have a way. You get half price lecky and it's called peak save. On every Sunday, it's the smart thing to do if you're regular folk or furry and blue. 11 till 4, let the good times begin. You could charge up the car or take the dryer for a spin. Half price electricity, what joy that brings with British gas peak save, we're taking care of things. T's and C's apply eligible tariffs and smart meter required. Isn't life grande and making it better just got easier with Starbucks new protein cold foam? A little something, something to take your favorite drinks up a notch with 15 grams of extra protein. Turn your usual iced caramel latte into a smooth iced caramel protein latte. Add a delicious swirl on top of your drink, just like that. Protein never tasted so good with Starbucks new protein cold foam. Subject to availability while stocks last. After his honeymoon, Joe traveled to Spain. It was shooting a battle scene on a beach made to look like the desert. Immediately, things got weird. Zanik was there and arranged for a second camera crew to be on set. They were filming everything that happened behind the scenes. In the footage, you can see Joe directing. He's wearing white pants, a white shirt, and a dark sweater. Zanik is in a trench coat and a news boy cap, a big fat cigar in his mouth. He's going to put him back now. He's bossing everyone around, including Joe. Joe, I think we had to take no gamble and move back about six feet. This behind the scenes footage was for a TV special. It left no doubt who was calling the shots. Two million dollars was the original budget. Thirty five millions have already been spent and two million more will be spent before it's the way Zanik wants it. The special aired on NBC. It was called The World of Darrell F. Zanik. It made Zanik out to be the king of Hollywood. I like making motion pictures. I like this life, and that's why I'm here in Spain at this moment. I can't be a president that just sits in an office. I'll also probably be a field general occasionally too. Joe is portrayed as an uncompromising tyrant. Suggestions are taken, but director Joe Mankiewicz insists on his way. The cameras will roll on his schedule. Troops will charge at his command. Actors will die on his cue. At one point, Joe picks up a bullhorn. A thousand men on horseback are waiting for him to tell them what to do. But before he could, the wind picked up. It was a full on dust storm. Everyone scrambled. They had to cover the cameras, get horses into tents, and take shelter immediately. Joe is a little hard to hear there. He said Cleopatra's curse has been on this film from its inception. I suppose after everything Joe had been through, he started to get superstitious. Eventually, the storm passed, and everyone got back to work. After the dust settled, Xanac climbed onto a big crane and sat behind a camera. Remember, he's not directing, but there he was, looking into a viewfinder. Amercrade, move to position one for rehearsal. Suddenly, the crane lists Xanac high into the air. Beneath him, on the ground, my uncle Joe, smoking a pipe, dwarfed by the man on the crane. Joe said this was the whole reason Xanac showed up in Spain. I stayed up there, spent the entire day writing up and down the boom while NBC photographed him. Then he got on this helicopter and flew off. It's obvious why Xanac wanted Joe back. What I can't figure out is why Joe agreed. I asked my cousin Alex, why'd he do it? Why did he return to Cleopatra? Dad could have said, well, hell with you. I'm not coming back. Good luck. But his fundamental ambition was the work and how good it would be. Alex's answer explains so much about my uncle. He agreed to directly to Cleopatra for the money. It was an act of hordom, as he put it. But he was incapable of phoning it in. The more time he spent on Cleopatra, the more invested he became. That's why he thought Xanac for his right to edit the movie. And that's why he agreed to direct this new battle scene. He wanted, needed to make a good movie. Everything about him was about what's the long game here. The long game is long after all of us. You know, there's going to be a film that either is just awful and for which I will be blamed and will go down forever or I can make it as good as possible. So Joe kept playing that long game, kept on working. He did it at the expense of his health and his reputation. All because when it was over, there'd be a movie. The! After the opening battle scene was finished, Fox released a Cleopatra trailer. Cleopatra was scheduled to premiere in three months. The most expectantly awaited film in history, Cleopatra, its world premiere at Broadway's Rively Theater on June 12th. The Rively Theater in New York had 1600 seats and a deep curved screen. That screen was actually put in by Mike Todd back in 1955. Posters started going up around town. Back then, movie posters were the main way of getting word out about a film. Everybody saw them. In Times Square, they put up an enormous Cleopatra billboard featuring Liz and Richard as Cleopatra and Mark Antony. Notably missing was Rex Harrison. They were very, very keen on publicizing the film on Elizabeth and Richard because of the shamosal and the romance. Joe noticed the absence of Rex and mentioned it to him the next time they met. And he said, have you got a likeness clause in your contract? I said, I've never heard of a likeness clause. What's that? A likeness clause is something big stars have in their contracts. It specifies how a studio can use their image. So I found that I had a likeness clause with Burton, equal equal. So then started this absolutely idiotic folly on this poster. Rex complained to the studio, so Fox added him to the billboard, made him a little face in the corner like a postage stamp on an envelope. So Rex complained again. He still wasn't equal equal with Burton. And then finally, because my lawyers were at him all the time, they finally made another poster. The final poster has Elizabeth lying seductively on a bed while Richard and Rex hover behind her. They're both staring at Liz. She's not looking at either one of them. She's staring off into the distance. As movie posters go, it's not great. The three years the press had been obsessed with Cleopatra. Thousands of news stories, near death emergencies, a torrid love affair, hireings, firings, and tens of millions of dollars. It all led to one night, Wednesday, June 12th. Joe Mankiewicz had made his movie, or at least the best version he could. Now it was up to a worldwide audience to determine if it was all worth it. And the reviews are coming in. The crowd is pouring out and there is excitement. Cleopatra has finally arrived on Broadway. Angela Carone is our director of podcasts. Story editor is Rob Rosenthal. Yako Friedman is our senior producer. Script writing by Yako 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 Oenby, Julie Baton, Emma Morris, Jordan Chips, Nicole Hill, and David Corwin at 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 Haight, and Stephanie Tames. Our executive producer is Charlie Tavish. I had 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, or for that matter, archivists around the country. Still not sure which one's right. 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.
