My Life as a Mankiewicz

by Tom Mankiewicz

  Walter Wanger was the nominal producer on the film. I say “nominal” because he had no real power and found it easier to ignore the mounting production problems, preferring to socialize with Italian society on the Via Veneto. Dad liked Walter. He'd produced I Want to Live for Figaro and was a warm, gutsy man. During World War I he'd volunteered for the brand new American Air Force, but after crashing five training planes was asked politely to find employment elsewhere in the military. He was given an enemy air medal and dubbed “the Italian Ace.” In the 1950s his wife, the actress Joan Bennett, was having an affair with her agent, Jennings Lang, later the executive vice president of Universal Pictures. Walter shot him in the balls. He did a short stint in prison, then resumed his marital life and career.

  The original production manager on the film was Johnny Johnston, someone who'd worked with Dad before and in whom he had absolute confidence. Johnny had been working in Spain for Samuel Bronston. His right-hand assistant was Rosemary Matthews (remember The Barefoot Contessa?). She'd also just worked for Dad on The Quiet American, which he'd shot in Vietnam and Rome. They'd grown closer over the years, to say the very least. Shortly after arriving on Cleopatra, Johnny tragically died of a heart attack. His talented and experienced replacement was C. O. “Doc” Erickson, who later continued to work with Dad on several more films. Needless to say, Rosemary stayed in place. Her presence was essential to Dad's maintaining his health and sanity. The roots of their future marriage were starting to take hold.

  Freddy Simpson was the first assistant director. Gruff, funny, no-nonsense, he'd started as a prop man for Dad many years earlier. The myriad of production problems soon began to overwhelm him. Among them: Elizabeth's unprecedented contract allowed her two days off for every menstrual period. One day she notified the production that she was having it and wouldn't be available to shoot. The only problem was she'd claimed the same thing just two weeks earlier. Freddy was beside himself: “Two periods in less than three weeks? When this broad dies they should send her body to the Harvard Medical School.” He was going to have a doctor go over to her villa to verify her condition, but Dad called it off: “The problem, Freddy, is that she's smarter than you are. This time it is her period. I know her too well. You're going to have egg all over your face.”

  Rex Harrison wore leather leggings as Julius Caesar, principally because his own legs were so skinny they didn't seem to belong to the then conqueror of the known world. His nickname among the crew was “Birdlegs.” One day Freddy was barking out orders on the set and yelled to someone, “We're ready. Get Birdlegs in here!” He turned and suddenly found himself face to face with Rex. Freddy managed a weak smile. “Should I just take a cab to the airport now, or…?” Rex shook his head in disgust and walked past him.

  Richard Burton

  Richard Burton was that rare and enviable male who is the consummate ladies' man and man's man. He could be a boisterous drunkard as well as a thoughtful intellectual. His capacity for booze was enormous. I once saw him consume more than a bottle of vodka before lunch while working. In makeup at five thirty or six in the morning he could toss back a triple brandy followed by a cheery “Good morning, all!” One day when a rainstorm interrupted filming on the island of Ischia, the cast and crew ducked into a bar. I remember Richard had at least five vodkas in the half-hour period before the rain stopped.

  Richard possessed a wonderful intellect and the curiosity to go with it. He had a deep background in classical theater, having been the resident leading man at the Old Vic, where he was once described as “the first Hamlet with balls.” Over dinner he would love to make a statement like “No German has ever had an original thought” and then defend his proposition against all comers. I always suspected that some of these intellectual exercises were setups to show off his knowledge, but in the German example I remember he could successfully show you that the thoughts of Hegel, Marx, Goethe, and so on, were far from original.

  Richard could be moody. He had quick flashes of anger, especially when drunk. He turned his magnetism on and off like a stereo. When he decided to charm you, he enthralled you. I never saw it fail with anyone. And when he misbehaved, he got forgiveness from everyone as if they were excusing a brilliantly talented “bad boy.”

  The timber of his voice was legendary. A deep Welsh baritone heavily seasoned by years of incessant smoking and drinking. He had an almost unbelievable ability to project his voice, which he said came from his stepfather, Phillip Burton. When Richard was young, the two of them would stand on opposite sides of a chasm between two cliffs in Wales. The wind noisily whipped through the gap, and Phillip made Richard project his voice over the racket until he could be heard clearly. It seemed a fanciful story, but Richard insisted it was true. He played his voice like a virtuoso plays a musical instrument. When I saw him on Broadway in Camelot, he received a standing ovation not only at the end, but at the close of the first act as well. And that was at a time when standing ovations actually meant something. An actor's ability to “take stage” in a role can completely distort your perception of the play. I remember seeing Equus in London when it opened at the National Theatre. It starred Colin Blakely as the psychiatrist and Peter Firth as the troubled young boy. It was clearly a two-handed piece, and the balance between both roles made the play. Later, in New York, Anthony Perkins played it with Peter Firth. I went to see it and was surprised to discover that the play now belonged to Peter Firth. It wasn't that Tony was bad. He simply didn't “take stage” to the degree that Firth did. The balance of the piece had changed. Even later, when Richard agreed to do Equus on Broadway for a limited run, I went to see him. The play had changed once again. This time it belonged to Richard, and it was more than simply because of the star power he carried with him. It was the force of his performance. Peter Firth had been reduced to playing a wonderful supporting role.

  Coming onto Cleopatra, Richard was famous for supposedly having slept with every leading lady he ever worked with. This time it would be with a very much married Elizabeth Taylor, but from the moment the picture began there seemed to be an inevitability about it. Everyone watched the two of them circling each other, these two volatile, ignitable personalities. The day they consummated their relationship, everyone seemed to know it. Richard had apparently intended to do a hit-and-run, to make a conquest and then go back to his wife, Sybil, as he'd done countless times before. Elizabeth was having none of it. You didn't hit-and-run with Elizabeth Taylor. The affair continued, grew deeper, and the rest, as they say, was history. I remember Dad telling me at the time: “You know, when you see one of these marriages, the kind Richard and Sybil have, it's taken for granted that every time he misbehaves he'll come home and be forgiven because that's where the real love is. The only problem with a relationship like that is the near inevitability that one day he'll find his real love somewhere else.”

  Elizabeth Taylor

  The first thing you noticed when you met Elizabeth Taylor was that she was small in stature, almost tiny compared with the way she photographed onscreen. She had a full, almost lush body and was so beautiful it made my hair hurt. She was also the biggest celebrity of her day, even before the affair with Richard. When she arrived in Rome, she briefly stayed at the Grand Hotel until moving to her villa on the Appia Antica outside the city. While she was at the Grand, hundreds of people congregated in front of the hotel day and night behind police barricades, hoping for just a glimpse of her. On her thirtieth birthday there was a small party upstairs at Bricktop's, a famous nightclub on the Via Veneto. When word got out that she was there, the boulevard outside suddenly became packed wall to wall with people waiting to see her leave. The police had to escort us down a back staircase into an alley, where cars whisked everyone away. Even Richard was astonished. “I'd no idea she was that famous,” I remember him saying.

  The second thing one immediately noticed about Elizabeth was her sense of humor. It was earthy, even bawdy; she loved to have fun. When I told her the crew's nickname for Rex
was Birdlegs, she roared with laughter, then asked, “And what's their nickname for me, ‘Cooseburger'?” She was a wonderful and inquisitive gossip. Wanted to know everything that was going on with everybody. One day she, Dad, and I were talking on the set. Dad told her that he'd always reminded me it was just as easy to marry a rich woman as it was a poor one. She laughed. Two days later I received a beautiful photograph of her taken by Roddy McDowall with the inscription, “Dear Tom. What happens if I'm broke? Love, Elizabeth.”

  One afternoon she asked me if I'd like to have dinner with her and Eddie Fisher (her then husband) at their villa. Just the three of us. Would this twenty-year-old like to have dinner with Elizabeth Taylor? How about yes, devastated, thrilled, couldn't wait. Her driver picked me up. As I got out in front of the villa it was suddenly illuminated by dozens of flashbulbs. The paparazzi were up in the trees of the adjacent gardens, keeping track of whoever entered or left her house. I don't know if there's ever been a human in a fishbowl quite like that, before or since.

  Once I was inside, Elizabeth and I had a drink and then went into the dining room for dinner. As we sat down I saw the table was only set for two. She told me that Eddie sent his regrets. He wasn't feeling well and was in bed upstairs. The affair with Richard had begun and must have been taking a terrible toll on Eddie. In spite of being a celebrity himself, a famous and popular singer, he seemed to be at loose ends all the time since he wasn't performing. He had vague aspirations of becoming a producer and would visit the studio too often, finally becoming something of a pest. I'm not sure, given the circumstances, what other options he had. He was a very nice man, but clearly unsure how to handle the situation he found himself in. Dad put it succinctly at the time: “Poor Eddie. Richard and Elizabeth are world-class killers, and he's basically a singing waiter from Grossinger's.” (I should add that Dad had great affection for both Elizabeth and Richard. He meant “world-class killers” as a compliment.) The affair took a terrible toll on all the participants. None of them was even remotely frivolous about it. Elizabeth was constantly ill on the picture and later even underwent what certainly looked like a suicide attempt. Richard's life with Sybil was torn apart. At one point, his half brother Ivor came down to Rome from Wales to support Sybil and punched Richard in the eye. Eddie eventually went back to New York where, ironically enough, as the “victim,” he became a more popular performer than ever.

  Meanwhile, back at the villa: My dinner with Elizabeth was over. We retired to the living room for an after-dinner drink and coffee. Suddenly, the back door opened. Richard appeared: “Hello, luv,” he said to me. “Mind if I join you?” He and Elizabeth embraced. I realized that in some strange way I was meant to be a “beard” for them so that Richard wouldn't be alone with her in Eddie's house. The drinking started fast and furious as it always did when Richard appeared. Elizabeth did her best to keep up with him. Richard was in his devastatingly charming mode, telling stories and making us laugh. There was a noise from the staircase. We turned. There was Eddie, looking down into the living room, dressed in a bathrobe and slippers. It became very quiet.

  Eddie said in a calm voice: “It's late, Richard. Elizabeth has to shoot in the morning.”

  Richard answered cheerfully, “I just came by to see my girl.”

  Eddie looked back evenly: “You already have a girl, Richard. You have Sybil.”

  Another silence. Richard: “They're both my girls.”

  Eddie paused, then walked back upstairs. I was so embarrassed, if I could have dug a hole, jumped in, and put the dirt back over my head, I would have. Instead I said, “Thanks for the lovely dinner, Elizabeth. I guess I've got to get back home.”

  Egypt

  The interminable shooting finally ended on location in Egypt. In the beginning, the Nasser government had refused entrance to Elizabeth on the grounds that she was Jewish. But faced with the potential loss of millions of American dollars, they finally relented, rationalizing that she'd “converted” and therefore wasn't really a Jew. Nevertheless, she remained in Italy while the rest of us made the trip.

  Egypt was fascinating, two countries in one. If you stayed at the Nile Hilton and had a car and driver, Cairo was elegant, even European. If you looked behind the curtain, the poverty was blinding. We shot in the desert, outside a little town called Edku, near Alexandria. Most of the sequences involved the Roman army. Studios usually co-opted actual troops from the country they were shooting in, but Nasser was keeping a wary eye on Israel, so this was impossible. Many hundreds of extras were needed, extras who could march in step with one another. The people of Edku had rehearsed for weeks and promised they could do it. They were desperate for the dollar-a-day salary. A few weeks' employment could mean a year's pay for some of them. Unfortunately, they were hopeless at marching, and we started hiring young students from the University of Alexandria who were up to the task.

  One morning, hundreds of townspeople showed up at our location, led by the mayor of Edku. They demanded employment and were clearly ready to riot if they weren't going to be hired. Everyone on the crew was terrified. We were in the middle of nowhere. Our only protection was four uniformed members of the Egyptian Camel Corps, each one riding a camel and carrying an automatic weapon. Nasser's son-in-law, also in uniform, had been visiting our location for several days. He heard the ruckus, exited a tent, faced the multitude, and screamed at them, ordering them to line up in rows. This was my first and only personal lesson in seeing just how effectively Fascism could work at times. I couldn't believe it. The mass of belligerent villagers suddenly started to tremble as Nasser's son-in-law identified himself and continued yelling. The four Camel Corpsmen fanned out behind him, weapons cocked and ready. Nasser's son-in-law demanded that the mayor step forward. He did so. The young man pulled out a leather quirt and whacked the mayor in the side of the face, opening up his cheek. The villagers turned and headed back for Edku. I was stunned. I'd never seen anything like it. The fear of the state was so powerful it trumped everything.

  Dad was literally on his last legs by then. For months he'd been taking injections to keep going during the day, then sedatives at night to get some sleep. He'd developed a drug dependency that took him years to get rid of. A nurse, looking for a new injection site, had accidentally hit his sciatic nerve with a needle. He could walk properly on only one leg. They put his chair right next to the camera so he didn't have to get up, but when it came to Richard Burton's last shot, he insisted on it. He limped in front of the lens and changed the scene number on the slate while Richard held him steady. The slate now read: “This prick is through.” They both grinned as the camera rolled. For all I know, the scene is still listed that way in the editor's log.

  Cleopatra Shuts Down Fox

  The $42 million Cleopatra had bankrupted Fox. The California studio was shut down for the first time in its history. Normally, when you make a film for a major studio, the budget of your picture contains an “overhead” fee, usually 10 or 15 percent. Spread out across the multiple yearly productions, this overhead cost plus the distribution fees pays for the actual operations of the studio. Since Fox was shooting only Cleopatra and nothing else, the entire worldwide expense of running the company was added to the film's budget. If two Fox employees went out to lunch in, say, Paris, the cost of that meal was charged to Cleopatra. This meant that the announced budget was perceived as not only unforgivably profligate, but obscene.

  Darryl Zanuck had taken the studio back from its former head, the dotty, incompetent Spyro Skouras. He began his own Night of the Long Knives. In a totally meaningless gesture, he fired Walter Wanger. Dad ran the rough cut of the film in Paris. It lasted more than seven hours. When the lights came up there was a silence, following which Zanuck said, “That Antony's a weak man.”

  “Yes, he is, Darryl,” came Dad's reply.

  “If any woman did that to me, I'd kick her right in the balls.”

  “The picture's not about you, Darryl.”

  Even though they'd made Osca
r-winning films together in the past, the irresistible force was now meeting the immovable object. Zanuck insisted on one film, and at less than four hours. Dad refused. He wasn't about to leave all that hard work and sweat on the cutting room floor, especially since he knew it contained all of the best character scenes that truly fleshed out the principal roles. What Zanuck wanted would now be an exercise in simply stringing together an abbreviated story so it made sense to the audience. Dad would have none of it. Zanuck fired him. Dad was stunned. There were a few additional scenes that had to be shot for the shortened film to make narrative sense. Zanuck would get another director. When news of the situation leaked out, the Fox Board of Directors, led by William Wyler, threatened to resign unless Dad was allowed to finish his film. The principal actors suddenly “weren't sure” they'd be available to return. Dad was rehired. He'd decided that if someone was going to mutilate his film, it might as well be him.