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curiosity about the famous queen, her beauty and intelligence. She disdainfully
refuses to call him Caesar to emphasize her connection with the
“real” Caesar, and her loathing of him is palpable as she realizes he has
killed her son. By portraying Octavian as a coward, liar, and murderer, the
film suggests his instinct for self-preservation presaged his administrative
genius.
In the title role, Taylor gracefully meets the impossible challenge of
playing one of the most celebrated and complicated women in history.
Cleopatra’s many superlatives correspond to Taylor’s own. One of the
most astonishingly beautiful women in the history of cinema, Taylor’s
flawless face, striking violet eyes, and voluptuous figure are lovingly captured
by the camera. Her remarkable beauty and stormy personal life,
however, have overshadowed her considerable acting talents. As a gorgeous
child star, Taylor shot to prominence with National Velvet (1944),
and made a smooth transition to grown-up films, such as the memorable
Ivanhoe (1952) and Giant (1956). She received three Oscar nominations
in a row with demanding roles in Raintree County (1957), Cat on a Hot
Tin Roof (1958), and Suddenly Last Summer, where she established a close
rapport with director Mankiewicz. Taylor won her first Oscar playing a
disaffected call girl in Butterfield 8. After she and Burton married in 1964,
the famous couple starred together in several films, and she won her second
Oscar for her brave performance as his vulgar wife in Who’s Afraid of
Virginia Woolf ? (1966).
In Cleopatra, Taylor is both the best and the worst thing about the film.
Her thin voice with its broad American accent contrasts unflatteringly
with the crisp, theater-trained British cadences of her two male co-stars;
after the film was finished, a dismayed Taylor offered to redub some of
her weaker dialogue (Solomon, 2001a, 69). The extra-cinematic identification
of Taylor’s Hollywood star persona with the legendary Egyptian
queen, in the sheer extent of their shared celebrity, power, and selfindulgence,
both enriches and complicates the role (Wyke, 102–5). In the
early scenes of the film, the Roman characters describe Cleopatra before
the viewers can make their own judgment, much as the ancient Romans
heard salacious propaganda about Cleopatra and the movie audience heard
accounts of Taylor’s scandalous offscreen activities. Rufio reports: “In
obtaining her objectives, Cleopatra has been known to employ torture,
poison, and even her own sexual talents, which are said to be considerable.
Her lovers, I am told, are listed more easily by number than by
name. It is said she chooses, in the manner of a man, rather than wait
to be chosen after womanly fashion.” In the scenes where Cleopatra’s
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