When Liz Met Dick
When Liz Met Dick Forget Titanic: the most expensive movie ever made opened 35 years ago. It took $44 million (about $300 million today), two directors, two separate casts, and two and a half years of on-and-off filming in England, Italy, Egypt, and Spain to bring Cleopatra, Twentieth Century Fox’s lavish, eyeball-popping spectacle, to the screen. David Kamp relives an epic folly that was eclipsed only by the international furor over the scandalous romance of its stars, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. BY DAVID KAMP MARCH 22, 2011 Rivoli Theater New York City June 12 1963 Rivoli Theater, New York City, June 12, 1963 Back in the studio, Johnny Carson was in stitches. The Tonight Show had taken the unusual step of hooking up by live remote to the world premiere of Cleopatra, and the man he’d deputized to stand outside the Rivoli Theater in Times Square, Bert Parks, couldn’t elicit a single upbeat comment from the film’s director, Joseph L. Mankiewicz. “Congratulations, Mr...