Details

Release year: 1963

Storyline

Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt experiences both triumph and tragedy as she attempts to resist the imperial ambitions of Rome.

Top credits

Directors

Writers

Cast

Elizabeth Taylor — Cleopatra
Richard Burton — Mark Antony
Rex Harrison — Julius Caesar
Pamela Brown — High Priestess

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Awards

4 wins & 5 nominations

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Did you know

• Writer and director Joseph L. Mankiewicz was fired during post-production, due to the quarrels with the then-newly reinstalled Fox President Darryl F. Zanuck over the nature of editing the movie's length. Since he wrote the script as he was shooting, Twentieth Century Fox soon realized that only Mankiewicz knew how the story fit together. He was then brought back to complete the project.

• Writer and director Joseph L. Mankiewicz hoped that this movie would be released as two separate movies, "Caesar and Cleopatra", followed by "Antony and Cleopatra". Each was to run approximately three hours. Twentieth Century Fox decided against this and premiered the movie at 4 hours 3 minutes. More cuts pared the movie to three hours fourteen minutes for general release. It is hoped that the missing two hours will be located, and that one day a six-hour "Director's Cut" will be available.

• When this movie finally broke even in 1973, Twentieth Century Fox "closed the books" on it, keeping all future profits secret to avoid paying those who might have been promised a percentage of the profits.