Joe’s body reaches its breaking point, and he’s forced to film the last few scenes from a wheelchair. But when production wraps, Fox installs a new studio head, Darryl F. Zanuck, who undercuts Joe’s authority and takes over the edit of Cleopatra. Soon, Joe and Zanuck wage a very public battle for control of the movie, just months before it’s finally released.
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45:54
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45:54
Le Scandale
Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton’s love affair becomes a tabloid sensation. Richard drinks and Elizabeth cries, they fight and make up, all while trying to keep the affair from their spouses and the public. When the press infiltrates the set and reports on every ugly development, Joe struggles to hold the production together. But as the budget balloons, Joe starts taking the blame for everything that’s gone wrong.
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46:57
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46:57
The Girl is on Salary
Joe Mankiewicz decides to recast two leading men and hires Richard Burton and Rex Harrison – major talents who turn out to be major headaches. He also moves filming to a new country, where the budget spirals out of control. Joe works against the clock to meet the studio’s deadline to start shooting, and he nearly pulls it off… until Richard Burton puts the moves on his married co-star Elizabeth Taylor, throwing the entire production into chaos.
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50:53
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50:53
Joe
While Elizabeth Taylor fights for her life in a London hospital, Joe Mankiewicz begins to grapple with the movie he’s inherited. The script is dreadful, the sets are grotesque, and none of the footage is usable. Joe decides to start over from scratch. A look at Joe’s long career in Hollywood gives some clues as to how he’ll handle this epic production and manage his high maintenance actors.
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56:36
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56:36
London Slog
20th Century Fox pays Elizabeth Taylor a record-breaking salary to play Cleopatra, then tries to save money by filming the movie in England. That turns out to be a disastrous decision. The weather doesn’t agree with Liz, who suffers one health problem after another, delaying production for months. Fox then faces the question: pull the plug on this movie... or fire the director and find someone new to save the picture?
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Our sixth season is Cleopatra, a six-episode series about one of the most expensive and infamous movies ever made. Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and starring Elizabeth Taylor, Cleopatra should have been a smash. Instead, it was a shoot plagued by medical emergencies, climate disasters, nervous breakdowns, and the most scandalous love affair to ever hit a movie set. Join host Ben Mankiewicz as he digs through his own family stories to understand how it turned out so badly for his Oscar-winning uncle. Cleopatra starts July 17.
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