Clothes Make The Pharaoh

Maybe it was the wardrobe department of Joseph L. Mankiewicz's "Cleopatra" that nearly bankrupted 20th
 Century Fox.

  With over 65 costume changes they certainly contributed to the $44 million budget.  Going broke for fashion is something any fashionista can understand with over 400 costumes created for the epic film. Elizabeth 
Taylor’s outfits are the focal point of the whole film, complete with a dress made entirely of
 24-carat gold cloth going down in Hollywood fashion history.

Joan Collins, Audrey Hepburn, and Susan Hayward were all considered as 
replacements for Taylor, whose illness delayed production, but
 production exec Spyrous Skouras was insistant that Cleopatra be buxom
 to draw an audience.  As result Taylor’s cleavage makes an appearance
 in every other scene. [hubba hubba -Ed]

The dramatic hairstyle changes seem superfluous today, but actually
 are an accurate representation of rich Egyptian women who mostly wore 
wigs in public and kept their hair shorn close to the head to keep 
lice at bay.  Maybe Taylor would have won the Oscar if she went all G.I.
 JANE and buzzed her head on camera instead of the even longer wigs
 she sports in the bathing scenes.

But the opulence paid off, Renie Conley, Vittorio Nino Novarese and Irene Sharaff scored Oscars 
for costume design.  Awards for wardrobe were separate for colour and 
black and white films from 1939 to 1967, and in this year Fellini’s
 film 8 ½  was the other costume winner.   Strangely enough, when you look at the two
 films together, the hair and makeup are at times uncannily similar.  Taylor manages to look like a contemporary mod with her blunt bangs
 and thick black eyeliner and the cinched waists are definitely there 
to show off her figure, not for historical accuracy.

We can look forward to yet another interpretation of the epic fashion
icon when Stacy Schiff’s Pulitizer Prize winning novel, Cleopatra: A
 Life will be adapted into a feature film in 2013.  Angelina Jolie will
 take the role of Cleopatra, continuing the Hollywood tradition of the 
famous African Queen being played by a non-African American actress 
(Dorothy Dandridge lost the role to Elizabeth Taylor in this sixties
 version).  If Brad Pitt indeed takes on the role of Marc Anthony, I
 may just have the same reaction that Liz Taylor reportedly had when 
she saw the finished version of her film - and throw up.

Here’s hoping that some notable actors and actresses of colour get
 some larger roles than in the 1963 version, where a group makes brief 
appearance in a feather-clad dance number.  Or do we need to make
 another CLEOPATRA JONES?