Free My Life with Cleopatra by Walter Wanger Page A

phoned at 11 A . M . to impress on me that everything is my fault! I shouldn’t listen to Liz, Skouras, Mamoulian, or anybody. I should shoot the script I have, then get retakes later.
    He said I am letting Liz run the show, and I must stop that at once. He told me that Skouras wants to change the producer and director on the film and is talking with Mark Robson, who doubles in brass.
    J ANUARY 16, 1961
    Disastrous meeting with Rogell, Mamoulian, and myself.
    Mamoulian arrived at Rogell’s office late—it was his wife Azadia’s birthday and he had been at lunch with her. When Rogell criticized him for being late the hostility which had been below the surface burst to the top.
    Rogell blamed Mamoulian for the delays; Mamoulian in turn blamed the executives. I tried to take some of the blame to pacify things but the meeting ended with Mamoulian furious and sulking, and Rogell determined to start shooting, hot or cold, on Thursday—Liz willing.
    Mamoulian agreed without enthusiasm.
    J ANUARY 17, 1961
    Met with Liz, Eddie, and Mamoulian about the script. Liz said it was terrible. Mamoulian, who had approved the script, ended up by siding with her and letting me take the blame for it.
    J ANUARY 18, 1961
    Mamoulian resigns.
    Saw Rouben this morning in Rogell’s office. The meeting ended with Rouben and me having our first row. It started when I accused him of not standing up for the script the night before. He informed me he had cabled Skouras that he wants to resign.
    I told him that he had made a mistake. If he had told me what he was going to do I never would have let him do it. I know the climate—they are considering his removal anyway and are talking to other directors.
    “I didn’t tell you because I knew you would have tried to stop me,” Rouben said angrily. “I had made up my mind.”
    I think he is maneuvering for complete autonomy, but I believe he made a bad tactical error.
    J ANUARY 19, 1961
    Skouras accepted Mamoulian’s resignation. No shooting. Mamoulian’s resignation and negotiations with Joe Mankiewicz are in the papers already. They are hinting that the next to resign will be Liz.
    J ANUARY 20, 1961
    Rouben held a press conference. Barry Norman of the
Daily Mail
gave the following account of it:
    WHY I QUIT “CLEO”

I had a dream, says Director
.
    Mr. Rouben Mamoulian chewed the end off a 6-inch cigar last night and tried to explain why he had resigned as director of the £3,000,000 film, CLEOPATRA
.
    “It cannot be made the way I want it,” he said at his flat in Eaton Square, S.W
.
    “When I began fifteen months ago I had a dream, an artistic conception of the way the film should be. Now a number of things have made me realize the dream cannot become reality.”
    What dashed his dreams? It was not Elizabeth Taylor. It was not Mr. Spyros Skouras, head of 20th Century-Fox
.
    So what was the reason? “Elements,” said 62-year-old Mr. Mamoulian vaguely. “Dreams have to be translated into flesh and blood. All manner of things, internal and external, get in the way.”
    J ANUARY 23, 1961
    Liz called. Wanted to know if she’s in or out of the picture. Am I in or out?
    Mamoulian is looking for support from Liz, who likes to stand up for the underdog, but it is too late. Skouras knows she will quiet down if he brings in Mankiewicz, whom she trusts and believes in.
    Meanwhile, I am at my wit’s end. There is still the problem of the script, and our overhead piles up—around $45,000 a day. We have only about ten minutes of film, some of it beautiful but none of it with Liz. And Liz refuses to do anything until the director hassle is settled.
    J ANUARY 25, 1961
    Mankiewicz is hired as writer-director. Skouras wants JLM to run the show. There is already conflict between Skouras and JLM over JLM’s
insistence
that I continue to be producer of
Cleopatra
.
    Where Rouben is slow moving and a chain cigar-smoker, Joe is mercurial and a pipe-smoker. JLM is intelligent with a wonderful sense of humor.