Literature and movies (2)

Cleopatra

Cleopatra was Pharao of Egypt, and consequently woshipped as a living goddess (reincarnation of Isis).
My personal favorite movie is the 1934 production with Claudette Colbert, made by the famous Cecil B. DeMille.

Elisabeth Taylor as Cleopatra

Cleopatra's story has fascinated scores of writers and artists through the centuries. No doubt, much of her appeal lay in her legend as a great seductress who was able to ally herself with two of the most powerful men (Caesar and Antony) of her time.

Literature-Drama

Among the more famous works on her:

Antony and Cleopatra (c. 1607) by William Shakespeare

All for Love (1678) by John Dryden

Caesar and Cleopatra (1901) by George Bernard Shaw

The Death of Cleopatre by Ahmed Shawqi

Films

The earliest Cleopatra-related motion picture was Antony and Cleopatra (1908) with Florence Lawrence as Cleopatra. The earliest film on Cleopatra as the main subject was Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, starring Helen Gardner (1912).

Among the film/TV works inspired by the Queen of the Nile:

(1917): Cleopatra: Theda Bara (Cleopatra), Fritz Leiber (Caesar), Thurston Hall (Antony). Directed by J. Gordon Edwards. Based on Émile Moreau's play Cléopatre, Sardou's play Cléopatre, and Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra.

(1934): Cleopatra: Claudette Colbert (Cleopatra), Warren William (Caesar), Henry Wilcoxon (Antony). Oscar-winning Cecil B. DeMille epic.

(1946): Caesar and Cleopatra: Vivien Leigh (Cleopatra), Claude Rains (Caesar), Stewart Granger, Flora Robson — Oscar-nominated version of George Bernard Shaw's play. Leigh also played Cleopatra opposite then-husband's Laurence Olivier's Caesar in a later London stage version.

(1953): Serpent of the Nile: Rhonda Fleming (Cleopatra), Raymond Burr (Mark Antony), Michael Fox (Octavian).

(1963): Cleopatra: Elizabeth Taylor (Cleopatra), Rex Harrison (Caesar), Richard Burton (Antony). Oscar-winning block-buster most (in)famously remembered for the off-screen affair between Taylor and Burton and the at-the-time massive $44 million cost.

(1974): Antony & Cleopatra: performed by London's Royal Shakespeare Company. Starred Janet Suzman (Cleopatra), Richard Johnson (Antony), and Patrick Stewart (Enobarbus).

(1999): Cleopatra (movie): Leonor Varela (Cleopatra), Timothy Dalton (Caesar), Billy Zane (Antony). Based on the book Memoirs of Cleopatra by Margaret George, it is less faithful to history than the earlier versions

Claudette Colbert as Cleopatra