The Plot Thickens

Steven Spielberg tells Ben Mankiewicz about the deal he struck with Stanley Kubrick for information about a famous cut scene from Dr. Strangelove.

Stanley, an eleven-episode limited series, begins September 24.

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Ben Mankiewicz received hundreds of voicemails about Cleopatra, and now he's answering them! Well, as many of them as he can. In this special bonus episode, Ben weighs in on the six-hour cut of Cleopatra, what Richard Burton thought of the movie, Judy Garland's love for Joe Mankiewicz... and much more!

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We’re doing our first-ever Q&A bonus episode, and we want your questions! Call 404-885-0013 to leave a voicemail for Ben. You can ask about Cleopatra, Ben's great-uncle Joe Mankiewicz or the stars of the movie. Remember to tell us your first name and where you're calling from. We might use your voice in the episode so keep it clean! And be on the lookout for the Q&A bonus episode next month.

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The fate of 20th Century Fox hangs in the balance as Cleopatra premieres. Critics and audiences weigh in, Elizabeth and Richard face momentous life decisions, and Joe sinks into a deep depression.  For years to come, Joe and the Mankiewicz family reckon the difficult legacy of Cleopatra.

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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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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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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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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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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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His studio was collapsing. His budget was skyrocketing. And his two stars were making headlines for all the wrong reasons. Those were just some of the headaches facing Joseph L. Mankiewicz, the director of one of the most expensive and infamous movies ever made: Cleopatra. With Mankiewicz calling the shots and the luminous Elizabeth Taylor in the title role, Cleopatra should have been a smash. Instead, it was a shoot plagued by medical emergencies, climate disasters and nervous breakdowns… not to mention Taylor's scandalous love affair with Richard Burton. This season, Ben Mankiewicz digs through his own family stories to understand how it turned out so badly for his Oscar-winning uncle. Cleopatra, a six-episode limited series, begins July 17.

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