Elizabeth Taylor & Richard Burton’s Romance -Cleopatra
From Antony-Cleopatra to the Burton-Taylor Romance on the set of the movie Cleopatra
The Romance of Mark Antony and Cleopatra
The love story of Anthony and Cleopatra happened nearly 2,000 years ago. After the death of Julius Caesar, Cleopatra seduced Mark Antony to make him an ally and thus began a romance, that has become famous over the course of history. William Shakespeare wrote a play based on this romance. Even movies have been made about it; the first being in 1908 and many different versions since then for the past hundred years.
Mark Antony (83–30 BC) met Cleopatra (69–30 BC) while she was still a young girl. They became lovers, ten years before their untimely deaths in 30 BC after assassination of Julius Caesar. She had been Caesar’s mistress and had a son Caesarion by him. After his murder where he uttered his famous last words, “Et tu Brutus” which means ‘Even you Brutus’ when his best friend Brutus joined others and stabbed him to death. Antony was described as broad-shouldered, bull-necked, ridiculously handsome and head with thick curls and had aquiline features. He was also supposedly descended from Hercules. Cleopatra was a Ptolemy ruler (Greek descent) of Egypt, intelligent, charming, educated and very wealthy.
They needed each other, and it was in their best interest to join forces. He needed her to fund his military endeavors in the east and she needed him to protect her and to expand her powers and also for the rights of Caesarion who was Caesar’s true heir. She wooed him at an extravagant party, which she had set up for that purpose. He got her pregnant with twins and left her to go to Rome where he married Octavia, Octavian’s sister, who was Julius Caesar’s nephew. Cleopatra gave birth to the twins in 40 BC and they were named Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene. Antony only reunited with his lover in Antioch, Syria in 37 BC and met his twins there for the first time. In 36 BC she gave Antony a second son, Ptolemy Philadelphus.
After Caesar’s assassination Antony formed a Triumvirate in 43 BC with Marcus Aemilius and Octavian to rule the Roman republic. He was in charge of the Eastern territories. He began conquering lands for Cleopatra and she ruled major portions of the Mediterranean. Of course, there were some failures and many men were lost, but Cleopatra was blamed. He distributed the lands he conquered to Cleopatra and to their children, which enraged Octavian. In 33 BC, the Triumvirate was disbanded and Antony divorced Octavia in 32 BC. All friendship and partnership between Octavian were over who then declared war on Cleopatra.
Cleopatra and Antony combined forced to fight against the mighty Roman army. As the Roman Army led by Octavian came closer to Alexandria, the lovers partied as their advisors and much of their army deserted them. When Antony was off fighting, Cleopatra built a new temple to Isis calling it her mausoleum. She slowly negotiated with Octavian without Antony’s knowledge so that her children may be spared because she knew that Antony wouldn’t win the war. She sent word to him that she had killed herself knowing that he would follow. He attempted suicide and he was brought to her. Seeing what he had done, she tried to negotiate with Octavian, but he wouldn’t budge and so she managed to sneak some poison or as some say an asp and killed herself along with her two attendants charmion ad Iras. Thus, Egypt became part of the Roman Empire after her death. Her three children by Antony were taken by Octavian to Rome and raised by Octavia. Cleopatra’s brother destroyed her temple, but buried Antony and her side by side. Caesarian was betrayed by his teacher and was killed trying to escape to India, or so they say. Thus ended a tragic love story.
The Romance of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton
Now, 2000 years later, in 1961, while the filming of Cleopatra was going on in Rome under the direction of Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Elizabeth Taylor who at that time was married to actor Eddie Fisher (former husband of Debbie Reynolds) was playing Cleopatra and Richard Burton who was playing Mark Antony fell in love and started an affair. Burton was married to Sybil Williams, who they say attempted suicide due to the affair. They eventually divorced their spouses and married from 1964 to 1974 and then from 1975 to 1976. They adopted a daughter, Maria whom Taylor actually had adopted from Germany before she met Burton and he also adopted Liza Todd, from Taylor’s previous marriage. So, Burton became Taylor’s 5th and 6th husband. Now I am not advocating that people should cheat on their spouses or divorce, because I believe that marriage is for life and only under very serious circumstances should there be a divorce, but the affair between Taylor and Burton hurt a lot of people. However, the similarities between the love affair between Cleopatra and Mark Antony is worth noting. First, they both played the characters of Mark Antony and Cleopatra, and they had met before and only later, on the set, they fell in love and began a torrid love affair. Thankfully, unlike Antony and Cleopatra, Burton and Taylor didn’t kill themselves, but they did marry and divorce twice. However, many accounts state that they were each other’s true love until their deaths.
Taylor went on to marry two more times and divorced her last husband in 1996. She remained unmarried until her death in 2011. Burton too married two more times and he was married when he died in 1984. He was married a total of four times.
No matter what their mistakes were, the world will never see the likes of two beauties like Cleopatra and Elizabeth Taylor. Of course, no photographs exist of Cleopatra, but only contemporary descriptions and paintings of her exists, but we have photographs and movies of Taylor. The world will never see another one like her who epitomized beauty, elegance and charm. No wonder she was admired by both men and women and charmed a lot of men just like Cleopatra did. Maybe she was an incarnation of Cleopatra as she was born to play that part and she played it very well. So, if you believe in reincarnation, their love story may repeat itself in another 2000 years.
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