About this episode
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices