CAESAR AND CLEOPATRA (1951)

Written: George Bernard Shaw

Presented: Gilbert Miller

Directed: Michael Benthall

Sets: Roger Furse

Costumes designed: Audrey Cruddas

Opened: St. James Theatre, London, May 10, 1951
the Ziegfeld Theatre New York, December 19, 1951

Cast: Vivien Leigh (Cleopatra), Laurence Olivier (Caesar), Robert Helpmann (Apollodorus), Wilfrid Hyde White (Britannus), Harry Andrews (Lucius Septimius), Pat Nye (Ftatateeta), Niall MacGinnis (Rufio)

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ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA (1951)

Written: William Shakespeare

Genre: tragedy

Presented: Gilbert Miller

Directed: Michael Benthall

Sets: Roger Furse

Costumes designed: Audrey Cruddas

Opened: St. James Theatre, London, May 11, 1951
the Ziegfeld Theatre New York, December 20, 1951

Cast: Vivien Leigh (Cleopatra), Laurence Olivier (Antony), Donald Pleasence (Lemprius Euphronius), Harry Andrews (Enobarbus), Mairhi Russel (Iras), Robert Helpmann (Octavius Caesar), Wilfrid Hyde White (Lepidus), Niall MacGinnis (Pompey), Edmund Purdom (Thydeus), Katharine Blake (Charmian)

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Comments

Vivien Leigh: Every time I do any important role at all I go back to school, as it were. I go to an elocution teacher. There have been lots of different ones, and every time I do something like that. For instance, before the Cleopatras I went to a marvelous teacher. I didn't study the role with her, but I studied the actual speeches with her and did exercises. I still do.
Vivien Leigh: I read anything I could get hold of on Cleopatra. It just gets you into the atmaosphere and into the mood.

Vivien Leigh: I would have loved to have been Cleopatra in real life - providing I could choose my own Antony.

A daughter of Orson Welles remembers: Vivien Leigh is very lovely as Cleopatra, but she doesn't come across the way Laurence Olivier does. (From the book "In my father's shadow: a daughter remembers Orson Welles," by Chris Welles Feder)

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