How To Own a Piece of Elizabeth Taylor

Quite simply, Howard Terpning is one of the foremost living American artists and one of the most lauded Western artists of all time. His awards

are so numerous and he is honored with them so often, that to list them would require changing the count every few months. To name the following

though would be to cite the highest prizes awarded to Western art: countless awards from the Cowboy Artists of America, the Hubbard Art Award

for Excellence, the National Academy of Western Art’s Prix de West and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Gene Autry Museum.

Since the late 1970s, Howard A. Terpning has been famous for his highly respected western paintings but before he started to paint the native

Americans, he employed himself as an illustrator for the major Hollywood films studios during the 1960s. Thanks to his talent, we can still enjoy looking at posters

which are more than 40 years old. His paintings are world famous and in some cases true movie icons, like the "Doctor Zhivago" and "Cleopatra" posters.

Photo of painting before the 4" panel was added to left side and Rex Harrison painted in to match.

In terms of sheer size and scope, legend and excess, few Hollywood films will ever be able to hold a candle to Joseph L. Mankiewicz's epic production Cleopatra

starring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and Rex Harrison. The movie garnered 9 Oscar nominations (winning 4) but is most known not for the Academy Awards but instead

for nearly bankrupting 20th Century Fox. It not only was expensive, it was a box-office fiasco and fertile ground for real-life love, lust and loose lips.

The rumor mills and gossip columnists had enough to write about during the entire lengthily production...and then some.

Adjusting for inflation, Cleopatra is still the most expensive movie ever made. When all was said done at the end of 1963,

after three years of production, the cost was somewhere between $40 and $44 million, which is estimated today to be well in excess of $320 .

There was trouble on the set from the very beginning: Elizabeth Taylor, who was the first actor ever to be paid $1 million for a single movie,

had health problems that kept her off the set for extensive periods of time. The original director, Rouben Mamoulian (Mark of Zorro, Blood and Sand), left the production

after six months of principle photography at Pinewood Studios in London, along with the two leading male stars, Peter Finch (as Julius Caesar) and Stephen Boyd (as Marc Antony).

At this point, Joseph L. Mankiewicz stepped in to direct, and Rex Harrison took the role of Caesar and Richard Burton took the role of Marc Antony.

The entire production was moved to Rome. At this point, there was 10 minutes of usable footage in the can, and the movie had already cost $7 million and

taken up 16 weeks of production time.

When Cleopatra finally premiered in 1963, audiences turned out in throngs to see it, but it would be years before the movie made back its enormous production costs.

The steamy rumors about on-set sexcapades between co-stars Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor (both of whom were

married to other people) helped generate interest in the movie, even though critics were generally mixed in their responses (Pauline Kael later called it "terrible,

but compulsively watchable"). The popularity of the wide-screen sword-and-sandals genre that had made such big hits out of The Ten Commandments (1956),

Ben-Hur (1959), Spartacus (1960), and El Cid (1961) was waning, and the perceived box-office failure of Cleopatra sealed its doom.

Billboard for World Premiere of Cleopatra being put up in Times Square sans Rex Harrison

Notice that in the reproduction of the original painting in workman’s hand and on the finished billboard as erected in Times Square, Rex Harrison is nowhere to be seen.

He had to sue 20th Century Fox to obtain his legal co-star billing status and credits in the movie, on the screen, and on all publicity materials including this billboard above.

Variety’s headlines asked “Is Rexy Not Sexy Anymore?” when reporting the lawsuit. He won and Fox had to have artist Howard Terpning add a 6” strip to the left side of the painting

and add the figure of Rex Harrison who then was repainted into the billboard as well as every piece of collateral material thereafter. The original painting still has the 4 ” strip in place.

Also notice that there is no movie title or reference to the stars on the billboard. Fox conducted what was called a “‘bold and audacious’

ad campaign. The bold approach is a florid painting of a very soft-surfaced Miss Taylor being stared at by an actor named Burton, in Roman costume -

with no names apparent, either of the performers or the film. The ad man who designed this campaign said that it is the first time such anonymity has been possible.”

This was reported in a 1963 issue of Audience magazine.

The below B/W photo of the original painting is before Rex Harrison was added and a Special Edition Mexican publication showing the

entire original artwork (sans Rex) on the front and back of the magazine. This is the only reproduction of the original artwork used in any media. The magazine’s

cover date is January 1964 but obviously the art was not pulled from them once the revised artwork was distributed to all press and media.

Photo of the original painting before Terpning added 4 ” panel to accommodate Rex Harrison Image

The Original Painting art sans Rex Harrison was used on the cover of this Mexican Magazine published in 1964. The image is “flopped.”

World Premiere Ticket

Art from the Original Painting Without Rex Harrison

All Art Below is from

the Revised Painting

(a 4 inch panel was added to the left side and Terpning added Rex Harrison).

The revised painting with Rex Harrison added by Terpning at Fox’s request became the cornerstone piece for all collateral material issued by the studio worldwide.

The art and posters were reproduced in dozens and dozens of foreign languages. (All below items are part of the Cleopatra Collection and will included in the purchase.)

Lobby Card from Mexico Below

the book of the making of the movie written by two of Twentieth-Century Fox’s publicists at the time. All their private correspondence and telexes

describing in detailing the problems that plagued the movie. They even make reference to the artwork which became the movie billboard in Times Square, NY.

of stars Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton with all credits eliminated from copy"