Liz' Extra-Special Extras
When the costliest film of the ages, 20th Century-Fox's "Cleopatra," appears on the nation's movie screens this spring, most male orbs in the audience will be locked firmly upon star Elizabeth Taylor, the flawless raison d'être of our "Liz as Cleo" pictorial last month. Those of discerning eye, however, may find their attention diverted by a comely collection of scene-stealers: the handmaidens, slave girls and native dancers who serve and amuse the Nile sorceress and her Roman conquerors. In an admiring preview of coming attractions, we here present a candid portfolio of these all-but-anonymous, nonetheless lovely players. On opposite page, dancers try out pipes which will welcome Liz to Rome; English actress Francesca Annis (one of Cleo's two principal attendants) touches up her lipstick; headdressed chorine is pretty for the pictures; and lightly leafed dancers prepare to perform for Liz and Richard Burton. The halfbikinied maid modestly covering herself is French filly Michele Bally, who has a small featured part; below, a dancer with affixed pinions rehearses for Cleo's procession scene in the brief garb favored by the girls in the hot Roman sun, while at right a feathered friend is accoutered for the camera. The smiling young lady at left is imported U.S. dancer Kathy Martin.
The bouncing chicks here having a costume ball are a select international lot assembled from all over the globe: for example, Cleopatra's 18 handmaidens (chosen from a shapely shape-up of 350 candidates) include five Italians, four Americans, two French and two Swedish girls, and one winner each from Indonesia, Greece, Holland, China and England. The dark beauty in the black lace lingerie at left, top, is Marie Devereaux, an English actress whose remarkable lookslike-Liz face and figure caused her to be picked as Miss Taylor's stand-in for long and over-the-shoulder shots. Marie, who has one on-camera clinch with Richard Burton, is now in Hollywood hoping for a break in American productions. To her right, chatting handmaidens mill in Cleo's wig room, part of the lavish set modeled upon the royal apartments once occupied by the Queen and her attractive retinue of pyramid climbers. Below, everything's coming up poses as the handmaidens of the bath mug prettily just before Elizabeth Taylor's big tub scene, the film's most publicized episode. At right, top, lithe dancers draw scant attention during rehearsal breaks and, below, form an attractive navel blockade prior to the lensing of Cleopatra's triumphant entry into Rome and its attendant sensuous celebration by the Egyptian dancing girls.
