Foxâs head of production, Buddy Adler. DeMilleâs version was in black-and-white, but if 20th Century Fox made their Cleopatra in full color with the right stars, it could be the Hollywood epic they needed.
Instead, in the otherwise capable hands of producer Walter Wanger, it became an epic disaster. After a year of production, two key original casting choices dropped outâRex Harrison eventually replaced Peter Finch as Julius Caesar, and Richard Burton stepped in for Stephen Boyd as Mark Antonyâand the original director, Rouben Mamoulian, was replaced by Joseph Mankiewicz. Elizabeth Taylor caught âthe Asian flu,â fell into a coma, and underwent a tracheotomy, further delaying the film. Scripts were written, rewritten, and discarded. Elaborate and expensive sets were built, destroyed, and rebuilt. (âOnly the Romans left more ruins in Europe,â David later quipped.) Meanwhile, forced to keep the cast and crew on salary through multiple shooting delays, Fox was hemorrhaging millions and having to answer to furious stockholders. The future of the company looked bleak.
Fortunately, David was having more success managing his wifeâs career than his own. After months of pitching an adaptation of Sex and the Single Girl around Hollywood, he finally got some good news.
E ARLY ONE EVENING during the summer of 1962, the Browns sat in their sunroom with Helenâs seventeen-year-old cousin from her motherâs side, Norma Lou Pittman, and celebrated a deal that had been in the works for some time. Sex and the Single Girl was becoming a movieâand for the rights to the book,Warner Bros. was offering $200,000, the largest sum ever paid for a nonfiction work in Hollywood history. Even more incredible was the fact that thestudio was willing to hand over that much cash for a book with no plot and no substantial character other than Helen Gurley Brown. Word around town was that Warnerâs bought the book for its title alone. âSex and . . .â was clearly a formula that worked, but that wouldnât help the screenwriter. How was anyone supposed to write a scene around making an omelet with leftovers from the fridge, or wearing Band-Aids instead of a bra? The question of how to adapt a seemingly unadaptable book would be left to the filmâs producer, a friend of the Browns named Saul David. During the negotiations with Warnerâs, David Brown insisted that Helen be relieved of any responsibility to turn her book into a usable screenplay so that she could focus on other projects, such as writing her next book and developing a syndicated newspaper column aimed at the single girl.
Selling the rights to Sex and the Single Girl was a huge professional coup for David, who wasalso busy trying to sell the stage rights to develop a musical based on the book, similar to How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying . For Helen, the victory was personal. How many times had she been snubbed by celebrities and patronized by studio executives and their wives, who were nice to her simply because she was Davidâs girl? And now, Warnerâs wanted to pay her to use her name and likeness in a movie based on a book she had written. Out came the champagne. Pop! Helen offered a flute to Norma Lou, whom she had started calling âLouâ at the girlâs request. âYouâre old enough, do you want a little sip?â
Lou was nervous, but didnât say it. She took a sip for Helen. It was her first taste of alcohol.
No one back home would have believed it, but Helen actually took time off work to spend with Lou, who would be staying with the Browns for six days before visiting a girlfriend who lived inthe area. She had come a long way, flying from Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she still lived with her parents. The trip to California was her graduation present from Helen, who grew up playing with Louâs mother, Rosemary, who was her second cousin and four years older. When
Instead, in the otherwise capable hands of producer Walter Wanger, it became an epic disaster. After a year of production, two key original casting choices dropped outâRex Harrison eventually replaced Peter Finch as Julius Caesar, and Richard Burton stepped in for Stephen Boyd as Mark Antonyâand the original director, Rouben Mamoulian, was replaced by Joseph Mankiewicz. Elizabeth Taylor caught âthe Asian flu,â fell into a coma, and underwent a tracheotomy, further delaying the film. Scripts were written, rewritten, and discarded. Elaborate and expensive sets were built, destroyed, and rebuilt. (âOnly the Romans left more ruins in Europe,â David later quipped.) Meanwhile, forced to keep the cast and crew on salary through multiple shooting delays, Fox was hemorrhaging millions and having to answer to furious stockholders. The future of the company looked bleak.
Fortunately, David was having more success managing his wifeâs career than his own. After months of pitching an adaptation of Sex and the Single Girl around Hollywood, he finally got some good news.
E ARLY ONE EVENING during the summer of 1962, the Browns sat in their sunroom with Helenâs seventeen-year-old cousin from her motherâs side, Norma Lou Pittman, and celebrated a deal that had been in the works for some time. Sex and the Single Girl was becoming a movieâand for the rights to the book,Warner Bros. was offering $200,000, the largest sum ever paid for a nonfiction work in Hollywood history. Even more incredible was the fact that thestudio was willing to hand over that much cash for a book with no plot and no substantial character other than Helen Gurley Brown. Word around town was that Warnerâs bought the book for its title alone. âSex and . . .â was clearly a formula that worked, but that wouldnât help the screenwriter. How was anyone supposed to write a scene around making an omelet with leftovers from the fridge, or wearing Band-Aids instead of a bra? The question of how to adapt a seemingly unadaptable book would be left to the filmâs producer, a friend of the Browns named Saul David. During the negotiations with Warnerâs, David Brown insisted that Helen be relieved of any responsibility to turn her book into a usable screenplay so that she could focus on other projects, such as writing her next book and developing a syndicated newspaper column aimed at the single girl.
Selling the rights to Sex and the Single Girl was a huge professional coup for David, who wasalso busy trying to sell the stage rights to develop a musical based on the book, similar to How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying . For Helen, the victory was personal. How many times had she been snubbed by celebrities and patronized by studio executives and their wives, who were nice to her simply because she was Davidâs girl? And now, Warnerâs wanted to pay her to use her name and likeness in a movie based on a book she had written. Out came the champagne. Pop! Helen offered a flute to Norma Lou, whom she had started calling âLouâ at the girlâs request. âYouâre old enough, do you want a little sip?â
Lou was nervous, but didnât say it. She took a sip for Helen. It was her first taste of alcohol.
No one back home would have believed it, but Helen actually took time off work to spend with Lou, who would be staying with the Browns for six days before visiting a girlfriend who lived inthe area. She had come a long way, flying from Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she still lived with her parents. The trip to California was her graduation present from Helen, who grew up playing with Louâs mother, Rosemary, who was her second cousin and four years older. When
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