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is well aware of the fact that even with the extra time provided by her illness we still aren’t organized. She has been around too long not to be aware when a company is muddling—and we are muddling. She is getting tired of the press laying the blame for our confusion on her. She is especially irked that Skouras is using her as the scapegoat with the insurance company.
    O CTOBER 21, 1960
    The doctors think Elizabeth will not be ready for work until November 1. The insurance company wants us to issue suspension notices to all the other members of the cast and close down the picture.
    Skouras is in town. The main issue in his mind seems to be discovering how much of our losses can be recovered by insurance. Looks like a battle brewing between the insurance companies and Skouras.
    Skouras saw some of the rushes with Peter Finch and Stephen Boyd. He doesn’t think Finch has enough dignity and strength or power to play Caesar. Part of this he blames on Mamoulian and me. He says we don’t seem to be handling the cast with enough authority. “I don’t care for what I’ve seen or what I’ve heard,” Skouras said. Mamoulian, naturally, is very upset.
    We are still shooting around Liz and doing everything we can, building special sets, rushing sets in and tearing them down, in order to get moving. So far we are not ready for Liz anyway; the costumes are not completed and the script is still not right. All the scenes shot up to now are exteriors—nothing in which the actors have any important dialogue. We are just setting the stage for the big scenes.
    O CTOBER 22, 1960
    Big session on insurance at the 20th Century-Fox headquarters in Soho Square.
    The insurance company wants us to close down and recast Elizabeth; Skouras wants to collect the insurance and start over again; Rogell wants to keep going ahead in the hope that Elizabeth will soon be well enough to work.
    The weather is terrible; cold, rainy, and damp.
    O CTOBER 24, 1960
    Another meeting with all the executives at which Ernie Holding, the Fox production executive, estimated that our loss since September 29 has been $121,428 a day. The loss to date: over two million dollars.
    Skouras decided to trim the budget to five million dollars and readjust the shooting schedule from 95 to 75 days. At the same time he announced that I am in charge of making the picture on the new schedule and budget. Every time he comes to Europe he gives someone else complete authority, but the fact is he keeps the power for final decision to himself. Anyway, the new budget and schedule are impossible—we’ve spent almost half the budget already. But Skouras, as usual, won’t listen to facts.
    “Make it,” he said.
    O CTOBER 26, 1960
    Skouras continues his usual routine of “You’re the producer, no alibis, you’re too nice.” He claims I am responsible for the delays because I insisted on having Liz.
    “You’re such a stubborn sonofabitch,” he said. “You’ve ruined us by having that girl in the picture. We’ll never finish the picture with her. I wish to hell we’d done it with Joanne Woodward or Susan Hayward—we’d be making money now.”
    I told Skouras I thought Liz was going to be great. Then I mentioned that I had just talked with Harold Mirisch in Los Angeles, who said he just called off his deal with Liz for
Irma La Douce
and
Two for the Seesaw
, so she was free now.
    “I authorize you to sign Liz for two more pictures—at once,” Skouras said without missing a beat!
    Heavy fog makes shooting impossible. We had called five hundred extras, and could hardly find them on the set in the fog.
    O CTOBER 29, 1960
    Liz taken to the London Clinic.
    Talked with the doctors to find out what is really the trouble. One of them told me she has Malta fever—a tenacious bug that’s as hard to shake as it is to diagnose.
    “Convalescence is usually tedious—at least three months,” the doctor said.
    I hope he’s wrong—for Elizabeth’s sake as well as ours.
    N OVEMBER