The 50th anniversary of the Hollywood colossal Cleopatra which was filmed at the Rome studios of Cinecittà between 1961-1963 is being celebrated in the capital with a programme of events, including open air projections of the film at the archaeological Piazza di Torre Argentina site.
Elizabeth Taylor, who played the starring role, was paid a record fee of a million dollars for her role in the film. During the three years of filming, she dominated the Dolce Vita period of Rome in the early '60s, filling the gossip press with tales of her torrid love affair with Richard Burton, who played her lover, the Roman general Mark Antony. Photographer Rino Barillari, on whom Fellini based his character Paparazzo in the Dolce Vita film, transforming the name into an international word, recalled in a current interview the extraordinary beauty of the star as well as her generosity and willingness to pose for the street photographers who assailed her wherever she went.
