Doll-A-Day 158: Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra

  Today I'm showing you a doll I have waited a long time for: Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra, by Mattel.

 I have wanted one of these for ages. They have become so expensive! My only hope was to catch one at an auction at a decent price. But even at that they have been too expensive for me recently. I got super lucky at the auction last week though. I had missed the Elizabeth Taylor in Father of the Bride Mattel doll in a box of other boxed dolls for $40. That was a great deal for that doll these days. So I was determined to get the Cleopatra when she came up. I had bought a few other things, but was holding out some money to bid on the Cleo. I still had to borrow a little from Emma to top off what I had, but I got the box with Cleo for $50!

 

I love this doll. As I have said before, I love dolls of famous people that really look like them. This is a great likeness of Elizabeth Taylor.

 

  As great as this doll is, I have seen some one of a kind repaints of this head mold that are really amazingly realistic.
  Elizabeth Taylor was so beautiful. I always wanted to have black hair myself.

 

This doll was still in her box, but I knew I wouldn't leave her in there.

  Mattel copied the Cleopatra costume pretty well too, without making it totally out of a regular person's price range, or being quite as busty as the original.

  This is the costume from the part of the movie where Cleopatra enters Rome.

  Cleopatra was released in 1963, after being a couple of years in the making. At the time it was the most expensive movie ever made, and today, taking inflation into account, it's still one of the most expensive.

  Elizabeth Taylor became the first actor to be paid a million dollars for a movie when she asked for a million for "Cleopatra" in an effort to get the producers to leave her alone! When they surprisingly said yes, she accepted, (Wouldn't you?!) After adding her share of the profits, which was also part of her contract, she made well over a million.

    The movie was originally considered a flop, but in the long run it was profitable.

  The Cleopatra doll was the first of Mattel's three Elizabeth Taylor dolls, The other two were Father of the Bride and White Diamonds. I showed you the White Diamonds doll during Oscar Week earlier this year.

    I have had this Egyptian throne for two or three years, just waiting to get this Cleopatra doll to go with it! (Of course, when she sits in it she totally covers it up, and it's far too neat for that!)

  I actually bought two different Egyptian thrones. I got them at a gift shop in a very small town near here. It was my birthday and when I saw them I loved them, so Ken bought me one for my birthday. We have taken the other to a few doll shows, but so far no takers. I may bring up the birthday thing and suggest keeping the other one too. Keeeen?

Three Stooges fans will know what I mean when I say that's King Rootin Tootin's sarcophagus.

  So, I love the throne. And the box even served as the backdrop for some of these pictures.

And the other back drop is a piece of tile I got for free when a local interior decorator was getting rid of all her tile samples. The big one I used for the floor in the pictures with the box back drop, and the wall in the tile backdrop. The smaller tile that I used for the floor in the tile backdrop pictures I normally use to bake polymer clay stuff on. It works great. I haven't burned anything since I started baking on the tile.

 The sarcophagus came from Hobby Lobby a couple of years ago.

I wanted these pictures to look all dark and torch lit, but that was never going to happen!

  That's all for today's doll. If it ever stops raining I'll show you another of my auction buys tomorrow.