Most Powerful Women Throughout History

Cleopatra VII

Cleopatra VII's life has fascinated scores of writers and artists through the centuries. While she was a powerful political figure in her own right, it is likely that much of her appeal lay in her legend as a great seductress who was able to ally herself with two of the most powerful men (Julius Caesar and Mark Antony) of her time.

 

Films

The earliest Cleopatra-related motion picture was the two-minute short, Cléopâtre. Directed by Georges Méliès in 1899, the fanciful short is about a raid on Cleopatra's tomb, resulting in her resurrection.

The earliest drama film about the queen was Antony and Cleopatra (1908) with Florence Lawrence as Cleopatra. The earliest film with Cleopatra as the main subject was Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, starring Helen Gardner (1912).

Other films and TV movies inspired by the Queen of the Nile include:

Cleopatra (1917)
Based on Émile Moreau's play Cléopatre, Sardou's play Cléopatre, and Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. Starred Theda Bara (Cleopatra), Fritz Leiber (Caesar), Thurston Hall (Antony); directed by J. Gordon Edwards.

Cleopatra (1934)
Oscar-nominated Cecil B. DeMille epic. Starred Claudette Colbert (Cleopatra), Warren William (Caesar), Henry Wilcoxon (Antony).

Caesar and Cleopatra (1945)
Oscar-nominated version of George Bernard Shaw's play of the same name. Starred Vivien Leigh (Cleopatra), Claude Rains (Caesar), Stewart Granger, Flora Robson; Leigh also played Cleopatra opposite then-husband's Laurence Olivier's Caesar in a later London stage version.

Serpent of the Nile (1953)
Starred Rhonda Fleming (Cleopatra), Raymond Burr (Mark Antony), Michael Fox (Octavian).

Cléo de 5 à 7 (1961)
French New Wave Feminist film by Agnes Varda about a beautiful contemporary Parisian woman, symbolizing Cleopatra, in the two hours before she receives the results of a biopsy.

Cleopatra (1963)
Oscar-winning blockbuster most (in)famously remembered for the off-screen affair between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton and the at-the-time massive $44 million cost-today just under $270 million-making it the second most expensive film ever made (after War and Peace (1968)). Starred Elizabeth Taylor (Cleopatra), Rex Harrison (Caesar), Richard Burton (Antony).

Totò e Cleopatra (1963)
An Italian comedy movie about Cleopatra and Mark Antony, who was played by the Italian actor Totò.

Carry On Cleo (1964)
A parody of the American 1963 film, with Amanda Barrie as Cleopatra, Sid James as Mark Antony, and Kenneth Williams as Caesar.

Kureopatora (Cleopatra: Queen of Sex) (1970)
A Japanese animated film by Osamu Tezuka. When released in the United States, the film was promoted as being X-rated in an attempt to cash in on the success of Fritz the Cat. In actuality, Cleopatra had not been submitted to the MPAA, and it is considered to be highly unlikely that it would have received an X rating if it had been submitted. The English subtitled version is said to be lost, but a clip from the dubbed version is available on YouTube.

The Notorious Cleopatra (1970)
A grossly inaccurate sexploitation film by Harry Novak. In this version Cleopatra is stabbed to death in her tub by Mark Antony.

Antony & Cleopatra (1974)
Television production performed by London's Royal Shakespeare Company, shown in the US in 1975 to great critical acclaim. Starred Janet Suzman (Cleopatra), Richard Johnson (Antony), and Patrick Stewart (Enobarbus).

Miss Cleopatra (1990)
A Pakistani movie in Punjabi starring the Babra Sharif.

Cleopatra (1999)
Based on the book Memoirs of Cleopatra by Margaret George. Starred Leonor Varela (Cleopatra), Timothy Dalton (Caesar), Billy Zane (Antony).

Mission Cleopatra (2000)
French film based on the comic book Astérix et Cléopatre by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo. Starred Monica Bellucci (Cleopatra), Alain Chabat (Caesar), Christian Clavier, Gerard Depardieu.

 

Marie Antoinette

Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, is best remembered for her legendary extravagance and for her death: she was executed by guillotine during the Reign of Terror at the height of the French Revolution in 1793 for the crime of treason. Her life has been subject of many historically accurate biographies, as well as subject of romance novels and films.

As were many people and events involved with the French Revolution, Marie-Antoinette's life and role in the great social-political conflict were contingent upon many factors. Many have speculated as to how influential she actually was on the nature of the revolution, and the direction it eventually took. In light of the varying contingencies surrounding her life that made her a hated and despised figure in the eyes of the revolutionaries, it is interesting to note that during her tenure as Queen of France, these factors caused her to be viewed as a genuine model of the old regime, perhaps even more so than her husband, the king. Due to her frivolous spending and indulgent royal lifestyle, as well as her well-known desire to benefit the Austrian empire with her legislation as queen, her caring, motherly nature was overshadowed, and revolutionaries only saw her as an obstruction to the Revolution.

However, she was also considered to be a martyr by royalists both in and out of France, so much so that the Tower was demolished by Napoleon in order to get rid of all symbols of the oppression of the royal family. The view of the queen as a martyr was a generally held view in the post-Napoleonic era and through the nineteenth century, though publications were still written (such as by the ultra-republican work of Jules Michelet) portraying the queen as a frivolous spendthrift who single-handedly ruined France; this view is not widely accepted as accurate by most modern historians, though it is important to note that even the less biased contemporary sources were quick to point out that the queen did have faults which contributed to her condition.

In film

1938 Marie Antoinette
1956 Marie-Antoinette reine de France
2001 The Affair of the Necklace
2006 Marie Antoinette

Catherine II of Russia

The flamboyant and central character of Russian Empress Catherine II of Russia, as well as the dramatic changes the country underwent during her long rule, gave rise to many urban legends, most casting her in an unfavorable light. Some stories were loosely based on true events, others were clearly false. The palace intrigue of her son Paul I of Russia was a fertile ground for such rumors.

Catherine II journeyed to Russia from Germany with her mother in January, 1744. When they reached Russia, the Empress Elizabeth took a great liking to Sofie. But her nephew, Peter, who was very undeveloped mentally and physically from having no proper parenting and love and spent his time playing childish games, hated the country he was to reign, and admired Frederick the Great of Prussia, who was a hero to him.

Several stories about the circumstances of her death at the age of 67 probably originated soon after. A common story states that she died as a result of her voracious sexual appetite while attempting sexual intercourse with a stallion - the story holds that the harness broke and she was crushed. This is a completely untrue story.

This story coexists with another, less physically impossible but also totally unsubstantiated, tale: that Catherine did engage in a sexual relationship with a stallion, but at a younger age.

Another story, that she died on a toilet when the seat broke under her, is true only in small part: she did collapse in a bathroom from a stroke, but after that she died being cared for in her bed. This tale was widely circulated and even jokingly referred to by Aleksandr Pushkin in one of his untitled poems. ("Наказ писала, флоты жгла, / И умерла, садясь на судно." - literal translation: "Decreed the orders, burned the fleets / And died boarding a vessel", the last line can also be translated as "And died sitting down on the toilet".)

Rumors of her private life had a large basis in the fact that she took many young lovers, even while in old age. This was not unusual by the court standards of the day, nor was it unusual to use rumor and innuendo of sexual excess politically. One unfavorable rumor was that Alexander Dmitriev-Mamonov and her later lovers were chosen by prince Potemkin himself, after the end of the long relationship Catherine had with Potemkin, where he, perhaps, was her morganatic husband. After Mamonov eloped from the 60-year-old Empress with a 16-year-old maid of honour and married her, the embittered Catherine reputedly revenged herself of her rival "by secretly sending policemen disguised as women to whip her in her husband's presence".

According to some contemporaries close to Catherine, Countess Bruce was prized by her as an "eprouveuse", or "tester of male capacity".Every potential lover was to spend a night with Bruce before he was admitted into Catherine's personal apartments. Their friendship was cut short when Bruce was found "in an assignment" with Catherine's youthful lover, Rimsky-Korsakov, ancestor of the composer; they both later withdrew from the imperial court to Moscow.

A long-surviving story about the Potemkin villages was false, even though it became eponymous. It states that Potemkin built fake settlements with hollow facades to fool Empress Catherine II during her visit to Crimea and New Russia, the territories Russia conquered under her reign. Modern historians, however, consider this scenario at best an exaggeration, and quite possibly simply malicious rumors spread by Potemkin's opponents.