SHAKESPEARE?

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THE TAMING OF THE SHREW was originally intended for Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni. I am very happy that Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton invested in the picture to make it theirs. They made the perfect sparring couple!

KISS ME KATE may well have given a musical spin on the Shakespeare story of THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. Did you know that the musical was inspired by Broadway’s actor power couple Alfred Lunt and wife Lynn Fontaine?

Here’s the story that I found…


September, 1935: Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontaine turn Broadway upside-down with their volatile revival of the TAMING OF THE SHREW. Young Stage Manager Arthur Saint-Subber watches a fascinating phenomenon from the wings: Lunt and Fontaine quarrel mercilessly backstage, walk on stage and continue their bantering (albeit now using Shakespeare’s language), then walk off, taking up the battle again without missing a beat! The young man was amazed at these theatrical giants; the curtain between their stage personas and their “real” lives was never closed. In 1947, having successfully become a Broadway producer, Saint-Subber worked the famous actors’ squabbles into a musical.



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