From the comments:
“Speaking of long term nudity, I just came across an indication that Dame Helen Mirren may have appeared nude in a 1965 stage production of Antony and Cleopatra.”
Scoop’s note:
That’s new to me. Where did you get that information? That picture shows nothing, and while Britain is pretty liberal about such matters, that performance was staged by the National Youth Theater in 1965, which doesn’t seem like a likely source for stage nudity.
Here is what AI says, for what it’s worth:
There is no record of Helen Mirren being topless in the 1965 production of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. She began her career at the age of 20 with this role, which led to an extraordinary career.
This site has lots of pics from that production: on stage, backstage, promotional, etc.
This tweet from 2019 has the image. It may be plausible she did it as the iconography of Cleopatra’s death is a snake on her breast so think that would have been fine for artistic reasons
????
There’s no nudity in any of those images. The picture in the original post is genuine (you can find it in Getty Images), but there’s no nudity.
Ah, right you are. At first I thought it might be some pancake makeup for effect or modesty, but now I see the dress. I had the same thought as the first poster above.
Dang, I’m a little disappointed but still a good look at her fine bustline in a very early appearance.
The original post I encountered was on Vintage Erotica.
PR
That site is really a treasure trove of wonderful stuff. (But not the easiest site to surf and navigate.)
I’m not sure about the 1965 production. It was definitely reported that she got naked in a later production in 1998 with Alan Rickman.
“It was even leaked that Helen Mirren “unwrapped” as Cleopatra in the final scene.”
In her book, she did include a photo from a stage production in the 1960s. That’s the same book were she published nude photos taken by her then boyfriend James Wedge. She actually secretly modeled for him and the photos wee published in Playboy. She said they took great pains to disguise her identity.
This photo of her masked from the June 1979 issue of Playboy was republished in her book In The Frame.
This full frontal shot might also be her although it doesn’t look like her (she did say they disguised her) but the boobs seem to match. But jury’s out.
I’m not clear what that article in the Independent is saying. Did Mirren actually strip, or was that a rumor they leaked to help sell out?
I remember reading somewhere else that she did get naked. Another production of Antony and Cleopatra reportedly also had France de la Tour completely naked in the last scene. It seems like that’s the go-to Shakespeare play for respected actresses to do nudity. I even managed to find this photo of Katharine Hepburn possibly showing nipple underneath her sheer gown.
I would say certainly rather than possibly. I don’t know what else that could be.
I would like to hear Hepburn perform Shakespeare. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her do anything without her thick New England accent.
In general, I’m not a big Hepburn fan. But she was fantastic in The Lion in Winter, one of my favorite all-time “talkie” movies.
ChatGPT says No.
This reviewer says she was totally naked in the final preview performances in 1998.
She stayed naked in the play, then stripped during her curtain call?
Now that’s gangster.
Minor correction to a factual inaccuracy in that article. I read several reviews of that show, and the critics liked Mirren. They did take a hearty number two on Alan Rickman.
“I’m a very big Rickman fan, even after seeing his supremely awful Hamlet. Silly me, I thought that was a fluke and blamed the director. But he mumbled and slurred and staggered through the role of Marcus Antonius. It was agony, frankly.” (londontheatre.co.uk)
“Alan Rickman’s performance was thoroughly unengaging and at times downright lazy.” (Guardian)
They [Rickman and Mirren] rose to erotic ardour last night with little more enthusiasm than a pair of glumly non-mating pandas at London Zoo, coaxed to do their duty.” (Evening Standard)
“Rickman’s rumpled, woebegone Antony sometimes left me feeling that Eeyore had been miscast as Tigger ” (The Times)
“That might explain the sometimes moving, sometimes frustrating weightlessness to Rickman’s Roman triumvir, who is at his best floating into a realm of grief at moving odds with his imposing stature. One only wishes Rickman’s slurred diction didn’t tend to bury the speech somewhere deep inside him, rarely to be retrieved.” (Variety)
In fairness to the late Mr. Rickman, he was cast as a last-minute replacement when Alan Bates took ill, and he had little time to prepare.
The Times had a great idea that never came to fruition. Rickman would have been the ultimare Eeyore. It’s the role he was born to play.
(Funny thing about that. People who knew him always described Rickman’s real personality as light-hearted, deferential and unfailingly kind, yet his performances created the impression that he was dour, cynical and oh-so-serious.)
I remember all the fuss about Nicole Kidman’s nude scene. I heard that in actuality it was just a quick view of her butt. She looked great on the poster though.
I don’t think anyone recorded The Blue Room though. But there are recordings of other plays with nudity in the New York Public library including Frankie and Johnny which I believe is the only time Bonnie Franklin of One Day At A Time ever did a nude scene. There’s limited access to these recordings but somehow the late Marine Mazzie’s nude scene from Sondheim’s Passion was leaked online. She had a glorious chest. Passion was also released on DVD but this is the one that was broadcast on PBS so all you get is a brief side boob. This one is presumably from the NYPL archives.
I remember that in the early days of Uncle Scoopy’s Fun House we were all waiting to see some pirated shots of Kidman’s butt scene that famously produced a deafening chorus of wolf-whistles in The Blue Room.
I’m still waiting, almost thirty years later.
Hey, I just looked at that poster. Kidman’s co-star in The Blue Room was Ser Jorah Mormont from Game of Thrones! (I didn’t know who Iain Glen was at the time.)
Yeah I remember an interview he did where he bemoaned the fact that Kidman got all the attention for briefly mooning the aidience.
“When Nicole Kidman and I were in The Blue Room [in the West End], everyone was talking about a flash of Nicole’s back, and there I was doing full-frontal naked cartwheels and no one seemed to care.”
Here’s a clip of Nicole and Ser Jorah in The Blue Room. No nudity just some sexy dancing.
It’s been a long time since my youthful theater-acting days. I forgot how artificial it sounds.
ChatGPT says: Helen Mirren’s 1965 portrayal of Cleopatra was a professional debut that did not involve nudity, reflecting the norms and expectations of the time.