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It Cleopatra Crumbles. The movie insurance field has long since settled down to less gimmickry and more dollar volume, but it still has claims to color. One actor actually insured himself against falling in love while making a picture. In 1957 before the cameras of Jailhouse Rock, Elvis Presley produced an inguinal heave so seismic that it traveled to his upper jawbone, loosening a tooth cap that fell into his bronchial tube ($2904) During the filming of The Young Lions, Marlon Brando spilled a pot of hot tea in his lap, developed an embarrassing infection ($33.806). Spartacus cost Fireman's Fund $632,197 (against a typical premium of $70,227 on a $4,100,000 policy) when Jean Simmons had an appendectomy, Tony Curtis broke his Achilles tendon and Supergladiator Kirk Douglas was leveled by a virus maximus.
Studying such events, actuaries some years ago decided that Clark Gable was the best risk in films, Elizabeth Taylor the worst by a wide margin. Making Raintree County four years ago, she wore a tight, Kodiak sort of corset that induced a hyperventilation syndrome ($45,299). For minor illnesses in Giant and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, she cost Fireman's Fund some $75,000. And now Lloyd's and the other underwriters are trying to decide whether they will reinstate Cleopatra's coverage. If they do not, the picture may never be finished. Insurance men made an interim decision last week to challenge the actress' original declaration on the state of her health. If Cleopatra crumbles and the insurers prove that Elizabeth Taylor did not have nearly $3,000,000 worth of toothache. 20th Century-Fox will lose the total cost to date of the picture: $5,500,000.