Antony and Cleopatra has enjoyed a long history of adaptation over the years. The Royal Shakespeare Company has performed the play numerous times, featuring many well-known actors in the lead roles including Helen Mirren as Cleopatra in 1982 and Patrick Stewart as Marc Antony in 2006. The play has also been made into numerous films of the same name over the years.
Notably, however, it is not the love story between Antony and Cleopatra that has endured over the centuries. Instead, the image and reputation of Cleopatra alone has prevailed, in large part due to the previous popularity of the play. While Cleopatra has always been of historical interest to many, Antony and Cleopatra and its continued performances helped solidify the queen of Egypt as an emblem of sensuality and feminine power in contemporary Western culture. As such, there are many more film versions of Cleopatra's life than there are of Shakespeare's play, though these films draw heavily on the language and mythology surrounding Cleopatra in Shakespeare's original script. Perhaps the most famous of these films is the 1963 production Cleopatra, starring Elizabeth Taylor.
