A Dozen Women Who Played Catherine the Great

travsd

May 2

May 2 was the birthday of Catherine II of Russia (1729-1796), popularly known as Catherine the Great.

Catherine is one of history's most storied monarchs, renowned as much for her legend as for her actual accomplishments, which were manifold. A Machiavellian genius, she overthrew her husband Peter III after a few months of marriage and assumed complete control of a country that wasn't even hers (by birth she was a Prussian noblewoman). It sounds...cold-blooded? And it was, though not so much as it sounds. The pair were never truly a couple, they had big political differences, and each were at the head of different factions within the government. Catherine had as many as two dozen lovers within the nobility, which has how she managed to maintain her power base (in addition to her inborn political genius). This fed all sorts of rumors about her love life, that she was a complete libertine, that the chambers at her palaces were full of erotica and sex toys, and, most notoriously of all, that she schtupped a horse. Her role model as leader was Peter the Great, the grandfather of her deposed husband, and she emulated him by making liberal reforms, radically expanding Russian territory, increasing ties with the west, and encouraging arts and sciences. Oddly for an absolute monarch, she was an admirer and even a correspondent of Voltaire. And, less well known, she was an artist herself! She wrote nine opera librettos, fourteen full length plays, seven one-acts, and assorted monologues, sketches and other fragments.

Everything is relative, of course. The Russians are famous for their despotic government, right down to the present day. Catherine's liberalization of the country only went so far. Russia's millions of serfs would not be freed from bondage until many decades after Catherine had passed. Then, as now, political opponents risked being done away with. So in addition to the titillating sex business, her story is full of racy court intrigue, the stuff of entertaining drama. So Catherine, along with Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, Mata Hari, and others, has always been on the short list of Great Roles for Women.

As is often the case, just about every woman who ever played Catherine is more attractive than the actual character by orders of magnitude. Would that woman have had all of those lovers were she NOT the Empress of all the Russias? I tend to doubt it! But most of the women who have played her might have! Here are a dozen notable actresses who tried on Catherine's crown:

Gertrude Kingston, Great Catherine (1913)

George Bernard Shaw wrote this one-act for Kingston, whose had previously appeared in the original productions of his How He Lied to Her Husband (with Harley Granville-Barker) and Captain Brassbound's Conversion, as well as classics like The Trojan Women and Lysistrata. (The photo above is from the latter production, I couldn't find one of her as Catherine). The play was successful, and she toured with it over a period of months, even taking it to America.

Pola Negri, Forbidden Paradise (1924)

Lubitsch's first bite at the forbidden apple was based on the play Czarina, produced on Broadway two years earlier. It is one of Pola Negri's few surviving films. With Adolphe Menjou (fresh from A Woman of Paris), Rod La Rocque, Pauline Starke, and a young Clark Gable.

Marlene Dietrich, The Scarlet Empress (1934)

Von Sternberg's penultimate collaboration with Dietrich features gorgeous sets, costumes, lighting, and cinematography. It's loosely based on the Empress's diary, but substantial liberties are taken. It was one of two major films about Catherine released that year, the other being:

Elisabeth Bergner, The Rise of Catherine the Great (1934)

Alexander Korda produced this British film, directed by Hungarian Paul Czinner and starring his wife, the Austrian Elisabeth Bergner. Both of these principal artists, along with Korda, were Jewish, resulting in this film becoming one of the first to be banned in Nazi Germany.

Mae West, Catherine Was Great (1944)

One of the great losses! Mae West originally intended this to be a movie, circa 1937, but her career proved to be permanently damaged by the Production Code. She finally got it on the boards as a Broadway show in '44, and had good success with it. But I wish we could see it! Later, she slyly references the rumors about Catherine and a horse when she appeared in an episode of Mr. Ed.

Tallulah Bankhead, A Royal Scandal a.k.a. Czarina (1945)

Lubitsch's sound remake of the earlier Pola Negri film, which had been silent. Tallulah Bankhead was inspired casting -- her own sexual legend rivalled the Empress's. The ensemble cast includes Charles Coburn, Anne Baxter, Vincent Price, Mischa Auer, Sig Ruman, and Grady Sutton.

Gertrude Lawrence, Great Catherine (1948)

This was a live TV production of the Shaw play. This photo is of the period, but does not depict Lawrence as Catherine.

Jeanne Moreau, Great Catherine (1968)

The first full-on screen version of the Shaw play, starring Jeanne Moreau at her peak, the same year she was in Truffaut's The Bride Wore Black and Orson Welles' The Immortal Story. Supported by such stars as Peter O'Toole, Zero Mostel, Akim Tamiroff, and Angela Scoular (fresh from Chaplin's A Countess from Hong Kong) you might expect something exciting. But the vehicle was kind of creaky by then -- and what 1968 wanted was a racy sex farce.

Julia Ormond, Young Catherine (1991)

British TV mini-series directed by Michael Anderson, with Ormond, Vanessa Redgrave, Christopher Plummer, Franco Nero, and Maximillian Schell.

Catherine Zeta-Jones, Catherine the Great (1995)

Internationally produced TV movie starring Zeta-Jones in one of her first major roles, with Morreau returning, this time as Empress Elizabeth.

Helen Mirren, Catherine the Great (2019)

We enjoyed aspects of this four part British mini-series (obviously the sumptuous decor lead the way). While I'll cop to finding Mirren one of the sexiest women in the world, she is drawing nigh to 80 however and she was at least twice too old to play role. I found the experience interesting...like watching late-phase Sarah Bernhardt.

Elle Fanning, The Great (2020-23)

We sampled this successful Hulu series, but didn't much care for it. It's in the tradition of things like Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette (which I much enjoyed) and the show Bridgerton (ditto), but I have to say that I find the present trend for weakly campy, purposefully anachronistic takes on historical costume dramas to have overstayed its welcome. Seems an odd thing to say for someone who loves the likes of Charles Ludlam and Charles Busch. But those guys knew their history and their historical drama. These new takes are just lazy, anti-intellectual, and derivative. It's an exhausted trope and I wish it would stop, especially since audiences don't know the CORRECT history.

This is far from all the Catherines. Obviously over the years there have also been many Russian productions about their Empress, drag takes, and comedy sketches (I'm pretty sure I recall Cher playing Catherine on her TV variety show). But we restrict ourselves artificially to twelve, the same number as the anthropomorphized months in the Russian folk-tale. BECAUSE I AM THE EMPEROR OF THIS BLOG AND I SO DECLARE IT!