ROLE REPLAY: Julius Caesar

In this week’s Eight Days That Made Rome (9pm, Ch5), Julius Caesar is portrayed by Bad Girls baddie Jack Ellis. Here, we look at some others who have played the role on film and TV…

The very first was Charles Kent, in a 1908 short of Shakespeare’s tragedy Julius Caesar, while in 1945, Claude Rains took the lead in an all-star Caesar And Cleopatra, with Vivien Leigh (left, with Rains) as the Egyptian queen.

Louis Calhern took on the role in the acclaimed 1953 version of Julius Caesar, but was upstaged by a young Marlon Brando as Mark Antony – Brando was nominated for an Oscar. Joseph L. Mankiewicz directed it, and later helmed Cleopatra (1963), which featured Rex Harrison (centre) in the role of Caesar. John Gielgud played Cassius here, and went on to take the lead in 1970’s Julius Caesar. In 1964, Kenneth Williams (below) donned the toga for Carry On Cleo; he delivered the immortal line, ‘Infamy, infamy, they’ve all got it in for me.’ Frank Muir and Denis Norden had actually written those words years earlier for their radio comedy Take It From Here.

Television has seen a mixed bag of actors in the role, such as Noel Coward in 1967’s Androcles And The Lion. Karl Urban played Julius Caesar in Xena: Warrior Princess (1997-2001); Ciaran Hinds lent gravitas to the character in Rome (200507); while Essex actor Simon Merrells recently played him in DC’s Legends Of Tomorrow.