‘King Tut’s Tomb’

Press, 26 December 1979, Page 9

‘King Tut’s Tomb’

Harlech TV in Wales has started production on a $2 million two-hour drama production of the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun. The play is to be called “The Curse of King Tut's Tomb” and has been presold to the American network N.B.C. where it is due to be transmitted in the spring of 1980. Work has started on the production and has already run into trouble. A film unit was operating in Egypt, near Luxor, when lan McShane, cast as the archaeologist Howard Carter, crashed the car he was driving for the film and broke his leg. Robin Ellis was flown out to replace him, but it

was then found that the car itself, a vital part of the scene being made on location, was a write-off. Filming at Highclere Castle, of the Carnarvon family, was due to start, so the whole team was recalled to Bristol. It is expected that cast and technicians will return to Egypt in January. Peter Graham Scott, who recently produced “Kidnapped” for HTV and is now planning a series about the Rothschild family for the same company, is producing the King Tut film. which is being directed by Philip Leacock, an Englishman who has been directing in Hollywood. Harry Andrews plays Lord Carnavon who, with

Howard Carter, uncovered the tomb. Also in the cast are Angharad Rees, Raymond Burr. Rupert Fraser and Eve Marie Saint who plays a journalist. Most of the filming will take place in Egypt, but a number of scenes will be shot in an aircraft hangar at Colerne near Bath where the designers are reconstructing the enormous Tutankhamun tomb. John Biggs, the art director, will also have to recreate the treasures of the tomb, including the golden death mask, the gilded furniture, the jewels and the other items that brought so much interest to the Tutankhamun exhibition in London seven years ago.