Calpurnia Pisonis - Calpurnia in Literature and Popular Culture

Calpurnia in Literature and Popular Culture

• In Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Calpurnia has a dream that a statue of Caesar was flowing with blood as many Romans wash their hands in the blood. She also sees in her dream that Julius Caesar would die in her arms.

• A version of Calpurnia was portrayed by Haydn Gwynne in HBO's series Rome.

• Her character from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar was also portrayed by Sylvia Lennick in Wayne and Shuster's comedy sketch "Rinse the Blood Off My Toga", parodied as a hysterical Italian-American housewife repeatedly wailing "I told him, Julie! Don't go!" in a Bronx accent.

• She was also portrayed by British actresses Greer Garson in the 1953 adaptation of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, by Joan Sims in Carry on Cleo, by Italian actress Valeria Golino in the 2002 made for TV movie Julius Caesar, by Gertrude Michael in Cecil B. DeMille's 1934 Cleopatra, and by Gwen Watford in 20th Century Fox's 1963 "Cleopatra."

• She is shown taking part in solving a murder in Mist of Prophecies (2002) - part of the Roma Sub Rosa series by Steven Saylor. She gets Gordianus the Finder to look into a threat to her husband in a later book in this series, The Triumph of Caesar (2008).

• In the motion picture The Addams Family, there is a portrait of Calpurnia on the wall of the Adams'.