From: ROCxolan@t-online.de   
      
   Edward McArdle wrote:   
   > In article , "David Milligan"   
   >  wrote:   
   >>        Never watched Cleo2525 because of Gina Torres - truly one of the   
   >>UGLIEST women EVER on TV.   
      
   Woah, that is harsh. Personally, she isn't really my type and I prefer   
   Caucasian (especially Northern/Central European) women anyway, but never   
   would it have occurred to me to call Gina Torres ugly. In fact, I loved   
   "mirror Nebula" in "Stranger in a Strange World" (HTLJ 4x05).   
      
   >>        Why she was cast as Cleopatra on Xena  I'll never know (maybe she   
   >>had compromising photos of somebody and threatened to expose him/her/them).   
   > I have seen suggestions that Cleopatra may not have been the beauty that   
   > her fame says. She was somewhat inbred. She was also probably   
   > dark-skinned, like Gina. And don't ask me where I read all this.   
      
   Cleopatra was most certainly NOT black. She was of Greek/Macedon descent   
   and at best partly Egyptian. Even then, there is not a shred of evidence   
   to suggest that the ancient Egyptians in general were significantly   
   darker than the contemporary Egyptians, and those are not black, unless   
   you call Arabs or Italians black. To me, those are tan, tawny or perhaps   
   olive-skinned, at most, not even brown, clearly Caucasian, and nowhere   
   do they look like typical Negroid Africans or even Afro-Americans, who   
   are quite mixed. To portray Cleopatra, whose portrayals make her rather   
   look Greek (hardly unexpectedly), as African is clearly misleading.   
      
   There is even reason to think that Cleopatra was, in fact, a blonde:   
      
   http://www.4information.com/trivia/cleopatra-blonde-brunette/   
      
   --   
      
   Florian   
   GGGHD, MWFA, HCNB   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)