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by Joel Samberg

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In the 1600s, "The Adulterer's Bible" appeared in England quite by accident. The printer inadvertently left one word out of the Seventh Commandment so that it read, "Thou shalt commit adultery." The printer was fined and the offending volume taken out of circulation.

Nevertheless, that seems to be the version used by many people in Hollywood over the years, including actors and directors who have made a bible movie or two.

Adultery is hardly the sort of thing that makes entire cities crumble to the ground. Even in the bible, there were plenty of adulterers who were hardly reprimanded, let alone stoned or otherwise mutilated. It was, of course, a different world back then. Yul Brynner comes off quite well as the virulent king in 1959's "Solomon and Sheba." He's downright honorable, charismatic and, yes, wise, even though he had a torrid extramarital tryst with Gina Lollobrigida. But with 700 wives and 300 concubines (a fact that is not even mentioned in the picture), who would ever know? Maybe that's why he was considered to be so wise.

Gregory Peck in 1951's "David and Bathsheba," and Richard Gere in 1985's "King David," come off smelling just as sweet, in addition to pious and sincere, as the compassionate, sensitive king, despite committing adultery with the wife of one of his soldiers. "We Hebrews are of the desert," Peck says to the beautiful Bathsheba, played by Susan Hayward. "Our emotions are fierce, like the desert wind. We worship our God fiercely, we love fiercely, we feel sorrow fiercely." It is a line written well enough and spoken sincerely enough to effectively keep Peck's character free of any audience backlash for cheating on Jayne Meadows.

For better or worse, even Abraham committed adultery. It was with Hagar, his wife's slave, and he did it in order to produce a son. In fact, Abraham lived to the ripe old age of 175 to tell about it. In "The Bible," John Huston's 1966 epic, this episode isn't even covered in the portion where George C. Scott portrays the first Hebrew. Both the 1994 film, "Abraham," with Richard Harris, and the 2000 television movie, "In the Beginning," with Martin Landau, handle it in such a way as to indicate that sleeping with your wife's slave is a predestined act, completely unavoidable if great nations are to be created.

But Abraham, Solomon, and King David lived before Jesus, whose teachings would have shone a much harsher light on the nefarious goings-on. "Whoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart," Jesus said.

Jesus was never on a movie set. That's probably a good thing.

In real life, Richard Burton, who was one of Christ's first disciples in "The Robe" (1953), had extramarital relationships with Jean Simmons (who was also in the picture), Claire Bloom and Susan Strasberg, among others. Strasberg was only nineteen when she began an affair with the 32-year-old actor.

Shelley Winters, who was in "Samson and Delilah," had an affair with Sterling Hayden while she was still married to Vittorio Gassman. In fact, she credits the affair with giving her the strength to go through with her divorce.

Orson Welles, who appeared as King Saul in "David and Goliath" (1961) and narrated "King of Kings" (1961), had two mistresses (both were ballerinas) during and after his first wife's pregnancy in 1937. He also had an affair with Deloris del Rio in 1939, who was still married to art director Cedric Gibbons. (Del Rio was ten years older than Welles.)

Even Cecil B. DeMille, who produced and directed several biblical spectaculars, including both versions of "The Ten Commandments," was known to dally between dailies once or twice.

To be sure, this is a highly abridged list of Hollywood's biblical elite who lusted with far more than just their hearts. Such a list could go on for pages, but authors, even faithful ones, should not cast the first stone too many times, lest someone attempt to cast one back.

Learn more about this author, Joel Samberg.

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