Richard Burton, Sir Richard Burton, that is, on screen and stage

Burton & Taylor
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Richard Burton, CBE (10 November 1925 – 5 August 1984) was a British 7 time Academy Award nominated, Golden Globe and BAFTA Award winning actor. He was at one time the highest-paid actor in Hollywood and is best associated with his second wife, actress Elizabeth Taylor, notes Wikipedia. [1]

Early on as an actor, he developed the habit of toting around a book-bag filled with novels, dictionaries, a complete Shakespeare, and books of quotations, history, and biography, to stoke his mind and stimulate conversation. He was also an enthusiastic crossword puzzle solver. His Welsh love of language was paramount, as he famously stated years later, with a tearful Elizabeth Taylor at his side, “The only thing in life is language. Not love. Not anything else.”[18]

In the 1951 season at Stratford, he gave a critically acclaimed performance and achieved stardom as Prince Hal in Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1 opposite Anthony Quayle's Falstaff. Philip Burton arrived at Strafford to help coach his former charge, and he noted in his memoir that Quayle and Richard Burton had their differences about the interpretation of the Prince Hal role. Richard Burton was already demonstrating the same independence and competitiveness as an actor that he displayed off-stage in drinking, sport, or story-telling.

In 1952, Burton successfully made the transition to a Hollywood star; on the recommendation of Daphne du Maurier, he was given the leading role in My Cousin Rachel opposite Olivia de Havilland.[26] Burton arrived on the Hollywood scene at a time when the studios were struggling. Television's rise was drawing away viewers and the studios looked to new stars and new film technology to staunch the bleeding.

Burton was offered a seven-year, $1 million contract by Darryl Zanuck at Fox.[30] It has been suggested that remarks Burton made about blacklisting Hollywood while filming The Robe may have explained his failure to ever win an Oscar, despite receiving seven nominations.

Burton appeared on Broadway, receiving a Tony Award nomination for Time Remembered (1958) and winning the award for playing King Arthur in the musical Camelot (1960). Burton's reviews were excellent, Time magazine stated that Burton “gives Arthur the skillful and vastly appealing performance that might be expected from one of England's finest young actors”. The show's album was a major seller. The Kennedys, newly in the White House, also enjoyed the play and invited Burton for a visit, establishing the link of the idealistic, young Kennedy administration with Camelot.

In the troubled production Cleopatra (1963), Twentieth Century-Fox's future appeared to hinge on what became the most expensive movie ever made up until then, reaching almost $40 million.[43] The film proved to be the start of Burton's most successful period in Hollywood; he would remain among the top 10 box-office earners for the next four years. During the filming, Burton met and fell in love with Elizabeth Taylor, who was married to Eddie Fisher. The two would not be free to marry until 1965 when their respective divorces were complete.

In 1964, Burton triumphed as defrocked Episcopal priest Dr. T. Lawrence Shannon in Tennessee Williams' The Night of the Iguana directed by John Huston, a film which became another critical and box office success. Richard Burton's performance in The Night of the Iguana may be his finest hour on the screen, and in the process helped put the town of Puerto Vallarta on the map (the Burtons later bought a house there). Part of Burton's success was due to how well he varied his acting with the three female characters, each of which he tries to seduce differently: Ava Gardner (the randy hotel owner), Sue Lyons (the nubile American tourist), and Deborah Kerr (the poor, repressed artist).[47]

He and Taylor had a great success in Mike Nichols's film (1966) of the Edward Albee play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, in which a bitter erudite couple spend the evening trading vicious barbs in front of their horrified and fascinated guests, played by George Segal and Sandy Dennis. Burton was not the first choice for the role of Taylor's husband. Jack Lemmon was offered the role first, but when he backed off, Jack Warner, with Taylor's insistence, agreed on Burton and paid him his price. Albee preferred Bette Davis and James Mason, fearing that the Burtons' strong screen presence would dominate the film.[50] Nichols, in his directorial debut, managed the Burtons brilliantly. The script by Hollywood veteran Ernest Lehman broke new ground for its raw language and harsh depiction of marriage. Although all four actors received Oscar nominations for their roles in the film (the film received a total of thirteen), only Taylor and Dennis went on to win. So immersed had the Burtons become in the roles of George and Martha over the months of shooting, after the wrap Richard Burton said, “I feel rather lost”.[49] Later the couple would state that the film took its toll on their relationship, and that Taylor was “tired of playing Martha” in real life.[51]

Burton was married five times, first to Sybil Williams from 1949 to 1963, with whom he had two children, actress Kate Burton and Jessica Burton. He was married twice, consecutively, to Elizabeth Taylor (15 March 1964 – 26 June 1974 and 10 October 1975 – 29 July 1976). The first marriage took place in Montreal. Their second marriage occurred sixteen months after their divorce, in the Chobe National Park, Kasane, Botswana. In 1964, the couple adopted a 3-year-old German girl they named Maria. The relationship between them portrayed in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was popularly likened to Burton and Taylor's real-life marriage.[55]

On the Michael Parkinson show in 1974, Burton acknowledged homosexual experiences as a young actor on the London stage in the 1950s[citation needed]. He also suggested that perhaps all actors were latent homosexuals, and "we cover it up with drink". In 2000, a biography of Elizabeth Taylor suggested that Burton may have had an affair with Laurence Olivier. Burton was also notorious for his unrestrained pursuit of women while filming. Joan Collins wrote that when she rejected his on-set advances, he embarked on a series of liaisons with other women including an elderly black maid who, according to Collins, was "almost toothless". Collins playfully told Burton that she believed he would sleep with a snake if he had the chance, to which Burton is alleged to have replied "only if it was wearing a skirt, darling".

Burton died peacefully in his sleep of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1984 at his home in Switzerland, where he is buried. He was 58 years old. Burton was buried in a red suit, a tribute to his Welsh roots.[56]