This Is The Richard Burton Thread

man i want to read this now.

i got around to watching Spy Who Came in From the Cold recently, after somewhere on ILX

sorry, premature posting

...after somewhere on ILX I rather rashly said that Burton had never been in a good film and got beaten up w/ SWCIFTC and Where Eagles Dare (now I concede the latter...) Anyway, didn't think Spy was so wonderful, and was struck by how STRANGE Burton seemed now, or his manner of performance anyway - loud, declamatory, truculent, his face puffy and over-made up. all part of the translation of 'classical' stage acting to the cinema, i guess - but it seems very badly dated, now.

Becket is really good. Have a look at that.

@BurtonDiaries Jul 8
Jul 8 70 Brando really is a smugly pompous little bastard.......Sinatra is the same. God in their own mirrors. Distorted mirrors.

Checked the diaries out of the library today. Will post favorite bits.

If you want to cut to the most vicious takedowns, look up the entries starring Rachel Roberts and Lucille Ball

ha -- I read those an hour ago.

re Lucille Ball

That episode of Here's Lucy featuring the Burtons is actually one of the funniest of that series. I couldn't detect any animosity in the actual show, although I think even Burton admits that the final taping went really well and it was just the rehearsals that were excruciating (for him)

per John le Carre, director Martin Ritt's last shouted words to Burton after wrapping The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (one of RB's best films) was "I've had the last lay of an old whore!"

there's a great interview by Kenneth Tynan of Burton on the Spy Criterion, in which he says he's "not a romantic actor" and that he hated to physically touch anyone onstage (or film).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8mRCQvSkEo

Sep 18 71 E came home, quite late and slightly the worse for wear, about 7.30. She has just given me a graphic description of the delight of over-eating kippers and the particular joy of their repeating.

— Richard Burton (@BurtonDiaries) September 18, 2018

Sep 6 71 E sat down in my trailer on one of the banquettes and went right through it, legs kicking in the air. Nobody dared laugh or they would have been brained with a hand-bag but it was unquestionably funny.

— Richard Burton (@BurtonDiaries) September 6, 2018

Nov 17 69 Prince Rainer and Grace are coming to lunch today and Rainer is bringing either a tiger or a panther as a present for E. That's all I need. What the hell are we going to do with a PANTHER or a TIGER?

— Richard Burton (@BurtonDiaries) November 17, 2017

at age 14

Jan 8 40 Elementary school started today. Went down to see school playing in the yard. Had no money so I stayed in the house with my mother. I haven't done much today. We are short of coal. Very cold.

— Richard Burton (@BurtonDiaries) January 8, 2019

Jan 10 69 The more I read about man and his maniacal ruthlessness and his murdering envious scatological soul the more I realise that he will never change. Our stupidity is immortal nothing will change it. The same mistakes, the same prejudices, the same injustice...........

— Richard Burton (@BurtonDiaries) January 10, 2019

Mar 17 83 St Pat's parade sent us off early to get through Fifth Avenue. Result at working theatre at 11.20. ET had phoned in her 'lolo little voice' full of brave self-pity to say she was very sick & had the trots & the vomits & she was very sorry but couldn't come to work.

— Richard Burton (@BurtonDiaries) March 17, 2019

Mar 28 70 It's a sod of a world today. I am extremely unhappy and as melancholy as a Sankey and Moody hymn. My instinctive aversion and distrust of the human race is brought to a head periodically, drunk or sober.

— Richard Burton (@BurtonDiaries) March 28, 2019

May 30 69 Lunched with M. Hinxman - Telegraph. Promised her the so far un-awarded Taylor-Burton Oscar if she could ask me a question that neither E nor I had ever been asked before. She failed. Why didn't she take up the challenge & ask How often do you & your fabulous wife fuck?

— Richard Burton (@BurtonDiaries) May 30, 2019

Jul 15 70 I read that Frankie Sinatra has 'come out for Reagan.' That's like Laurel coming out for Hardy. I shouldn't think either of them has had a thought of their own in their lives except about themselves.

— Richard Burton (@BurtonDiaries) July 15, 2019

that has rapidly become my favorite thing on twitter

Aug 2 67 Elizabeth was at the bar like a real broad and a two-fisted one. In the middle of the early night Elizabeth and I exchanged insults in which I said that she was not 'a woman but a man' and in which she called me 'little girl.' A lovely charming decadent hopeless couple.

— Richard Burton (@BurtonDiaries) August 2, 2019

Sep 17 71 E models for a furrier. I wonder what happened to the pledge that E signed in common with other famed ladies that she would never wear the furs of anything in future except pest furs and vermin. Must ask her and will record the answer tomorrow.

— Richard Burton (@BurtonDiaries) September 17, 2019

Oct 18 66 We drank Sambuca and said nasty things to each other. We drove back in silence to Postiano. I slept most of the way. We had soup in the room and read and slept. Christ how I hate such days.

— Richard Burton (@BurtonDiaries) October 18, 2019

14 Feb 72 I don't think however that I will get a face lift like that abject Rod Steiger who not only admits to it but makes him look like one half of a naked ass-hole.

— Richard Burton (@BurtonDiaries) February 14, 2020

5 Apr 66 E arrived for lunch.....then Mia Farrow and Mike Nichols arrived from NY. That M. Nichols really gets the girls. I wish Farrow would put on 15lbs and grow her hair.

— Richard Burton (@BurtonDiaries) April 5, 2020

Rewatched Cleopatra the other day because I got the Bluray for almost nothing (I've seen this film off and on since I was nine, what can I say?) and Burton's veering between utter staginess and the occasional bit of quiet physical acting is both the schizophrenic story of the production and kinda why I love it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iO76MkyhEI

is he supposed to be drunk in the film?

looks like The Klansman, so anything is possible

via Criterion Current:

Reviewing Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger’s Furious Love: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and the Marriage of the Century for Vanity Fair, Hadley Hall Meares calls it “the definitive book about Liz and Dick.” Kashner and Schoenberger tell the story of “the couple’s torrid beginnings and their extravagant life as ‘doomed nomads,’ drinking their way through three continents, charming and challenging everyone they met—especially each other.” After their second divorce, Taylor is said to have told a friend, “I don’t want to be that much in love ever again.”

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/08/elizabeth-taylor-richard-burton-marriage-furious-love