Richard Burton
Richard Burton (10 November 1925 – 5 August 1984) was a Welsh actor. He was at one time the highest-paid actor in Hollywood and is closely associated in the public consciousness with his second wife, actress Elizabeth Taylor.
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.
In a February 1975 interview with his friend David Lewin he admitted having “tried” homosexuality. He also suggested that perhaps all actors were latent homosexuals, and “we cover it up with drink”. In 2000, Ellis Amburn’s biography of Elizabeth Taylor suggested that Burton had an affair with Laurence Olivier and tried to seduce Eddie Fisher, although this was strongly denied by Burton’s younger brother Graham Jenkins.
Burton was 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”.
He was an insomniac and a notoriously heavy drinker. However, ongoing back pain and a dependence upon pain medications have been suggested as the true cause of his misery. He was also a heavy smoker from the time he was just eight years old, by his own admission in a 1977 interview sustaining 3-5 packs a day.
His father, also a heavy drinker, refused to acknowledge his son’s talents, achievements and acclaim. In turn, Richard declined to attend his funeral, in 1957. Like Richard, his father died from a cerebral hemorrhage, but at 81.
Burton was banned permanently from BBC productions in 1974 for writing two newspaper articles questioning the sanity of Winston Churchill and others in power during World War II – Burton reported hating them “virulently” for the alleged promise to wipe out all Japanese people on the planet. Politically Burton was a lifelong socialist, although he was never as heavily involved in politics as Stanley Baker. He greatly admired Democratic Senator Robert F. Kennedy and once got into a sonnet-quoting contest with him. Ironically, Burton got along well with Churchill when he met him at a play in London, and kept a bust of him on his mantelpiece. While filming in Yugoslavia he publicly proclaimed that he was a Communist, saying he felt no contradiction between earning vast sums of money for films and holding very left-wing views since “unlike capitalists, I don’t exploit other people.” Burton courted further controversy in 1976 when he wrote a controversial article about his late friend and fellow Welsh thespian Sir Stanley Baker, who had recently died from pneumonia at the age of 48. Burton’s fourth marriage was to Suzy Hunt, former wife of Formula 1 Champion James Hunt, (maiden name Suzy Millar, whose father was a judge in Kenya) and his fifth was to Sally Hay, a make-up artist who later became a successful novelist.
In 1970 he was awarded a knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II and brought Taylor with him to Buckingham Palace to receive his honors. He was made a Commander of St. Michael and St. George for his professional achievements.
