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Richard Burton

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This article is about the 20th-century actor. For other people named Richard Burton, see Richard Burton (disambiguation).
Richard Burton
Image:1963 Cleopatra trailer screenshot (18).jpg
Richard Burton in the movie Cleopatra (1963)

<tr><td style="text-align:left;">Birth name</td><td>Richard Walter Jenkins Jr.</td></tr>

Born November 10, 1925
Pontrhydyfen, Wales, UK
Died August 5, 1984, age 58
Céligny, Switzerland

Richard Burton CBE (November 10 1925 – August 5 1984) was a Welsh actor. He is often considered to be one of the greatest British actors of all time and at one time was the highest paid actor in Hollywood. Known for his immaculate vocal style, he was nominated 7 times for Best Actor Oscars.

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[edit] Background and education

He was born Richard Walter Jenkins Jr. in the village of Pontrhydyfen near Port Talbot and grew up in a poor, Welsh-speaking household with many brothers and sisters. He was raised a Presbyterian. With the assistance of his inspirational schoolmaster, Philip H. Burton (who legally adopted him), he excelled in school productions. It was at this time that he began to develop the distinctive speaking voice that became his hallmark, having been encouraged by Philip (who sidelined as a BBC radio producer) to "lose his Welsh accent". To this day, many aspiring actors study Burton's style of elocution which has been hailed by critics worldwide. His official website claims that he was the highest paid actor in Hollywood during his heyday on and off screen collaborations with fellow icon Liz Taylor and he is often ranked among the greatest actors of all time.

There is a widespread myth (perhaps encouraged or even believed by some members of his stoutly working-class family) that Richard Burton "won a scholarship to Oxford at the age of sixteen" but left after six months. The facts, as recorded by Burton himself in his own autobiography and in Richard and Philip, which he co-wrote, are as follows: At the age of sixteen, he was forced to leave school and find work as a shop assistant. His former teacher, Philip Burton, recognising his talent, adopted him and enabled him to return to school. In 1943, at the age of eighteen, Richard Burton (who had now taken his teacher's surname), was allowed into Exeter College, Oxford, for a term of six months study. This was made possible only because it was wartime and he was an air force cadet.

[edit] Early acting career

In the 1940s and early 1950s Burton worked on stage and in cinema in the United Kingdom. Before his war service with the RAF, he had made his professional debut in Liverpool, appearing in a play called Druid's Rest, but his career was interrupted by conscription in 1944.

While making his first film, The Last Days of Dolwyn, in 1947, he met his future wife, the young actress Sybil Williams, and they married in February, 1949. They had two daughters, but divorced in 1963, after Burton hit the big time.

In the year of his marriage to Sybil, Burton appeared in the West End in a highly successful production of The Lady's Not For Burning, alongside Sir John Gielgud. He had small parts in various British films: Now Barabbas Was A Robber; Waterfront (1950) with Robert Newton; The Woman With No Name (1951); and a bigger part as a smuggler in Green Grow The Rushes, a B film. In the 1951 season at Stratford , he gave a critically acclaimed performance as Prince Hal. This prompted Alexander Korda to try to get Burton to sign a contract with him, and in 1952 Burton signed a five year contract with Korda at £100 a week.

[edit] Hollywood and later career

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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. 20th Century Fox negotiated with Korda to borrow him for this film and a further two at $50,000 a film. The film was a critical success, and established Burton as a Hollywood leading man. In 1954, he took his most famous radio role, as the narrator in the original production of Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood, a role he would reprise in the film version twenty years later.

In terms of critical success, his Hollywood roles throughout the 1950's did not live up to the early promise of his debut; however, he alternated film work with more successful Shakespeare seasons at the Old Vic in London. Then in 1958, he was offered the part of Jimmy Porter in the film version of John Osborne's play Look Back In Anger, a gritty drama about middle-class life in the British midlands. After playing King Arthur in Camelot on Broadway, he replaced Stephen Boyd as Mark Antony in the troubled production Cleopatra (1963). This film proved to be the start of his 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, although the two would not be free to marry until 1965, when their respective divorces were complete. Their private lives turned out to be an endless source of curiosity for the media, and their marriage was also the start of a series of on-screen collaborations.

He played Taylor's tycoon husband in The V.I.P.s, an all-star film set in the VIP lounge of London Airport which proved to be a box-office hit. After playing the martyred archbishop of Henry II in the title role of Becket, he and Taylor had a great success in Mike Nichols's film 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. Although all four actors received Oscar nominations for their roles in the film, only Taylor and Dennis went on to win.

He was nominated seven times for an Academy Award, but never won. He is tied with Becket co-star Peter O'Toole for the most nominations for a male actor for an acting Oscar without winning (though O'Toole did receive an Honorary Academy Award in 2003).

Late in his career, he played himself in an episode of the Television Show The Fall Guy.

His last role in film was one of his best, as the villain O'Brien in the critically acclaimed 1984 film adaptation of George Orwell's novel Nineteen-Eighty Four.

[edit] Personal life

An insomniac and notoriously heavy drinker, Burton was married five times - twice, consecutively, to Elizabeth Taylor. Their second marriage occurred October 10, 1975, sixteen months after their divorce, in the Chobe National Park in Kasane, Botswana. The relationship between them portrayed in Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? is reputed to have been similar to Burton and Taylor's real-life marriage.

His reputation as drinker may have been well-earned. However, ongoing back pain and a dependence upon pain medications have been suggested as the true cause of his misery.

Burton was banned permanently from BBC productions in 1974 for 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. Ironically, Burton had got along well with Churchill when he met the former Prime Minister at a play in London, and kept a bust of the great wartime leader on his mantlepiece. Burton courted further controversy in 1976 when he wrote a controversial article about his late friend and fellow Welsh thespian Stanley Baker, who had recently died from lung cancer at the age of 49.

Burton's fourth marriage was to Suzy Hunt, ex-wife of motor racing driver 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. While married to Sally, he died suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhage at his home in Switzerland, where he is buried. He was only 58 years old. Burton was buried in a red suit, a tribute to his Welsh roots. He claimed in a TV interview that he had an ongoing bet with Richard Harris that both men would wear at least one item of clothing a day in their respective national colours (Green for the Irish Harris). In fact, his film contracts always contained the clause that he would not work on March 1, St David's Day, the national holiday in Wales.

Burton appears in the 2002 List of "100 Great Britons" (sponsored by the BBC and voted for by the public).

Burton is sometimes erroneously referred to as "Sir Richard Burton", perhaps due to the similarity of his assumed name to that of Sir Richard Francis Burton, but unlike the 19th century scholar, he never received a knighthood. He was made a Commander of the British Empire in 1970, but this honour did not entitle him to the honourific "Sir."

[edit] Trivia

  • Burton's publicists claimed he was 5'9" (though he could have been as short as 5'7").
  • Made "Top 10 Stars of the Year" three times in 1965, 1966 and 1967.
  • Made 11 films with wife Elizabeth Taylor. They divorced, re-married, and divorced again. Elizabeth Taylor herself had a total of eight marriages and seven different husbands. Burton & Taylor owned a 185 foot Edwardian motor yacht named Kalizma, after Burton's children, Kate, Liza & Maria.
  • Served in the RAF (1944-1947).
  • After winning the 1970 Best Actor Oscar, John Wayne thrust the statue towards Burton, saying "You should have this, not me."
  • Burton was on a flight from Mexico, heading back to California when he was sitting next to a young marketing executive interested in acting. Burton advised him that if he wanted to pursue it as a career, he would have to give up everything else and pursue it with both hands. That young man was Kevin Costner who promptly followed Burton's advice.

[edit] Academy Awards nominations

[edit] Selected filmography

Also narrated Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds (1978).

[edit] Stage career


Preceded by:
Eddie Fisher 		Husbands of
Elizabeth Taylor 		Succeeded by:
John Warner

[edit] Notes

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[edit] References

  • Shipman, D. The Great Movie Stars: The International Years, Angus & Robertson 1982. ISBN 0-207-14803-1

[edit] External links

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