The Richard Burton Diaries

I came across Richard Burton's Diaries at the Lincoln Center Performing Arts Library months ago and ran through the index, eagerly searching for quips and quotes on the likes of Lucille Ball ("A machine of enormous energy, which driven by a stupid driver who has forgotten that a machine runs on oil as well as gasoline and who has neglected the former, is creaking badly towards a final convulsive seize-up"); Andy Warhol ("He looked like a cadaver when still and a failure of plastic surgery when he moved which was seldom"), and other fascinating figures ranging from the Duke and Duchess of Windsor to James Baldwin to Tito to Rex Harrison and his then-wife, an abrasive Rachel Roberts. I always meant to read this volume, but its 650-plus pages daunted me. The COVID crisis gave me lots of free time, so I bought a hardback copy at the Strand (once it was opened for business, it was like a ghost town when I finally went) for $12.50.

Burton is a tragic figure. These diaries (published in 2012) reveal him to be witty, superbly intelligent, incredibly literate (he reads voluminously), but he's also erratic, easily bored in his work and relationships, ultimately succumbing to booze and the pressure to maintain an opulent lifestyle at the cost of his art. As a young man, he was thought to be the natural successor to Gielgud and Olivier as the world's greatest classical actor with the potential to also be that rarest of creatures--a gorgeous movie star who was also a master interpreter of any role put before him. But his career ended in alcoholism and an abundance of shoddy projects. Born Richard Jenkins, Burton yearned to escape the crushing poverty of his childhood as the son of a Welsh coal miner. He took the name of a mentoring teacher and discovered his facility for learning, language and literature. His stunning good looks, personal magnetism, and sonorous voice led him to the stage and eventually Hollywood.