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.



Perhaps it was his impoverished background, but Burton had to have the biggest salary, the most beautiful woman in the world and the most expensive jewels with which to adorn her (he describes a bidding war with Aristotle Onassis over a famous diamond; he was not about to be outdone by a

Lucille Ball, Richard Burton,
and Elizabeth Taylor on Here's Lucy, filmed in 1970.

vulgar Greek businessman whose wife was not nearly as glamorous as his own). His two marriages to Elizabeth Taylor made the couple the most famous human beings on earth for a time. For about ten years, they had the Midas touch--whatever they touched, whether brilliant or dull, turned to box office gold. In addition to the public fascination with their scandalous affair on the set of Cleopatra, their physical attributes combined with their acting talent produced a string of hits and the means to live like royalty. The diaries are most detailed for the years 1966 to 1972. Unfortunately, this period covers only some of Burton's best work--the Zefferelli adaptation of Taming of the Shrew (second only to Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? as the couple's greatest picture) and Anne of the Thousand Days (he thought it was a superficial period drama, but he netted an Oscar nomination and should have won over John Wayne for True Grit.)

Around 1970, the Midas touch faded, the hits became flops starting with the abysmal Boom! (starring both) and The Only Game in Town (Taylor with Warren Beatty, a snoozefest). Boom! is available on YouTube and

Taylor and Burton in Boom! which was a bomb

is now something of a camp classic, relished by John Waters for its miscasting and bizarre costume and set design, but it's a tremendously pretentious bore. The Burtons were scrambling to earn enough to keep themselves in yachts, helicopters, limousines, diamonds, and servants. There is much accounting with box office figures, salaries, percentages, and taxes but relatively little on the quality of the films. The majority of the films chronicled here are forgettable slapdash products such as Boom!, Raid on Rommel, The Battle of Sutjeska, The Assassination of Trotsky, and Bluebeard. At least they were filmed on interesting locations such as Mexico, Yugoslavia, Rome, and Hungary and Burton offers fascinating description of the people, food, and culture.

There are multiple heartbreaking tragedies of unrealized potential. Burton could have been a decent writer, having penned articles and autobiographical sketches. He has a way with a phrase (on having a hangover: "My eyes are slits that only a locksmith could open." On Shakespeare: "What a stupendous God he was, he is. What chance combination of genes went to the making of that towering imagination...that joy in words and the later agony.") Even drinking a cocktail becomes evocative of pleasure and guilt: "A double ice cold martini, the glass fogged with condensation, straight up and then straight down and the warm flood, the pain-killer hitting the stomach and then the brain and an hour of sweetly melancholy euphoria. I shall have a Tab instead. Disgusting." But he lacked the drive and motivation to pursue writing despite his love of books.

In addition, Burton regarded film and stage acting as drudgery. Unlike Olivier, Gielgud, and Richardson who actually enjoyed their work, Burton would have much rather been reading a book or teaching at Oxford than standing in front of a camera. It seemed that a guest shot on Lucille Ball's silly sitcom, a horror film co-starring with Raquel Welch and Joey Heatherton, a brilliant study of marriage by Edward Albee, or an imaginative film of the Bard's greatest comedy were all the same to him. They were all jobs to be done and endured to get to the paycheck.

We get a picture of his love for Taylor and her constant neediness. She seems to be perpetually ill or clingy or both, resulting in a void that can never be filled. There is not much introspection on the dissolution of their marriages or Burton's subsequent two unions with non-actresses. After 1975, the entries are

Burton with his daughter Kate in
Alice in Wonderland

shorter and more fragmentary, some are only one word (Booze). We find out very little about his post-Taylor wives and girlfriends. There are only a few acting works of distinction--the Broadway and film versions of Equus (losing his final chance at an Oscar to Richard Dreyfuss for The Goodbye Girl) and the intriguing, bleak 1984 opposite John Hurt. He turned in a charming cameo as the White Knight with his daughter Kate in a PBS version of her stage Alice in Wonderland, a sort of bittersweet farewell to acting. He does describe the Broadway and touring revival of Camelot and the rigors of stage work as well as the difficulties of reuniting with Taylor for a misguided revival of Private Lives. (Nothing about Equus)

Despite their hiatuses, these journals offer a rare glimpse into the private life of a world figure. They are unlike a biography or even a memoir since Burton never really intended these for the public. For an intense relatively brief period we are living his life, experiencing the excitement and tedium of moving from yacht to villa to hotel. Premieres, rehearsals, legal battles, the day-to-day existence are all there on an intimate level you would not experience in a formal bio. Perhaps I will read one of those on Burton next or perhaps one on Taylor.