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Richard Burton

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For other people named Richard Burton, see Richard Burton (disambiguation).
Richard Burton
File:Richardburton.jpg
Born
Richard Walter Jenkins Jr.
Spouse(s)Sybil Williams (1949-1963)
Elizabeth Taylor (1964-1974, 1975-1976)
Susan Hunt (1976-1982)
Sally Hay (1983-1984)
Websitehttp://www.richardburton.com

Richard Burton, CBE (November 10 1925 – August 5 1984) was a Welsh actor. He was at one time the highest-paid actor in Hollywood.[1] Known for his distinctive voice, he was nominated seven times for the Academy Awards in the U.S. for acting, but never won.

Background and education

He was born Richard Walter Jenkins in the village of Pontrhydyfen, Wales, near Port Talbot and grew up in a working-class, Welsh-speaking household, the twelfth of thirteen children.[2] His father was a coalminer, and his mother died after the last birth, before he was two years old; thenceforth his sister Cecilia 'Cis' in nearby Port Talbot took him into her family[2][3] where he was raised a Presbyterian.

He showed a talent for English and Welsh literature at grammar school, though his consuming interest was sports.[4] With the inspirational of his schoolmaster, Philip H. Burton (who mentored him), he excelled in school productions. Philip could not legally adopt Burton because their ages were too close together.[5] 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 Wales radio producer) to "lose his Welsh accent". To this day, many aspiring actors study Burton's hybrid Welsh and English 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 of on-screen and off-screen collaborations with fellow icon Elizabeth 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 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.

He subsequently served in the RAF (1944-1947) as a navigator. His eyesight was too poor for him to be considered pilot material.[4]

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 British Royal Air Force, he had made his professional acting debut in Liverpool, appearing in a play called Druid's Rest, but his career was interrupted by conscription in 1944. In 1947, while making his first film, The Last Days of Dolwyn (set in a Welsh village similar to his birthplace of Pontrhydyfen), he met his future wife on the set, the young actress Sybil Williams, and they married in February 1949. They had two daughters, but divorced in 1963, after Burton's widely reported affair with Liz Taylor. In the years 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-movie. 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.

Hollywood and later career

Richard Burton in the film Cleopatra (1963)

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, established Burton as a Hollywood leading man, and won him his first Academy Award nomination and the Golden Globe Award for New Star Of The Year - Actor. The following year he created a sensation by starring in The Robe, the first film to be shot in the wide-screen process Cinemascope, winning another Oscar nomination. 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.

Stage career

Burton was still juggling theatre with film, playing Hamlet and Coriolanus at the Old Vic Theatre in 1953 and alternating the roles of Iago and Othello with the Old Vic's other rising matinee idol John Neville. He appeared on Broadway, receiving a Tony Award nomination for Time Remembered (1958) and winning the award for playing King Arthur in the musical Camelot (1960).

He then put his stage career on the back burner to concentrate on film, although he received a third Tony Award nomination when he reprised his Hamlet under John Gielgud's direction in 1964 in a production that holds the record for the longest run of the play in Broadway history. The performance was immortalized on both record and on a film that played in US theatres for a week in 1964 as well as being the subject of books written by cast members William Redfield and Richard L. Sterne. Since Burton disliked wearing period clothing, Gielgud conceived a production in a "rehearsal" setting with a half-finished set and actors wearing their street clothes (carefully selected while the production really was in rehearsals). The most successful aspect of the production was generally considered to be Hume Cronyn's performance as Polonius, winning Cronyn the only Tony Award that he would ever receive in a competitive category.

After his Broadway Hamlet, Burton's stage appearances were rare, although he made a memorable return to Broadway in 1976 in Equus, his performance as psychiatrist Martin Dysart winning both a special Tony Award for his appearance as well as the role in the 1977 film version. Burton made only two more stage appearances after that, in a high-paying touring production of Camelot in 1980 that he was forced to leave early in the run due to a back injury (to be replaced by his friend Richard Harris), and in a critically reviled production of Noël Coward's Private Lives opposite his ex-wife Elizabeth Taylor in 1983. Most reviewers dismissed the production as a transparent attempt to capitalize on the couple's celebrity, although they grudgingly praised Burton as having the closest connection to Coward's play of anyone in the cast.

Hollywood career in the 1950s and 1960s

In terms of critical success, his Hollywood roles throughout the 1950s did not live up to the early promise of his debut. 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. In 1964, Burton played defrocked Episcopal priest Dr. Lawrence T. Shannon in Tennessee Williams' The Night of the Iguana directed by John Huston, a film which became another critical and box office success. Richard Burton's performance in The Night of the Iguana may be his finest hour on the screen, and in the process helped put the town of Puerto Vallarta on the map. After playing the archbishop martyred by Henry II in the title role of Becket and British spy Alec Leamas in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, 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.

Burton and Taylor continued making films together: The Sandpiper (1965) was poorly received, but their lively version of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew (1967) being a notable success, while later collaborations The Comedians (1967), Boom (1968), and the Burton-directed Dr. Faustus (1967) (which had its genesis from a theatre production he staged and starred in at the Oxford University Dramatic Society) being critical and commercial failures. He did enjoy a final commercial blockbuster with Where Eagles Dare in 1968 but his last film of the decade, Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), was a commercial and critical disappointment. In spite of those failures, it performed remarkably well at that year's Academy awards (receiving ten nominations, including one for Burton's performance as Henry VIII), which many thought to be largely the result of an expensive advertising campaign by Universal Studios[6].

Later career

Burton's career went into decline after that, according to many critics who accused him of accepting roles in inferior projects to collect a quick paycheck. Films he made during this period included Bluebeard (1972), Hammersmith Is Out (1972), The Klansman (1974), and Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977). He did enjoy one major critical success in the 1970s in the film version of his stage hit Equus, winning the Golden Globe Award as well as an Academy Award nomination. Public sentiment towards his perennial frustration at not winning an Oscar made many pundits consider him the favorite to finally win the award, but on Oscar Night he lost to Richard Dreyfuss in The Goodbye Girl.

He found success in 1978, when he narrated Jeff Wayne's musical version of War of the Worlds. His distinctive performance became a necessary part of the concept album - so much so that a hologram of Burton is used to narrate the live stage show (touring in 2006 and 2007) of the musical.

He went back to appearing in critically reviled films like The Wild Geese (1978), The Medusa Touch (1978), Circle of Two (1980), and Wagner (1983), a role he said he was born to play, after his success in Equus, but his last movie performance as O'Brien in the 1984 film adaptation of George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four was critically acclaimed.

At the time of his death, Burton was preparing to film Wild Geese II (1985) in Berlin, the sequal to The Wild Geese (1978). Burton was to reprise the role of Colonel Faulkner, while his friend Sir Laurence Olivier was cast as Rudolf Hess. Burton was replaced by Edward Fox, and the character changed to Faulkner's younger brother.

Oscar frustration

He was nominated six times for an Academy Award for Best Actor and once for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor - but he never won. From 1982, he and Becket co-star Peter O'Toole shared the record for the male actor with the most nominations (7) for a competitive acting Oscar without ever winning. In 2007, Peter O'Toole was unsuccessfully nominated for an eighth time, for Venus.

Television

Burton rarely appeared on television, although he gave a memorable performance as Caliban in a televised production of The Tempest for The Hallmark Hall of Fame in 1960. Later appearances included the TV movie Divorce His - Divorce Hers (1973) opposite then-wife Elizabeth Taylor (a prophetic title, since their first marriage would be dissolved less than a year later), a remake of the classic film Brief Encounter (1974) that was considered vastly inferior to the 1946 original, and a critically applauded performance as Winston Churchill in The Gathering Storm (1974). A critically panned film he made about the life of Richard Wagner (noted only for having the only onscreen teaming of Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson in the same scene) was shown as a television miniseries in 1983 after failing to achieve a theatrical release, but Burton enjoyed a personal triumph in the American television miniseries Ellis Island in 1984, receiving an Emmy Award nomination for his final television performance.

Television played an important part in the fate of his Broadway appearance in Camelot. When the show's run was threatened by disappointing reviews, Burton and costar Julie Andrews appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show to perform the number What Do The Simple Folk Do?. The television appearance renewed public interest in the production and extended its Broadway run.

Late in his career, he played himself in an episode of the Television Show The Fall Guy, repeating a stunt he made in 1970 when he and then-wife Elizabeth Taylor appeared as themselves on an episode of Here's Lucy as part of his unsuccessful campaign to win the Oscar for his nominated performance in Anne of the Thousand Days.

In 1997, archive footage of Burton was used in the first episode of the television series Conan.[7]

Personal life

Burton was married five times, first to Sybil Williams from 1949 to 1963, and had two children with Williams, 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). Their second marriage occurred sixteen months after their divorce, in the Chobe National Park, Kasane, Botswana. The relationship between them portrayed in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was popularly likened to Burton and Taylor's real-life marriage.[8]

On the Parkinson show in 1974, Burton admitted to homosexual experiences as a young actor on the London stage in the 1950s. He also suggested that perhaps all actors were latent homosexuals, and "we cover it up with drink". In 2000 a biography of Elizabeth Taylor suggested that Burton may have had an affair with Laurence Olivier. Burton was also 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 liasons 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, sustaining at least three packs of cigarettes a day.

His father, also a heavy drinker, refused to acknowledge the son's talents, achievements and acclaim.[3] In turn, Richard declined to attend his funeral, in 1957.[4]

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 him at a play in London, and kept a bust of him on his mantelpiece. 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 lung cancer at the age of 48.

Death

Burton's fourth marriage was to Suzy Hunt, former 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 58 years old. Burton was buried in a red suit, a tribute to his Welsh roots.[9]

Awards and Nominations

Academy Award

BAFTA Award

Emmy Award

  • Nominated: Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or a Special, Ellis Island (1985)

Golden Globe Award

Tony Award

  • Nominated: Best Actor - Play, Time Remembered (1959)
  • Won: Best Actor - Musical, Camelot (1961)
  • Nominated: Best Actor - Play, Hamlet (1964)
  • Won: Special Award (1976)

Filmography

Main article: Richard Burton filmography

Stage career

References

  1. ^ Official Richard Burton Website retrieved August 25 2007
  2. ^ a b BBC Biography
  3. ^ a b welshwales.com biography
  4. ^ a b c Everything2 biography
  5. ^ p. 47 of Richard Burton, paperback edition by Melvyn Bragg
  6. ^ Inside Oscar, Mason Wiley and Damien Boa, Ballantine Books (1986) pg. 434
  7. ^ Conan at the Internet Movie Database
  8. ^ Elizabeth Taylor-Richard Burton: The Film Collection - DVD
  9. ^ Dowd, Maureen (August 6, 1984). "Richard Burton, 58, is Dead; Rakish Stage and Screen Star". New York Times. Retrieved 2007-07-21. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)

Further reading

  • Shipman, D. The Great Movie Stars: The International Years, Angus & Robertson 1982. ISBN 0-207-14803-1
Preceded by
Eddie Fisher 		Husbands of
Elizabeth Taylor 		Succeeded by
John Warner
Template:S-awards
Preceded by Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical
in Camelot
1961 		Succeeded by
Preceded by BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
for The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
1966 		Succeeded by

Template:Persondata

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