The Richard Burton Diaries

by Richard Burton

  Friday 30th [...] Franco Zeffirelli and Pickles came to lunch [they] said how much they adored Phil. Christian, Phil's friend, is not around much any more.166

  Was interviewed by a Mr Lucas of the Christian Science Monitor.167 Might he say, he said quite seriously, that by example and by making healthy comic classics like Shrew and morality tales like Faustus, I was trying to compensate for the great evils that Films had introduced to the World? My eyes crossed. [...]

  Read highly moving very interesting book called, believe it or not, My Dog Tulip. The only decent book on dogs I've ever read.168 [...]

  OCTOBER

  Saturday 1st Glorious morning. Sea heavy and noisy. Sun in and out but lots of clouds promising lots more rain. [...] I cannot imagine what I'm going to do with myself in ten days time when Faustus and Shrew (extra shots) is over. I can learn Comedians.169 Later I can learn the songs etc. of Mr. Chips.170 Maybe I'll write something other than this diary. Maybe I'll just read and read and read. I have hardly had a drink for about two weeks. An occasional beer and twice I became mildly sloshed on a couple or three goops. Not only do I not miss it I actually feel as if I never want to booze again. Drink yes, booze no.

  [...] Maria told Karen a story today: Once there were two tiny babies in a hospital and they were herself and Liza and they belonged to nobody. One day Richard (me) saw these two babies and decided to steal them. So he went away and came back at night in his car and stole them. He took them home and put them to bed and then went to Maria and said. ‘I've got a surprise for you.’ And there we were.

  So there you are. If she's adopted Liza's adopted.

  [...] The children L and M came to lunch today and watched me throw a pie in a friar's face – in the film of course – and managed to get themselves a ride on Pipo the Donkey.171 [...] Steak and kidney pie with Jack Hildyard and wife (future) and drank Mouton 59–60.172 [...]

  Sunday 2nd We woke about 9.00, walked on the beach in a light rain and I, sans mac, became somewhat damp. Returned to rooms and changed into dry clothes. Sunday papers arrived per Gaston and I settled down for the day. E cooked splendid steak, quite the most succulent and delicious I've had for a long time. We had Mouton ‘59 with it.

  The Times has been bought by Lord Thomson of Fleet.173 I wonder if there'll be any more radical changes. The front page changed a few months ago. Now it has news like any other newspaper. The personal columns are on the inside cover.

  What a smug little bastard Peregrine Worsthorne (S. Telegraph) is.174 He is so unctuously knowing I could knock his block off. Even when he's right I want him to be wrong.

  We took another walk in the afternoon but were followed by a crowd of people who finally drove us to our rooms. We sneaked out later and walked the opposite way on the beach. [...] Soup for supper and bed about 11.30.

  Last eight or nine days of Faustus coming up. Thank God.

  Monday 3rd Both E and I felt ghastly, lousy and dull all day long. She with the shivers, me with a headache – very rare for me, two perhaps in 10 years. Ron has the Roman roundabouts. Perhaps it was something we all ate or drank. Anyway we're home and the children are running about with all the decorum and grace of a riot.

  We finished the devil-Pope scene. I wonder if it will work. I saw about 1/2 hour of Faustus this morning and I was disappointed. [...]

  Tomorrow we go to Rome to accept Golden masks or Silver masks or whatever for being rich and infamous, I suppose.175 That's a splendid fracturing bore to look forward to.

  Spent the afternoon browsing through Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. I looked up Robert Graves.176 He still only has one quote ‘Goodbye to all that.’ What do the compilers have against him? S. Spender has two. R.L. Stevenson about 6 columns, Voltaire 11/2. Even Sam Goldwyn has one. One of the quotes accorded to RLS is ‘Pieces of Eight.’ Come on!177

  Dahomey is 44,000 square miles, roughly same size as Cuba. (Wales is about 13,000 square miles.) So it's quite sizeable. We go there next year for Greene's Comedians. Alec Guinness and E co-stars. Glenville directing for MGM.178 I've never been to Black Africa. I shall be interested. I hated Egyptian and Arabian North Africa. Ah where were those noble sheiks. [...]

  Listened to World News, News from Britain and Sports News from the BBC, London. I don't listen very often but when I do it gives me a peculiar feeling. The precise over-mellifluous accents, the static noise I love best which is as if the voices were being carried by lonely uncertain winds over the sea and farm and alp. The voice saying: ‘that was Sam Longpox talking from Washington,’ or ‘David Mogs-Vaughan from Bechuanaland.‘179 It is peculiar to me I think because I remember the 9.00pm news as a child and the remoteness of it. Franco has fallen. Dunkirk. Battle of Britain. One of our aircraft is missing. This is Sandy MacPherson on the Theatre Organ at Blackpool.180 The Palm Court Orchestra at Bournemouth. ITMA. Munich.181 Hunger Strikes. Jarrow.182 All remote. All beyond seeing. All too far away. Still far away but I know that if I picked up the phone I could be in London for late supper tonight and New York for tea and Los Angeles for dinner tomorrow. It is 8pm and we could, if we really tried have a 11.30 supper at D'Chez Eux, and drink a little, and be back for breakfast.183 It's a short way to Tipperary.184 But on the radio it still sounds impossibly far.

  Tuesday 4th Woke by alarum at seven. Opened shutters in the den and there was a lovely morning with a brilliant sun and wisps of ground mist. [...] We have already done the first shot 15 minutes ago. The War Tent shot, the start. It is now 9.50. I feel immensely better today. The Dodgers play Baltimore in the World Series. Everyone here, i.e. Yankees, very excited. Mostly all of them are Dodgers’ Fans. I hope quietly that Baltimore win because I've always liked the American League. We hope to listen to the play on Wednesday night at 9.30 if I can get a good reception. It should be fun.

  Lunched with E in the dressing room. [...] E drank Fontana Candida (Frascati). I, nothing though I had a vodka and tonic with Nat and Louise White (Aaron's secretary) who are here for a few days.185 Nat wants me to join the Players Club in NY. I'm a most unclubbable man as the Good Doctor said of somebody but I may join.186 It's the thought of those horrible Piper Nights and Founders Nights etc. which give me a turn. Band of Hope and Urdd Gobaith Cymru and Concerts at the YMCA.187

  Have done the bulk of the war tent scene. Now remains close-ups and one speech. It's about 4.40 so we may only have a couple of shots remaining tomorrow.

  Prepared for the Mask of Silver awards. Will write about this later. What a provincial lot the Italians are. Even worse than the Americans or the English. E tells me to say how pretty she looked last night.

  The award evening was monstrous. For about 3/4 hour endless hard faced breastless models paraded before our bored eyes an extraordinary tasteless concourse of fashions. Then every performer in Italy, old clowns, Alberto Sordi, Marcello Mastroianni, Vittorio Gassman, Virna Lisi, Monica Vita, F. Zeffirelli, Rossana Podesta, TV comics, stage stars, great stage hands were awarded Masks of Silver.188 We were the last. [...]

  After the awards we repaired to the Hassler (?) Hotel and talked and drank with Franco Zeffirelli and Sheila Pickles.189 E was telling us all about her operations when Pickles threw up. All over the carpet. It cleared the bar rather faster than a typhoon.

  Eventually home.

  Wednesday 5th Did not go into work. Woke late and so ashamed that rather than be late would rather not turn up at all. So not going to turn up. E called and explained, lying like a trooper, that I was desperately ill. It must be the first day of work that I've ever wilfully missed. And I don't care. I have one disease that is incurable. That is, or, as they say in Italian, Cioè, that I am easily bored. I am fascinated by the idea of something but its execution bores me. That is why I think, for instance, that when I explain the particular genius of other actors I impersonate what I think they should have done rather than what they actually did do. I am the best apologist for Gielgud or Swinley, or Ainley or Olivier or Scofield or Brando than they.190 They are very good but in recollection, in
my recollection of them, they are massive Gods.

  [...] In case there is any mistake. This diary is written for my own benefit. [...]

  Thursday 6th Brilliant morning again and I left for work feeling somewhat shaky. Arrived about 7.45, shaved, had tea and was made up by 9.00. Baltimore won the ball game 5–2 – the Robinson boys hitting back-to-back homers off Drysdale in the first innings.191

  For the first shot I was locked into armour with what appears to be swords going right through my body.

  Read something in a mag about Syb being a ‘late bloomer’ in company with 1/2 dozen other women. With me she was ‘dowdy and tubby’ but since me she has lost 30–5 pounds and is a chic type. Cheek. She was never dowdy and dumpy! Just short that's all. [...]

  E should work this afternoon I should think. It will be her last but one shot in the picture. Which latter is becoming endless seemingly. Bet E $500 that Orioles would win series. I deliberately bet to lose. Funny giggle if they do.

  E found the World Series. Brava! Baltimore won again 6–0. Six errors by Dodgers, 3 to one man Willie Davis.192 That's a record equalizer. He's probably cut his throat. Worked till 8.30 tonight. Koufax lost.193

  Friday 7th Started on the dreaded but beautiful last speech of Faustus today after cleaning up yesterday's scenes. [...]

  Slowly we are drawing to the end of the picture but no real immediate respite as we are doing what I guess may be two more days on Shrew. Close-ups here there and everywhere.

  R. Hanley found me a short history of Africa so that I can find out something more about Dahomey. Sheran Cazalet sent me (us) a copy of her grampa's new book of short stories. He is P. G. Wodehouse.194 Not vintage so far but readable.

  One of the boys from Oxford, one Nick Loukes gave us a dead mounted framed tarantula as a thank you present.195 Because ‘we doubtless had so many beautiful things an ugly one might be welcome.’

  I feel jaded and sweaty and unactory today. One of those days when acting seems peculiarly silly. What a sloppy job to have.

  [...]

  Saturday 8th It's now 11am and I have done one shot. Two more and I hope to finish this sequence up to the descent into hell. [...]

  Received letter from Lord (Richard Rhys) Dynevor about his new art attempt in Dynevor Castle and grounds.196 It seems to have started rather well. We are to lunch with him next Wednesday. [...]

  Report in the Daily American that the Welsh, under the King of Gwynedd discovered the USA 200 years before Columbus.197 Can't wait to show Elizabeth and must send a copy to Harvey Orkin.198 Some Welsh maniac has spent 20 years proving it and the results of his researches are to be published in a couple of weeks.199 I may make it a party piece.

  After this next scene I should be able to relax. I don't feel exhausted or anything extreme but simply uninterested in the work however much I double-think myself into enthusiasm. I must arrange more holidays for myself. And for E too.

  [...]

  E's hair in certain lights reveals a lot of grey hair. She accuses me of making all my wives grey haired before their time. (Syb comes from a family of prematurely grey haired people.)

  [...] Went to the Party. The minute we entered Rome I wanted to leave again. The smell of petrol fumes – a smell I loved as a boy – is now loathsome to me. The Party was given by Ken Muggleston Assistant Art Director I think.200 It was obviously given for other art directors; there must have been six there. Afterwards we went to Dave's pub where in one hour I had one drink. [...]

  Dodgers lost again 1–0 but because of the bloody party we were unable to listen to the match.201 Went to bed about 2.0 I think.

  Sunday 9th Woke at 8.30 and dressed, both of us, and went for a short walk as far as the stables. Back at the house I read a detective story by Josephine Tey, not very good, called A Shilling for Candles.202 Gaston brought the barbecue from the beach and E made a tr[ul]y delicious steak. She is really becoming an excellent cook.

  After the dinner (5.0 pm) E cooked hotdogs for the kids and Karen. I read another detective story [...] by Stanley Ellin.203 Not very good.

  Have now turned into Voice of America or AFM in the hope of listening to the Baseball game from Baltimore. It seems unlikely that the Dodgers can make up lost ground but let's hope they win tonight at least.

  They didn't. Frank Robinson hit a home run against Drysdale and that was the only run of the match. 4 straight to Baltimore. It would appear to be a fix if it were not for the last two games. What price the demise of the Dodgers as a great baseball power now.204

  Monday 10th Woke and arose at 7.00. E works today so we shall go in together, which means I shall be late. [...] Wrote two letters, one Mike, one Chris, saw the rushes. Saw the first reel cut with some music. Impressed for the first time. [...]

  Aaron due for lunch today. Lots of business I suppose. I hope he's feeling better.

  Aaron very nervous when he arrived but he relaxed after a short while. He has stopped smoking after the warning heart attack in NY. Bobby came later and we lunched on hot dogs.205 She is a lovely woman. Shot the hell descent about 3.30. And hell it was. The fear of heights conturbat me.206

  Became thoroughly drunk afterwards and went home and to bed (around 9.30) in silent fury. I really loathe drinking but what's to do if everybody around is drinking. And I don't just mean E but practically everybody Bobby Frosch, John Lee, Bob Wilson, Ron B, The Flanagans.

  Tuesday 11th Woke at 6.45 feeling drugged. Splashed myself with cold water. Ran in place for a count of hundred, did 20 push-ups, 20 knees bends, twenty touch-toes, twenty arms fling, twenty sideways bends. And felt better.

  Brilliant sunshine to begin but has now clouded over. [...] The Churchill family according to D. Frost ask me to play Winston C on film.207 And De Laurentiis and J. Huston wish me to play Napoleon. I've already played Alexander the Great, Mark Antony and St. Thomas à Becket. I shall have delusions of reflected grandeur.

  Aaron arrived after lunch with E who had just officially become a non-American. She is now British.208 Hello there Ma'am welcome aboard.

  Had lunch with Dave Crowley, former boxing champion, and propr of ‘The Pub’ in Rome. What a lovely man with all his cockney winks and sly nods. He bewitched me for a couple of hours with stories from his life. [...]

  Wednesday 12th Shot gold-making scene with Andy Teuber yesterday.

  Today did some pick up shots on Shrew. [...] Then on to old age for three pick up shots as Faustus in the afternoon. Saw Richard Dynevor who talked about his castle and grounds and of his scheme to make it a cultural centre. Lovely man. Will try to help him.

  Aaron was here all day being very legal. We shot ‘till 7.30 and drank ‘till 9.00 and home and bed. Dog weary. Last day tomorrow I hope.

  Received letter from John Gielgud asking if I'd be interested in The Tempest as a film. Have written but not posted him a letter saying yes. He would be a splendid Prospero but persuade money men of that! I would again play Caliban. That would make 3 times. Old Vic and USA TV being the others.209

  Am thoroughly tired and need relaxation sorely. [...]

  Thursday 13th Last day at last. Shot the last 4 lines of Faustus and finished about 6.30. Tomorrow they will shoot the nudes without me while we're on our way to Positano.210

  Bobby Frosch saw the rough-cut of Shrew and enjoyed it immensely [...] if that's the general reaction we'll be very happy.

  After the shooting we had drinks with the crew. They have been very nice especially ‘Gianni Props.‘211 Everybody likes him.

  And so to bed.

  Friday 14th – Rome – Positano Woke early, had hot toddies, we both have colds, and slept again until 11.45 or so. [...] Stopped for lunch on the Autostrada. [...] Then off again to the hotel in Positano. [...] Read reminiscences of famous baseball players from the turn of the century. Rather touching and funny sometimes. Read until I couldn't keep my eyes open.

  Saturday 15th Positano. Hotel Sirenuse Glorious morning. [...] We had café complet for breakfast with bacon. Must go out and buy som
e dog leads and some books if findable. Couldn't find dog-leads though in frustration bought a pocket dictionary to make sure I hadn't made a mistake in my Italian. I hadn't. [...] A lady [...] greeted me [...] she said we'd met at Ardmore studios, Bray, Ireland with Marty Ritt.212 Another man, very distingué, asked me if I were R.B. I said yes. He said he was a great admirer etc.

  Had lunch down on the beach. [...] Walked up the hill home. It's a short walk but steep. We must drop two hundred feet in 400 yards. We went to bed for a time and then, I at least, sat in the sun and read. E. slept. I'm reading Cornelius Ryan's book The Last Battle.213 It is very readable but journalese. I'm afraid though I feel sorry for the Germans in Berlin in the last weeks of the war I am not overwhelmed with that passion.

  We sat in the bar downstairs and had a couple of negroni vodkas. It's like a goop except for soda instead of tonic water I think.214 The place gradually filled up with collared and tied gents with ladies in old fashioned dresses – not the remotest relation to a mini skirt. Almost everyone there was English speaking.

  We ate in the hotel restaurant. [...] I read ‘till 11.30 and slept.

  Sunday 16th [...] I'm sitting on our balcony, with a pair of underpants on only, writing this. [...] There's quite a fresh breeze today but it's confortable in the sun.215 Quite a lot of people on the beach below us. It's a noisy little town. Surf breaking, traffic and horns, church bells, lots of hammering going on, dogs, whistles, boys shouting on the beach playing football, babies, all softened of course by the sea's ‘harsh withdrawing roar.‘216 We shall go out for lunch in 1/2 hour or so. E deeply engrossed in Iris Murdoch's latest.217 I must say that she writes and (jacket photo) looks like a lesbian. I have the feeling she smokes cigars and wears disfiguring trousers and sweaters.

  Lunch today was splendid. Zuppa di Vongole (clam soup with the clams in their shells) and a delicious little pasta called Crepes al formaggio. Light pancakes stuffed with molten cheese and prosciutto. Cake to follow. All good. Rivera to drink. The whole thing was slightly marred by fans, a couple of parties of rowdy ones and a very persistent middle-aged whining female professional photographer. There were amateurs too of course and one frantic woman who ran along beside us screaming: ‘If she only takes off her glasses for me to see her beautiful eyes.’ [...] I loathe Latin fans (any fans for that matter); they make me intensely nervous and self conscious even after all these years.