The Richard Burton Diaries

by Richard Burton

  We are invited to the British Embassy for the Queen's birthday. How posh we are getting. And respectable. We've got to stop that image. [...]

  There was a national holiday and we stopped at our Trattoria for a glass of wine. Hundreds of people and children there so we didn't stay long. We really need those police around sometimes if only to avoid embarrassment. [...]

  I am eating a lot.

  Friday 3rd I had only one shot to do this morning but, malheureusement, Eliz had three, then of course she had to wash her hair for the weekend so we got away from the studio at 1.30.116 Down to Corsetti's for lunch – a delicious sole from the Adriatic and Eliz a sea-bass, all with french fries and washed down by two bottles of Fontana Candida – a nice white cold wine from Frascati.117 [...]

  I was asleep by 9.00 pm. Made myself some cabbage soup at 2.00 am and was joined by Bon Apetito.118 We eat from the same bowls like two pups.

  Saturday 4th We got up early slightly nervous about Maria's school sports. What would she be like? I made Bloody Marys for Karen Eliz and self to steady our nerves.119 It was a very warm day. We arrived about 5 minutes before the start. Maria, with [...] style and grace, and much interest in the other competitors, came last in the 25yd dash. They had sack races, bean-bag throwing, obstacle races. The colours were truly international. From the pinko-grey of N. Europe to Chinese yellow via black-as-nights. I entered the fathers’ race which due to the devious machinations of a black Somali, an ambassador, and three Bloody Marys, I lost. We had to pick up a balloon in one corner of the ground, a flag in another, a coca cola bottle at the gate, a chiffon scarf en route and a paper flower elsewhere. I quickly arranged with this black bloody Iago, this coloured Judas, to pick up two balloons, two paper flowers, while he picked up two bottles and two flags which, I rapidly explained, would cut the race in half as we would exchange with each other. But race-memory, atavism, took over inside his boiling black head and I had a double journey for the bottles. His side of the bargain ceased to exist after he'd given me one flag and I had given him one balloon and one paper flower. Such cheating is soul destroying. How can they rule themselves if they are such cheats. No wonder Africa is going to the dogs. Result; the black diplomat nineteenth and me twentieth. From now on I only cheat with Welshmen. I'm starting to train now for next year's race.

  We went to the Chianti for lunch. Went home and swam a great deal in the pool. Listened to the BBC and went, worn out, to bed.

  Sunday 5th Today is a record equaller. Today is the 7,601st day since the war ended. That number is the exact equal of days between November 11th 1918 and September 3rd 1939. Every day from now on, says the Sunday Times cheerfully, should be counted as a bonus.

  We spent the 7601st day of uneasy peace peacefully. We sunbathed in the garden, swam in the pool, went for walks across the shorn fields, the hay standing in neat bundles, had an early lunch of Southern Fried Chicken, napped in the afternoon, did our exercises. Dined at 7.00 on pork chops and chips and salad. I played ‘boxes’ with Liza who is phenomenally quick at picking up games, read a couple of chapters of Agatha Christie and slept until 1/2 hour ago.120

  We had soup for breakfast, out of tin on our private hot plates and soup again for high tea. We are soup mad.

  Monday 6th On the way home (it was, surprisingly, raining) we took the Wilsons and the Flanagans and Joe Roddy to our ‘Trat’. There were six sergeants Italian there, one from Sicily one from Naples. The last gave bread wine and sausage all made by his mother. I bet Roddy they knew the purple passage from Dante.121 [...] The boys gave me a book of dirty verses. Some of it very funny.

  [There are no further entries in the diary from early June to late August. Late in June Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was released to considerable critical acclaim. In the same month Burton and Taylor were invited to the home of Princess Luciana Pignatelli (1935–2008) to meet Senator Robert Kennedy (1925–68) and his wife Ethel (1928—). They went to dinner, a night-club, and then returned to the Hotel Eden where Burton and Kennedy competed to see who had the best knowledge of Shakespearean sonnets. Richard watched the Football World Cup Final on 30 July 1966, supporting West Germany against England, with England achieving the final victory.

  In August Richard began starring in and co-directing the film production of Dr Faustus, using many of the same Oxford University Dramatic Society cast that had appeared in the stage version the previous year. Richard and Elizabeth sank over £300,000 of their own money in the production.]

  AUGUST

  Tuesday 23rd Yesterday we began shooting Faustus. Many things have happened in the missing days in this diary. [...] I will try to recapture some of the events. My sister Edith's death and within a few days thereafter Monty Clift's death.122

  With pre-planning we shot so quickly [...] yesterday that we did seven set-ups in the morning and early afternoon. Now to wait for the results!

  After shooting E and I attended a press conference with Nevill and the rest of the Oxford lot. Usual inane questions, usual bland answers.

  Later we went alone for a quiet dinner at a motel on the Raccordo Anulare.123 Omelette and sauté potatoes and coffee and wine. And so to house and home.

  [There are no further entries in the diary until late September. During this period Richard was mainly occupied with the filming of Dr Faustus.]

  SEPTEMBER

  Wednesday 21st Yesterday we began the Garden of Delights – the Seven Deadly Sins – of Faustus. Nevill has gone off to England and then to the USA. So with chubby Nick Young I am alone alone on a wide wide film.124 I have varying feelings about this project – vague fears that it and I are bad or that it's all going to work.

  Roddy Mann of the Sunday Express came to interview.125 He seems lonely and olding. His middle-age is beginning to show – he is 44 and wifeless and childless and of late (two weeks or so ago) motherless. He also writes indifferently.

  H. French was there too. Like all potential bullies he is basically vulnerable. He is so anxious to be a big agent, which I suppose technically he is, and for everyone to know it. Every film script I mention he adds ‘Yes I told you about that last Feb’ or ‘As a matter of fact I suggested that to Brando before he called you.’ or ‘I know I'm a pompous old ass Rich and Eliz hates me but I have made the biggest deals ever for both of you. I am good, I really am good, at making the big deal.’

  We adjourned after work to the Trattoria across the Pontina and had wine. We pontificated on the transience of all human affairs and how actors were peculiarly subject to fate [...].

  Talked to D. F. Zanuck at lunchtime about settling $55,000,000 (or is it $75m) out of court.126 We shall see.

  Thursday 22nd We continued with the ‘Sins’. After the first shot (at 9.15) I went to see rushes. They seemed good. Then back to the stage for the second shot, about 10.30, then back to the theatre to see the first 1/2 of Shrew. It's beginning to look like a good ‘un.

  After lunch with E. (roast beef, roast potatoes, string beans and gravy) saw first H. French about future plans [...] Then – Peter Evans of the Daily Express who I am to see again tomorrow.127 Then – D. Frost of the BBC. 128 I also see him tomorrow.

  We stopped at the Trattoria di Divino Amore for a bottle of wine – E and I only. Went home and saw the children who began school today. [...] F. Zeffirelli arrives back from his triumphant disaster at the Met – the one in NY.129 We should see him shortly. Looking forward to it too. How one changes. He has written many outrageously campy letters from NY.

  Thursday 22nd Something wrong with my days or dates – there appear to be two Thursdays this week!

  Saw D. Frost and discussed doing life of WSC in five two hour films. It is a fascinating and unique idea – one man, five films. Starting with me as Churchill at 25 approximately to his death. Maybe too big a task to succeed. E just instructed me to say how adorable she looked yesterday so: My God! how adorable she looked yesterday. Gosh.

  Had lunch with and was interviewed by P. Evans of the D. Express. Same old questio
ns. Desperate searching for new answers. All rubbish. He's writing a book about P. Sellers – all about an actor searching for his identity.130 Rubbish too. [...]

  Drank too much, came home, and fell asleep before supper. E unkindly calls such premature sleep ‘passing-out.’

  Whew! How adorable E looked yesterday.

  Friday 23rd Things that have happened in the empty days of this diary.

  My sister Edith (Edie) died at the age of 43. She was the youngest sister and the funniest. She died from an unsuspected clot of blood that formed after she had been operated on for a weak heart. We thought she had recovered from the operation (it seemed she had) but 5 or 6 days later she went out like a candle-light. She is the first child of my parents to die since 1907 approx.131 The shock was considerable though I was less close to her than to Ivor and Cis for instance. We flew to London for the funeral – all my brothers were there Ivor (who came with us from Rome) Dai, Will, Tom, Graham and Verdun. Will, who is an idiot, when asked in the living room how he felt replied ‘In the pink. Never felt better in my life ...’ and then realized he should show suitable decorous sorrow and changed his face into pious conformity. He is almost mindlessly self centred. Ron, the husband, was in a pitiful state.132 As were all the sisters and Edie's children. All the men, heads carefully bowed so that they could see nothing but neutral dispassionate carpet or chapel floor in the Crematorium, were stoic. I had to harrumph and snort a few times to stop the weeping. E behaved like an angel. She is splendid in a crisis.

  Shot the catacombs today and started the day with the end of the Garden of Delights. Mephistopheles (Andreas Teuber) reached a new pitch of intensity in body odour.133 It is all imagined things dead – rotten seas, decaying books in the tropics, rats trapped dead in drainpipes, forgotten fish, cheese that has become flesh. Between his toes [...] is a sort of fungus growth that threatens to turn his feet into webbed feet unless he bathes in the next couple of years. And he is clear-skinned as a girl, while here am I, fanatically clean, pocked, pimpled and carbuncled as a Hogarth.134 It is not fair!

  Franco Zeff arrived at the Studio at lunch time fresh from NY. Looking splendid – he has lost weight – he and E camped about with each other. He seemed to be pleased with the film which he saw this afternoon.

  [...] Tonight we had dinner with Liza, Maria and Karen. Maria, who wanted to come up to the bedroom with me when I went to bed, said that she loved me and wanted always to be with me at all times.

  I am reading a book called A long way to Shiloh by Lionel Davidson.135 Before that a detective story by Agatha Christie. Before that a book called Utmost Fish.136 Not very good though a readable yarn. Before that Randolph Churchill's biography of Winston Churchill, a massive tome which I read in two sittings.137 It is a perfect illustration of ‘the child is father of the man.‘138 I've read some scripts too. Waterloo – at least the first 1/2.139 Reflections in a Golden Eye.140 Advice to a married man.141 And also the story Carmen by Mirameé.142 Funny little story and totally unbelievable.

  Saturday 24th Things that happened while these pages were blank:

  Monty Clift, possibly E's greatest friend and with whom she was about to start Reflections in one month from now, died of a massive heart attack in NY. He died in his sleep. [...] The news was told to E by phone from NY by Roddy McDowall. He said, to E's horror, that the death was caused by a combination of drink and drugs. This turned out to be totally untrue.143 Little Roddy, even when he loves someone, loves their attendant disasters almost as much. He, Monty, left E anything of his possessions in his will. She chose something I don't know what. His companion, nurse and major domo very kindly sent E his (Monty's) handkerchiefs which he had only recently bought in Paris and which he loved, delicate white on white.144 And to me – Monty's favourite soap! Should I use it or keep it? E was very upset and still cannot believe he's dead. A little Monty Clift cult has started since his death. It would have been more useful when he was alive. He couldn't get a decent job for the last 5 years of his life. Poor sod. I didn't know him very well but he seemed like a good man. [...]

  We are down at Corsetti's at Tor Vaianica [...] for a month of weekends. She cooks, I clean – a little. She does hot dogs and hamburgers and steaks and omelettes and soup. I do salads and I clean – a little. Apart from people staring and the occasional autograph we are not much bothered. One fat young girl last weekend asked me to autograph her behind – only barely covered by a bikini. I declined and signed her arm instead.

  We shot the Catacombs and my meeting with Lucifer Belzebub.145 It's an impressive set [...]

  I saw the Garden of Delights – at least 1/2 of it – and was disappointed. It is much too slow. [...]

  E has bur, arthr, or fibro situs and has great discomfort with her left shoulder and arm. Don't I know it. It is peculiarly maddening because you have nothing to show for it. No swelling, no wound, no bruise to boast of – just nagging infuriating pain.

  Sat is an early day so we were here at Corsetti's by 4.45pm. I finished Long Way to Shiloh. It is very forgettable and too clever by half. The writer has promise though and I shall look out for his other two books.146

  I am tackling Italian again. I might as well get it under my belt for the rest of my life. I'm here until the New Year and with my former knowledge of it I should be fairly fluent by then.147

  Ron Berkeley, every night, after I've taken my hot shower and my pores are open, rubs my spotty back with alcohol. It will be interesting to see if it cleans up the skin. [...]

  Sunday 25th A lazy day by the sea. We both woke in the middle of the night (Saturday) and read. I woke again at 8.30 and [...] I took the dogs for a walk along the sand shore. Nobody on the beach except 1/2 dozen gesticulating Italians trying to launch a boat into the placid sea. Anyone of them could have done it by himself. The sea was so calm its waves could barely break at the water's edge. [...]

  I made myself a [...] sandwich and drank a satisfying cup of tea. I read some Italian, went for a swim about 11am [...] I lighted the barbecue fire at 12 and after some frustration [...] E. finally cooked the steaks. They were delicious. It is the first time she's ever cooked a steak.

  Some film people were about – Basil Fenton Smith (Sound) his wife, Dave Hildyard (Sound) his wife. Robert Jacks (Producer) his wife.148 [...] We exchanged pleasantries but didn't mix.

  In the afternoon we read the papers, did crosswords, went for a swim (me) and other things.

  [...] Gaston told us to change the time back one hour. It is the first time [...] that Italy has ever been on summertime and their puzzlement is so great that all trains wherever they were at midnight last night were told to halt for one hour. Is't possible? [...]

  Monday 26th A thoroughly unpleasant day. It began well enough. We arose early and were in the Studio by 7.45. I did endless pickup shots [...] in the Garden of Delights with Gwydion Thomas (R.S. the poet's son.)149 Infinite tedium. Then E did her bit appearing in the Crystal. [...] Then more shots of me and G. Thomas. Then shots of lesbian lovers and normal lovers and acrobats from a Rome circus working on trampolines. Then the set-up for tomorrow. I hate those days in which the script doesn't advance one single line of a page – not even one single stage direction – because these shots are of course added ones (apart from E's) and therefore not in the script. [...]

  E is at work on the barbecue (We're at Corsetti's). I lighted the fire with one bottle of alcohol, then two, then a third then a fourth and have now decided to leave it to the Gods, E and Ron-next-door.

  Astonishingly I have lost, temporarily I hope, my taste for alcohol in any form. I shall force a campari-soda-vodka between my clenched teeth before dinner or bust. I feel better without it but I look ghastly; great bags under my eyes. E is enjoying her booze as usual and I don't resent it – much. The fire is now, it appears, perfect, and I shall have my hamburgers any minute.

  E's delight in cooking is lovely and I think she has a natural gift for it. So far she's done everything right. And has her own pet condiments an
d sauces. I'm still confined to boiled eggs and salads. I suppose you could live on them if the chips were down. No pun intended.

  And now for the Campari-Soda-Vodka – known in this family as ‘Goop.’

  Have now had my goop and my hamburger. Both delicious. It's extraordinary how one hamburger in a sandwich bun with a slice of raw onion, a slice of tomato, and a couple of lettuce leaves suitably salted and peppered, can be so filling.

  Lovely here now. Maybe it's because I've eaten and drunk. [...] E's nerves have relaxed; she's frantic when she cooks – Quite incoherent, poised in the dark over the barbecue like a fury.

  I shall mutter some Italian and go to bed – After I've had another goop.

  I read today 1/2 of Don Quixote (script from Ronny Lubin) and 1/2 of Oedipus – by Lawrence Durrell.150 Both so far unworthy of their subjects. A standard cowboy script by Carl Foreman called MacKenna's Gold.151 Christ what a lot of rubbish one reads.

  Tuesday 27th Things that happened: Kate came to stay with us, from London, (in July?) with Ivor and Gwen as guardians. She looked bonny and long-legged and freckled and slightly pigeon-toed. She is so far physically like us (who's like us?) that she takes my breath away. There is no sign of Syb in her at all except for the mannerisms of proximity. She is loving and clearly loves E and E her. [...] They spent one entire gossipy day together in bed, both with temps, both with some ‘flu’ or other. I had to carry K to her bed at the end of the day because cunningly she thought, perhaps, that she could sleep the whole night with E if she Kate were already asleep. But I was firm and took her away. Neeeeeks! Neeeeeks is Maria's version of the word ‘snakes’ when she sees worms. Sybil only wanted her Kate to stay for 10 days, but, possession being nine points of the law, we kept her for an extra two weeks. She left, I think, reluctantly and brown and a good girl. Ivor and Gwen are now part of us finally and irrevocably. Were it not for Kate and Jessica I doubt that they would ever see Syb again unless she invited them which she wouldn't. Syb is so odd now that, notwithstanding ‘love changing its property to the sourest and most deadly hate and hell hath no fury etc.,’ she did not send any word of commiseration on the death of Edie.152 And she purported to adore or like Edie. Funny lot those Williams. The odd thing is that nobody in my family ever mentions Syb and when I do, as I must, nobody responds. Nobody. [...] It will all resolve itself. Now and again, I look around and wonder how much we give away and realize how little we are given. I and my wife could live for the rest of our lives on what we have given away in the last 5 years. Not to taxes. Not to tax-deductive organisations but to private individual people. I've just discovered that in the last 20 months I have given $76,000 to one person! Over $1,000,000 to another. You have got to be an idiot. Anyway, we are lucky, we can always grow some more. Who's like us?! And anyway sitting on the edge of this central sea what should I write about now? [...]