The Richard Burton Diaries

by Richard Burton

  [...] We went to bed, after feeding MacWhorter and LaRue on barbecued steaks, about 3.0. E very erotic and anche io.85 It thundered and lightninged all night and was very heavy and stuffy. I finally tried to sleep in the guest bedroom, felt lonely, went back to E – finally went back to the guest bedroom and slept with last thoughts of Faustus being a little-regarded failure.

  Monday 24th [...] We went to the Palace for lunch and had two medium sized entrecotes each for the main course with a tomato and onion salad. Washed down with a rosé (two bottles which we shared with R. McWhorter who lunched with us.)

  Afterwards to the tennis where we saw Emerson beat Santana in 3 sets and Emerson and Santana beat McManus and Osborne in 5.86 The latter looks a very promising boy. Powerful serve. [...]

  Afterwards to the Olden, where I had a Gibson and E J. Daniels, and played Yahtsee. E beat me 4 out of 5. For dinner we had poached salmon and the inevitable onion and tomato salad. [...]

  Tuesday 25th Yesterday morning saw the scales drop us 1/2lb each to 177 for me and 132 for E. Still that's better as E says than being 1/2lb up.

  It was a brilliant day until about 5.00 afternoon when rumbling of thunder was heard, the clouds piling black on the peaks and finally torrential, almost tropical rain. Liza had her wart on her finger burnt off. She was terrified of the needle the contents of which, it seemed to me, the doctor took a devil of a long time to inject. She cried a little but was most interested in the actual burning of the wart. As it sizzled under the heat she said it looked like fried chicken.

  [...] I retired early and read Gavin Maxwell's Ring of Bright Water which I read until, and finished at, 2.00 in the morning.87 It is a delightful if, now and again in its description pieces, slightly pretentious book of his two otters. They sound delightful but great nuisances.

  Wednesday 26th Weight 1751/4 for me. 1311/4 E. Lost respectively 13/4 and 3/4lbs.

  [...] We stayed in for lunch and had barbecued lamb chops a slice of onion and a slice of tomato. Taught Robin to play Yahtsee. Drove down to the village with Chris who has a girl-friend – his first – a girl of 13 from Neuchatel called Patrice.88 A nice slow-faced girl solid and Swiss. Speaks no language except French which somehow is surprising in Switzerland. Her mother (so I learn from Chris) has recently been divorced and they are living or vacationing at the Rossli Hotel in town.89

  We went there last night to take the girl home and so met her mother and her aunt. The latter bossy and well-to-do I fancy, broad of face and figure and bespectacled. Patrice's looks are more the aunt's than the mother's who looks like my sister Cis a bit though her face is sharper.

  [...] Mike has been to the Marlowes’ anniversary (of Marlowe's getting custody of the children!) and came home exhilarated about 11. The girl Robin seems to have given him more vitality and zip. Maybe it will help.

  Thursday 27th, Gstaad – London [...] New bookcase arrived and I had it fixed next to the bathroom in guest bedroom and suitably filled it with books. Will have to [...] order another bookcase.

  We left Gstaad at 3.25 arrived at Airport driving like mad at 4.15. [...] Left about 6.15 Arrived 1 hour 20 minutes later. Smooth as silk. Did crossword and drank a lot.

  Dinner at Salisbury with the boys – cold roast pork etc.90 Drunken American actor kept on telling me fulsomely that I had ‘taken on the mantle of (a) Greatness and (b) Olivier.’ I said politely that I wasn't greatly taken with mantles. The boys Mike and Chris, who were with us, enjoyed it greatly. Americans of a certain type are very humourless but rather endearing.

  Home and to bed. The boys and E watched TV. I read Agatha Christie.

  Friday 28th, London Yesterday we had lunch – the whole purpose of the visit was to see him – with R. J. O. Meyer headmaster of Millfield.91 He was disappointing. I had imagined a much wiser, more authoritative man. This man was tall, thin very English nervous in gesture and a compulsive talker. One white liar recognizes another and I found some of his stories a little too highly polished. He made E and Michael very nervous but didn't me – perhaps because my respect was mildly tinged with contempt. Anyway it seems that the boys are acceptable. I think they'll be alright there. What bores headmasters generally are. For 1/2 the year they lord it over children and it must have a distorting effect on their relationship with adults. All their little jokes are laughed at, their little bursts of anger trembled at. Still, he's obviously good at his job. I became a little tetchy once or twice.

  We saw Peter Sellers film Bobo followed by Faustus.92 Bobo is slight but Peter's wife is lovely in it. Sammy Davis Jr came to see F.93 They all seem to be impressed by me but not by the film itself – it is of course a one-man show. Wolf Mankovitz wants his name taken off the titles. We agreed. Silly gesture.

  Today we leave at 12.55 for Rome – 11/2 hours wait – then on to Taormina.94

  Friday 28th, London – Rome – Taormina – Sicily Am reverting back to writing on the day itself – hence two Fridays in this week.

  We left on time and boarded the plane (a woman asked ‘sign my autograph please Mr Taylor.’) I gave her a look that felled her. That's the first time in 5 years that that's happened. Cheek.

  On the plane we found Peter and Sian O'Toole and we proceeded to get drunk.95 Peter is charming but a real fibber. He asked me how many nominations I'd had. I said truthfully FIVE. He said, holding up his fingers to point it, that he'd had four. I know he's only had two. Does he think we're idiots.96

  [...] I'd forgotten it was 50 kms from Catania to Taormina.97 We had insisted on an air conditioned car so were driven by a private citizen. Not one word of English could he speak and I kept on speaking French. An unpleasant journey with me stoned.

  We were appalled to find that Michael W. senior could not drive the boys to the airport because ‘he had to look after Maggie.‘98 E furious. He hasn't seen them for a year, contributes and has contributed nothing to their upbringing or education, and couldn't drive them to the airport. Charming but feckless.

  Saturday 29th, Taormina Surrounded by publicity and paparazzi we lived in a blaze of flash lights all day long. At 6.15 we had a press conference with the usual stupid questions and answers. At 9.00 or thereabouts we hied our way to the awards.99 There we picked up the awards (three this time) and sloshed our way steadily through the night ‘till 5.00 in the morning.

  As usual E had the biggest hand and Peter O'Toole Vittorio Gassman and I made idiots of ourselves – Gassman without meaning to. The crowds were enormous both in and outside the amphitheatre. We shall not, unless it's very convenient, come here again. It really is a farce.

  Started ‘Drinking Man's Diet.’ Let's see what happens.

  Noel Coward is to play the witch in Boom! – as a male of course.100 This makes the film very much more interesting from our point of view, and he should be brilliant. It is 16 years or so since I worked with him and that was for $200 for playing the Marquis de something or other in a recording of Conversation Piece.101 E has never worked with him before. He should be good value. [...]

  The Israeli Ambassador to Italy anxious that we go to Israel to celebrate this festival week.102 Might go at the end of the week.

  Sunday 30th A slow day, marking time, with a walk in which we bought sunglasses at a little shop. As we left the crowd which had gathered applauded us. E thought it very sweet, which indeed it was. We dined in somnolence and some self-satisfaction as we compared our ancestors and former wives and husbands.

  E has become very slim and I can barely keep my hands off her. It turns out that she's not that less in weight but, as a result of massage and exercise the weight has been redistributed. She is at the moment among the most dishiest girls I've ever seen. The most. I mean dishiest.

  It is extraordinary how when the festival awards are over, the whole village [...] becomes quiet. Nobody in the bar, no paparazzi, and the sea, beneath us and the gardens, hot and misty like a promise of extreme heat. A dredger in the bay moving uneasily on the water as if floating on oil. And churchbells all the time. Mill
ions of saints. Millions of Masses. It is a little hot province Sicily. Everything is a little burned. Even the bougainvillea as E mentioned is yellow and sere.

  There were many pictures in the papers, in two of which my child looked good enough to marry. [...]

  Monday 31st, Rome [...] We had not gone to bed until about 2.30 so we were pretty shaky on the road to Catania. Lovely the way the Sicilians decorate their horses – one horse, looked as if he was 17 or 18 hands, a giant, had a really splendid plume which he tossed and nodded with great pride. Many people sitting outside on ordinary kitchen chairs, the houses sun bleached and pinko grey and peeling. Catania is surprisingly large and it took us quite a time to get through it. Mini-skirts are still relatively rare in Sicily and at one moment when we were halted by traffic in a narrow street E's skirts had ridden up and half her (admittedly pretty) thighs were revealed and one young man was so obsessed by the eroticism of the scene that I thought he was going to have an orgasm on the spot. E was too shy to pull her skirt down until we had moved on so the pimply feller had a long long stare. He will dream tonight.

  Rome was hot. R. Wilson was there looking and behaving like a new man. Went to the Studio where we had a somewhat pathetic lunch at Dino de Laurentiis studio with Tiziani and J. Losey. He is going to be a bore I think.

  [...] Staying the night in the Grand Hotel – the most luxurious suite I've seen in Europe.103 It is the Royal Suite though the service is anything but Royal.

  AUGUST

  Tuesday 1st Have decided to stay until Friday. All our baggage except hand baggage had gone on to Geneva so I suggested that E raid Pucci's which she did to great effect. I planned to go out and replenish my wardrobe with shirts socks shorts etc. when Jane brought us the news that the bags had turned up.104 E was allowed to go on anyway.

  We stayed in all day. I felt rotten having drank too much the day before. I drank some Martinis which helped temporarily but I was still shaky in the evening. It is hot in Rome but the suite is air conditioned and therefore much more comfortable than outside. I shall go out tomorrow and buy some books.

  [...] J. Losey came to chat with E. It is so evident when she dislikes someone. There's a sullen look in the eyes and the face becomes distant and hard. And her language becomes a trifle 4 lettered.

  We are both on the ‘drinking man's diet’ and it seems to be working and unlike some high protein diets with counting of calories it is much more fun to count carbohydrates. Also it allows one to have a few drinks. We'll keep on with it for a few weeks anyway.

  Wednesday 2nd What a dreadful and terrible day and good too. All my pettiness and resentment and idiocy all rolled up into one day. I'll blame it on Rome. All the bad things that have happened to me have almost always happened in Rome. Something to do with its elevation perhaps. It is too near sea-level. [...]

  Nothing worked except for a couple of hours of recording of La Traviata with Mckenna and Merrill.105 I didn't move a muscle though I sweated like a worker. When I returned to the hotel with the two M's and their wives we had some drinks and Merrill and his wife took us out to dinner. Elizabeth was at the bar like a real broad and a two-fisted one.

  In the middle of the early night Elizabeth and I exchanged insults in which I said that she was not ‘a woman but a man’ and in which she called me ‘little girl’. A lovely charming decadent hopeless couple.

  I am stupendously disappointed in myself. Something went wrong in my head at the wrong time. Anyway ... something went wrong. And will never be put right. I am, I think, sublimely selfish.

  Thursday 3rd Make-up day when we both kissed and apologies were flying in all directions. We lunched alone together at Capriccio's off the Via Veneto, slept a little in the afternoon and dined around the corner at Taverna Flavia.106 [...]

  Tomorrow we leave for Switzerland. It was very hot all day.

  Friday 4th, Geneva We flew uneventfully to Geneva arriving about 1.45 leaving Rome at 1.30 (There's an hour's difference in time at this season.) We waited about 1/2 hour in the Swiss Air Caravelle on the airstrip and it was very hot and sticky until we were airborne. First class on Caravelles is not very comfortable unless you have the VIP seats, which we had booked too late to get. One's knees are around the ears and getting the small tables into position for the lunch is a conjuring feat. However nobody gives a bugger as long as the plane doesn't crash.

  We stayed at the Président Hotel which though spacious downstairs is disappointingly box-like – à la Hilton hotels – upstairs.107 [...]

  We dined on ham and au gratin potatoes at Cambesy.108 A charming little restaurant that seems to have burgeoned enormously since I was last there. The food was delicious. Both very excited at the expectation of Howard Mara and the children arriving tomorrow. They are expected at 9.05 from the States.

  Thursday 10th, Gstaad The multitude arrived safely after their enormous trip. Leighton immediately fell down the steps of the airport bus and then fell out of the car when we stopped at Rolle for a drink.109 Later on he was shot by one of the air-rifles. Staying just that one night in Hotel President cost me $3000. E bought me a money-clip watch for $600 and one for herself for $2500. Hers is very very beautiful – a Piaget as thin as a few sheets of paper and jade green face. Hers is a wrist watch of course.

  We have all been drinking fairly steadily and not sleeping much the result being that last night we both had a frightful time trying to sleep. [...]

  Lord Harlech (formerly David Ormsby-Gore) came from Lake Maggiore to have lunch.110 He and his three children, a boy (12) Francis a girl (13) Alice and a girl (20) Victoria.111 They were all charming and Alice who is wildly beautiful was extremely sad and inward. She is obviously still affected by her mother's death.112 She was killed in a car crash about a month ago. She had gone out, Harlech says, to post a letter after a wonderful weekend they'd had at Harlech. [...]

  We are leaving tomorrow in a chartered plane for Sardinia with all the children and us on board. God help us all. I dread the start of this film as I do all films until we find out how the director works etc. I've only read the script twice and learned not a word. I must learn a few pages today. [...]

  Lord Derby is still fighting our consortium for the TV Franchise for Wales and the West.113 We've won I think. In any case I don't think I'm much interested. My bit was to use our names to get it. I don't want to do much more.

  Friday 11th, Gstaad – Sardinia A terrible day, frantically disorganized, thousands of bags all over the place, nine children, six adults all on one plane, Howard and Mara's incessant screaming, my and E's pre-film nerves, nine children, plane-fear, Gaston [...] has fallen in love again, dwarfly serious, with Patricia's mother (Patricia is Christopher's girl friend) nine children, the Kalizma hasn't arrived, nobody at the airport to meet us, nine children, (Dick Hanley, Bob Wilson, John Lee cost us and Mike Todd roughly $1000 a week) and hot and a small room and a multi zillion dollar picture and I screamed ‘fuck’ out of drunkenness in the hotel lobby, and pasta (not very good) and screaming and heavy stoned sarcasm, and a sloshed memory of fields and farms and towns of France and Italy, and the purple sea, and shame and booze and fear and nine children, and I want to be left alone, and Gaston saying that he has explained to Cecile that he can't marry her because she can't have children, August is the cruellest month, and E making any excuse – not difficult to do since they (the excuses) were handed to her on a platter – not to start the film on Monday, and J. Losey is an arrogant ignorant fool so far and thinks he's a genius and you can't be at his pock-marked age without showing it before, and a frightful day and I hope never to live through another which I will tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.114

  To scream ‘fuck’ in the lobby was the only possible way to meet the justice of the day.

  Wednesday 16th, Hotel Capo Caccia, Alghero, Sardinia115 The boat has still not arrived and everybody, high and low has his neck permanently cricked towards the horizon. [...]

  Losey so far is a bit of a crasher and a fusspot interfering with
every dept. He keeps on thinking that I must be kept busy. Leave me alone!

  On the first night here we frightened him so much that he later, so we're told by the Heymans, cried. Whether it was fright, nerves or disappointment we shall never know.

  [...] How and Mara are in three rooms with all the children, because our bloody boat is not here. They seem, with the assistance of two guards and a nanny to be coping alright. [...]

  The boat arrived late this evening. Went on board and found a drunken man in Liza's room unconscious on the bed. Don't trust Barbosa and think the cook is a stirrer. Boat looks pretty though.

  Thursday 17th, Sardinia [...] Went downstairs this morning and saw Dick Hanley. I wish he would retire to California. He is a semi-invalid and I'm afraid to say anything authoritative to him in case he has a heart attack. We now have John Lee working with Dick, Jane Swanson working for them, and now if you please they have employed a man to look after them. We don't even have a nanny.

  Gaston has brought his latest (41 year old) girl friend with him here and her daughter. Was about to order him to send her back to her job in Suisse when it turned out that his brother had died. The telegram arrived 4 days late so the funeral is over. So the lecture will have to wait.

  I took Howard to see the locations. By Boat. Speedboat. He is odd when something excites him – he screams, almost like a girl. [...] Where E is passively passionate, he is frenetic. [...]

  [There are no further entries in the diary until early September. It seems probable that at least some of the entries made during this period have been lost. During this period filming began on Boom!]

  SEPTEMBER

  Thursday 7th

  [There as appear to be some pages missing here. The diary was being written in Venice, where the party had gone in part to attend a ball, having obtained the agreement of John Heyman and Joseph Losey].

  [...] All hell broke loose after permission was given – E's Kabuki dress had to be brought from Rome by Evan Roberts Tiziani, her Kabuki headdress was flown from Sardinia by ‘Lear’ Jet with Jeanette in charge.116 Alexandre Mara and How went out shopping to buy polo necked sweaters for Howard and myself. We wore them with our dinner jackets with necklaces! The press were all over the place [...] But it was all worth it for Mara made the success of her life. And lo and behold the most publicized snap of the evening in the papers next day was one of E, Mara and Princess Grace all sitting side by side and all looking ravishing – especially, of course, E.