The Richard Burton Diaries

by Richard Burton

  Before going to bed tonight a note was handed to me by Pedro.117 It had been sent from shore by Claudye. It said that Robin Marlowe had approached Gianni (Claudye's boyfriend) and asked him for a contraceptive, as she and Michael intended to make love! Gianni said she was a bit young (she is 13!) and asked if he could see Michael (he is 14!) but Michael refused. I sat up and waited for them and told them to go to bed warning Nella beforehand that they were to be kept apart but the fact is that if they're going to do it, they're going to do it and nothing will stop them. I told Michael a few days ago to be careful. I hope he will be.

  Monday 18th, Kalizma, Capo Caccia A fairly hardworking day. I think, despite weather, we did about 31/2 minutes. [...]

  E talked with Michael about Robin and M was apparently furious with Robin, saying: ‘I told her she shouldn't have done it.’ He spent the afternoon on the set alone for a time as she Robin presumably had gone back to the hotel in a huff. She came back later and M was terribly sweet with his mother for the rest of the day.

  Mary Morgan – W. John Morgan's wife – arrived from the other side of the island where she is staying with an English group of Oxbridge intellectuals – one called Love and somebody who wrote for the N. Statesman.118 Boring, envious, clever and very impressed and, I suspect, just above mediocre and absolutely predictable. I could have written their dialogue for the rest of the hour I was with them after the first 3 minutes.

  [...] Hell of a job deciding what to do for Liza and Maria regarding school. Liza is 10 and bright. Maria is 61/2 and slow. One, the latter, to London? Maria to Ive and Gwen in London where I read they have a very successful machine for teaching slow children? E very depressed. Me too.

  Tuesday 19th Worked like dogs and did 71/2 minutes – we are nearly 2/3 of the way through the script after only 31/2 weeks or 4.

  Nasty incident that everyone laughed at when Michael Dunn the dwarf was pulled off his feet by Robbie the Giant Schnauzer dog.119 He carried it off very well calling the dog a dumb head.

  E did a remarkable scene in which she nearly coughed her lungs up. Everybody was impressed.

  Noël Coward arrived looking very old and slightly sloshed and proceeded to get more sloshed. He embarrassed us both (separately) and lavished compliments on E about her beauty and her brilliance as an actress. Occasionally he threw a bone to me. He is a most generous man but sadly he is beginning to lose the fine edge of his wit or perhaps like me he repeats himself when tipsy. He moves like an old man but I suddenly remembered that he's always moved like an old man. Stoop-shouldered non-necked he has the curved body of a very tall man but in actual fact he is no taller than I. He is now almost completely bald and the bags under his eyes have made his eyes even more asiatic than hitherto. He calls himself ‘the oldest chinese character actress in the world.’ Coming off the plane he was asked how his journey was [...] and he said peering his way towards customs ‘My whole life has been an extravaganza.’ He is a delightful man. ‘I am completely muddled,’ he said, ‘by J. Heyman. I have talked to him on the phone and communicated with him by letter and I had firmly made up my mind that J. Heyman was a short hairy greasy Jewish gentleman running rapidly to fat. Instead of which I find a golden boy. It is most off-putting.’

  We drank with Noël, his friend Graham Payn, and his secretary Coley until about 9.15 then left for the boat to dine with the children.120 The boys leave tomorrow for Millfield and everybody is very down in the mouth.

  Wednesday 20th, Capo Caccia [...] The boys left early in the morning both coming into the stateroom and kissing us in the dark. Very depressing. [...] E and N. Coward are madly in love with each other, particularly he with her. He thinks her most beautiful which she is, and a magnificent actress which she also is. We all saw rushes and some assemblage last night. It looks perverse and interesting. I think we are due for another success particularly E. I was worried about her being too young but it doesn't seem to matter at all. Wrote a long letter to Phil which I still haven't finished. [...]

  Thursday 21st Was first called, though the night before they had said I was on a stand-by. Did two shots talking on the telephone and was finished for the day by lunchtime. Showered and shampooed and then lunched with E and Noël, Coley and G. Payn. Many stories were told. We talked about D. Niven and how, though they had been fast friends, he cut E dead for seven months when she was involved in the ‘scandal’ with E. Fisher and how though we were still friendly it could never be the same again.121 [...]

  E did a retake in the afternoon but it was one of the ‘jinxed’ shots – there is one in every film – which for various technical reasons (in one take they ran out of film!) took over three hours to do. She was heavy eyed and exhausted when they finally got it at 7.00. She then fitted for clothes with Evan Tiziani for the Paris and Oxford premieres of Shrew and Faustus respectively while I finished my marathon letter to Phil. We had a few drinks with Noel and Co and repaired to the Kalizma and supper about 10.30.

  Noel told E after having seen the rushes and assemblage ‘My God you have such fantastic authority. I didn't have such authority at your age.’ He told me, holding my wrist firmly in his beautiful brown hands which at 67 have a couple of faint liver marks, that E and I were so packed with dynamic personality that he expected us any minute to burst at the seams and flow like volcanic lava. He is a great flatterer if he genuinely likes you.

  [...] I have decided it's going to cost me more than £50,000 a year to run this ship – more like $100,000. But, if, as we plan to live on it while making films for most of the year, it could be very practical. Anyway it's a splendid toy and a lovely luxurious home.

  Friday 22nd [...] Norma Heyman was with us all day and stayed to chat with me when E left. We comforted her as best we could re her marriage. It appears that her husband J. Heyman has fallen in love or is infatuated with Joanna Shimkus who plays – very badly – E's secretary in the film.122 She is a nice enough little girl (of 23 she says) but certainly not the femme fatale and breaker-up-of-homes type. She is tall, auburn haired, pleasant faced, aquiline nosed, nice-eyed, pleasant smiled and breastless. She is also hard work to talk to. From things I hear from Norma she is most definitely on the make for John. She probably thinks he will help in her career. I can't think that she will last very long even if John does marry her.

  I became quite tipsy with Norma and went to bed after she'd left – about 11pm I think – and slept until 5.00. Went ashore and found no car to take me to the set but eventually as I was walking to the set, it's about 21/2 miles perhaps Valerio the Unit Manager picked me up in his car.123 He was with Francesca Roberti who is the step-daughter of Peter Thorneycroft, the MP.124 E looked dead beat and was. She said that she'd had a terrible time with Noel who was so nervous that he'd dry up again and again. It must have been horrible. Perhaps it was first shot nerves. It would be bad luck if his performance was destroyed by lack of memory.

  Saturday 23rd, Capa Caccia – Bonifacio, Corsica Sailed this morning from Sardinia about 9.30 arriving at Bonifacio (It was our second visit we having gone there before a month ago) about 3.30.125 [...] We all napped. I got up about 12.30 and sat and sunbathed with Norma and had a cheese and tomato sandwich. Delicious. Bonifacio was lovely – we tied up exactly where we had last time when the kids had that gorgeous mad hour doing cannon balls etc. from the top deck – and walked to dinner at La Pergola, I think it's called, which is right on the harbour about 200 yards from the mooring. We giggled a lot and drank endless bottles of wine. And so to bed.

  Sunday 24th, Bonifacio, Corsica A glorious day with a light breeze ruffling the harbour waters. I got up reasonably early and found that Norma was up before me. It was about 9am I suppose. We sunbathed and read on the upper deck when we heard a lot of shouting as of at a football match so we slipped on some clothes and walked ashore to see it. It was a soccer match played between two teams of foreign legionnaires. After about 1/2 hour somebody thought he recognized me and went excitedly to his friends. ‘Ca c'est Richard Burton c'est vrai,
c'est vrai.’ Fortunately nobody believed him and we were left undisturbed. There were many snarky remarks to the enthusiast on the general level of ‘What would Burton be doing in a shit-house like this?’

  Norma and I went for a walk afterwards along the quayside. It is almost entirely cafes, cafe restaurants, restaurants, little general stores, a couple of antique shops, ‘live lobsters sold here’ etc. The town is a mysterious looking place. The houses are pale grey, or orange, or that peculiarly french blue, and from towering serrated docks the houses go sheer up from the edge. I wouldn't love to live in one. But the harbour is lovely. I bought a bellows for the barbecue, which we've just had sent from Rome, and a wooden pair of tongs to pick up and turn over bangers, hot dogs, hamburgers, steaks and so on.

  The harbour master told us of a superb fish restaurant about 9 miles away and offered to drive us there. It appeared though that one could go by speedboat so off we set. It took us 31/2 hours approx to find it. What the harbour master had not told us was that it was 9 miles by road which is tortuous, but only 2 miles by sea. Eventually however, soaked with spray as there was quite a choppy sea, we found it. It was called ‘Le Gaby’ and was hidden in a tiny inlet so shallow that the speedboat, having a two foot draft at most, had to be manoeuvred very carefully. But it was worth it. They were expecting us and I had the best Bouillabaisse I've ever had and E and Norma had lobster which they thought the best they'd ever had. And its situation is like a dream. The restaurant is open to the sea which is a gesture away, one could almost spit in it from our table, and gives the impression, perhaps true, of having been built exclusively from flotsam and jetsam thrown up by the sea. In the middle of the room was a hollowed-out log set at about table height which, filled with sea water, had 1/2 dozen live lobsters in it. One of them was a giant. Elizabeth was looking infinitely sexy. She wore mesh white net leotards and the shortest mini-skirt I've ever seen. It barely, and when she moved didn't, cover her crotch. The beach boys around, who all appeared to be stoned, were beside themselves. And as we left they shouted various invitations to her and offered to kiss her in various parts of her anatomy – the mini-dress was also very low cut – including sundry offers of fornication. They were careful that I was on the boat and moving rapidly away before these generous offers were made. They weren't averse to Norma either, who is also a beautiful girl but built on less generous lines than E.

  Later on the ship E barbecued steaks and with her own special sauce it was delicious. Michael Dunn, who is a dwarf – he is 3ft 10ins high, ate a steak almost as big as himself. In the meantime a French deep sea diving ship pulled alongside and moored. It was the French Navy and discovering E was on the next ship they immediately began to get drunk and started to dive into the harbour with all their clothes on. The Captain was in despair but tolerant. Eventually we went on board and E charmed the Captain out of a large fragment of a vase which, the Captain guessed, was about 2000 years old. We tried to get a beautiful anchor which the Captain, who professed to be no expert, guessed to be Phoenician. It was about 31/2 – 4 feet high and about perhaps 2ft wide at its base. I lusted after it and so did E but all to no avail. [...]

  Monday 25th, Capo Caccia Arrived back about 11am to discover that it was actually 10am because the Italians had changed from Summer time to normal time. E went ashore to fit for clothes for the premieres of Faustus and Shrew, and I went on the speedboat with David Heyman and Michael Dunn and drove them around to the other bay very slowly, almost idling, because David, who is 7 years old and one of the most delectable boys E and I have ever known, wanted to fish.126 Eventually to my delight he caught a fish which the cook fried for him for lunch. He ate 1/2 of it but wanted to keep the other half for his father who is not due back from London, or Rome, or Paris, or wherever he is, until Wednesday. [...]

  About 5 in the afternoon we were awakened by the sounds of a tremendous altercation going on above our heads in the captain's quarters. It seems that the Captain, with my approval, had fired the cook Miquel and his wife Amalia. The cook, who is a balding, middle-aged, holier than thou, long suffering, sweet smiling hypocrite went stark staring mad, broke a glass and jammed it in the Captain's face and smashed the remainder of the glass on the Captain's head – it took 5 stitches we discovered later. In the meantime, and during the screaming and bawling, his boot (the cook's) had come off and when his wife tried to intervene he hit her with it and then, when Pedro the little steward, also tried to intercede he was also belted over the head by the boot. So they all three have nasty headaches. We pretended we knew nothing about it and went ashore as if nothing had happened. I wrote a letter to the cook and his wife saying how sorry I was that they were leaving but, in a choice between the Captain or the Cook, I had no alternative. I am not sorry he's gone. He had the most terrible cough and I always had the feeling that some of the hawking and snorting might get into the soup. Anyway they are leaving tomorrow morning for Monte Carlo.

  Tuesday 26th Am writing this at 31,000 feet in a Hawker Siddeley twin-jet on the way from Capo Caccia to Paris.127

  Last night, out of my usual loyalty (!), stayed up all night with E and N. Coward and Co, I wrote, typed, a long letter to Howard and Mara as to what they should do with the 100G. we gave them as a present. Occasionally I joined E and Noel for chat and gossip. Noel says that the longest he'd ever taken to write a play was 10 days for Cavalcade.128 The shortest 5 days for Blithe Spirit which he wrote in Portmeirion.129 He had the idea on the train journey to Wales and had it written in his head before he sat down to the typewriter. Joyce Carey (actress) was with him and was writing, he says vaguely, something about Keats or something.130 Private Lives took a week.131 Hay Fever 6 days.132 Astonishing. He has command of his nerves now E says and has become his usual brilliant self. The cook and his wife left for Monte Carlo and, to our astonishment, with Sianni our Yorkshire Terrier, claiming that Liza had said they could have her! It shall be back in two days or they, the cook and wife will be in gaol. Apart from our delight in the dog, who is 4–5 years old, she cost $1200. [...] I am very angry about Sianni and shouted and bawled a great deal and was very cantank. Steal money, jewels, anything except living things! Still at 31,000 ft and descending to Paris. Might buy this plane or one like it. 1 hour 35 minutes to Paris which by commercial jet including changes at Rome or Milan would take 51/2 hours. It seats 10. Is smooth – so far. And seems to make one feel more secure. I hope. Shall think a lot about it.

  Saturday 30th, Paris – Capo Caccia We have had in Paris what is mildly known as a triumph particularly E. Having arrived in Paris on Wednesday, about 5ish we dressed for the dinner at Jacqueline de Ribes and her husband, the Count – a humorous man who quite clearly dotes on E.133 We went there about 9–9.30. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor were there, Baron Elie (or is it Guy) de Rothschild, Rex and Rachel Harrison etc.134 There were 24 people in all. I became very sloshed and sang and recited poetry until E decided I was the worse for wear and, like a good boy, I went home with her. I understand from Eliz that I staggered backwards on being confronted by the paparazzi as we left the house. Drunkenly of course. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor were very sarcastic about Rachel Harrison and, when I told them that Rex was wearing a toupée and full make-up, about him too. [...]

  The following day after about 2 minutes sleep we woke about 8 acutely but excitedly exhausted. We drank beer and talked about the previous evening and the one about to come. We were told that the whole of Paris was agog with expectation and from the point of view of the press it certainly seemed to be true. We had as much, if not more attention as we used to have in Rome, Paris etc. during ‘La Scandale.‘135 They had put crush barriers around the streets looking on to the Opera and there must have been several hundred if not thousands of spectators. A lot of people had stayed up all the previous night to ensure a vantage point.

  However at about 12 noon this same day I did something beyond outrage. I bought Elizabeth the jet plane we flew in yesterday. It costs, brand new, $960,000. She was not displeas
ed. I think we can operate it at a reasonably practicable rate – perhaps with luck almost nothing. This might sound suspiciously like famous last words but I feel safe in it. It can, in 12 to 15 hours, and with one or two stops depending on weather, cross the Atlantic. It can land on any small airfield including unpaved ones. It can land at Abingdon when we go to Oxford next month. It can land at Saanen. It also means that we never have to land at that horrible London Airport ever again. Hurray!

  But about the evening of the film and gala. It was an outstanding success and the Press coverage was enormous. The film is widely praised and apart from a carp or two in the Herald Tribune and one French paper – not very important – the critical reaction was joyous. E wore a diadem specially created for her by the De Beers company of Van Cleef and Arpel, designed by Alexandre, which cost $1,200,000. With her other jewellery she wore a total of roughly $1,500,000. When we left the hotel, surrounded by 8 guards, all the hotel guests were forming an aisle to the street. There were many photographers but at the Opera it was a madhouse. Despite the presence of 5 ministers of the Government, one of whom gave us a message purporting to come from De Gaulle himself, and numerous luminaries of the cinema, stage, and society and the arts E was unquestionably the Queen of the evening.136 They hardly ever photographed anyone else. I did quite well too and the flattery we were subjected to was very rich and heady. It however, I hope, has not gone to our heads. It was nevertheless sweet revenge for the social ostracism we endured such a relatively little time ago.