The Richard Burton Diaries

by Richard Burton

  I am much happier in Paris than I am in London. It is perhaps that I have a dread of seeing my family, i.e. most of my family? It is because I like acquiring new French every day, or that I speak the language, albeit roughly if fluently on occasion? Perhaps I'm ashamed of Britain's weakness. It's awful to see how despised and dismissed she is by the foreign press. Eight in the morning and I must be off to work.

  Darling Nose and Drife

  I miss you like something awful – for some reason especially today – so be all loving and tenderness tonight please – and if you play your cards right I'll take you out to dinner

  All my love

  Wife

  P.S. Call me later

  [Elizabeth Taylor's hand.]

  Wednesday 2nd Worked yesterday from 9 to about 4.30 when it became too dark to shoot. We were forced to stop for about two hours around midday because of rain. Went over to see E at lunchtime [...] and the place is like a madhouse. There is a maid to clean up, Dick and John, Frank LaRue, Jeanette, Claudye, Gianni, Vicky and Mia, George Davis and Caroline.31 [...] In addition, for a lot of the time you have Rocky Brynner.32 [...]

  George Stevens is behaving beautifully, and Beatty worries about whether he should wear a tie or not, according to E.33 George thinks E is smashing. So that's alright. Richard Zanuck thinks Rex and I are smashing too, according to a telegram we received yesterday. So everybody loves everybody as of this writing. [...]

  Picked up E last night and brought her home, and for some reason [...] I suddenly turned from Jekyll into Hyde and went to bed dinnerless in one of my huffs. Eliz ate downstairs with Dick and John. I woke at 4.30 and waited for the world to get up. The world being Elizabeth. Finally decided to wake the world up at 7.00, whereupon it made me a Bloody Mary. That I said is my Vitamin C for the day.

  Thursday 3rd Worked all day until about 5 and went to Eliz's studio to pick her up as usual. They seem to be getting on fine. Ours goes well too, though Rex is very funny in his old-fashioned attempts to upstage, get into my close-ups, do funny business on my lines etc. It's rather like acting with a very determined young actress. [...] I mentioned it to the director who said first that he hadn't noticed and then that he'd never seen it before in his life. Come to think of it, I never have, on films, and from a man. That is to say if you consider Victor Spinetti to be a Welsh-Italian girl. Because the latter did everything except break wind, and stick his finger up his nose to the knuckle. [...]

  Last night we stayed up latish to watch a soccer match between Celtic of Glasgow and St Etienne of France. Celtic won by 4 goals.34 Delighted I was, and always am nowadays at the discomfiture of the French.

  My Darling Husband

  Just to let you know that going to bed with W.B. hasn't changed my love for you at all – increased it if anything – Aren't you thrilled?

  All my love,

  Wife

  [Elizabeth Taylor's hand.35]

  Friday 4th We worked inside in the morning and went out in the afternoon. I did only 4 shots all day. The rest of the time I read L'Express to improve my French which latter could do with. [...] Elliott Kastner came to see me with a carte blanche offer of about ten properties.36 [...] He says that I will realize $7 million from Eagles. Now that would be nice.

  I am absolutely possessed with the idea of buying a large barge and converting it into a river yacht. My dressing-room windows look over the Seine, and I see a hundred barges a day and beautifully stubby, chuggy, impertinent tugs fussing like bullies. It would be blissful to weigh anchor or whatever one does on barges and motor through the French countryside to Marseilles or Germany or Belgium or Holland. [...] I could have a mini-moke on board and a couple of push-bikes for the occasional excursions. I could ask for a lot of films to be done in Paris so that we could live on the barge. I could have a swimming pool put on the deck, and thousands of paperbacks in the library, on every conceivable subject. It shouldn't be all that expensive – much less than a comparable house. I'm told one could buy a 100 ft barge for about 20 or 30 thousand dollars and spend another thirty on it. I would buy hundreds of films in 16mm and have a small projection room. Roddy McDowall told me once that he has a library of several hundred films that cost him very little to buy. [...]

  Saturday 5th Yesterday we worked desultorily all day until about 5. Rex gave a party for the crew and cast (me) afterwards. [...] My turn next week. There was no vodka and Scotch is dangerous, so Jim made Vodka Martinis for us.37 I have been fairly squiffed three nights in a row, so I'd better watch it.

  Pat Newcomb arrived.38 She is supposed to be head of publicity for the three productions Staircase, The Only Game in Town and Justine.39 She looks sun-lamped, and has a pot belly. Is she, one asks oneself, a man or a woman? [...]

  Hugh French told me that there is a likelihood that I will be getting a telegram or letter from Universal Pictures threatening to sue me if I do not do Anne of the Thousand Days next summer, and also informing [me] that they no longer have any intention of backing the film that I really want to do: The Man From Nowhere.40 Now that is very perverse. I shall wait on the events. I wouldn't object to having the whole year off. I could write a book, or dream a lot, or get fit or fat. [...] I have an idea that, undemocratic as it may sound, a studio is better and safer when it is run by one man and not a committee. It seems that UP is run by three or four warring factions, all of whom are jealous of the other. Jay Kanter is about the only dependable one.41 And he is of course subject to the whim of Lou Wasserman and or Ed Henry.42 Even the names are untrustworthy. And, strictly speaking, I suppose they are only semi-literate. The mind that makes money and the mind that makes or enjoys or appreciates Art and its fellows must be a long way apart. [...]

  Eliz tells me that the latest scandal about the above-mentioned Pat Newcomb is that she has decided that she is a lesbian and has moved in with Liz Smith who is a journalist of some distinction (she writes for Cosmopolitan, The New York Times etc.) and has taken the place of a Diane Judge who oddly enough was cooking chilli for E the other day in E's studio dressing-room when the aforesaid Pat walked in.43 I think the parts that Rex and I are playing have gone to everybody's heads. [...]

  Sunday 6th We are lunching with somebody called Alex or Alexis who is Baron (Claudye just told me) de Redé.44 We are going on afterwards with a party at the running of the Grand Prix d'Arc de Triomphe, the French equivalent of Ascot or Derby day etc. Though I know very little about horse-racing. It might be interesting. Baron Guy and Marie-Hélène Rothschild invited us.45 La Callas will probably be there and possibly Ari Onassis.46 Aren't we posh?

  Yesterday I went house-boat hunting, but found nothing suitable. We'll try again later in the week. We did however find a very attractive French trio. A M. Paul-Emile Victor and his wife Collette and her sister.47 He is an arctic explorer of distinction, about 60 years old I would give a guess, his wife about 35 perhaps, and sister-in-law about 40. He gave me two books, one for E and I and one, which he signed, for Christopher. I shall send it off to Chris today. Paul-Emile told us many fascinating stories about Eskimos, and British Explorers and their entire unflappability. Very amusing.

  We must see him again. He has an island of ten acres in the Pacific which has the beautiful island of Buro-Buro right close by.48 It looks heavenly. We must ‘do’ the Pacific one of these days. They know Marlon very well. [...]

  We dined at home and talked about sex with Caroline who seems to be very sensible about it. A lot of passes are made at her it seems. I've seen the come-on from Rex among others. He, by the way when he goes to a Premiere etc. always wears a toupée and makes up with ‘ManTan’. Well fancy that. I think I'll try it myself. [...]

  Monday 7th We went to lunch at the Baron Redé's house, and had a delicious lunch of fish of some kind, followed by partridge, and a magnificent ice-cream with nuts and cake in it. There were three wines, label-less, and brandy equally anonymous, but all very good. Two devastating wars and crippling taxes, and the moneyed Aristocracy still live like Aristos. They
must be cleverer than we think. I noticed that every glass still had wine in it when we left. Is it considered impolite to drain your glass when you rise to leave. If so, I was impolite. There must have been about a hundred people for the lunch. [...] The house is huge and very lavish and Marie-Hélène said that she considered it the most beautiful in Paris. I said that my favourite house in the world was Ferrières. [...]

  Later at the Paddock where only the owners are allowed to go in but we were privileged and went in to the ring. So we were standing there with a great lot of them when suddenly a tall man appeared emaciated and ill and stubble-faced and minusculy-moustached and smiled a lot and was quite incoherent, and had a right hand which was burned to the bone between the index finger and the next. It was Peter O'Toole.

  I have to write an article about Robert Kennedy. So God help us.

  Tuesday 8th I tried like mad to write an article about Bobby Kennedy last night but failed abysmally. I read this morning what I had written and immediately tore it up. I will try again today but I am totally without inspiration. I can't find a peg to hang it on. I've been thinking about it for days too.

  [...] Collette and her sister Christianne came to visit but we had finished work, and so I took them over to see E. She too had finished but was rehearsing. Collette's husband Paul Emile joined us later and we had a few drinks and went home.

  [...] Maria Callas told us on Sunday that she and Ari had parted. Said he was too destructive and that her singing was affected. I think she's a bit of a bore. She told me how beautiful my eyes were and that they demonstrated a good soul! Said she was a little shy of asking but could she play Lady Macbeth to my Macbeth in the film of it which she had read we were going to do. I suppose she thought Elizabeth was going to play Macduff or Donalbain. Maybe it was merely an off day but she seemed pretty silly to me. [...] She is riddled with platitudes. Was on Sunday anyway. Elizabeth who has eyes in the back of her bum and ears on stalks was aware of everything that was going on.

  When E by the way, walked from the paddock to the Loge with Guy and Marie-Hélène the thousands of people applauded her all the way. Not bad for an old woman of 36. I am always pleased and surprised by that sort of thing. We have been expecting it to stop for years but it hasn't. [...]

  Wednesday 9th For the past three days I have been going through one of my bouts of melancholy, black as a dirge. It seems I am to be sued by UP which doesn't help. They haven't got a leg to stand on but it's a bloody nuisance. One cheerful note, literally, was a note from Liza written in the new calligraphy, and a pleasant but slightly admonitory note from her form-mistress. I save the comic strips from the Paris Tribune and send them to Liza in batches of four or five. I wonder if she's allowed to read them. Liza seems to have decided ever since Kate was here to call me ‘dad’ while baby Maria still calls me Richard or Rich. [...]

  [...] I read yesterday a translation of an article in Oggi about Florinda Bolkan who says that she could easily have taken me away from Elizabeth, but thought it would be too tedious to try!49 Now this has been said before but never by a fully matured lesbian. She is desperately trying to be a film star and, poor dear, will never make it.

  Yesterday's shooting was uneventful. [...] I'm not sure that Rex on occasions is not over-doing the pansy. I never know whether to tell a fellow actor when I think he's going too far. Especially one as testy as Rex. When I screamed at him in the street, he did the most elaborate hip shuffle. I think I've got mine under control but one is never sure.

  I still cannot write that article about RFK I wonder if I can do it between shots. I wrote Xmas Story like that, and a lot of Meeting Mrs Jenkins.50 [...]

  Peter Evans, who was with the Daily Express, and a photographer called I think Terry O'Neill, have been on the set for days writing and taking snaps for some article or other.51 They are both very little, very scruffy, and wear stupendous lifts. Peter, who is very nice, is a perfect example of a semi-literate who makes a very good living from writing. He is even having a book published shortly!

  Thursday 10th Yesterday was unique. I didn't see or talk to Elizabeth for an entire day. I felt desperate all day long and suddenly about 5 o'clock began to drink Martinis. By the time I got home I was so drunk and tired that I fell asleep, euphemism for passed out, almost before I'd managed to get my clothes off. I think perhaps, though it is good for her, that I don't like Elizabeth working without me. [...]

  I received telegrams threatening to sue me in ‘six countries’ if I didn't agree to do Anne of The Thousand Days. I am so sick of being sued that I shall probably agree today. But I shall never work with that lot again. [...]

  Terry O'Neill, the photographer, told me yesterday that the most rigid professional he knows is Lester Piggott, the Jockey.52 He wears a rubber sweat-suit permanently, and drinks nothing but coffee, whereas famous footballers like Bobby Charlton of Manchester United and Billy Bremner of Leeds, I think, drink very heavily after having reached a certain peak of physical fitness.53 Apparently they confine themselves to beer but nevertheless it's amazing to me that they are able to keep running around for two non-stop periods of 45 minutes. I've seen them on TV and it's tiring just to watch them. [...]

  Friday 11th [...] Yesterday we shot outside on the ‘London’ lot in the morning and I tested my alopecic bald wig in the afternoon. It's horrifying but effective. I've accepted Henry VIII so there will be no suit. However I may sue them for not doing The Man From Nowhere later on. It does mean however that we will have a four or five month holiday, which is something we've fondly dreamed of for years. Might even go to Mexico for a couple of months and roast in the sun.

  Or do a trip around the world like Bettina [Krahmer] has just done. [...]

  I have worked out that with average luck we should, at the end of 1969, be worth about $12 million between us. About $3 million of that is in diamonds, emeralds, property, paintings (Van Gogh, Picasso, Monet, Utrillo, John etc.) so our annual income will be in the region of a $million.54 That is God Willing, and no wars, and no ‘29!55

  We are flying, in the small jet (it's a Hawker-Siddeley De Havilland 125 twin jet) to Nice tonight and going on the Kalizma for the weekend. I'm longing to see it again. We could come back on Monday morning. Sheran and Simon Hornby are flying in the same plane from London and picking us up.56 They are a charming couple. Off to work and more later possibly.

  Saturday 12th, St Jean Cap Ferrat Aboard the Kalizma. We flew last night from Paris. [...] We shall go ashore later and probably go to La Ferme Blanche for lunch. Simon and Sheran are with us. They are delightful and so is the boat. The Monet is in the living room or salon, the Picasso and the Van Gogh are in the dining room. The Epstein bust of Churchill is brooding over the salon and there is a Vlaminck on the wall of the stairwell to the kids’ cabins.57 [...] we finished early, about 6.45, and I went to pick up E and the guests at the Boulogne Studios. I saw W. Beatty who gave me a drink and was extremely flattering about Elizabeth. He said how remarkably beautiful she was and great a film actress. [...] The flight was as smooth as smooth, and took about an hour and a quarter. No one seemed to be nervous but of course we were stiffened by a few drinks. [...]

  We didn't go to bed until 3.30 because we were so excited at the joy of the boat. I can't as ‘twere stop touching it and staring at it, as if it were a beautiful baby or a puppy-dog. Something you can't believe is your very own.

  Kevin McCarthy just appeared swimming, if you please, from the Voile d'Or.58 [...] He is coming for lunch tomorrow. [...]

  It's fascinating to hear the upper-class English accent. When Sheran told me a story this morning about the Dukes of Abercorn which I will again relate tomorrow. And of course when she says Girl she says not Gel but Geal no it's Geall with the accent on the a.

  What a sexy girl, gell, geall, she is. And Good as gold.

  Sunday 13th, Kalizma, Cap Ferrat Yesterday was a very good day. I'm afraid that I was semi-sloshed for most of the day [...] but I don't think I was particularly offensive. What a spl
endidly intelligent couple the Hornbys are. And he particularly is very well read, in some areas as they say, better read than I. There is lots of delicious space left for delicious books. I must too find a corner for reference books and albums etc., which are very large, and will demand height and depth. The new Times Atlas of the World for instance is a couple of square feet or so.

  [...] Elizabeth has great worries about becoming a cripple because her feet sometimes have no feeling in them. She asked if I would stop loving her if she had to spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair. I told her that I didn't care if her legs bum and bosoms fell off and her teeth turned yellow. And she went bald. I love that woman so much sometimes that I cannot believe my luck. She has given me so much.

  It's a day of incomparable beauty. A couple of vagrant clouds, church bells from Beaulieu, half a dozen fishing boats, the ship swinging imperceptibly on her anchor, now towards the Voile d'Or now away. There is a very slight breeze. The flag is as lazy as a cat. There won't be many days as memorable as this. You have to recount them, as young Christopher once said, like diamonds in your pocket.

  We are going to Rory Cameron's for a drink before lunch.59 We were going to ask Lana Turner and her husband to lunch but Kevin said the man is a nasty sort of bloke, and so we changed our minds.60 Kevin is coming and an actor-socialite called George Hamilton.61 Very charming they say.

  Monday 14th, Studio, Paris This morning [...] when we arrived at E's studio we heard the mind-shattering news that Ivor, my brother who is paralysed, is able to move his toenails [...] on his left foot. This might mean, and we don't ask much, that he will be able to manipulate himself around in a wheelchair, and go to the lav etc. It is the most exciting news I've heard since I received a letter saying I was going up to Oxford. Even more!