The Richard Burton Diaries

by Richard Burton

  Yesterday we stayed in all day, read newspapers, did crosswords and read detective stories. I also read part of the first volume of Holroyd's book about Lytton Strachey. I had read the second volume first while E was in hospital this summer. The first volume is obviously not, so far, going to be as enthralling as the second. It is painstakingly copious but may pick up a bit as it gets on. [...]

  Earlier on this week in this diary I had said that we might be going down to the yacht this weekend because there was a public holiday on Friday. This is not so. The holiday is next weekend. The following guests are due, and I thought it was going to be a quiet three days: Princess Elizabeth of Jugoslavia and a friend of hers, Bettina, Norma Heyman and her lover, Caroline, Simoleke, a friend of the boys’ from Millfield and of course the boys themselves.90 With us that makes a total of twelve, which is practically a full house. I hope to God the weather's good or it's going to be pretty close quarters for such a mob. I am longing to see the boys and can always slope off with them to Nice, with Elizabeth [...]

  The Sunday papers are fairly dull today and the Olympics are down to the dreary stage of canoeing and foils etc. and has none of the drama of the demonstrations of ‘black power’ which we had last week from Tommie Smith and Carlos.91 Sammy Davis Jun. told me the last time he was in Paris, a couple of weeks ago, that it was no longer considered kosher or ‘in’ to call Negroes Negroes but blacks. From nigger to negro to black to brown betcha!

  Monday 28th Yesterday was a strange and semi-lost one. We went to lunch at a restaurant called Hostellerie de la Tete Noire. Megirl was a little late getting ready which for some reason, and I should be used to it by now, threw me into a fury which I didn't really recover from all day. I tried my damnedest to be nice later on at lunch and later on again when Simoleke arrived but my bloody temper kept on breaking through. I went for a long walk with my little dog and got myself thoroughly lost. As usual I had gone out without money in my pocket and so I couldn't stop and have a drink, which perhaps is just as well. I was in some very deserted street, very odd that it should be so empty and silent while only, as I discovered later, a stone's throw from the Champs Elysees, when a sort of hard-bitten girl came around the corner. I swallowed my pride at being lost and asked her ‘Ou est l'avenue Montaigne, s'il vous plait?’ ‘I don't know,’ she replied in English. I thanked her and walked on. Suddenly I realized she had turned and was walking beside me. ‘Vous aimez Paris?’ she asked. ‘Oui, je l'adore,’ I replied, picked up E'en So and crossed the road in a sort of urgent half-walk half-trot as if I were the prettiest little virgin in town. I had been made a pass at! First time for years. I wonder if she was a tart.

  [...] When I arrived back in the hotel I persuaded E to put on some slacks promising that I would take her and Sime to the pizzeria. I of course couldn't find it and we ended up at Fouquet's where we had ‘Haddock Poche a L'Anglaise’ with ‘Pommes Vapeur.‘92 We washed it down with a bottle of Hock.

  Simoleke became very tearful because, she said, she felt so guilty about her luck in being adopted by Howard and Mara while the rest of her family, there are 16 in all, were living in uneducated poverty in Samoa. We said that when she started to earn money she could help them out, at least financially, as I have helped my family and Elizabeth hers. But it was hard to console her. [...] I suspected that she was something less than loyal to Howard and Mara but E says I am mistaken. I love Howard and Mara so much and admire them so greatly, particularly Howard, that I may be over-protective. And we know how deeply he loves the girl and how much disciplined agony it must cost him to send her half way around the world away from him.

  Riots in London yesterday and a front-page picture of a Bobby being kicked in the face.93 I don't know where my sympathies lie, my own two boys will be on those marches before long, but if either of them kicked somebody else in the face without provocation I would be constrained to kick him sharply in the behind. Not that either of them would ever do such a thing, he said fondly and hopefully. [...]

  Tuesday 29th I received a letter from Francis Warner yesterday asking if I could or would become a don at St Peter's, Oxford, sometime shortly.94 I am very excited and am going to write to him suggesting that I should go up for the summer of 1970. He will, he says, give us his chambers and I shall offer to swap them for the yacht and our various houses. He needs a sabbatical he says. How funny it will be to be lecturing at Oxford without a degree! Now I've always had this pregnant woman's yearning for the academic life, probably spurious, and a term of smelly tutorials and pimply lectures should effect a sharp cure. I would like to deal with either the mediaeval poets in English, French, Italian and German and possibly some of the Celtic like Welsh and Irish, or to confine myself to the ‘Fantasticks’ Donne, Traherne, Henry Vaughn George Herbert. The first poem in English that ever commanded my imagination:

  Sweet day, so cool so calm so bright,

  The Bridal of the earth and sky,

  The dew shall weep thy fall tonight,

  For thou must die.

  Sweet Rose whose hue angry and brave,

  Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,

  Thy root is ever in its grave,

  And thou must die.95

  And that's not all. I mean that chap Herbert was indeed a box where sweets compacted lay. I am as thrilled by the English language as I am by a lovely woman or dreams, green as dreams and deep as death.96 Christ I'm off and running and will lecture them until iambic pentameter comes out of their nostrils. Little do they know how privileged they are to speak and read and think in the greatest language invented by man. I'll learn them.

  We went to see a houseboat last night, after finishing work, with Simmy. It was the houseboat ‘with the Yellow Roof’ as Elizabeth describes it. As usual, her instinct is uncanny. It turned out to be a beauty. We might buy it, if it's for sale. We dined with Paul-Emile and his wife, sister-in-law and niece on board his houseboat. I became rather sloshed but not offensively so, I hope. I told him about the film offer in re Nobile and Amundsen.97 [...]

  I have been offered, is that spelled right?, a million dollars for one month of this diary. Somebody is mad. And I is not it. But I wonder if it would be interesting. I would, after all, like to read the diary of an office-worker. Might people be interested in reading a month in the life of an actor, especially one married to such an exotic wife as mine?

  Wednesday 30th It's 6 o'clock in the morning and I have been awake since 4.30 approximately. [...] I am going to have a bowl of soup in about ten minutes, the kind one makes oneself out of a packet, as it were. We have a couple of hot-plates.

  I feel roughly one thousand years old, and have the old familiar arthritis ‘old Arthur’ back. But not in my shoulders or neck or arms but for a change in my left hip. When I get these little bursts, I realize the stoicism of people like Kathleen Nesbitt and little Gwen, who live with it for years without a complaint. Mine, compared with theirs, is nothing but a kind of mild, dull toothache. [...]

  [...] The piece I wrote, at his request, about Roddy Mann's book called, I think, The Headliner, is quoted in the Evening Standard against me.98 ‘Burton Lashes Out,’ it says in the headlines. They also say, insultingly, that I mix a metaphor. It is quite deliberate. Idiots, but it is extraordinary how sensitive the insensitive press is when it is attacked. But I have to think that like most men Roddy Mann is venal, and will do anything for a mention in the newspapers, and sad it is because he fairly bristles with insignificance. I could write better with my left foot. But what the devil or the dickens or the hell, we have to make a living or die and there are worse things than writing for the popular press, like dying of malnutrition in Biafra.99 I shall now have my soup and nutrite myself for another day. God save us all and Oscar Wilde.100

  [...] Simmy came to work with me yesterday and nearly ruined a ‘take’ by laughing in the middle of it. Fortunately her snort was not picked up on the sound-track. She's not the only one. A lot of people apparently find Rex and myself very difficult to watch witho
ut laughing. Sometimes indeed we laugh at each other. I hope the paying audience feel the same way.

  [...] We have a little holiday this weekend. Tomorrow, I mean Friday is a French national holiday. I must find out what for.101 A letter from Phil yesterday in which he goes into ecstasies over E's performance in Secret Ceremony.102 [...]

  Thursday 31st An early start today as we have to stop for lunch at 12.15 for the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. They are visiting E's studios and then ours, if the old man is not too tired and are taking lunch there. So this day we have to be ready to start shooting at ten instead of 12 noon. Tonight we fly to Nice in a chartered Mystere. I wonder what she's like. I have become so used to the De Havilland by now. We shall come back by train on the famous Train Bleu.103 [...]

  I spent most of yesterday in a bath with a lot of body make-up on, which meant when I came home that Elizabeth had to wash my back. I was back to the mines again, and the wives washing their husbands’ backs clean of the grime of the colliery.

  [...] Must leave for work, it is going on for 9.30 and I mustn't be late or it upsets my whole day. E's still asleep.

  NOVEMBER

  Friday 1st, Cannes104 Well here we are on the Kalizma in Cannes, and it was silly to make this journey because the weather here is terrible while in Paris it is beautiful and even in England. And in the Nice-Matin, to accentuate my terror, there is a headline which says: ‘Ramon Novarro, le grand suducteur du [sic] cinema muet, ASSASSINE A HOLLYWOOD.‘105 Poor bastard. There but for the grace of God...

  [...] Everybody on board was charming and gracious except for Norma's boy-friend, who is suffering from a bad attack, which may be permanent, of refusing to be impressed. I feel sorry for him poor bastard. He was one of those pop-singers who didn't survive his first success. He went to Westminster, so he says, which surprised me as he doesn't have a public school accent. He was fired, he says with some pride. His name is Gordon something and I kept on calling him Neil.106 That didn't help. He is not worthy of Norma.

  The boys [...] were lovely and Mike is now only an inch away from being my height. Chris is shooting up too. The latter asks such naive and sweet questions that it makes me breathless.

  We flew back, instead of taking a train, because we couldn't get proper sleepers on the Wagon Lit of the blue train [...]. Mike, reluctant to leave on the second leg of the journey to Bristol and school, said ‘Richard, make just one more corny pun before we leave.’ Bloody cheek! He genuinely hates school, but I'm afraid he simply has to stay there. At least until next summer.

  I took the whole mob to Colombe d'Or, and after a splendid meal with splendid wines the owners refused to let me pay.107

  Tuesday 5th, Paris The last few paragraphs of the preceding entry were written last night after work. The weekend was so thoroughly disorganized that I couldn't settle down to either read or write. One night for instance none of us went to bed until 4, 5, or six in the morning. And as a result of this behaviour I slept one day until 4.30 in the afternoon! Now I've never done that before in my life, except possibly when I have worked nights, and I doubt it even then.

  Yesterday I felt ghastly and found that only the hair of the dog would meet the justice of the case. So I tried Fernet Branca, but couldn't face it.108 After a time I tried some bacon and eggs which I managed to get down and keep down – I had been throwing up before leaving for work. I was then able to drink slowly a couple of Martinis or so which stopped the shakes. Later on I had a couple more and another two before going home. [...]

  I took a sleeping pill and didn't get to sleep until 6 in the morning! What a night. [...] So I read most of the night, a book on cricket by E. W. Swanton.109 He's not very evocative and nothing like as good as Cardus and John Arlott.110 But he helped to while away the night.

  Princess Elizabeth came over to the set. She is very pretty but quite impertinent. I am not absolutely sure that she might be a little nasty behind one's back. Tiny touch of the daggers. Just a feeling. She seemed to enjoy Rex's inability to remember lines. [...] She was off to dinner with Warren Beatty. She was quite excited but pretended she wasn't.

  Off to work in a minute. Oh the smelly man, who is Norma's boyfriend, on the train home from the South of France got drunk and smashed the glasses dishes etc in the train's dining car. He was taken off at some stop en route by the police whereupon he started hitting them. They can keep you for a long time in French gaols if they want to and I was surprised to find that he got out the next morning. Apparently Norma said that it was an act ‘passionalle’ or whatever it is, and that she'd been insulted by some Arab on the train and her friend was defending her honour. So they took her word for it and he was released. Besides she's a very pretty sexy looking woman.

  Election Day today in America, and Guy Fawkes.111 I hope it's not an omen.

  Wednesday 6th Quarter past nine in the morning. Just called Dick Hanley to find out who'd won the Election. Nixon is ahead but they're waiting for the results of the Texas and California voting before they're sure.112

  Yesterday I worked on and off all day, Rex going mad with his lines again. Maria Callas arrived and since I was in a reading mood she was not welcome. She seems pathetic to me despite her great reputation as an opera singer-actress. She said how she was meeting some Italian in ten days time who wanted her to do Medea as a film, but the operatic version, whereas she insists on doing it as in the original, i.e. without singing.113 [...] I summoned up as much good nature with Callas however as I could and took her on the set a couple of times to watch a couple of snippets that Rex and I were doing. She averred as to how fascinating she found it all, and after a time, much to my relief went to Elizabeth's studio which she'd already visited once. E told me later that she too found her rather sad. She was there when E and Caroline were playing Gin-Rummy and sat and watched like a child. At one moment E was beaten easily by a quick Gin by Caroline and said ‘shit’. At this Callas shot up and said in great agitation ‘Oh no I've never heard such words, Oh no, no, no, never heard such things.’ All this time pacing up and down in great ado. E and Caroline were astonished. Now what was that all about? Next time she comes to see me I'm going to try ‘Merde’ on her and see what happens. She is not beautiful but her face has a black-eyed animation which can sometimes be very attractive. She has massive legs and what seems a slender body from the waist up. She has bags under her eyes and wears dark glasses most of the time. Perhaps she cries a lot. She is obviously very lonely after the Onassis marriage. Now she obviously wants to do something that will stagger the artistic world and make him jealous and prove to him that all he's gained is a pretty socialite, while in her he's lost a genius. Quite right too I suppose but without knowing her, and if I had the choice, I'm afraid I'd elect for Jackie Kennedy. She sounds more fun. And in snaps anyway looks prettier.

  [...] I've had a bad sore throat for the last three days and a blister on my tongue, but this morning both seem better. [...] I cut down my smoking yesterday and didn't drink a drop all day.

  Thursday 7th The hacking cough that has kept me awake for nights was killed last night by a pill. [...] My sore throat is gone. I haven't coughed once since I awoke. I have a bottle of Perrier straight from the fridge at my right hand, cigarettes at my left, the Avenue Montaigne below and in front of me, it's ten to nine in the morning and apart from the fact that Nixon has won the Yankee Election, all's right with the world114. Of course a child dies of starvation every minute somewhere in the world, Biafrans are being slaughtered in ambush, napalm is burning babies in Vietnam, and what shall we do about it? ‘Good Works’ as those hideous upper-class Victorians revelled in. A cauldron of soup and a loaf for Mrs Lewis in the village. She's not too well. Read Pilgrim's Progress to dying Mr Jones, illiterate Mr Jones, and go home afterwards to a 7 course dinner, swollen with sanctity.115 A great house, fifty servants, sweeping lawns, follies and vistas and oak drives and no drainage in the village.

  Hullo, and what's the matter with me?

  We had a charming and very e
xcited letter from Liza yesterday [...]. I have developed a love for that child that is in danger of becoming obsessive. She is so honest about what she wants but generous also. She can of course, as far as I'm concerned, have anything she wants. I have promised her a pony if she gets to Millfield or wherever. I must find out if the school or schools will permit it. I wrote to her yesterday and shall write again shortly.

  Yesterday was a miserable working day. [...] I am at that stage, which I reach in every film, where everything seems boring and silly. The same thing happens in the theatre with me too. After a month of a run in a play I become suicidally bored, even with parts of infinite variety like Hamlet. And yet I keep on doing it. I'm a rich man. Why don't I pack it in and do some ‘Good Works’ afore-mentioned? Grow two blades of grass where one grew before and all that. I couldn't grow grass in a window-box or hammer a nail in a wall without hammering a finger in with it. I'd better just continue to give money to charity.

  I am reading two books at once: A political biography of de Gaulle and another of Pierre Laval.116 So far there seems little to choose between them, except height. Scheming, conniving, disloyal monomaniacal monsters, both protesting their love of la belle France. Of the two de Gaulle seems to be the bigger liar. But in politics all men are liars. The squalor of the latest Election campaign in the States has to be read to be disbelieved.

  Friday 8th [...] After completing yesterday's entry with milady fast asleep in bed as I thought, I was looking through some scenes in the script when suddenly the bedroom door opened and standing there in a near diaphanous nightgown with one shoulder slipped on to her arm was E. So I went back to bed for ten minutes. I was unquestionably seduced and I teased her about it for the rest of the day when we talked on the telephone. She was very beautiful. It is a fact that after all these years the girl can still blush. I lost that latter capacity a long long time ago.