The Richard Burton Diaries

by Richard Burton

  [...] E still asleep though she awoke in the middle of the night when I did and woke again at 7 when I nearly had my ‘accident’ and got up to type this and make myself some coffee. She looked very pale in the plane yesterday but looks better today. She's got that bloody dentist this afternoon. I shall sit in the waiting room and read and listen for distant groans and moans, though doubtless she'll make no sound. If there's a book shop near the dentist's I shall search out some literature for the train and boat. Now for some boiled eggs to bind me.

  Friday 31st [...] Took E to the dentist at one o'clock and she was much less time than I anticipated – she was out by 3.15 and we were home by 4. Her poor little gums were all mauled about so she was in discomfort. She has to go back again today for a few minutes. There was a Thrifty drug store next to the dentist's building and I bought a few books for the long journey to Europe. [...] When we came out of the dentist's we looked up as we were walking to the car and the whole of the 2nd or 3rd floor of the block opposite was crowded with people all watching and waving at Elizabeth. Apparently they'd been there every time she went to the dentist but she hadn't noticed before. I was touched. And still surprised. And pleased.

  [...] Granpa Wilding was buried yesterday and Dick Hanley and John Lee went to the funeral.236 Mike Wilding had flown over from Europe for the thing and talked to E on the phone about Mike Junior who apparently is having a terrible time in Asia. Spat upon and insulted wherever he and his group go. I don't know quite why but chiefly out of xenophobia I think with the British refusal to let Indians and Pakistanis into Britain indiscriminately as we used to. He cannot get a visa to get into India. It is typical of Mike's airy-fairy woolliness that he never thought of that before he left. The same goes for the other people in his party. There probably isn't a practical man among them. Still, as long as Mike survives the experience will be invaluable and the lessons learned infinitely more various than he could get in any school curriculum. I wish he'd come home now for God's sake. He's not the adventurer type and he's not very sturdy, not the kind of man who pushes back frontiers and blazes trails. He's a nice feckless boy and may be meant for an artistic career either as a painter or writer. Unless he has the fatal lack of concentration which is the one ineradicable weakness of the lost.

  Saw Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid last night.237 A charming film very derivative of Bonnie and Clyde. The man Redford that I'd heard so much about is disappointingly ordinary and Newman is much more impressive. It is just as well that he has turned down Hammersmith as he has a quality of dullness and I can see quite easily why he has taken so long to become a star. I think he would have ruined our film simply because he seems so sluggish and certainly doesn't suggest for a second the kind of demonic idiot-ness that Billy Breedlove must have. Tonight we look at another highly touted ‘star’ called Beau Bridges.238 Let's see what he's like.

  AUGUST

  Saturday 1st, Beverly Hills Hotel Saw yet another film last night. Called The Landlord with some very good stuff in it but tremendously derivative of Graduate.239 Time and time again there were whole sequences reminiscent of the Nichols piece. I wasn't however bored which is a minor miracle in itself from a film as far as I'm concerned. The man Beau Bridges is nice and sloppy à la Dustin Hoffman but taller and just as plain. He won't do for our film – he's too young and too undynamic too undemonic. [...] I'm reading yet another diary-form book about sport – this time about baseball by a knuckleball pitcher called Jim Bouton [...] Ball Four.240 I wouldn't like to have Bouton recording my every word in the free for all of a baseball locker room. Great stuff for the layman though.

  Brook left for Chicago yesterday to stay with Cushman. He is a good guest but four months is a bit wearing on anyone. I'm glad he's gone. And it will be very nice to be alone together for a few days on train and boat. And then on boat again – the Kalizma.

  Weather here is splendid and practically smog-free since we arrived and pleasantly warm, not overwhelmingly so as in San Felipe. Talked to Gwen who is back in Gstaad and Ivor is out of hospital. They had talked of going back to England but Ivor changed his mind and chose to stay in Switzerland. He is a long time a-dying poor old sod. I thought this to be his last few months once I heard that he was back in hospital again. The strain on Gwen must be well-nigh intolerable. Sent letter off to Graham with suitable admonitions re talking to the press. Hopeless I know as Graham is incapable of learning. He is a nice bloke though and you never know that he might not grow up one of these days.

  Sunday 2nd, Super-Chief Have just had breakfast on the train and we are somewhere between Gallup and Alburquerque.241 The weather is beautiful and the country looks like a million Cowboy and Indian movies. There is surely no more pleasant means of travel than to travel first class on this magnificent train. We have a drawing-room and a bedroom though actually we use the latter only to change in and sit when the steward is making up the beds or vice versa in the main room. All the terrible tales about the disintegration of the service on this railroad are totally unfounded – it's as good as ever and still the best train in the world. A private bathroom which is not a bathroom but a lavatory and sink. But will do. Tomorrow we can bathe and shower in the Ambassador East so dirty hair for one day.

  I shall read Airport which is the current best-seller or was and feel very cosy knowing that I am on a train and not a nerve-racking plane.242 Nice to be alone with E too. We worked out that it is the first time we've been without attendant guests or servants or both since this time last year. And we have more time on the QE2.

  [...] Forgot momentous news. I had a Jack Daniels and Soda and two glasses of Napa Valley Red Wine last night with dinner. Felt immensely daring and all it did was make me feel very sleepy and not elated or anything like that. E had the giggles most of the time. Can't think why as I was in great control. Can't help if the train sways.

  Monday 3rd, Super-Chief We are an hour and a half away from Chicago and it's been a very pleasant trip. Off to the Ambassador East for lunch and more importantly a shower and shampoo. Typing this on my knees while the train sways around a lot. Ran along the Missouri for quite a time this morning and saw a paddle steamer. [...]

  Ran most of yesterday through New Mexico which is very beautiful and even in the height of summer looks lush and pastured. Saw thousands of cows and scores of horses. Many streams and one-horse towns all of which looked delightful. Many eyesores however created by car dumps. [...]

  We discussed whether we could live in the States somewhere in New Mexico or Colorado say. I said I could but would like to spend some time in Europe if possible. Also am afraid of the States – afraid of its corruptive influence and its lack of stability. But a small ranch near a small town with a few horses and somebody to run the whole thing and the family and a book and a typewriter would take some whacking I bet. A water-hole for the kids to swim in and winters in Vallarta and Spring visits to Europe. Not bad. [...]

  Wednesday 5th, New York We arrived late in Chicago and rushed like mad to the Ambassador East and went straight into the Pump Room while they carried the bags upstairs. I had beef in the Polish fashion and E had calves liver and Canadian bacon. Delicious both with a bottle of Burgundy of superb quality. Upstairs and a bath for E and a shower for me, a complete change of clothes and we made it back to the Broadway Limited with about 5 minutes to spare.243 The Broadway has run down though it was never much in the first place. We dined as we ran through Ohio and it was awful and there was nearly an incident when some black people came into the dining car to ask for autographs. It was alright for a time and then the headwaiter who on these trains is always white stopped others as the press became too great and a young negro started on Civil Rights and ‘I can go anyplace I want to on this or any other goddamn train’, etc. It passed off. Then a very drunken Mexican man and woman came and hovered pissedly over the table with the man saying ‘Well there she is, are you satisfied now? And Ricardo too. Get their autographs.’ ‘I've been looking for you since Pasadena,’ said the
woman. ‘I wanna tell you something ...’ long pause. ‘I saw you in Pasadena and you're jus’ beautiful. Great eyes. Hey, look at her eyes. How about that? Let me tell you something ... I've been looking for you since Pasadena.’ We got out of there in a hurry and to the isolation of our drawing-room. Finished Airport which I found very hard work to read. We were 40 minutes late getting into Penn Station[...]244 We were in the Regency by midday where we had a bloody Mary which I didn't like and I remember them being the best in the world.245 Perhaps I've lost my taste for them anyway. We stayed in the rest of the day except for a swift brunch at Rumpelmeyer's.246 Aaron was there all the time and Phil came about 6 and stayed until about 8 when they both went off somewhere. I half watched a terrible film about the Black-and-Tans and the Irish starring James Cagney.247 [...]

  Thursday 6th The newspapers made front page stuff yesterday of the fact that this hotel was robbed at 3 in the morning the night before – saying that the bandits were after E's Cartier-Burton and Krupp. Now we just so happened to have them with us up here on the 20th floor, every room of which is taken by guards etc. The strong boxes from the hotel vault had been brought up by the manager the day we arrived and were probably observed in the lobby by a member of the gang. What he didn't wait to see was that they were not taken back down again. The Krupp and Peregrina and lots of other pieces were in Dug's room in the strongbox under his bed where slept he and his son – also a cop. E was wearing the Cartier-Burton. So foiled again. I wonder how long we can keep up running this hideous risk without having genuine trouble one of these days.

  The famed new white Cadillac containing every mod con for which we've been waiting for 18 months is a write-off before we've even seen it. It was badly smashed with Gaston driving it. His reasons all sound very dubious – the brakes went he says which seems unlikely in a brand new car – while the press say he crashed going the wrong way in a one-way street. We shall see. We don't even know where it occurred but it seems as if it were in the country around London. He'll have a volubly glib explanation and it wasn't his fault I bet. No use being angry about it but I am. Insurance will pay for it but it means another 18 months to get a new one so will abandon the idea.

  We went to lunch at the Colony restaurant which is just around the corner from here.248 We took Aaron and James Wishart with us. Aaron's sclerosis seems much worse while James has had a couple of mild heart attacks so we were with a right couple of athletes. [...] Today we're off to the QE2 and looking forward to it. Shall go out and buy some books this morning. Letter from Alan Jay Lerner asking if I would be interested in doing the Little Prince of St Exupéry.249 Might see him today on the ship to find out how he plans to do it. Might be good. Suggestion that Clint Eastwood might play in Hammersmith. Said yes if agreeable to Ustinov.250

  Friday 7th, Queen Elizabeth We sailed yesterday at 5 o'clock. The ship is fine but horribly decorated. The British really have no sense of style, no sense of colour, no sense of line, of proportion, even of simple utilitarian sense. For instance, the door to the bedroom will not close unless you move the bed. The bed is fixed so the door remains permanently open. In both the bathrooms there are three sets of lavatory papers with the fitting fixed into the wall. In a desperate attempt to be ‘with it’ the decor has only succeeded in looking like 1925 German exhibition. It looks not unlike our little Kalizma before Elizabeth had it re-done. The tables in the Grill room are decorated with lamps about a foot high that look like blocks of box-flats lighted on the inside. The famous Daily Telegraph newspaper is a flimsy couple of sheets without even the virtue of the crossword puzzle which was a feature of the ship's paper on the old Queens. The passengers so far fit the decor – nobody seems first-class and we got the impression this morning when we went exploring around the deck at 7 o'clock that we were eternally wandering into the tourist section from the look of the passengers and the way they were dressed. We are still not sure. It may be a classless ship and we must ask and find out. She sails beautifully so far and there isn't a tremor from the engines and E became very nostalgic last night saying how unglamoured the whole thing was compared from her early journeys when First Class contained fabulous film stars and famous writers and crowned heads etc. And the engines really made the ship quiver and shudder. She became quite misty-eyed. I remember of course that the old Queens were pretty horribly decorated too, but at least it was substantial and expensively so. This ship gives the impression of being shoddy. But the rooms are pleasant and there are two little bars with all kinds of cute fittings and two small fridges – one in each bathroom. [...]

  We both took a nap this morning mine unintended and short E's intended and long. I am reading a book by Le Carré called the Looking-Glass-War which is infinitely sad and depressing.251 Le Carré writes about that clubby class of Englishmen as well as anybody I've ever read and I think him to be as good as Graham Greene without the mystic Roman Catholic stuff but with the dying mystique of Empire and fading old-school-tie virtues as a substitute. He really writes like an angel and understands his victims very well and has a marvellous ear for common speech.

  Wednesday 26th, Portofino Yesterday was a day of frantic evasion tactics. We discovered that the bushes and road above our anchorage were infested with paparazzi – a mass of long-focus lenses everywhere one looked. They in turn must have passed the word around, though we were on the front page of the Genoa newspaper as well, with the result being that we were surrounded by craft of every conceivable description from about 10 in the morning until nightfall. Pedal-boats, smart and powerful Rivas, hard-rubber boats with outboard motors, boats from Santa Marguerita and Genoa and Rapallo, row-boats and even swimmers. If the novelty has not worn off today and we are not left alone, then we shall move tomorrow to Elba which we have never visited and where we should be tranquil enough. We were so ignored in Corsica and Sardinia a couple or three years ago and we may be lucky again.

  [...] Last night we showed on board Elizabeth at 12 years old in a film called National Velvet.252 An utterly improbable story about a horse winning the Grand National – never having run against anybody before – with E riding it. But nevertheless utterly enthralling and timeless. Elizabeth was enchanting with a face of such intensity and such love for the horse that it was almost heart-breaking at times. Though, oddly enough, the face remains the same twenty years later. By some trick of bone-work it still is the same face though the present one is more character-full with its over-lay of experience.

  Interrupted by the necessity to have my hair dyed much darker than it has been, the reason being that everyone seems to think that in the next piece Villain I should be a black rather than a blond villain. [...]

  Thursday 27th, Portofino – Elba 6.45 in the morning and we are about 2 hours out of Portofino en route to Elba. [...] The ship ploughs sturdily and I suppose steadily on to the beginning of Boney's One Hundred Days.253 Have just finished reading White's The Making of the President 1968 which I found very readable.254 He, White, is obviously a good man. I am at the moment re-reading Machiavelli and it is extraordinary how all his dicta apply to the letter to the American Elections. A man must never lie to himself but must, if necessary, lie to the people if he thinks it is good for them. This both Humphrey, Nixon and Wallace did time and time again if only by omission. Lies that are lies repeated endlessly with adulatory listeners who believe the lies even if they were told the same lies in a bar by a friend who know them to be lies. [...] Elizabeth has gone back to bed reading Coward's Hay Fever which they've asked us to play on the stage and then make a film of. I've never read the play or seen it but Coward doesn't sound like our cup of tea. Mugs of beer or should I say ales are more in my line as an actor than pink champagne which is what Noel produces so beautifully. Still, I shall read it after Elizabeth and see if I can compromise and be black velvet.255

  Thursday 27th continued, at Sea [...] Yesterday was as mad as usual in Portofino – scores of small craft and one biggish one – about fifty feet, a largeish cabin-cruiser with a decadent
looking white haired Italian owner about 55 years old or perhaps a well preserved 65 with lots of young girls – women – in bikinis, all very brown who had obviously come to look us over. We retreated inside to the salon. They got fed up in about an hour and a half and left. No people look quite as dissipated dissolute and handsomely debased as the rich middle-aged Latin. Vulpine creatures all coldly arrogant and generally with seedy titles and a powerful ambience of orgy. The women too with their lithe hard-eyed gigolos in disdainful condescending tow. They are virtually incapable of being affronted except by a whispered enormity from me in my vilest Italian as I pass within muttering distance. They are great fun to insult, because men of that age (I'm now talking only of the French and Italian Roués) remember only too painfully still the humiliations of the 39–45 war.