The Richard Burton Diaries

by Richard Burton

  E infuriatingly as bright as a button and aglow with youthful joie de vivre. I am tempted to kick her in the teeth. And so to Gstaad.

  Saturday 27th, Gstaad The journey by Trans Europe Express was lovely. [...] We took some wine and, rare for me, a whiskey. We had a second half bottle in our seats. The various TEEs must be the most successful trains in the world – I have never seen an empty seat. But nevertheless, whether by train or plane, unless the helicopter is available, the last two hours or so depending on whether we car it from Geneva or Lausanne is tedious beyond words. By the time we'd arrived we had begun to get edgy with each other and by bedtime a flaming and quite childish row was in high dudgeon. Twice, I stormed off to the alternate bedroom. Twice I went back. All manner of little things were exacerbating our natural weariness. [...] The shutter to my room, the dreamt-of library was broken and therefore the room is in darkness and one of the things I looked forward to was seeing the library the next (this) morning with the sun striking along the edge of the garden beyond. [...] I'm writing this very slowly as I find myself so bewitched by the mountains and the brilliant sun on the virgin snow that I can't tear my eyes away from it. [...]

  A bunch of letters (copies) from Aaron via Jane in Rome. One talks of a Mr Charles who, according to the biography of me now out, tried with the connivance of the rest of the village of Pontrhydyfen to ‘soak me for £5000’ for the purchase of 2, Danybont – the house where I was born and spent my happiest hours. The entire village and Mr Charles are furious and no wonder. I must do something about it.354 But what. A letter to the Guardian and the Gazette?355 A letter to the village? A letter to Mr Charles? Since I had nothing to do with the attempted purchase of the house – Graham's big mouth at work again I expect – it puts me in a funny position. I'd better do something. A letter to Hilda would probably be the best way of letting everybody know in Ponty, but apologies like Justice must not only be made but be seen to be made. I could kill those two stupid failures who wrote the book. The only thing I asked them to do was to make sure that nobody in the book was to be hurt by it except myself. Bloody clowns of hell. [...]

  Sunday 28th, Gstaad [...] It is very bright this morning but not the brilliant sun of yesterday as expected. I sat and read in the sun yesterday wearing only a light sweater for over an hour and was as warm as on a summer's day. The sun must be pretty far away however as I only picked up a little colour whereas in a hot sun one hour would turn me into a Mohican. I shall try the sun-lamp. About my only vanity is to be tanned – on the face and upper body if possible. For some reason it makes me feel better and healthier. If someone could or would invent a really practical sunlamp I would use it summer and winter rather than submit to the boredom of sun-worshipping. [...] Did not do my espanol yesterday. Start again today.

  Monday 29th [...] I had difficulty sleeping last night so – not to disturb E who was quickly asleep – I slipped out to the kitchen made myself a sandwich of ham and cheese and a cup of tea, then reading a book of John D. MacDonald's I went into the other room and desserted on Rowntree's Pastilles, one and a half packets no less and a packet of some other Swiss fruit pastilles. Result is that on one scale I am 70 and the other 69. A long time since I was that weight so will knock off a few pounds in the coming days. That means for me, strict Drinking Man's Diet without the drink. I have been giving myself black titles for too long a time anyway. I have got back into the habit of a drink before lunch and dinner. So full stop again. Also I want to have my wits about me for the Proust Ball for there will be fine things to see and a lot to be heard and I want to see and listen and not be seen and listened to.

  E and I are in the library which should always be the morning place as it gives our old maid – I don't mean that she's not married, I mean that she's old and a maid – Celina a chance to really ‘do’ the living room which she shows a curious reluctance to do when we are about. Actually as to a question of age – she is probably no more than about 50 but like most working-class Swiss women seems much older. She is certainly as strong as an ox. She surprised me yesterday when having asked where the two girls – Maria and Inge were – I replied that they had gone first to church and then to school. To Church she said with great surprise and then ‘ah but then all you Catholics have different hours from us Protestants.’ What on earth supposed her to think we are Catholic? We have E – Jewish, Liza – nothing but Jewish by birth and C of E by school, Maria – wherever the school takes her which I believe is Protestant, Michael – nothing but a sort of Jesus lover mixed very woollily with anybody currently fashionable among his age-group like Hesse Tolkien and that huge idiot Alistair Crowley, Chris – non-committal but probably nothing.356 Me – nothing. [...]

  The devil over my shoulder, E, is trying to press me to have a martini before lunch because she wants one and doesn't like drinking alone. I'm dickering with the idea but think I will have one this evening if at all. As I've explained to E ad nauseam I find one drink simply not enough. I guess two or three stiff ones are what I'd find satisfactory but that means slowly reverting to being a drunkard again and I simply will not tolerate a return to that. [...]

  Tuesday 30th357 Raymond has arrived from London to sort out the chaos in the clothes dept. He has been a very ill man for a long time with absolutely crippling sciatica. After trying endless doctors of every nationality including Yugos, Italians, British, Yanks, French, Swiss and indeed every nationality in the various places we've been in the last few years he allowed himself at our continual insistence to submit, if necessary to surgery. He was very frightened as indeed why shouldn't he be – he is 52 and not brave anyway – but went through it. To our and his delight he didn't have to have surgery but last Friday he went to a hospital [...]. By, he gathers, using enormous pressures and bending his uncomplaining body hither, thither and yon they had forced the offending bone – whatever it was – smartly back into place. The acute, almost unbearable pain had gone and nothing remains but a mild ache in his left leg. The relief apparently enormous. Several times to me in the past few weeks he had thought of suicide if the horror persisted. Since he is a sprightly sort of feller normally with all the gaiety of the race this must have been pain indeed.

  By his race I mean of course not his Italian-Swiss-French-German blood but the night-club dressed-up-to-the-tens-in-tight-tight-I-will-go-to-the-ball clothes and camping around with every conceivable signal of blatant homosexuality. [...]

  Searching desperately, well not desperately but continually, for a book to write that would not be autobiographical, at least not overtly, I have come upon an excuse. I have been much impressed by a Jugoslav ‘novel’ called The Bridge on the Drina which I think I must have mentioned before in this haphazard daily exercise. For it is not a novel at all but a series of semi-legendary stories purporting to take place in and around the bridge. By this means the author gives one a saga of the many invasions and changes of family and fortune, in small, of the entire south South Slavs of Jugoslavia. I thought of our pearl the famous or infamous Peregrina, and its extraordinary history.358 Found by a slave in the sixteenth century or perhaps even the late fifteenth it was part of an argosy that took it to the Court of Spain. The slave who found it was given his freedom. Who was the slave? Are there any traceable descendants? Were the sons of slaves free too? Where were my ancestors at the time? Where were Elizabeth's? The tracing of the pearl's history will be complicated but much easier I would think but I shall have to imagine my and E's ancestors, unless E's mother's story that she is descended from Mary, Queen of Scots could be substantiated!359 That would be a great coup for the book. The thing would of course take years to write and would demand a great deal of specialized reading and almost certainly the employment of searchers, I believe they call them. It has been done before. There was a rather good film on the subject I remember – the object being a tail-coat. But the Pearl involved famous dynasties and is authentic history in itself. I could elaborate on my cynical-comical views of mankind and a small page or two of its histor
y. The whole and vast personal question is do I have the intellectual stamina to sustain such a big undertaking and is my writing good enough? I shall need to be fairly near a great library which means Oxford or London. Not all the time but from time to frequent time at least. I think the first person to consult would be Nevill Coghill who would introduce me to the methods of scholarship, what sort of people to employ and consult. Now I will sleep on it for 6 months until we get to England again. [...]

  DECEMBER

  Wednesday 1st, Gstaad360 A cold, very cold morning, with the sun just coming round the corner and I have just lighted the fire in the library and put the kettle on and the dogs E'en So and Daisy Mae are having a mock fight having been in the snow and all would be idyllic were it not for the fact that at 2pm we fly to Paris to the Ritz and tomorrow to the Rothschilds. The latter part is ok. It is simply the fact of disturbing the serenity of this place and being able to do what ever one wants without care to be social and having everything to hand. Still and however when we come back next Monday short of a death in the family which is, with Ivor and E's mother so perilously balanced between life and death, not at all unlikely, we should be here without interruption until the middle of January when it's Jugoslavia again. Also, yesterday, I took the decision to do Bluebeard. I said I could do it in Feb–March-bit of April but that after that it would take too much chopping and changing for all concerned. They said they were prepared to shoot ‘anywhere I want but preferably Hungary and next to that Spain and that I could make any changes I liked!’ Well, well, I thought this is the lot who were so adamant that it must be shot in January. I said I thought Hungary would be the favourite as neither E nor I had ever been there but that we loved Spain too. I am to see Frings tomorrow morning. What I really must get after is Under the Volcano. That, if any film can be considered so, is an important piece.

  Yves le Tourneur who is a salesman for Van Cleef and Arpel and ‘covers’ Switz, came from Geneva where he lives and mostly works bringing with him about $3m of gems. E had changed a gold belt she had bought from them – or I had rather when she was doing XYZ and he had come up with the new belt-cum-neck-lace in exchange. With us of course, and probably with everybody, he brought as I said an extra two or three millions in temptations. I was not to be drawn however except for a pair of matching earrings for the already bought necklace which E had been ‘loaned’ for some time and was naturally (sarcastically) attached to. That, by the way, is a good play of such people as Yves le Tourneur. They let you have a splendid but not overwhelmingly expensive piece on loan, or for a specific occasion, an opening night or the Rothschild party for instance, and hope that the wearer or the spectator, me, decides to buy it what the hell. The necklace and earrings are a perfect example since I bought the earrings. They cost about $6,000. [...]

  Thursday 2nd, Ritz361 We left the chalet at 1pm and were in Paris at 2.45pm. [...] Gianni and two Cadillacs were waiting and we were away to the Ritz. The radios and TVs told us or rather told them, Parisians I mean, that Le Grand Bal, le Bal du Siecle would be graced with unaccountable wealth and that there would be 500 guards around the house and la Reine elle-meme Elizabeth Taylor was apporting $3m from the neck up. True too, but who told them so exactly, they described the exact placing of all the nonsense. Van Cleef? Valentino? Alexandre? We arrived at the Ritz to find the place absolutely surrounded by large black bumper-to-bumper cars and found a hurly-burly reception on inside for the Republic of Congo and a great many black sleek gentlemen in diplomats’ uniform, both the latter and the former as black as your hat in a coal-pit. And bowing and scraping and midst a brouhaha of c'est Liz Taylor et son mari Burton we entered the lift and ran up to the 3rd floor and found ourselves in a penthouse suite though the lift numbers definitely stated there was a 4th floor and therefore, having got off on the third and not having gone up a lot of stairs, how was it possible to be in the penthouse. The hotel is built oddly that's why. Some bits of it have 3 floors and some four. Carl Ritz who built it and whose son – very old I suppose – still lives here wanted to build a home from home for Gentlemen and obviously didn't have Conrad Hilton in mind as the corridors run in Euclidean nightmares and Pythagoras metempsychosis. This form would be turned into a brutish conglomeration of filled in erector set by a boy with a tidy mind and no imagination.362 The suite was sweet and much prettier than the one we had last time and this one even includes a grand piano which I bet needs tuning though I haven't played it yet but will and E has just awoken and invaded the salon where I am typing this which is one reason why the other suite is more practical as I had a room between where I typed and where Elizabeth slept. But there, we are only here for one night this time, but if we stayed here a lot, I mean for a long time – as when making a fillum – I would ask for the room next door the other direction from the living room. That would stop my typing waking E too early and also give us a second bathroom. Very desirable this latter as after a day or two E reduces any bathroom to chaos. She carries around with her a cornucopian ‘make-up’ case that Malthea and Jupiter might have envied.363 It measures a foot high to a foot wide to a foot and a few inches long I would guess and is ‘hard’. That is to say it is not one of those bags that are soft-sided and topped and zipped but is solid and rigid and yet seems to contain endless things – eyebrow pencils, pens, the usual make-up things and deodorants and perfumes and what seems to be pills for any disease and malaises and balms and elixirs and you name it and that box contains it. It may even contain spare parts for the Rolls. Anyway the point is that after a day or two they gradually over-flow the bathroom like lava and there is no room for my pathetic collection of toothpaste and two brushes and deodorant and after-shave and razor and comb.

  We established our corners, which means the small guest bedroom for me and my books and clothes, ordered tea and settled down to my Spanish Grammar which I am finding a bit of a bugger as I mix it up continually with Italian. Esta Questa Esto Questo. [...] E paraded in and out showing me the diamond headdress which she will wear tonight. Even my tasteless eye thought it superb. It was made especially for E by Van Cleef and Arpels and actually does cost well over £1m. Not dollars, POUNDS. Damned if I won't buy it one of these far-off days. It will always be a staggering sight and the knowledge of its cost adds to its beauty regardless of such Philistinism.

  There were many telephone conversations twixt E and Marie Hélène and E and Grace who says that Rainier is going shooting and not at Ferrières and feels too shy to go alone to house Ferrières so would Elizabeth, asked Marie-Hélène, call Grace and ask her to come down with us and we still don't know whether Rainier doesn't want to go to the do and Grace does but won't go without him or whether Grace is uncertain of the protocol in case Mags shows up and Marie-Hélène said rather frantically at one point to E ‘you simply must make her come, I mean I've even got a chair for her’ which meant that she (Grace) was to sit on Guy's right.364 And my E told M-H that if she (M-H) put E with a bunch of non-English-speaking idiots she (E) would never speak to MH ever again. Grace said she would call E back before 11pm and tell her what but she didn't and E, by this time fed up to the eyebrows being MH's soc. sec'y said to hell with it and why didn't I (me) call up Grace and talk her into coming. Why me? But I suppose I shall have to have a go. I just asked where Grace was staying and to my astonishment they told me she was staying at the Embassy. What Embassy asks I? The Monaco one. The Monaco one! Anyway I just called and asked for Son Altesse but she is on the blower so the lady said. She may decide to be ‘occupie’ all day. Fact is, I don't think either of them, Rainier or Grace, feel too happy outside their realm as they can never be sure how they are going to be treated, both of them terrified of being comic-opera. Niven, all of whose stories have to be heard with suspicion and delightfully so, says that once on the CÔte d'Azur in some restaurant or other a waiter didn't appear to have the proper deference and even though they were supposedly incognito Rainier became extremely violent. I've forgotten in what or which way but really nasty-viole
nt.

  About 7 late night we suddenly realized that we had not eaten all day and were mad with hunger so food was procured. [...] After which we watched Inter-Milan play a German team in the quarter-finals of the European Cup.365 A nasty ill-tempered little match. Soccer seems to me a very boring spectacle unless you see a genius at his best or you are desperate for one side to win. In this case I couldn't have cared less about either team though the Germans blond and clean looking looked nicer than the Eyeties, squat and hairy and dark and thick thighed like pocket Welsh front-row forwards. And the incessant writhing about on the ground after every tackle, foul or fair, is stupefying in its monotony. To my relief I have just heard that Grace is coming and is coming with us. So that's that. Phew! as they say in the comics. And it is comical.

  Friday 3rd – Saturday 4th, Ferrières366 So the Ball was had. It was had until 7am when the music at last stopped and the do-or-die-ers crawled into their cars and lumbered off with early morning traffic to Paris. We had come up from the party about 4.30am but, after packing away the ‘big’ jewellery and putting it in the house coffre, we sat and chatted desultorily away until the orchestra stopped at 7. I managed, though I was sorely tempted during dinner, not to have the mildest form of alcohol so despite only about 4 hours’ sleep I feel as bright as a button. We have just had tea, as indeed we did at 5 this morn also. It is 1.15.

  We picked up Grace at 32, Avenue Foche which doesn't seem to be the Embassy and I forgot to ask Son Altesse if it was or not. A very amiable Rainier brought Grace to the gate carrying her two small bags – a considerable difference from son altesse ETB even despite the fact that Grace was not staying the night. [...] Grace and E chatted away at the back of the car while I sat in front beside the driver. Grace was nice and relaxed and, after the initial awkwardness which I always feel with people like Grace who are in a somewhat false position and know it, everybody talked freely. Grace went into a blow by blow description of the Shah of Iran's famous or infamous party.367 Grace defended its extravagance with extraordinary obtuseness though neither of us attacked it. It was meant, she said, as a tribute to the people of Persia and as self-advertisement for the Shah's magnificent governing which was bringing literacy to the illiterate and hygiene to the unwashed and culture to the brutish. She described the Shah as a marvellous man and once called him a great man which is going a titch too far. She said how monstrous it was of the Western Press to be so vulgarly cynical of the whole show, all of them she said she knew for a fact writing their stuff before the thing had really got going. E was sweet and said that yes I mean Tito and the Hungarians and other communist countries were there and didn't seem to be particularly put out by the obvious ‘capitalism’ of the whole thing. Absolutely said Grace and said it was a marvellous thing to see people of such enormous disparity in religions politics and races finally warming to each other after the birth-pangs of meeting and how a little chinaman who was stiff and unsmiling and reserved and talked only through an interpreter was by the last day chatting a mile a minute radiant with smiles in impeccable English to all and sundry. So there. It all goes to show that we are brothers under the skin. And why for heaven's sake doesn't the Western Press attack its own spending of zillions a year on advertisements, corrupting the minds of the young and the stupid with their idiotics. And so on. One didn't suggest that it might perhaps have been more helpful to his appallingly poor people if he had promoted a sort of World's Fair, an Expo 71 or something and have the other people pay for the advertising. The ‘do’ of the Shah's was supremely silly under any circumstances and if it was to celebrate the extraordinary advances made for the benefit of his people then it was inane to the point of simple-mindedness.