The Richard Burton Diaries

by Richard Burton

  404 Robert Hakim (1907–92), producer. His brothers Raymond (1909–80) and André (1915–80) were also producers. Together they held an option on the film rights to Under the Volcano.

  405 Heading in red type.

  406 Gianni Bulgari, chief executive of Bulgari.

  407 Heading in red type.

  408 Burton had been invited to write an article for the Daily Mail's Christmas number. It was published as ‘A Story of Christmas, in the Twenties’ on 23 December 1971.

  409 Heading in red type.

  410 Heading in red type.

  1972

  1 All headings in this diary are in red with the exception of the last, the entire day's entry being handwritten in black pen. Richard and Elizabeth had travelled to Arizona early in 1972 to visit Elizabeth's mother.

  2 Sam Warmbrodt, Sara's father, a German engineer who migrated to the USA.

  3 Mary Frances Voldeng.

  4 A GS-2 was a steam train operated by the Southern Pacific Company, although it was retired in the 1950s so Burton may be mistaken here.

  5 John Ford (1895–1973), director.

  6 Newman was actually ten months older than Burton.

  7 Susannah York, playing the part of Stella.

  8 The film ends with Taylor's character (Zee) seducing Stella.

  9 Hotel Negresco, Promenade des Anglais, Nice.

  10 Arthur Hornblow Jr (1893–1976), former film producer, and his wife Leonora.

  11 May's was a chain of department stores. Edie Goetz and Frank Sinatra were lovers. The film was Assault on a Queen (1966), starring Sinatra and Virna Lisi. The new cultural centre may be the Skirball Museum, established in 1972, now the Skirball Cultural Center.

  12 Diamonds are Forever (1971), directed by Guy Hamilton (1922—).

  13 Burton means the original novel by Ian Fleming, published in 1956.

  14 Sean Connery (1930—), playing James Bond in the film.

  15 This may refer to The Canterbury Tales (1972), written and directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922–75).

  16 A line uttered by the character Zee (played by Taylor) in X, Y and Zee, itself a reference to the line spoken by the character Rhett Butler (played by Clark Gable, 1901–60) in Gone With The Wind (1939).

  17 The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan, O.M., 1938–1945 (1972), ed. by David Dilks (1938—). Barry Commoner (1917), The Closing Circle (1971). The ‘something foxes’ was probably Ladislas Faragó (1906–80), The Game of the Foxes: The Untold Story of German Espionage in the United States and Great Britain during World War II (1971).

  18 Barbara Tuchman (1912–89), Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911–45 (1971). ‘Creaseys’ are novels by John Creasey (1908–73), the crime and science fiction writer. By ‘Helen Macguiness’ Burton means Helen MacInnes (1907–85), the thriller writer.

  19 A reference to the 1888 poem ‘Invictus’ by W. E. Henley (1849–1903), which includes the lines ‘I am the master of my fate: / I am the captain of my soul’.

  20 Kotch (1971), directed by Jack Lemmon (1925–2001).

  21 The French Connection (1971), directed by William Friedkin (1935—).

  22 This refers to the Motion Picture Herald's annual ratings.

  23 Gordon F. Newman, Sir, you bastard (1971).

  24 Scotland had beaten France 20–9 on 15 January. Gerald Davies (1945—), Gareth Edwards (1947—), Welsh rugby internationals and British Lions.

  25 The first ‘Golden Age’ of Welsh rugby began in 1900 and lasted until 1911. In that time Wales won the International Championship (played initially between the four home countries, joined by France in 1910) outright on six occasions, shared the title once, and also defeated New Zealand (1905) and Australia (1908).

  26 Gareth Edwards had attended Millfield school. ‘Sevens’ is a rugby tournament where there are seven players on each team, rather than the usual 15, and the matches are shorter (usually seven minutes each way rather than 40) with more emphasis on running rugby. John Dawes (1940—), Welsh rugby international and British Lion who played for London Welsh Rugby Football Club.

  27 Welsh rugby internationals Bleddyn Williams (1923–2009), Cliff Jones (1914–90), Cliff Morgan, Haydn Tanner (1917–2009), Wilfred Wooler (1912–97), Edward Verdun Watkins (1916–95), who played at ‘lock’ forward in the second row, David Watkins (1942—), who played in the position of ‘fly-half’, also known as ‘stand off’ or ‘outside half’.

  28 All Welsh rugby internationals. David or ‘Dai’ Morris (1941—), played mostly as a ‘blind-side’ wing forward, Mervyn Davies (1946–2012), played at ‘Number Eight’, John Taylor (1945—), played as an ‘open-side’ wing forward. Barry John (1945—), played at ‘fly-half’, outside Gareth Edwards at scrum-half. John ‘J. P. R.’ Williams, (1949—), played at full back. John Bevan (1950—), played on the left wing, Gerald Davies mostly on the right wing.

  29 Roy Bergiers (1950—) and Arthur Lewis (1941—) played in the centre.

  30 Cliff Jones (1914–90), former Welsh rugby international, chairman of the Welsh Rugby Union's coaching committee and a selector, later President of the WRU. In this context ‘punny ball’ would appear to mean ‘have a great time’.

  31 A. L. Rowse (1903–97), The Early Churchills (1968) and The Later Churchills (1958); Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008), The First Circle (1968); Ivor Brown (1891–1974), Chosen Words (1961).

  32 Stéphane Mallarmé (1842–98), French poet. Possibly Burton is referring here to Anthony Hartley (1925–2000) (ed.), The Penguin Book of French Verse, 3: The Nineteenth Century (1957).

  33 Auberon Waugh (1939–2001), novelist, poet, critic.

  34 Presumably Isaac Deutscher (1907–67), Red China, Russia and the West: A Contemporary Chronicle, 1953–1966 (ed. Fred Halliday, 1970).

  35 A reference to the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956.

  36 Joseph and Patricia Losey.

  37 The ‘old man’ being Tito.

  38 'Kremlin’ meaning the government of the USSR.

  39 George Tabori (1914–2007), playwright and novelist, screenwriter for Secret Ceremony, also involved with The Man From Nowhere project and with Boom!

  40 Dai John Philips, secretary of Aberavon Rugby Football Club.

  41 Anatole De Grunwald (1910–67), writer and producer, who worked with Burton on The Last Days of Dolwyn and Now Barabbas and with Burton and Taylor on The V.I.P.s.

  42 Burton played Captain Montserrat in Montserrat, written by Lillian Hellman (1905–84), which played at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, in April 1952.

  43 Greta Garbo (1905–90), actor.

  44 David Morgan Williams, also known as ‘Dai Mogs’.

  45 Olivia de Havilland had won the Best Actress Oscar for her performances in To Each His Own (1946) and The Heiress (1948).

  46 De Havilland's first husband was Marcus Goodrich (1897–1991), novelist.

  47 This may be a reference to Rex Harrison's troubled relationship with Twentieth Century-Fox, eventually terminated ‘by mutual agreement’.

  48 Charleville Boulevard, Beverly Hills. Jean Simmons, with whom Burton had an affair.

  49 The Duna Hotel, now the Budapest Marriott.

  50 Davenie Johanna or ‘Joey’ Heatherton (1944—), actor and singer, who played the part of Anne in Bluebeard.

  51 Vicky Tiel was costume designer for Bluebeard.

  52 Giovanni Antonio Canal (1697–1768), artist, known as Canaletto. Alexander Korda's brothers were Zoltan (1895–1961) and Vincent (1896–1979). His ‘new wife’ was Alexandra Boycun (1928–66), whom he married in 1953.

  53 Alexandra Korda married David Metcalfe, whose father had been aide-de-camp to the Duke of Windsor. They were divorced in 1964. Her death in 1966 was due to an accidental overdose, not suicide.

  54 Pörkölt: Hungarian meat stew.

  55 A reference to the Nocturne series of paintings (many of the River Thames) by J. M. Whistler (1834–1903).

  56 Raquel Welch (1940—), who played Magdalena in Bluebeard.

/>   57 Marilyn Monroe (1926–62), actor.

  58 The Goon Show, British radio comedy programme (1951–60), one of whose stars was Peter Sellers.

  59 Norman Parkinson (1913–90), portrait photographer.

  60 Princess Anne (1950—), daughter of Queen Elizabeth II.

  61 Ezra Pound (1885–1972), poet.

  62 'Smokin’ Joe Frazier (1944–2011) had won the World Heavyweight Boxing Championship in 1968 and retained it until 1973. The book was probably Phil Pepe, Come out Smokin’. Joe Frazier: The Champ Nobody Knew (1972). John Dickson Carr's (1905–77) Hag's Nook (1933) features the detective Gideon Fell.

  63 Saturday was 12 February.

  64 Mike Todd Jr married again later in 1972 to Susan McCarthy.

  65 Ann-Margret had received an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Mike Nichols's 1971 film Carnal Knowledge.

  66 A reference to the 1935 film Maria Marten, or The Murder in the Red Barn, directed by Milton Rosmer (1881–1971).

  67 Mike Todd's first wife, Bertha Freeman, died in 1946, when Mike Todd Jr, was seventeen.

  68 Bertie Wooster is a character in the stories of P. G. Wodehouse. Burton means 1954.

  69 A reference to Macbeth's line, Act III, scene iv, ‘But now I am cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in to saucy doubts and fears.’

  70 A reference to a line from Duke Orsino's speech in Twelfth Night, Act I, scence i.

  71 Rod Steiger (1925–2002), who had appeared like Burton in The Longest Day and with whom Burton would act in Breakthrough.

  72 Steiger had won Best Actor for his performance in In the Heat of the Night (1967), directed by Norman Jewison (1926—).

  73 Steiger had played Napoleon in Waterloo (1970), a role that Burton had considered.

  74 A reference to the film Bequest to the Nation (1973, US title The Nelson Affair), directed by James Cellan Jones (1931—), and starring Peter Finch as Nelson and Glenda Jackson (1936—) as Lady Hamilton.

  75 Terence Rattigan (1911–77) had written the play Bequest to the Nation in 1970.

  76 Alcoholics Anonymous. Burton is referring to the colour of the typewriter ribbon.

  77 Alun Lewis's poems ‘All Day it has Rained’ and ‘For Gweno’ appeared in the 1942 volume Raiders’ Dawn and other poems.

  78 'Spooner’ is a reference to the Reverend W. A. Spooner (1844–1930) and his tendency to metathesis, the transposition of letters or sounds in a word, commonly known as ‘Spoonerisms’. Mr Bindle is a cockney character in novels by Herbert Jenkins (1876–1923).

  79 There is an x typed over the second d in shouldders.

  80 Presumably Imre Kertesz (1929—), who would win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2002. Albert Einstein (1879–1955), physicist.

  81 The Abwehr was a German military intelligence unit.

  82 According to Farago, The Game of the Foxes, p. 137, Arthur ‘Johnny’ Owens was freed in 1945 and went on to live in Ireland.

  83 Friday was 18 February.

  84 Wolf Mankowitz (1924–98).

  85 Dick Makewater is Richard's nickname for Richard McWhorter. Lionel Couch (1913–89) was art director on Anne of the Thousand Days, for which he received an Oscar nomination for Best Art Direction.

  86 Mankowitz was an authority on antique porcelain, and had published The Portland Vase and the Wedgwood Copies (1953) and co-edited (with R. G. Haggar), The Concise Encyclopaedia of English Pottery and Porcelain (1957).

  87 Mankowitz had owned a shop selling porcelain in the Piccadilly Arcade in London.

  88 Mankowitz's XII Poems had been published in London by the Workshop Press in 1971, and the printing had been carried out in Dublin.

  89 Saturday was 19 February.

  90 Arthur Koestler (1905–83), author of the novel Darkness at Noon (1940), five volumes of autobiography published between 1937 and 1954 and The Case of the Midwife Toad (1971), a study of biologist Paul Kammerer.

  91 Elizabeth was of course about to turn 40.

  92 Koestler, who was born in Budapest, had been a member of the Communist Party (in Germany) from 1931 to 1938.

  93 Burton is referring here to Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia.

  94 Darkness at Noon has as its subject the Stalinist ‘show-trials’ of the 1930s.

  95 Elizabeth's 40th birthday celebrations.

  96 Clec-clecs is a Welsh term for a chat or a gossip.

  97 Will Cross-eyes being Richard's brother Will, whose eyesight had been affected by a bullet wound he had suffered during the Second World War.

  98 Michael Caine would marry Shakira Baksh (1947—) in January 1973. Layton is Howard and Mara Taylor's son. Christopher Wilding and Aileen Getty (1957—), who later married.

  99 By ‘Professor Warner’ Burton means Francis Warner. Marilu Tolo played Brigitte in Bluebeard and had also appeared in Candy. Billy Williams (1929—), cinematographer, who would also work with Elizabeth Taylor on Night Watch.

  100 Doctor of Letters: usually awarded for a substantial record of research and publication, it may also be an honorary degree.

  101 Another inaccurate reference to the line from the hymn ‘Cwm Rhondda’: ‘death of death, and hell's damnation’.

  102 Actually Starkey.

  103 President Nixon returned from a week's visit to China on 28 February 1972.

  104 Simone de Beauvoir (1908–86), writer, philosopher. Pierre Overney had been shot dead on 25 February during a demonstration outside the Renault factory.

  105 KBE: Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

  106 Alan Williams, son of Emlyn, had objected to Burton and Taylor's lack of interest in the oppression of the Hungarian people by Soviet-directed communism.

  107 The volume was possibly Spender's The Generous Days (1971). The magazine was Index on Censorship (1972—).

  108 Susannah York's husband was Michael Wells.

  109 David is the patron saint of Wales.

  110 It was ten years, Burton and Taylor's romance having begun in 1962.

  111 The British Ambassador to Hungary was Derek Dodson (1920–2003). His wife was Julie Maynard Barnes. They attended the party.

  112 Ivor, Richard's brother, had died, and Burton and Taylor returned to England for the funeral.

  113 Wendy was another niece of Gwen. Her husband was Derek Jenkins.

  114 Paul and Janine Filistorf.

  1975

  1 Elizabeth was filming The Blue Bird, directed by George Cukor and shot on location in Leningrad and Moscow.

  2 Elizabeth was suffering from severe amoebic dysentery.

  3 Brook Williams.

  4 T and E presumably being ‘tired and emotional’, or drunk.

  5 Burton is keeping track of his weight.

  6 To the school at Tournesol.

  7 Burton must mean Founex, 3 kilometres south of Céligny.

  8 Burton means bise, the north wind.

  9 Vevey: 18 km east of Lausanne on the north shore of Lake Geneva.

  10 Restaurant Le Vieux Moulin, Route Cantonale, Epesses.

  11 The biography of Napoleon might have been Frank M. Richardson's Napoleon: Bisexual Emperor (1972), which is in Burton's library. Dick Francis (1920–2010), former jockey and thriller writer, who published Knockdown in 1974 and High Stakes in 1975. ‘JB’ Jeanne Bell (1943—), actor.

  12 A Gibson is a type of Martini cocktail.

  13 Norman Fruman, Coleridge: The Damaged Archangel (1971).

  14 Commugny, 4 km south of Céligny.

  15 The International School of Geneva, probably the La Châtaigneraie campus near Founex.

  16 George Best (1946–2005). Michael Parkinson, Best: An Intimate Biography (1975).

  17 A brand of Swiss watch.

  18 Raymond Stross (1915–88), film producer.

  19 Auberge du Raisin, Cully, east of Lausanne on the north shore of Lake Geneva.

  20 Maurice Solowicz, legal adviser.

  21 West Ham beat Fulham 2–0 in the FA Cup final.

  22 Terence Y
oung (1915–94) was director of Jackpot.

  23 Robert Skidelsky, Oswald Mosley (1975).

  24 This was a film project that had been circulating since at least 1972.

  25 Leeds United lost 2–0 to Bayern Munich in the European Cup Final on 28 May 1975.

  26 Elish being short for Elisheba, Burton's nickname for Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia, although it might refer to Elizabeth Taylor. Possibly Hotel President Wilson, Geneva.

  27 Gareth Owen, Richard's nephew, who had already been financially supported in his business ventures.

  28 Possibly a book by Louis Auchincloss (1917–2010).

  29 W. Somerset Maugham.

  30 Romain Gary (1914–80), White Dog (1970).

  31 Grundy won the Epsom Derby in 1975.

  32 Hotel du Lac, Grand Rue, Coppet.

  33 MG: a British sports car.

  34 D-Day, the Allied invasion of Normandy, took place on 6 June 1944. The British referendum to ratify entry to the European Economic Community took place on 6 June 1975: the vote was 67% in favour and 33% against.

  35 La Réserve, Route de Lausanne, Versoix.

  36 Doctor.

  37 Thun, at the north end of the Thuner See, 28 km south of Bern.

  38 The Gare de Cornavin, railway station in Geneva.

  39 Troy Bell, Jeannie's son.

  40 Midnight.

  41 Angela Davis: An Autobiography (1974).

  42 Billie Jean King (1943—) beat Evonne Goolagong (1951—) in two sets to win the women's singles championship at Wimbledon.

  43 Hertz car rental.

  44 Possibly Maurice Hankey (1877–1963), civil servant and politician, the subject of a biography by Stephen Roskill (Hankey: Man of Secrets, 3 vols, 1970–4).

  45 A car body shop.

  46 Shirley MacLaine's You Can Get There From Here (1975) discussed her visit to China.

  47 'WD’ subscript under ‘OK’: meaning ‘Will do'?

  48 Crans-près-Céligny.

  49 Au Domino, Coppet.

  50 Restaurant d'Allèves, Céligny.

  51 à l'heure: on time.

  52 Sanka: decaffeinated coffee. The major biography of Kipling in print at this time was Charles Carrington, Kipling: His Life and Work (1955; new edn 1970), but Burton could also be refering to Kingsley Amis, Rudyard Kipling and His World (1975).