The Richard Burton Diaries

by Richard Burton

  162 Liz Williams, Brook's wife, had a daughter from her previous marriage who suffered from cerebral palsy.

  163 Jessica had been diagnosed (in the mid-1960s) as suffering from severe autions and schizophrenia.

  164 Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin (1930—) and Neil Armstrong (1930—) were members of the Apollo 11 moon landing mission and the first men to set foot on the surface of the moon, on 20 July 1969.

  165 Edward ‘Teddy’ Kennedy (1932–2009), younger brother of John F. and Robert F. Kennedy, US Senator. In the early hours of 19 July 1969 he and his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne (1940–69), had been involved in a car accident on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts. Kopechne died and controversy surrounded Kennedy's actions in the immediate aftermath of the accident.

  166 Pierre Salinger (1925–2004), Press Secretary to John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, briefly US Senator, campaign manager for Robert F. Kennedy's campaign in 1968. B. H. being Beverly Hills.

  167 Alexander H. Cohen (1920–2000).

  168 An adaptation of Henry David Thoreau's (1817–62) line, ‘The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation’.

  169 The Book of Isaiah 6: 6–7, in the King James version, ‘Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.’

  170 George Moore (1852–1933), novelist, poet, playwright, who wrote that ‘a man travels the world in search of what he needs and returns home to find it’. John Millington Synge (1871–1909), playwright and poet.

  171 Thomas Wolfe (1900–38), novelist, author of You Can't Go Home Again (1940).

  172 A reference to the line in W. B. Yeats (1865–1939), The Second Coming (1919), ‘Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.’

  173 Laurie Lee (1914–97), As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning (1969).

  174 During the filming of Alexander the Great, which took place in Spain in 1955.

  175 Coal hewer is an acceptable term for one who cut the coal, an alternative to collier, and more precise in its specification of the task than ‘coal miner’.

  176 Thomas J. Roblin, choirmaster of the Afan Glee male choral society, who lived in Cwmafan and taught at the Cwmafan Boys’ School.

  177 Burton is presumably here referring to Llywelyn ap Gruffudd (1230–82), Welsh prince, also known as Llywelyn ein llyw olaf (Llywelyn our last prince or Llywelyn the last).

  178 Burton played Henry V at the Old Vic during the 1955–6 season. Arturo Toscanini (1867–1957), conductor. Lohengrin (1850), opera by Richard Wagner (1813–83).

  179 Robert Burns (1759–96). The reference is to the lines from Burns's poem ‘To a Mouse’ (1786): ‘Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie / O what a panic's in thy breastie!’.

  180 El Molar, due north of Madrid.

  181 John Sullivan was a stuntman on Alexander the Great, also on The Longest Day and was Burton's stunt double in Cleopatra.

  182 General Francisco Franco (1892–1975), Head of State in Spain following the victory of the Nationalists over the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War in 1939.

  183 David Ffolkes (1912—) was in charge of costumes for Alexander the Great.

  184 A reference to the assassinations of President Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) in 1865, of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, of Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, and of Martin Luther King (1929–68), civil rights leader, in 1968. Macarthy is presumably Senator Joseph McCarthy (1908–57) of the 1950s anti-Communist witch-hunts, and Wallace is George Wallace (1919–98), Governor of Alabama (1963–7, 1971–9, 1983–7), 1968 candidate for the presidency. Wallace was the victim of an assassination attempt in 1972.

  185 Lord Kinross (1904–76), Between Two Seas: The Creation of the Suez Canal (1968).

  186 Ferdinand de Lesseps (1805–94), creator of the Suez Canal.

  187 The taffrail is the aftermost portion of the poop-rail of a ship.

  188 From Rupert Brooke's ‘The Old Vicarage, Grantchester’ (1912): ‘To smell the thrilling-sweet and rotten / Unforgettable, unforgotten / River-smell’.

  189 From Edmund Spenser, Prothalamian: ‘Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song’.

  190 David Ryder, a 21-year-old victim of polio, walked from the length of mainland Britain from John O'Groats to Land's End, leaving on 21 June and arriving on 22 August. An article featuring him appeared in the Sun on 26 July.

  191 Sir Alan Patrick Herbert (1890–1971), writer, novelist and politician.

  192 The metric system had begun to be introduced into the United Kingdom in 1965.

  193 Quayle's autobiography, A Time to Speak (1990), mentions a holiday he spent with his mother's lover in Pontypridd.

  194 In London's Harley Street and Wigmore Street are to be found the practices of many leading doctors.

  195 Marne Maitland (1916–91) played the part of Campeggio. He had played the part of Euphranor in Cleopatra.

  196 Robert Beatty (1909–92) had played the part of Cartwright-Jones in Where Eagles Dare.

  197 A colloquial Welsh term for a very attractive woman.

  198 A reference to a line in Gerard Manley Hopkins's poem ‘Pied Beauty’ (1877): ‘Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls’.

  199 The line is from Shakespeare's Coriolanus, Act III, scene iii, spoken by Coriolanus: ‘There is a world elsewhere’.

  200 Frederick F. Van de Water (1890–1968), Glory-Hunter: A Life of General Custer (1934). Although these are not direct quotations, they are true to the flowery style of the original. For example, p.67: ‘Foremost rode the Michigan Brigade and at its head a youngster whose face was hardly less radiant than the newly risen sun.’

  201 Philip Hope-Wallace (1911–79), music and theatre critic.

  202 Dame Peggy Ashcroft (1907–91) had appeared with Taylor in Secret Ceremony. Dame Flora Robson (1902–84). Joan Plowright (1929—), who was to be made a Dame in 2004, had married Laurence Olivier in 1961. She would appear with Burton in the film Equus.

  203 Maggie Smith (1934—), had appeared with Burton and Taylor in The V.I.P.s.

  204 'Charlie Brown’, the central human character in the Peanuts comic strip.

  205 Richard Harris (1932–2002), actor, who would appear with Burton in The Wild Geese, and take over from him in the stage production of Camelot in 1981.

  206 William Squire (1916–89) played Thomas More in Anne of the Thousand Days. Squire had been born in Neath, had played alongside Burton in the Stratford productions of Henry IV (Part 2) and Henry V in 1951, and in the Old Vic productions of Hamlet, King John, Twelfth Night, and Coriolanus in 1953–4. He had also played the part of Thomas in Where Eagles Dare.

  207 Josip Broz (1892–1980), Marshal Tito, President of Yugoslavia.

  208 Shw'd ichi heddi is Welsh for literally ‘How are you today?’ In this context it means someone of easy charm, with a hint of superficiality and insincerity.

  209 Anthony Quayle had a leading role in Tarzan's Greatest Adventure (1959), in which Gordon Scott (1926–2007) played the part of Tarzan.

  210 The Marlowe Society is the Cambridge University equivalent of OUDS.

  211 Alan Badel (1923–82) had appeared at Stratford with Burton in Henry IV (Parts 1 and 2), The Tempest and Henry V. He would also feature in The Medusa Touch.

  212 Harry Fleetwood Andrews (1911–89) had appeared at Stratford with Burton in Henry IV (Parts 1 and 2). He had played alongside him in Alexander the Great and would do so again in Equus.

  213 Emile Zola (1840–1902), novelist.

  214 Richard II, Richard III, Hamlet.

  215 Ernest Christopher Dowson (1867–1900), poet. Alfred Edward Housman (1859–1936), poet. Burton presumably means William McGonagall (1825–1902), poet.

  216 Marat/Sade, the Peter Weiss play, translated into English and directed by Peter Brook in 1964, which ran on Broadway from 1965 to 1967. Peter Brook also directed the 1967 film version. Simone Signoret (1921–85
), actor.

  217 Quayle's (second) wife was Dorothy Hyson (1914–96), actor.

  218 From Francis Bacon (1561–1626), Of Studies.

  219 Burton's nickname for Bob Wilson's wife Alice.

  220 J. Paul Getty (1892–1976), industrialist and multimillionaire.

  221 Roman Polanski (1933—). Sharon Tate (1943–69). Charles Manson (1934—) was the leader of the group that carried out the murders.

  222 In which Michael related the story of his thwarted attempt to leave Hawaii, his desire to rejoin Elizabeth and Richard in Europe, and his discovery of ‘Jesus and Universal Love’.

  223 Colicos remained married to his wife, Mona McHenry, until 1981.

  224 'Over the hills and far away’ is an English song of the eighteenth century. ‘Will ye no come back again’ is a Scottish song, written in the nineteenth century, about the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745. ‘Where is my wandering boy tonight’ was a music hall song written by Clarence Wainwright Murphy and Albert Hall in 1894.

  225 Burton was at South Moreton, Oxfordshire.

  226 Molly and Emlyn Williams, Brook's parents.

  227 An adaptation of Enobarbus's line about Cleopatra, in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, Act II, scene ii: ‘Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale / her infinite variety’.

  228 John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost (1667) runs to 10 or 12 books.

  229 The Bear at Home Inn, North Moreton.

  230 This may refer to the fictional pool player, who appeared in Walter Tevis's novel The Hustler (1959) and in the 1961 film of the same name, or it may refer to Rudolf Walter Wanderone (1913–96), who had been known as ‘New York Fats’ until the popularity of The Hustler encouraged him to change his nickname, and who had become a minor celebrity by the late 1960s.

  231 The Talk of the Town cabaret restaurant, on the corner of Charing Cross Road and Leicester Square.

  232 This a reference to a Nehru jacket, a very fashionable cut at the time with a mandarin collar, named after the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964).

  233 'Hew to the line, let the chips fall where they may!’ Is the correct citation from The Confessions of Aleister Crowley (1875–1947).

  234 A reference to the 1844 poem ‘The Day is Done’ by Henny Wadsworth Longfollow (1807–82), which includes the lines ‘shall fold their tents, like the Arabs, and quietly steal away.’

  235 Roughly, ‘she is unattractive. She isn't unattractive but everyone to his own taste’.

  236 Didacticism.

  237 Khalil Gibran, The Prophet, (1923).

  238 The New Bell Inn, London Road, Aston Clinton.

  239 Carlos Baker, Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story (1969).

  240 Ernest Hemingway, For Whom The Bell Tolls (1940).

  241 St Tropez, Provence.

  242 Resorts in Corsica and Sardinia.

  243 Inn for Trouble (1960), directed by C. M. Pennington Richards (1911–2005), and starring Peggy Mount (1915–2001) and David Kossoff (1919–2005).

  244 Dr Alain Rossier (1930–2006), specialist in spinal injuries at Beausejour Hospital at the University of Geneva, himself paraplegic.

  245 Many studies of Mussolini appeared in English in the 1960s. Evelyn Waugh, Vile Bodies (1930).

  246 Alan Williams (1935—) had at this time published four thrillers. Eric Ambler (1909–98), author of espionage novels and screenwriter.

  247 A. E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad (1896).

  248 Esmond Knight (1906–87), who had acted with Burton in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Anne of the Thousand Days. He had been wounded while serving on the battleship the Prince of Wales during its encounter with the Bismarck.

  249 Stewart Alsop (1914–74), The Center: People and Power in Washington (1968).

  250 The Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, Geneva.

  251 A reference to the docklands area of Cardiff.

  252 Dr J. J. Walsh, Ivor's doctor at Stoke Mandeville.

  253 Les Diablerets (3,210m), south of Gstaad.

  254 Charles Dickens (1812–70). Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832). Edward Gibbon (1737–94). George Grote (1794–1871), whose History of Greece ran to 12 volumes in its original publication (1846–56).

  255 Berliner Ensemble: German theatre company established by the playwright, theatre director and poet Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956).

  256 Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–80), writer and philosopher, recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature, 1964. His play Le Diable et le Bon Dieu had been published in 1951. Jean-Louis Barrault (1910–94), French director and actor.

  257 Goetz is the central character in Sartre's play.

  258 Lev Tolstoy (1828–1910), novelist.

  259 Burton means L'Hôpital Cantonal.

  260 Samuel Johnson (1709–84). Line (from 1777) ‘When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.’

  261 The leaf of the aspen tree is renowned for fluttering in very light wind.

  262 A reference to St Vitus dance (also known as Sydenham's chorea), a complaint involving uncontrollable movements.

  263 Cartier the jewellers. This was the ‘Taylor-Burton’ diamond of 69.42 carats.

  264 The Ed Sullivan Show was a variety show that screened on CBS on Sunday nights from 1948 to 1971, presented by Ed Sullivan (1901–74).

  265 Hjordis Niven (1921–97), wife of David Niven.

  266 Cook, aged 23, of South Ruislip, Middlesex, had pleaded guilty to 11 charges of stealing cars and other property and asked for eight similar offences to be taken into consideration.

  267 Margaret Katherine Kelly, known as ‘Peggy’ (1925–91). Lady Fford is possibly Lady Jean Fforde (1920—), Countess of Arran.

  268 Winthrop Rockefeller (1912–73), Governor of Arkansas, whose second wife was Jeannette McDonnell.

  269 Hôtel Hermitage, Monaco.

  270 M.C.: Monte Carlo.

  271 A Man For All Seasons (1966), directed by Fred Zinnemann (1907–97), had won five Oscars. The Lion in Winter (1968), directed by Anthony Harvey (1931—), had won three Oscars.

  1970

  1 Burton and Taylor had spent a few days staying with Frank Sinatra at his home at Rancho Mirage, California.

  2 Sinatra had been served with a subpoena by the New Jersey State Commission of Investigation and forced to appear before it in February.

  3 Mike Romanoff (1890–1971), former Hollywood restaurateur, actor.

  4 Encounter magazine (1953–91), co-founded by Stephen Spender.

  5 Julie Andrews (1935—). The Sound of Music (1965) directed by Robert Wise (1914–2005). Andrews had won an Oscar for Mary Poppins (1964) and an Oscar nomination for The Sound of Music. She had then starred in Torn Curtain (1966), Hawaii (1966), Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967), Star! (1968) and Darling Lili (1969). The last two were not as successful as Andrews's previous films.

  6 Blake Edwards (1922–2010), director, and (from 1969), husband of Julie Andrews, who had directed Darling Lili.

  7 Yelapa, 20 miles south along the coast from Puerto Vallarta.

  8 A palapa is a house or hut with a thatched roof made of palm leaves. It is typically open-sided.

  9 Sherlock Holmes, fictional detective created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930).

  10 Christopher Wilding and Christopher Taylor, Elizabeth's nephew.

  11 Quayle won a Drama Desk Award (for ‘excellence in theatre’) for his role in the play Sleuth, written by Anthony Shaffer (1926–2001).

  12 The title was actually Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish.

  13 Collingwood's novel The Defector had been published in 1970. There is no record of the film ever being made.

  14 Phil Ober (1902–82), actor.

  15 A reference to the evangelical hymns of Ira D. Sankey (1840–1908) and Dwight L. Moody (1837–99).

  16 The Shakespearean character Bardolph (Henry IV (Part 1), who suffers from red blotches and carbuncles on his face.

  17 The last quotation from Dylan (Marlais) Thoma
s's (1914–53) ‘Poem in October’ is inaccurate: ‘It was my thirtieth / Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon / Though the town below lay leaved with October blood.’

  18 A reference to Corinthians 1: 13.

  19 Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893–1978), whose T. H. White had appeared in 1967, quotes White's lecture ‘The Pleasures of Learning’ (1963): ‘My parents loathed each other and were separated, divorced, when I was about fourteen or so. This meant that my home and education collapsed about my ears; and ever since I have been arming myself against disaster. That is why I learn.’ Warner also explains that in the lecture White quotes from The Sword in the Stone the passage beginning, ‘"The best thing for being sad”, replied Merlyn, “is to learn something"’.

  20 Maureen Stapleton (1925–2006), actor, who suffered from alcoholism.

  21 'Paddy’ might refer to Sir Marmaduke Nevill Patrick Somerville Coghill (1896–1981), elder brother of Nevill and 6th Baronet Coghill.

  22 DMZ: the De-Militarized Zone between the states of North and South Vietnam. The Hien Luong Bridge crossed the Ben Hai River which formed part of the boundary between the North and the South.

  23 Army Archerd (1922–2009), Hollywood columnist for Variety.