by Sam Kashner
For Burton, it was a triumph and a vindication. Four years earlier, he had slunk back from visiting his wife and children in Hampstead to take up his Dorchester penthouse suite to be with Elizabeth, to his family’s utter disapproval. Now they were forgiven and embraced by all the living Jenkinses, and Burton savored the ability to shower his riches on his entire clan. On top of it all, it was Elizabeth’s thirty-fifth birthday on February 27, adding to the mad festivities. Burton gave her—what else?—a diamond-and-emerald bracelet he’d bought at Bulgari for $320,000. The following night, he transported his family in chauffeured Daimlers to the Odeon, where he had set aside 150 premier seats for family and friends such as Emlyn Williams, Stanley Baker, Elizabeth’s friend and costar in BUtterfield 8, Laurence Harvey, and royalty in the form of Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon.
Before the curtain rose, Burton addressed the audience. “My real name, of course, is Richard Jenkins, and therefore my wife is Lizzie Jenkins,” acknowledging his Welsh family and bringing Elizabeth into the very heart of it.
After the crowd-pleasing premiere, all the Jenkinses returned to the Dorchester for a glittering ball celebrating Elizabeth’s birthday. While champagne was passed around, Verdun Jenkins held forth with family stories, to Burton’s great delight. At one point during the night, Richard and his six brothers found themselves standing next to each other at the marble urinals in the Dorchester’s perfumed men’s room. Elizabeth later shrieked with laughter when she heard Richard’s description of the Jenkins men so arrayed, all “holding their Welsh cocks.”
Christopher Plummer, fresh from his success as Captain Von Trapp in The Sound of Music and ripely drunk, sang and played the piano while Hilda Owen offered up Welsh songs from their childhood. Graham Jenkins sang his signature piece, “Sorrento,” in three languages. When Verdun was asked to join in, he yelled out, “As soon as that bloody Captain Von Trapp shuts his trap, I’ll conduct the Jenkinses’ hundred-voice choir, brought at enormous expense from South Wales, in a selection of hymns.” Several of the Jenkins men had vied for singing prizes in their youth, their gift for music nurtured by the vibrant tradition of Welsh choral societies, in which miners’ sons fought for preference and attention in the highly competitive choirs throughout the dells and valleys of Wales. Cis raised her exquisite soprano voice; Verdun and Hilda sang, with Elizabeth and Richard joining in. They all rose to sing a song for their lost sister, Edie.
They stayed on, celebrating till the first shafts of light peered through the windows of the ballroom. By now, Elizabeth was dancing with the waiters, who’d peeled off their tuxedo jackets and were down to their suspenders. Hilda and her sisters, along with Richard, took turns serving the rest of the exhausted waitstaff, while Laurence Harvey, Christopher Plummer, and other guests stood behind the bar, serving drinks to the kitchen staff and washing glasses.
By morning, Elizabeth noticed, Richard didn’t want them to leave. Bags were packed and limousines were lined up in Park Lane to whisk them back to Paddington Station. “They can take a later train,” he said, wanting to prolong the drinking, the reminiscing, the camaraderie. For the Burtons, such extravagant evenings would become almost routine. For the Jenkinses of Port Talbot and Pontrhydyfen, it was the celebration of a lifetime. But eventually, Richard had to let them go.
Richard never mentioned it, but his sister Hilda noted another absence among the clan that weekend. “We were only sad for one thing: my father would have been tickled pink to have been there,” she later said. It was the last time Richard would see his entire family brought together.
The next day, the Burtons left the Dorchester and headed for the South of France, for a well-earned vacation. By the summer, they would find themselves in Sardinia. In September, they flew into Paris—Burton’s favorite city—where they had a quiet dinner with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and the Rothschilds before attending the European premiere of The Taming of the Shrew. Once again, they took up residence in the beautiful Lancaster Hotel off the Champs-Élysées. Nothing could have prepared them for the premiere at the Paris Opera House, however. “We had as much, if not more, attention as we used to have in Rome, Paris, etc., during Le Scandale,” Burton wrote in his diary. Police barricades were set up to keep several thousand fans from storming the Opera House. Many had arrived the night before, just to stake out a spot from which to catch a glimpse of the Burtons as they emerged from their limousine. The evening turned out to be “sweet revenge,” Burton wrote, “for the social ostracism we endured such a relatively little time ago.” The film, and the gala that followed, was an enormous success, and the European press was out in full force. “E. wore a diadem,” Burton recorded, “specially created for her by the De Beers Company of Van Cleef and Arpels, designed by Alexandre, which cost $1,200,000. With her other jewelry, she wore a total of roughly $1,500,000.” When the Burtons left their hotel, it was with eight bodyguards parting the waves of hotel guests in the lobby on their way to the waiting limousine, while scores of flashcubes exploded all around them. And that was just getting into their car.
At the Opera House, another excited crowd awaited them. One of the government ministers in attendance presented Richard and Elizabeth with congratulations from President de Gaulle himself. Among the many luminaries present, “E. was unquestionably the queen of the evening,” Burton wrote proudly of his wife. “They hardly photographed anybody else.” Being Welsh and being Burton, the miner’s son had to pinch himself until it hurt, on such magical evenings: “[T]he flattery we were subjected to was very rich and heady. It, however, I hope, has not gone to our heads.” Earlier that day, Burton bought Elizabeth the jet plane that had brought them to Paris, for $960,000. “Elizabeth was not displeased,” he recorded.
Photographic Insert 1
Richard with his father, Richard “Dic” Jenkins, in the mining town of Pontrhydyfen, South Wales, 1953. [Raymond Kleboe/Getty Images]
A playful moment between Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor while filming A Place in the Sun, 1950. Elizabeth treasured the troubled actor’s friendship, though Clift was critical of Richard. [Peter Stackpole/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images]
The happy marriage here was Elizabeth’s to impresario Mike Todd (far right), though it would end tragically with Todd’s death in a plane crash fourteen months later. Eddie Fisher (left) and his wife, Debbie Reynolds, (second from left) were best man and matron of honor. [Ronnie Luster/mptvimages.com]
Precursor to a scandal: the marriage of Elizabeth to Eddie Fisher, after Todd’s death, in May of 1959. [© Bettmann/Corbis]
Richard and his Welsh wife, Sybil Burton, arriving in London in November of 1954. She tolerated his affairs; he vowed he would never leave her. [Central Press/Getty Images]
Elizabeth on holiday in Naples in September 1961, just before beginning work on Cleopatra. [SSPL/Getty Images]
Richard and Elizabeth in a love scene from Cleopatra, as they began their off-camera romance. Their films would often mirror their private lives. [20th Century Fox/Courtesy of Neal Peters Collection]
Richard and Elizabeth in a private moment during Cleopatra. What many thought was just another conquest for Richard turned into a world-shaking love affair. [© Elio Sorci/Photomasi/Camera Press/Retna Ltd.]
This secretly photographed image of Elizabeth and Richard was the shot seen ’round the world, announcing their love to a scandal-hungry public. [Pat Morin/Globe Photos Inc.]
“…from those first moments in Rome we were always madly and powerfully in love,” Elizabeth later wrote about their relationship. [© Bert Stern]
A happy Elizabeth embraces her son, Michael Wilding, Jr., on the set of Cleopatra. Right to left: Elizabeth, Michael, Liza Todd (back to camera), Richard costumed as Mark Antony, and Christopher Wilding. [Photofest]
Their affair would usher in modern celebrity culture. Their appearances were feeding frenzies for the paparazzi. [John Frost Newspapers]
Elizabeth and Richard leaving a nightclub in Rome. Her Cleopatra eye makeup
started a fashion trend in the summer of 1962. [Globe Photos Inc.]
Richard and Elizabeth outside the Tre Scalini restaurant in Piazza Navona, Rome, on July 27, 1962. [Keystone/Getty Images]
Richard agonized over leaving Sybil and their two young daughters.
Richard and Elizabeth “were the most vivid example of a public love affair that I can think of,” said columnist Liz Smith. Life [Portrait © by Bert Stern]
The V.I.P.s capitalized on Richard and Elizabeth’s notoriety as the world’s most famous lovers, 1963. [Photofest]
On the set of Becket, 1963. Elizabeth encouraged Richard to take the role of Thomas Becket, putting her own film career on hold for two years. “I’m just a broad, but Richard is a great actor,” she later said. [Denis Cameron/Rex USA/BEImages]
At the premiere of Lawrence of Arabia, starring Richard’s friend and Becket co-star, Peter O’Toole, at the Theatre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, June 1963. Their school for scandal did not faze the French, who were quick to celebrate the famous couple. [A.P. Images]
Richard, Elizabeth, and Welsh actor Stanley Baker fishing on Elizabeth’s boat, the Taffy, christened after one of Elizabeth’s pet names for Richard. [from the Private Archives of Dame Elizabeth Taylor]
On location in Mexico for Night of the Iguana. They bought Casa Kimberly in Puerto Vallarta, where Elizabeth “bloomed in hot climates,” Richard noted. October 1963. [Gjon Mili/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images]
Richard, his dresser, Bob Wilson, Stanley Baker, and Elizabeth. Their presence in Puerto Vallarta changed the sleepy fishing village forever. [from the Private Archives of Dame Elizabeth Taylor]
Richard and Elizabeth enjoying the sea near their villa in Puerto Vallarta. [Courtesy of the University of Wisconsin Press]
Elizabeth cutting Richard’s hair during the run of Burton’s Hamlet on Broadway. She loved to fuss over him. [William Lovelace/Express/Getty Images]
“You’re the one they’ve come to see,” Elizabeth teased. “You’re the Frank Sinatra of Shakespeare.” Burton in stage makeup as Hamlet, in the longest-running production of the play on Broadway. [© Henry Grossman]
Backstage at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater for Hamlet on Elizabeth’s thirty-second birthday. The cast and crew adored Elizabeth, who attended most of the rehearsals and performances. [© George Silk/Time Life Pictures/ Getty Images/from the Private Archives of Dame Elizabeth Taylor]
“I love not being me, not being Elizabeth Taylor, but being Richard Burton’s wife,” Elizabeth said on the occasion of their March 15, 1965, marriage in Montreal. [© The New York Daily News]
One of Elizabeth’s favorite wedding photographs. She’s wearing the emerald-and-diamond brooch from Bulgari, Richard’s engagement present to her. [William Lovelace/Evening Standard/Getty Images]
The Burtons in Richard’s dressing room in Montreal, playfully getting ready for their wedding reception. [© Henry Grossman/from the Private Archives of Dame Elizabeth Taylor]
Richard and Elizabeth onstage. Elizabeth made her first stage appearance in a triumphant poetry reading with Richard, to benefit Philip Burton’s drama school in New York. [© Estate of David Gahr]
Elizabeth on location in Big Sur, California, for The Sandpiper. The Vincente Minnelli–directed film capitalized on their adulterous love affair. [© Photos 12/Alamy]
The most photographed couple in the world. On location for The Sandpiper, 1964. [MGM/courtesy of Neal Peters Collection]
Liza, Christopher, and Michael pretending to escape over a Berlin Wall built on location in Dublin, where Richard was filming The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. In real life, the Burtons tried to protect their children from the public glare. [© Henry Grossman]
Richard, Elizabeth, and first-time film director Mike Nichols clowning on the set of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in 1966. It was their finest and most challenging film, earning Elizabeth her second Academy Award and Richard his sixth nomination. [© Bettmann/Corbis]
As George and Martha, being directed by Mike Nichols. By now, the Burtons’ off-screen battles were reflected in their film roles. [The Everett Collection]
On January 1, 1966, the Burtons were the first guests on The Sammy Davis, Jr., Show. [Photofest]
In Gstaad in 1966, near Elizabeth’s Chalet Ariel—a tax haven that became a refuge, as did Richard’s home in Celigny, Switzerland. A bearded Richard gets ready for his next role, Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew. [Corbis]
The Burtons watching Cassius Clay knock out Henry Cooper in London in 1966. Elizabeth shared Richard’s love of sports, especially rugby and boxing. Sugar Ray Robinson’s boxing gloves hang in her office to this day. [Mirrorpix]
Their off-screen fights were lustily parodied in Franco Zeffirelli’s rollicking adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. [Pictorial Press Ltd./Alamy]
When the reviews came out for The Taming of the Shrew, there was some caviling about Zeffirelli’s commedia dell’arte treatment of the Bard and the cutting and transposing of Shakespeare’s dialogue. But most reviewers noticed how well-suited the material was for the famous couple, a theme picked by the movie’s trailer, which announced, “Elizabeth Taylor. Richard Burton. Need we say more?…The world’s most celebrated movie couple in the movie they were made for.” A certain grudging respect was given to Elizabeth for acquitting herself well as Katharina. Hollis Alpert, who would publish a biography of Burton in 1986, wrote in Time magazine, “In one of her better performances, Taylor makes Kate seem the ideal bawd of Avon—a creature of beauty with a voice shrieking howls and imprecations.” Burton, he writes, “catches the cadences of iambic pentameter with inborn ease…An inspired chase across the rooftops and into piles of fleece establishe[s] him as a kind of King Leer, the supreme embodiment of a raffish comic hero.”
Indeed, that “leer” was genuine. There’s a delicious sexiness to their rooftop chase, in which they begin in her parlor, continue through a wine cellar, leap over the roof tiles, fall through a trap door, and collapse into a bed of fleece, where Elizabeth all but bursts out of her low-cut bodice. She then bonks Richard on the head with a board—her own embellishment on the script—before he plants “his first whiskery kiss” on her reluctant lips. The scene in which Petruchio and Kate start to undress on their wedding night is also provocative, Kate shyly disrobing and getting into bed, only to fend off Petruchio’s oafish approach by striking him with a copper bed-warmer. But in real life, Elizabeth recalled the five-month shoot as “one long honeymoon.”
The final scene of reconciliation, in which Petruchio presents his tamed wife to Paduan society, was directed by Richard Burton, because Zeffirelli had left to stage a production at New York’s new Metropolitan Opera. Under Richard’s direction, Elizabeth gives Kate’s speech glorifying female subservience:
Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,
…
And when she is forward, peevish, sullen, sour,
And not obedient to his honest will,
What is she but a foul contending rebel,
And graceless traitor to her loving lord?
That sentiment does not go down well with modern women, but Elizabeth truly believed those words. Zeffirelli noted that most actresses deliver that speech with a wink at the audience, but Elizabeth “played it straight.” Though her actions had arguably helped usher in the sexual revolution, though she would always be more famous, more powerful, and richer than her husbands, she still wanted the kind of marriage that Kate comes to prize at the conclusion of The Taming of the Shrew.
After the speech was given and the cameras stopped rolling, Elizabeth looked around the crowded banquet set, then at Richard, who was “deeply moved” by her delivery of Shakespeare’s speech, telling her, “All right, my girl, I wish you’d put that into practice.”
Elizabeth responded, “I can’t say it in words like that, but my heart is there.”
In that transformative scene, Kate/Eliz
abeth embellishes the lines with loving glances at a knot of children playing with a dog under the banquet table, followed by a meaningful look at Petruchio, as if to say, it’s the presence of children that make a true marriage. As if to say, we will bring children into the world. Following the speech, Kate and Petruchio finally indulge in a long, deep kiss, then Petruchio’s line, “Come, Kate, we’ll to bed”—as if the entire film were foreplay to that moment.