by Sam Kashner
“a theatrical experience”: Los Angeles Times, March 26, 1964.
“poetry and passion….”: Boston Herald, March 26, 1964.
“one of the very few actors…”: Hume Cronyn, A Terrible Liar (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1991), 330.
“was enveloped in…Dickenliz”: Ibid., 356.
Taylor would attend…: Steverson, 83.
“a great roar…‘Fuck you—’” anecdote: Cronyn, 358.
“Mr. Burton is without feeling” and subsequent reviews: Steverson, 82–83.
“We could tell something…”: Sterne.
“I was tearing along…”: Bragg, 197–98.
“We have been playing…”: David, 149.
“I had been asking him…carry any money” anecdote: Sterne.
“It was always hard for him…”: Bragg, 198.
“If she doesn’t get bad…”: Ibid., 196.
“Her makeup smeared…”: Fisher, My Lives, My Loves, 217.
“was reminded of that time…”: Sterne.
CHAPTER 5: IN FROM THE COLD
“I love not being me…”: Taylor quoted in Bragg, 192.
“how would you like to travel…”: Burton, “Dauntless Travellers.”
“professional itinerants”: Ibid.
“Travelling with Elizabeth…we separate countries into foods”: Ibid.
“a turbulent red wine…enchanting wife beside you”: Ibid.
“How would you like to…”: Ibid.
“the new Mr. Box Office”: Time magazine, Burton clipping file.
“For the money, we will dance”: Spoto, 300.
“From the Beginning, They Knew…”: Movie poster advertisment for The V.I.P.s.
“one of the biggest homes…”: Peter Bart, “Picture Painting and Passion,” New York Times, September 1964.
“would have ended…”: Hollywood Reporter, December 16, 1964.
“a special unveiling”: Hollywood Reporter, January 1, 1964.
“soggy, woolly, maundering…silly movie” and “sense of sin”: New Yorker, July 16, 1965.
“the mess of windy platitudes…”: Saturday Review, July 24, 1965.
“nice, taut little drama…bungalow”: Variety, October 15, 1971.
“any poor soul”: Saturday Review.
“It was my betrayal…”: Dalton Trumbo and Michael Wilson, The Sandpiper, DVD.
“men have been staring…”: Ibid.
“an elderly governess…royal visit”: Bragg, 192.
bring Jessica into their household: Authors’ interview with Gianni Bozzacchi, March 21, 2009.
estimated $50 million: Bragg, 195.
“The Black Dog—”: Authors’ interview with Michael York, May 15, 2009.
hiraeth…“a longing for”: Bragg, 199.
“a chemical imbalance”: Ibid.
thirty-seven tailored suits: Cottrell, 292.
“even today I can remember…”: Claire Bloom, Leaving a Doll’s House (New York and Canada: Little, Brown & Co., 1996), 48.
“Burton, who had an encyclopedic…”: Ibid., 45.
“I haven’t looked at…”: Ibid., 87.
“Richard was tender…have received”: Ibid., 93.
shattered and humiliated: Steverson, 116.
“As Jimmy, he was able…”: Bloom, 107.
“hadn’t changed at all…”: Bragg, 200.
“nervous, but all right”: Ibid.
“Burton was in the ring…”: Ibid., 120.
“Taylor was extremely upset…having me around”: Bloom, 119.
“Like the spirit…”: Ibid.
“not just Shakespeare…” quoted in Bragg, 201.
“I can’t go to a pub anymore…”: Spoto, 307.
“It was without doubt…”: David, 293.
“It was like a fair here…”: quoted in Bragg, 187.
“I wouldn’t be here now…”: Spoto, 306–07.
“He had a bottle of scotch…” anecdote: Bragg, 202.
“No one makes an entrance…”: Burt Boyar, Photographs, 105.
“Richard?…Yes, darling?” anecdote: Bragg, 202.
“nervous all day worrying…”: Burton notebooks entry, Bragg, 203.
“Went tramping with Michael…”: Ibid.
“an independent tornado”: Taylor, Elizabeth Taylor, 143.
“that lovely and loving Liza…” undated note from Richard Burton to Elizabeth Taylor, B-T Archive.
CHAPTER 6: WHO’S AFRAID OF ELIZABETH TAYLOR?
“I am George.”: Kelley, 250.
“Let’s face it—a lot of my life…”: Elizabeth Taylor excerpt, Ladies’ Home Journal, November 1965, 81.
“all dark brightness…”: Andy Warhol and Pat Hackett, Popism: The Warhol Sixties (New York: Harvest Books, 1980), 144.
“A terrifying position…”: Authors’ interview with Robert Hardy.
“the girls…in Brooklyn…”: Warhol, 36.
“She’s discontent”: Edward Albee, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, DVD.
“When I saw the lines…”: Kelley, 246.
“taken an abiding dislike”: Jenkins, 157.
“You’ve only to read the first lines…”: Ibid., 158.
“You’d better play it…”: Kelley, 246.
“looked all wrong…” anecdote: Ernie Lehman’s notebooks excerpt published in Talk, April 2000.
“Ernie, I’d have done this…”: Alpert, 154.
“You don’t know anything…”: Ibid., 156.
“Fuck him!…But you know…”: Ibid.
“A movie is like a person…”: Leslie Halliwell and John Walker, ed., Halliwell’s Who’s Who in the Movies, 15th edition (New York: HarperResource, 2003), 348.
“In fact, we later lost…”: Kelley, 248.
“somebody knows what I like”: Alpert, 166.
“was especially tough on her…”: Kelley, 249.
“a little harmless hilarity”: Saturday Evening Post, October 9, 1965.
“Fear no more the heat o’ the sun…”: Poem and anecdote, Ibid.
“a very disturbing man…”: Ibid.
“You have to carry me…”: Ibid.
“7/6/65…A very exhilarating day…”: Lehman notebooks, Talk.
“as much weight as she could…” anecdote: Saturday Evening Post.
“a bit nervous…giving her a little kiss”: Talk.
“Darling, everyone is so fantastic!” anecdote: Authors’ conversation with Elizabeth Taylor.
“Elizabeth loves to fight…”: Alpert, 173, and Kelley, 251.
“It was very cathartic…”: Elizabeth Taylor, original manuscript.
“I am just constantly surprised…”: Saturday Evening Post.
“I don’t run out screaming…”: Ibid.
“Richard had black days…”: Ibid., 172–73.
“I can’t act tonight”: Alpert, 172.
“Looking back now…”: Ibid., 172.
“it took the form of being abusive…”: Ibid., 173.
“She was constantly punching him”: Kelley, 251.
“I am George. George is me.”: Kelley, 250.
“as though I were George”: Alpert, 171.
“I am the Earth Mother…”: Albee, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, DVD.
“I’m loud…And I’m vulgar…”: Ibid.
“Musical beds is the faculty sport…”: Ibid.
“In a wretched part…”: quoted in Steverson, 54.
“I never had a better time in my life”: Taylor, Elizabeth Taylor, original manuscript.
“I’m paying her a million…”: Kelley, 253.
“…buying her a baby wolf.” anecdote: Lehman notebooks, Talk.
“I finally know what it feels like…”: Talk.
“no one under the age of eighteen…”: Variety, June 1, 1966.
gave the best performance…: Kelley, 259.
“a marvel of disciplined compassion…”: Newsweek, July 4, 1966.
“heroic calm…Burton simply soars…”: quoted in Kelley,
259–60.
“career had become only a way”: Ladies’ Home Journal, November 1965, 149.
“We’ve got to stop moving around…”: Ibid., 152.
“No, we’re terribly proud of you”: Ibid., 154.
“a perverse tease!…”: Ibid., 152.
“go into semiretirement…not to be pleased.”: Ibid.
155…once, for instance, on shipboard”: Ibid., 154.
CHAPTER 7: MARRIED LOVE
“I can’t say it in words…”: Franco Zeffirelli, Zeffirelli (New York: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986), 216.
“We live in a blaze of floodlights…”: Bragg, 242.
“Monty has even more problems…”: Patricia Bosworth, Montgomery Clift (New York: Bantam Books, 1979).
“Though we were linked romantically…”: Taylor, Elizabeth Takes Off, 63.
“Monty, Elizabeth likes me…”: Bosworth, 395.
“a phony actor”: Ibid.
“If Monty doesn’t work soon…”: Ibid.
“she would pay…”: Ibid., 396.
“the first person to take her seriously…”: Bosworth, 395.
“The world is round, get over it”: Conversation with Elizabeth Taylor.
“The truth is”: Kelley, 274.
“Mabel” or “Mabes,” “Lumpy,” “Twit Twaddle,” etc.: Letter from Richard Burton, B-T Archive.
“Well, they got an earful”: Taylor, Elizabeth Taylor, 131.
“I think you should go…”: Kelley, 277.
“Martha completely took me…”: Taylor, Elizabeth Taylor, 158.
“There is no deodorant…”: Ibid., 124.
“Richard and I are going…”: Ibid., 127.
“more interested in illicit…”: Ibid.
“Is Liz Legally Wed?”: Movie Mirror, 1965, Elizabeth Taylor clipping file, Academy Library.
“Liz Confesses: Burton’s Ruining Me…”: Photoplay 1964, Ibid.
“Richard Burton to Liz: I Love…”: Saturday Evening Post, The Taming of the Shrew clipping file, Ibid.
“Is that Maria’s mother?…in that way” anecdote: Taylor, Elizabeth Taylor, 148–49.
“Elizabeth Taylor Seeks” and “…Slash Taxes as Briton”: Elizabeth Taylor clipping file, Academy.
“I love America,”: Taylor, Elizabeth Taylor, 128.
“The marriage…”: Life, February 24, 1967.
“Will you please stop…” bush baby anecdote: Zeffirelli, 200–01.
“I wondered if I was going to…”: Ibid., 212.
“a Hollywood baby…a rich sheik”: Ibid., 212–13.
“We had invested $2 million…”: Burton notebooks, Bragg, 212.
“four children, dogs, cats…”: Cottrell, 301.
“Where are the bosoms?”: Ibid.
“didn’t give a damn”: Zeffirelli, 214.
“It was all very Douglas Fairbanks…”: Ibid.
“Why can’t we take on one death-defying…”: Jenkins, 162.
“Elizabeth was very shy…”: Cottrell, 302.
“maids, secretaries, and butlers…”: Michael York, Accidentally on Purpose (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991), 132.
“[her] morning was given over…”: Zeffirelli, 215.
“French hours” to “‘one-shot Liz’…”: Ibid.
“We’ll have to start…ordinary lead one” anecdote: Victor Spinetti with Peter Rankin, Victor Spinetti, Up Front (London: Portico, 1998), 180.
“I never gaped at anybody…”: Burton notebooks, Bragg, 213.
“Albee was very flattering…”: Ibid.
“Wonderful! A bus trip” anecdote: Spinetti, 182–83.
“the exquisite softness…”: undated note from Richard Burton to Elizabeth Taylor, B-T Archive.
“I would sometimes find…”: York, 132, and authors’ interview with York.
“Richard bringing Elizabeth…” to “They gave me my chance”: Interview with York.
“That M. Nichols really gets…”: Burton notebooks, Bragg, 212.
“one of the most brilliant…”: Taylor, Elizabeth Taylor, 161.
“I’m not sure I like…”: Burton notebooks, Bragg, 212.
“the Jews of Britain…”: Brenda Maddox, Who’s Afraid of Elizabeth Taylor? (New York: M. Evans, 1977), 181.
“During the war…”: Taylor, Elizabeth Taylor, 90.
“My great-grandfather…”: David, 148.
“I was born a Jew”: LOOK, January 28, 1964.
“You’re not Jewish…”: David, 148.
“Dear Sheba”: Burton’s undated note to Taylor, B-T Archive.
“Isn’t it awful to have to tolerate…” anecdote, Zeffirelli, 218.
“It was one of those moments…”: Burton notebooks, Bragg, 227.
“Sept. 24. [Monty’s] companion…”: Ibid.
“Rest, perturbed spirit—”: Kelley, 256.
“What do you think…”: Jenkins, 155.
“What other young couple…”: LOOK, October 1966.
“Between scenes…”: Ibid.
“My real name, of course, is Richard Jenkins…”: Cottrell, 309.
“holding their Welsh cocks”: Ibid., 310.
“As soon as that bloody…”: Ibid.
“They can take…”: Ibid., 311.
“We were only sad…”: Ibid., 309.
“We had as much…” to “Elizabeth was not displeased”: Burton notebooks, Bragg.
“In one of her better performances…”: Hollis Alpert, Time, March 17, 1967.
“his first whiskery kiss” to “one long honeymoon”: Bragg, 227.
“Thy husband is thy lord…”: William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew, Act V, scene ii.
“played it straight”: Zeffirelli, 216.
“deeply moved” to “my heart is there…”: Ibid.
“E. very ill from that bloody…” and following entries: Burton notebooks, Bragg, 226.
“the whole huge thing”: Bragg, 229.
CHAPTER 8: SEDUCED BY FAUST
“I am madly in love with her…”: Burton notebooks, Bragg, 235.
“I’m just a broad…”: Taylor, quoted in Spoto, 320.
“This boy…will be a great actor…”: Michael Munn, Richard Burton, Prince of Players (London: JR Books, 2008), 35.
“I have had many students…”: Cottell, back cover.
“bloody a few noses…was coming up”: Burton interview, Palmer’s In from the Cold.
“When he came to Oxford…”: Robert Hardy, interviewed in Palmer’s In from the Cold.
“I remember the shock of thrill…”: Cottrell, 299.
“her slow walk…”: Cottrell, 300.
“with thunder and slaughter…the undergraduate actors”: Ibid., 299.
“To praise most cordially…”: Ibid.
“Richard seemed to be…”: quoted in Palmer, In from the Cold.
“Why me?”: Ibid.
“wolfish grin” anecdote: Kenneth Tynan and John Lahr, ed., The Notebooks of Kenneth Tynan (New York and London: Bloomsbury, 2001), 415–16.
“Marlon’s immorality…”: Burton notebooks, Bragg, 223.
“tacit connection between…”: Peter Manso, Brando, The Biography (New York: Hyperion, 1994), 631.
“everybody became sloshed…”: Bragg, 223.
“Richard likes you…”: Hollywood Lawyers, 105.
“supremely fine actress…”: Huston, An Open Book, 373.
“nearly half of the U.S. film…”: Cottrell, 314.
“They say we generate…”: David, 165.
“Kate came to stay…”: Burton notebooks, Bragg, 217.
“Oh don’t worry…” Sir John Gielgud interview in Palmer’s In from the Cold.
“I’m just a broad…”: Taylor, quoted in Spoto, 320.
“I used to be considered…”: Authors’ interview with Gianni Bozzacchi.
“I don’t have to retouch…”: Ibid.
“Richard was not that vain…”: Ibid.
“You’re really good, Gianni…”: Gianni Bozzacchi, The Q
ueen and I (Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002), 4–5.
“When I take pictures…”: Author’s interview with Gianni Bozzacchi.
“That’s what the world…”: Author’s interview with Gianni Bozzacchi.
“If Botticelli were living today…”: Bozzacchi, The Queen and I, 6.
“When you get injected…”: Author’s interview with Gianni Bozzacchi.
“perfect, an exquisite little doll…”: Taylor, Elizabeth Takes Off, 51.
“Some beautiful people…”: Ibid., 51–52.
“I was glad to leave Dahomey…”: Piers Paul Read, Alec Guinness, The Authorized Biography (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003), 472–73.
“a perfectly ordinary…”: Bragg, 234.
“Elizabeth and I love…”: Chandler Broussard, “On Location with Richard and Liz: Why They’re Never Dull,” LOOK, June 1967, 67.
“You took your life in your hands…”: Ibid.
“‘Quicktake’ Elizabeth”: MGM short feature, “The Making of The Comedians,” DVD special feature.
“when they are both off…”: Norman Sherry, The Life of Graham Greene, III, (New York: Viking, 2004), 422.
“I hardly find him…”: Read, 472.
“I can show you…” dialogue from The Comedians, DVD.
“Have you seen Richard Burton?” anecdote: Bragg, 235.
“E. is looking gorgeous…”: Burton notebooks, Bragg, 234.
“I am madly in love…”: Ibid., 235.
“I would never have dreamed…”: LOOK, 69.
“Well, I must say…”: Ibid.
“Do not burn the bridges…”: Kelley, 261.
“He was always very aware…”: Mike Nichols, Palmer’s In from the Cold.
“…we heard that E. had won…”: Burton notebooks, Bragg, 240.
“and never tiring of it…he needs that Oscar”: Sammy Davis Jr., Hollywood in a Suitcase (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1980), 26–27.
“I drank steadily…”: Burton notebooks, Bragg, 221.
“Elizabeth joined us…”: Ibid.
CHAPTER 9: BOOM!
“[We are] a lovely charming decadent…”: Burton notebooks, Bragg, 243.
“People don’t like sustained…”: Taylor, quoted in Alpert, 188.
“I can’t say the word ‘Bugger’…”: David Caute, Joseph Losey, A Revenge on Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 238.
“Call me Tom”: Bragg, 233.
“stupendously drunk…worse for wear” anecdote: Burton notebooks, Bragg, 241.