The Richard Burton Diaries (286 page)

Authors: Richard Burton,Chris Williams

Tags: #Non-Fiction, #Biography

92
World heavyweight champion Larry Holmes (1949—) stopped Muhammad Ali (formerly known as Cassius Clay) in ten rounds on 2 October 1980.

93
Thursday was 2 October.

94
Evelyn Waugh,
Black Mischief
(1932).

95
Peter de Vries (1910–93),
Consenting Adults; or, The Duchess will be Furious
(1980).

96
Kenneth Clark (1903–83),
The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form
(1956).

97
Edith Sitwell (1887–1964), poet and novelist.

98
D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930), novelist.

99
WASP: White Anglo-Saxon Protestant.

100
V. S. Pritchett (1900–97), short story writer, critic.

101
Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971), composer, conductor, pianist. Christopher Isherwood (1904–86), novelist. edward estlin cummings (1894–1962), poet.

102
Presumably the Brussels Restaurant, New York.

103
T. S. Eliot, ‘The Journey of the Magi’, written in 1927 and published in 1930.

104
Dylan Thomas, ‘Lie Still, Sleep Becalmed’ (1945), includes the following lines: ‘Under the mile off moon we trembled listening / To the sea sound flowing like blood from the loud wound / And when the salt sheet broke in a storm of singing / The voices of all the drowned swam on the wind. // Open a pathway through the slow sad sail, / Throw wide to the wind the gates of the wandering boat / For my voyage to begin to the end of my wound’.

105
P. H. Burton, by this time living in Florida.

1983

1
Pierre Koessler, architect, son of Edouard Koessler.

2
Sally Hay (1948—), to become Burton's fourth wife.

3
This refers to the forthcoming trip that Burton and Hay were planning to make to Haiti, to the intended divorce that Burton was seeking from third wife Susan Hunt, and the trip to New York to allow Burton to play in
Private Lives
with Elizabeth Taylor.

4
D. Brynner is presumably Yul Brynner's second wife Doris, from whom he had been divorced in 1967.

5
John and Joan Dearth were about to visit Richard and Sally.

6
Brother Tom had died in 1980.

7
Milton Katselas (1933–2008) was the initial director of
Private Lives
, but would leave the production following disagreements with Taylor in Boston.

8
John Cullum (1930—) was to play the part of Victor Prynne in the play. He had played with Burton in the 1960 production of
Camelot
and in the Broadway production of
Hamlet
.

9
Mark Getty (1960—), businessman, brother of Aileen.

10
Burton had read Michael Parkinson,
Best – An Intimate Biography
on its first publication in 1975.

11
Ireland beat France 22–16 at Lansdowne Road, Dublin, and Wales beat Scotland 19–15 at Murrayfield.

12
Profile of a Superstar
was a television film about Burton that screened on American television in 1983.

13
Taylor was making a TV movie,
Between Friends
.

14
Pope John Paul II visited Haiti in March 1983.

15
M. Vandal was dealing with Richard's divorce.

16
Albert Silvera, owner of El Rancho Hotel where Richard and Sally were staying in Haiti, who was attempting to persuade Burton to purchase his beach house.

17
Burton's divorce from Susan Hunt.

18
The President of Haiti was Jean-Claude Duvalier (1951—), also known as ‘Baby Doc’.

19
The cartoon was a ‘Gren’, (by the cartoonist Grenfell Jones (1934–2007) presumably from the Cardiff evening newspaper the
South Wales Echo
, dated 23 February 1982, in which a lawyer, sitting in a luxurious penthouse office suite, is explaining to a client, ‘I had nothing to begin with except an unshakeable belief in my ability and the Richard Burton Divorce Contract.’ The explanatory caption below the cartoon reads ‘Yet another Richard Burton divorce is announced.’

20
PV: Puerto Vallarta.

21
Nicolas Duvalier, born 31 January 1983.

22
François Latour (1944–2007), Haitian writer and actor. Leslie Gerson was US non-immigrant visa chief in Haiti. She and Latour subsequently married.

23
The President's wife was Michele Bennett Pasquet (1950—). Her brother, Frantz Bennett, had been convicted of drug trafficking in Puerto Rico in 1982 and was serving a three-year term of imprisonment.

24
Latour wrote in an accompanying letter (dated 4 March 1983), ‘It is my pleasure to make it possible for you to have these books; I am so appreciative of the interest you are taking in my country.’

25
Noel Coward wrote
Private Lives
in 1933, when he was 34.

26
On 5 March Wales beat Ireland 23–9 at Cardiff, and Scotland beat England 22–12 at Twickenham.

27
Burton was to purchase Habitation Courvoisier, l'Etang du Jone, Petionville.

28
Willi Wichert, manager of the El Rancho Hotel, and his wife Chantal, sister-in-law to Albert Silvera.

29
Top of the Pops
, the BBC TV pop music chart show.

30
Guy Malary (1943–93), lawyer, assisting with the house purchase, later Minister of Justice (1991–3).

31
M.U.: make-up.

32
Burton presumably means
maquilleuse
, make-up girl.

33
Madeleine Harrison, to marry David Rowe-Beddoe in 1984. Valerie Douglas. Lisa Rowe-Beddoe, eldest daughter of David Rowe-Beddoe.

34
Kate Burton played the character of Mag in
Winners
, the first part of
Lovers
by Brian Friel (1929—), staged at the Roundabout Theatre, New York.

35
Maria Burton, who had married Steve Carson in 1982, had given birth to Eliza in 1983.

36
The Beresford, an apartment building on Central Park West, New York.

37
Zev Buffman (1930—), producer of
Private Lives
, who had previously directed Taylor in
Little Foxes
.

38
Kathryn Walker (1943—) played the part of Sybil Chase in
Private Lives
.

39
‘Alka’ was Richard's nickname for Nancy Seltzer, publicist, ‘Alka Seltzer’ being an effervescent antiacid compound used for indigestion, headaches and hangovers.

40
Dashiell Hammett (1894–1961), crime writer. Fran 3 Kafka (1883–1924), novelist. The biography might have been Ronald Hayman,
Kafka: A Biography
(1982). Mark Twain (1835–1910), writer.

41
17 March is celebrated by people of Irish descent as St Patrick's Day, Patrick being the patron saint of Ireland.

42
The Cort Theater, West 48th Street, New York.

43
The play would start its run at the Shubert Theatre, Boston, on 7 April.

44
Wales lost to France 9–16 at the Parc des Princes on 19 March 1983. Ireland beat England 25–15 at Lansdowne Road.

45
Simon and Sheran Hornby.

46
Tennessee Williams had died on 25 February 1983 in New York.

47
The
Night of the Iguana
and
Boom!

48
Christopher Wilding. If Burton is right then that would probably have been during the making of
The
Night of the Iguana
.

49
Private Lives
opened at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, New York, on 8 May.

50
Theoni V. Aldredge (1932—) was the costume designer for
Private Lives
.

51
Geraldine Fitzgerald (1913–2005), actor.

52
Jimmy Breslin (1930—), journalist, Hollywood columnist and writer, and friend of Burton.

53
The Thorn Birds
was a TV mini-series that screened over four nights from 27 March 1983.

54
‘Pangs of disprised love’ is a line from Hamlet's famous soliloquy in Act III, scene i.

55
A reference to Michael F. Ritchie (1958—). He and Kate married in 1985.

56
Katselas had been a Scientologist since 1965.

57
John Hurt (1940—), actor.

INDEX

NOTE: The intitials RB signify Richard Burton; ET signifies Elizabeth Taylor

Aaron, Hank,
(i)

Aaron, Tommy,
(i)

Abakarov
(proposed film),
(i)
n56

Abel, Elie:
The Missile Crisis
,
(i)

Abercorn, Dukes of,
(i)

Aberfan: disaster (1966),
(i)
,
(ii)

Abraham, William (‘Mabon’),
(i)

Absolution
(film),
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)
,
(iv)

Academy Award: RB nominated for,
(i)

Acheson, Dean,
(i)

Ackerley, Joe Randolph:
My Dog Tulip
,
(i)

Advice to a Married Man
(filmed as
A Guide for the Married Man
),
(i)

Agate, James,
(i)

Agnew, Spiro,
(i)

Alain, Pierre,
(i)

Albee, Edward,
(i)
,
(ii)

Alberty, Karl-Otto,
(i)
n180,
(ii)
,
(iii)
,
(iv)

Alcott, Joe,
(i)

Alderson, Christian (Richard Alderson),
(i)

Aldredge, Theoni,
(i)
,
(ii)

Aldrin, Edwin (‘Buzz’),
(i)

Alex (nurse),
(i)

Alexander, A.V. (
later
Earl),
(i)

Alexander the Great
(film),
(i)
,
(ii)

Alexandre de Paris (Louis Alexandre de Raimon),
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)
,
(iv)
,
(v)
,
(vi)
,
(vii)
,
(viii)

Alfie
(film),
(i)

Ali, Muhammad (
earlier
Cassius Clay),
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)

Alice in Wonderland
(stage adaptation),
(i)

Allbritton, Louise,
(i)

Allende, Salvador,
(i)

Allers, Franz,
(i)

Allott, Kenneth,
(i)

Alsop, Stewart:
The Center
,
(i)

Amalia (cook's wife),
(i)

Amis, (Sir) Kingsley:
The Green Man
,
(i)

Amundsen, Roald,
(i)
,
(ii)

Anderson, John B.,
(i)

Anderson, Lindsay,
(i)

Andre (Bernard Greenford's partner),
(i)

Andress, Ursula,
(i)

Andrews, Harry,
(i)
,
(ii)

Andrews, Julie,
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)

Andri
, Ivo:
Bridge over the Drina
,
(i)
,
(ii)

Ann-Margret (Ann-Margret Olsson),
(i)
,
(ii)

Anne, Princess,
(i)

Anne of the Thousand Days
(film): McWhorter discusses with Wallis,
(i)
; RB's relations with Bujold in,
(i)
,
(ii)
; Universal threaten to sue RB over,
(i)
,
(ii)
; RB fitted for costumes,
(i)
,
(ii)
; filming,
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)
,
(iv)
; reception,
(i)
,
(ii)
; wins Oscar nomination,
(i)
;
see also
Bujold, Geneviève