Read The Richard Burton Diaries Online
Authors: Richard Burton,Chris Williams
Tags: #Non-Fiction, #Biography
Tuesday 31st
My second day off. Eliz left about 8.30 for the studio though we had been up since 4.00am. At 5am we made soup!
I worked on the words a bit first, had some breakfast – two boiled eggs – and did the
Telegraph
crossword in the sun. The boys went into town with Mario and the girls (the girls were going to school) and bought some comics. They are unobtainable in Rolle apparently.
113
Karen prevented them from buying bathing costumes because they were ‘improperly dressed’ to go shopping.
Went to pick up Eliz for lunch and we went to the ‘Barn’ to eat with the boys and Joe Roddy (
Look
magazine).
114
It was very pleasant.
Back at the studio I saw the cut film, said goodbye to Frosch – off to Geneva, Paris and NY – and found that Eliz had acquired a bunny rabbit for Liza.
JUNE
Wednesday 1st
Work, as usual – The wedding reception. Drank only beer most of the day. Said goodbye to Russ Braddon of the
Sunday Times
(England). Dined at the Trattoria of the Divino Amore. Lost to E at baci (boule). Put out the lights at 11.30 – woke at 1.30 – stayed awake for hours scratching my sunburn. E sprayed me with ‘Mediquick’. Killed two mosquitoes. Smoked many cigarettes and listened to trains go by. Went back to sleep at 5.00(?). MacWhorter wrote over zealous letter to Franco Z yesterday. Maybe, however, will do him some good.
Thursday 2nd
That hideous costume of Zeff's on again – the one that makes me look as if I have a very nasty and monstrous growth on my right thigh. Apart from its unimaginative ugliness it is also hell to put on and torture to wear. I did my longest speech in the film and took forever to do it. Eliz was very good in her bit. In fact she's very good altogether.
We lunched alone on spaghetti [...] and drank a little wine. Joe Roddy there again. Read a long article in
McCall's
about
V. Woolf
.
115
[...]
Zeffirelli wrote a reply to McWhorter which was fairly annihilating but McWhorter, impervious to insult, merely said to Eliz. ‘Nevertheless he was here at 8.20 this morning.’ That's all he cares about.
We are invited to the British Embassy for the Queen's birthday. How posh we are getting. And respectable. We've got to stop that image. [...]
There was a national holiday and we stopped at our Trattoria for a glass of wine. Hundreds of people and children there so we didn't stay long. We really need those police around sometimes if only to avoid embarrassment. [...]
I am eating a lot.
Friday 3rd
I had only one shot to do this morning but, malheureusement, Eliz had three, then of course she had to wash her hair for the weekend so we got away from the studio at 1.30.
116
Down to Corsetti's for lunch – a delicious sole from the Adriatic and Eliz a sea-bass, all with french fries and washed
down by two bottles of Fontana Candida – a nice white cold wine from Frascati.
117
[...]
I was asleep by 9.00 pm. Made myself some cabbage soup at 2.00 am and was joined by Bon Apetito.
118
We eat from the same bowls like two pups.
Saturday 4th
We got up early slightly nervous about Maria's school sports. What would she be like? I made Bloody Marys for Karen Eliz and self to steady our nerves.
119
It was a very warm day. We arrived about 5 minutes before the start. Maria, with [...] style and grace, and much interest in the other competitors, came last in the 25yd dash. They had sack races, bean-bag throwing, obstacle races. The colours were truly international. From the pinko-grey of N. Europe to Chinese yellow via black-as-nights. I entered the fathers’ race which due to the devious machinations of a black Somali, an ambassador, and three Bloody Marys, I lost. We had to pick up a balloon in one corner of the ground, a flag in another, a coca cola bottle at the gate, a chiffon scarf en route and a paper flower elsewhere. I quickly arranged with this black bloody Iago, this coloured Judas, to pick up two balloons, two paper flowers, while he picked up two bottles and two flags which, I rapidly explained, would cut the race in half as we would exchange with each other. But race-memory, atavism, took over inside his boiling black head and I had a double journey for the bottles. His side of the bargain ceased to exist after he'd given me
one
flag and I had given him one balloon
and
one paper flower. Such cheating is soul destroying. How can they rule themselves if they are such cheats. No wonder Africa is going to the dogs. Result; the black diplomat nineteenth and me twentieth. From now on I only cheat with Welshmen. I'm starting to train now for next year's race.
We went to the Chianti for lunch. Went home and swam a great deal in the pool. Listened to the BBC and went, worn out, to bed.
Sunday 5th
Today is a record equaller. Today is the 7,601st day since the war ended. That number is the exact equal of days between November 11th 1918 and September 3rd 1939. Every day from now on, says the
Sunday Times
cheerfully, should be counted as a bonus.
We spent the 7601st day of uneasy peace peacefully. We sunbathed in the garden, swam in the pool, went for walks across the shorn fields, the hay standing in neat bundles, had an early lunch of Southern Fried Chicken, napped in the afternoon, did our exercises. Dined at 7.00 on pork chops and chips and salad. I played ‘boxes’ with Liza who is phenomenally quick at
picking up games, read a couple of chapters of Agatha Christie and slept until
1
/
2
hour ago.
120
We had soup for breakfast, out of tin on our private hot plates and soup again for high tea. We are soup mad.
Monday 6th
On the way home (it was, surprisingly, raining) we took the Wilsons and the Flanagans and Joe Roddy to our ‘Trat’. There were six sergeants Italian there, one from Sicily one from Naples. The last gave bread wine and sausage all made by his mother. I bet Roddy they knew the purple passage from Dante.
121
[...] The boys gave me a book of dirty verses. Some of it very funny.
[There are no further entries in the diary from early June to late August. Late in June
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
was released to considerable critical acclaim. In the same month Burton and Taylor were invited to the home of Princess Luciana Pignatelli (1935–2008) to meet Senator Robert Kennedy (1925–68) and his wife Ethel (1928—). They went to dinner, a night-club, and then returned to the Hotel Eden where Burton and Kennedy competed to see who had the best knowledge of Shakespearean sonnets. Richard watched the Football World Cup Final on 30 July 1966, supporting West Germany against England, with England achieving the final victory.
In August Richard began starring in and co-directing the film production of
Dr Faustus
, using many of the same Oxford University Dramatic Society cast that had appeared in the stage version the previous year. Richard and Elizabeth sank over £300,000 of their own money in the production.]
AUGUST
Tuesday 23rd
Yesterday we began shooting
Faustus
. Many things have happened in the missing days in this diary. [...] I will try to recapture some of the events. My sister Edith's death and within a few days thereafter Monty Clift's death.
122
With pre-planning we shot so quickly [...] yesterday that we did seven set-ups in the morning and early afternoon. Now to wait for the results!
After shooting E and I attended a press conference with Nevill and the rest of the Oxford lot. Usual inane questions, usual bland answers.
Later we went alone for a quiet dinner at a motel on the Raccordo Anulare.
123
Omelette and sauté potatoes and coffee and wine. And so to house and home.
[There are no further entries in the diary until late September. During this period Richard was mainly occupied with the filming of
Dr Faustus
.]
SEPTEMBER
Wednesday 21st
Yesterday we began the Garden of Delights – the Seven Deadly Sins – of Faustus. Nevill has gone off to England and then to the USA. So with chubby Nick Young I am alone alone on a wide wide film.
124
I have varying feelings about this project – vague fears that it and I are bad or that it's all going to work.
Roddy Mann of the
Sunday Express
came to interview.
125
He seems lonely and olding. His middle-age is beginning to show – he is 44 and wifeless and childless and of late (two weeks or so ago) motherless. He also writes indifferently.
H. French was there too. Like all potential bullies he is basically vulnerable. He is so anxious to be a big agent, which I suppose technically he is, and for everyone to know it. Every film script I mention he adds ‘Yes I told you about that last Feb’ or ‘As a matter of fact I suggested that to Brando before he called you.’ or ‘I know I'm a pompous old ass Rich and Eliz hates me but I have made the biggest deals ever for both of you. I am good, I really am good, at making the big deal.’
We adjourned after work to the Trattoria across the Pontina and had wine. We pontificated on the transience of all human affairs and how actors were peculiarly subject to fate [...].
Talked to D. F. Zanuck at lunchtime about settling $55,000,000 (or is it $75m) out of court.
126
We shall see.
Thursday 22nd
We continued with the ‘Sins’. After the first shot (at 9.15) I went to see rushes. They seemed good. Then back to the stage for the second shot, about 10.30, then back to the theatre to see the first
1
/
2
of
Shrew
. It's beginning to look like a good ‘un.
After lunch with E. (roast beef, roast potatoes, string beans and gravy) saw first H. French about future plans [...] Then – Peter Evans of the
Daily Express
who I am to see again tomorrow.
127
Then – D. Frost of the BBC.
128
I also see him tomorrow.
We stopped at the Trattoria di Divino Amore for a bottle of wine – E and I only. Went home and saw the children who began school today. [...] F. Zeffirelli arrives back from his triumphant disaster at the Met – the one in NY.
129
We should see him shortly. Looking forward to it too. How one changes. He has written many outrageously campy letters from NY.
Thursday 22nd
Something wrong with my days or dates – there appear to be two Thursdays this week!
Saw D. Frost and discussed doing life of WSC in five two hour films. It is a fascinating and unique idea – one man, five films. Starting with me as Churchill at 25 approximately to his death. Maybe too big a task to succeed. E just instructed me to say how adorable she looked yesterday so: My God! how adorable she looked yesterday. Gosh.
Had lunch with and was interviewed by P. Evans of the
D. Express
. Same old questions. Desperate searching for new answers. All rubbish. He's writing a book about P. Sellers – all about an actor searching for his identity.
130
Rubbish too. [...]
Drank too much, came home, and fell asleep before supper. E unkindly calls such premature sleep ‘passing-out.’
Whew! How adorable E looked yesterday.
Friday 23rd
Things that have happened in the empty days of this diary.
My sister Edith (Edie) died at the age of 43. She was the youngest sister and the funniest. She died from an unsuspected clot of blood that formed after she had been operated on for a weak heart. We thought she had recovered from the operation (it seemed she had) but 5 or 6 days later she went out like a candle-light. She is the first child of my parents to die since 1907 approx.
131
The shock was considerable though I was less close to her than to Ivor and Cis for instance. We flew to London for the funeral – all my brothers were there Ivor (who came with us from Rome) Dai, Will, Tom, Graham and Verdun. Will, who is an idiot, when asked in the living room how he felt replied ‘In the pink. Never felt better in my life ...’ and then realized he should show suitable decorous sorrow and changed his face into pious conformity. He is almost
mindlessly self centred. Ron, the husband, was in a pitiful state.
132
As were all the sisters and Edie's children. All the men, heads carefully bowed so that they could see nothing but neutral dispassionate carpet or chapel floor in the Crematorium, were stoic. I had to harrumph and snort a few times to stop the weeping. E behaved like an angel. She is splendid in a crisis.
Shot the catacombs today and started the day with the end of the Garden of Delights. Mephistopheles (Andreas Teuber) reached a new pitch of intensity in body odour.
133
It is all imagined things dead – rotten seas, decaying books in the tropics, rats trapped dead in drainpipes, forgotten fish, cheese that has become flesh. Between his toes [...] is a sort of fungus growth that threatens to turn his feet into webbed feet unless he bathes in the next couple of years.
And
he is clear-skinned as a girl, while here am I, fanatically clean, pocked, pimpled and carbuncled as a Hogarth.
134
It is not fair!
Franco Zeff arrived at the Studio at lunch time fresh from NY. Looking splendid – he has lost weight – he and E camped about with each other. He seemed to be pleased with the film which he saw this afternoon.
[...] Tonight we had dinner with Liza, Maria and Karen. Maria, who wanted to come up to the bedroom with me when I went to bed, said that she loved me and wanted always to be with me at all times.
I am reading a book called
A long way to Shiloh
by Lionel Davidson.
135
Before that a detective story by Agatha Christie. Before that a book called
Utmost Fish
.
136
Not very good though a readable yarn. Before that Randolph Churchill's biography of Winston Churchill, a massive tome which I read in two sittings.
137
It is a perfect illustration of ‘the child is father of the man.‘
138
I've read some scripts too.
Waterloo
– at least the first
1
/
2
.
139
Reflections in a Golden Eye
.
140
Advice to a married man
.
141
And also the story
Carmen
by Mirameé.
142
Funny little story and totally unbelievable.