The Richard Burton Diaries (58 page)

We are leaving tomorrow in a chartered plane for Sardinia with all the children and us on board. God help us all. I dread the start of this film as I do all films until we find out how the director works etc. I've only read the script twice and learned not a word. I must learn a few pages today. [...]

Lord Derby is still fighting our consortium for the TV Franchise for Wales and the West.
¹¹³
We've won I think. In any case I don't think I'm much interested. My bit was to use our names to get it. I don't want to do much more.

Friday 11th, Gstaad – Sardinia
A terrible day, frantically disorganized, thousands of bags all over the place, nine children, six adults all on one plane, Howard and Mara's incessant screaming, my and E's pre-film nerves, nine children, plane-fear, Gaston [...] has fallen in love again, dwarfly serious, with Patricia's mother (Patricia is Christopher's girl friend) nine children, the
Kalizma
hasn't arrived, nobody at the airport to meet us, nine children, (Dick Hanley, Bob Wilson, John Lee cost us and Mike Todd roughly $1000 a week) and hot and a small room and a multi zillion dollar picture and I screamed ‘fuck’ out of drunkenness in the hotel lobby, and pasta (not very good) and screaming and heavy stoned sarcasm, and a sloshed memory of fields and farms and towns of France and Italy, and the purple sea, and shame and booze and fear and nine children, and I want to be left alone, and Gaston saying that he has explained to Cecile that he can't marry her because she can't have children, August is the cruellest month, and E making any excuse – not difficult to do since they (the excuses) were handed to her on a platter – not to start the film on Monday, and J. Losey is an arrogant ignorant fool so far and thinks he's a genius and you can't be at his pock-marked age without showing it before, and a frightful day and I hope never to live through another which I will tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.
¹¹⁴

To scream ‘fuck’ in the lobby was the only possible way to meet the justice of the day.

Wednesday 16th, Hotel Capo Caccia, Alghero, Sardinia
¹¹⁵
The boat has still not arrived and everybody, high and low has his neck permanently cricked towards the horizon. [...]

Losey so far is a bit of a crasher and a fusspot interfering with every dept. He keeps on thinking that I must be kept busy. Leave me alone!

On the first night here we frightened him so much that he later, so we're told by the Heymans, cried. Whether it was fright, nerves or disappointment we shall never know.

[...] How and Mara are in three rooms with all the children, because our bloody boat is not here. They seem, with the assistance of two guards and a nanny to be coping alright. [...]

The boat arrived late this evening. Went on board and found a drunken man in Liza's room unconscious on the bed. Don't trust Barbosa and think the cook is a stirrer. Boat looks pretty though.

Thursday 17th, Sardinia
[...] Went downstairs this morning and saw Dick Hanley. I wish he would retire to California. He is a semi-invalid and I'm afraid to say anything authoritative to him in case he has a heart attack. We now have John Lee working with Dick, Jane Swanson working for them, and now if you please they have employed a man to look after them.
We
don't even have a nanny.

Gaston has brought his latest (41 year old) girl friend with him here and
her daughter
. Was about to order him to send her back to her job in Suisse when it turned out that his brother had died. The telegram arrived 4 days late so the funeral is over. So the lecture will have to wait.

I took Howard to see the locations. By Boat. Speedboat. He is odd when something excites him – he screams, almost like a girl. [...] Where E is passively passionate, he is frenetic. [...]

SEPTEMBER

Thursday 7th

[...] All hell broke loose after permission was given – E's Kabuki dress had to be brought from Rome by Evan Roberts Tiziani, her Kabuki headdress was flown from Sardinia by ‘Lear’ Jet with Jeanette in charge.
¹¹⁶
Alexandre Mara and How went out shopping to buy polo necked sweaters for Howard and myself. We wore them with our dinner jackets with necklaces! The press were all over the place [...] But it was all worth it for Mara made the success of her life. And lo and behold the most publicized snap of the evening in the papers next day was one of E, Mara and Princess Grace all sitting side by side and all looking ravishing – especially, of course, E.

Before going to bed tonight a note was handed to me by Pedro.
¹¹⁷
It had been sent from shore by Claudye. It said that Robin Marlowe had approached Gianni (Claudye's boyfriend) and asked him for a contraceptive, as she and Michael intended to make love! Gianni said she was a bit young (she is 13!) and asked if he could see Michael (he is 14!) but Michael refused. I sat up and waited for them and told them to go to bed warning Nella beforehand that they were to be kept apart but the fact is that if they're going to do it, they're going to do it and nothing will stop them. I told Michael a few days ago to be careful. I hope he will be.

Monday 18th,
Kalizma
, Capo Caccia
A fairly hardworking day. I think, despite weather, we did about 3
¹
/
₂
minutes. [...]

E talked with Michael about Robin and M was apparently furious with Robin, saying: ‘I told her she shouldn't have done it.’ He spent the afternoon on the set alone for a time as she Robin presumably had gone back to the hotel in a huff. She came back later and M was terribly sweet with his mother for the rest of the day.

Mary Morgan – W. John Morgan's wife – arrived from the other side of the island where she is staying with an English group of Oxbridge intellectuals – one called Love and somebody who wrote for the
N. Statesman
.
¹¹⁸
Boring, envious, clever and very impressed and, I suspect, just above mediocre and absolutely predictable. I could have written their dialogue for the rest of the hour I was with them after the first 3 minutes.

[...] Hell of a job deciding what to do for Liza and Maria regarding school. Liza is 10 and bright. Maria is 6
¹
/
₂
and slow. One, the latter, to London? Maria to Ive and Gwen in London where I read they have a very successful machine for teaching slow children? E very depressed. Me too.

Tuesday 19th
Worked like dogs and did 7
¹
/
₂
minutes – we are nearly 2/3 of the way through the script after only 3
¹
/
₂
weeks or 4.

Nasty incident that everyone laughed at when Michael Dunn the dwarf was pulled off his feet by Robbie the Giant Schnauzer dog.
¹¹⁹
He carried it off very well calling the dog a dumb head.

E did a remarkable scene in which she nearly coughed her lungs up. Everybody was impressed.

Noël Coward arrived looking very old and slightly sloshed and proceeded to get more sloshed. He embarrassed us both (separately) and lavished compliments on E about her beauty and her brilliance as an actress. Occasionally he threw a bone to me. He is a most generous man but sadly he is beginning to lose the fine edge of his wit or perhaps like me he repeats himself when tipsy. He moves like an old man but I suddenly remembered that he's always moved like an old man. Stoop-shouldered non-necked he has the curved body of a very tall man but in actual fact he is no taller than I. He is now almost completely bald and the bags under his eyes have made his eyes even more asiatic than hitherto. He calls himself ‘the oldest chinese character actress in the world.’ Coming off the plane he was asked how his journey was [...] and he said peering his way towards customs ‘My whole life has been an extravaganza.’ He is a delightful man. ‘I am completely muddled,’ he said, ‘by J. Heyman. I have talked to him on the phone and communicated with him by letter and I had firmly made up my mind that J. Heyman was a short hairy greasy Jewish gentleman running rapidly to fat. Instead of which I find a golden boy. It is most off-putting.’

We drank with Noël, his friend Graham Payn, and his secretary Coley until about 9.15 then left for the boat to dine with the children.
¹²⁰
The boys leave tomorrow for Millfield and everybody is very down in the mouth.

Wednesday 20th, Capo Caccia
[...] The boys left early in the morning both coming into the stateroom and kissing us in the dark. Very depressing. [...] E and N. Coward are madly in love with each other, particularly he with her. He thinks her most beautiful which she is, and a magnificent actress which she also is. We all saw rushes and some assemblage last night. It looks perverse and interesting. I think we are due for another success particularly E. I was worried about her being too young but it doesn't seem to matter at all. Wrote a long letter to Phil which I still haven't finished. [...]

Thursday 21st
Was first called, though the night before they had said I was on a stand-by. Did two shots talking on the telephone and was finished for the day
by lunchtime. Showered and shampooed and then lunched with E and Noël, Coley and G. Payn. Many stories were told. We talked about D. Niven and how, though they had been fast friends, he cut E dead for seven months when she was involved in the ‘scandal’ with E. Fisher and how though we were still friendly it could never be the same again.
¹²¹
[...]

E did a retake in the afternoon but it was one of the ‘jinxed’ shots – there is one in every film – which for various technical reasons (in one take they ran out of film!) took over three hours to do. She was heavy eyed and exhausted when they finally got it at 7.00. She then fitted for clothes with Evan Tiziani for the Paris and Oxford premieres of
Shrew
and
Faustus
respectively while I finished my marathon letter to Phil. We had a few drinks with Noel and Co and repaired to the
Kalizma
and supper about 10.30.

Noel told E after having seen the rushes and assemblage ‘My God you have such fantastic authority. I didn't have such authority at your age.’ He told me, holding my wrist firmly in his beautiful brown hands which at 67 have a couple of faint liver marks, that E and I were so packed with dynamic personality that he expected us any minute to burst at the seams and flow like volcanic lava. He is a great flatterer if he genuinely likes you.

[...] I have decided it's going to cost me more than £50,000 a year to run this ship – more like $100,000. But, if, as we plan to live on it while making films for most of the year, it could be very practical. Anyway it's a splendid toy and a lovely luxurious home.

Friday 22nd
[...] Norma Heyman was with us all day and stayed to chat with me when E left. We comforted her as best we could re her marriage. It appears that her husband J. Heyman has fallen in love or is infatuated with Joanna Shimkus who plays – very badly – E's secretary in the film.
¹²²
She is a nice enough little girl (of 23 she says) but certainly not the femme fatale and breaker-up-of-homes type. She is tall, auburn haired, pleasant faced, aquiline nosed, nice-eyed, pleasant smiled and breastless. She is also hard work to talk to. From things I hear from Norma she is most definitely on the make for John. She probably thinks he will help in her career. I can't think that she will last very long even if John does marry her.

I became quite tipsy with Norma and went to bed after she'd left – about 11pm I think – and slept until 5.00. Went ashore and found no car to take me to the set but eventually as I was walking to the set, it's about 2
¹
/
₂
miles perhaps Valerio the Unit Manager picked me up in his car.
¹²³
He was with Francesca
Roberti who is the step-daughter of Peter Thorneycroft, the MP.
¹²⁴
E looked dead beat and was. She said that she'd had a terrible time with Noel who was so nervous that he'd dry up again and again. It must have been horrible. Perhaps it was first shot nerves. It would be bad luck if his performance was destroyed by lack of memory.

Saturday 23rd, Capa Caccia – Bonifacio, Corsica
Sailed this morning from Sardinia about 9.30 arriving at Bonifacio (It was our second visit we having gone there before a month ago) about 3.30.
¹²⁵
[...] We all napped. I got up about 12.30 and sat and sunbathed with Norma and had a cheese and tomato sandwich. Delicious. Bonifacio was lovely – we tied up exactly where we had last time when the kids had that gorgeous mad hour doing cannon balls etc. from the top deck – and walked to dinner at La Pergola, I think it's called, which is right on the harbour about 200 yards from the mooring. We giggled a lot and drank endless bottles of wine. And so to bed.

Sunday 24th, Bonifacio, Corsica
A glorious day with a light breeze ruffling the harbour waters. I got up reasonably early and found that Norma was up before me. It was about 9am I suppose. We sunbathed and read on the upper deck when we heard a lot of shouting as of at a football match so we slipped on some clothes and walked ashore to see it. It was a soccer match played between two teams of foreign legionnaires. After about
¹
/
₂
hour somebody thought he recognized me and went excitedly to his friends. ‘Ca c'est Richard Burton c'est vrai, c'est vrai.’ Fortunately nobody believed him and we were left undisturbed. There were many snarky remarks to the enthusiast on the general level of ‘What would Burton be doing in a shit-house like this?’

Norma and I went for a walk afterwards along the quayside. It is almost entirely cafes, cafe restaurants, restaurants, little general stores, a couple of antique shops, ‘live lobsters sold here’ etc. The town is a mysterious looking place. The houses are pale grey, or orange, or that peculiarly french blue, and from towering serrated docks the houses go sheer up from the edge. I wouldn't love to live in one. But the harbour is lovely. I bought a bellows for the barbecue, which we've just had sent from Rome, and a wooden pair of tongs to pick up and turn over bangers, hot dogs, hamburgers, steaks and so on.