Probably more frequently remembered for his turbulent personal life and multiple marriages, however Richard Burton was truly one of the great UK actors of the post WW2 period. The young Richard Jenkins was the son of a Welsh coal miner, and he received a scholarship to Oxford University to study acting and made his first stage appearance in the early 1940s.

His first film appearances were in non-descript movies such as _Last Days Of Dolwyn, The (1949)_ , Waterfront Women and _Green Grow the Rushes (1950)_ . Then he started to get noticed by producers and audiences with his lead in My Cousin Rachel _Robe, The (1953) and _Alexander The Great (1956)_ , added to this he was also spending considerable time in stage productions, both in the UK and USA, often to splendid reviews.

The late 1950s was an exciting & inventive time in UK cinema, often referred to as the "British New Wave", and Burton was right in the thick of things, and showcased a sensational performance in _Look Back In Anger (1959)_ . He also appeared with a cavalcade of international stars in the WW2 magnum opus The Longest Day, and then onto arguably his most "notorious" role as that of "Marc Antony" opposite Elizabeth Taylor in the hugely expensive Cleopatra. This was, of course, the film that kick started their fiery and passionate romance (plus two marriages), and the two of them appeared in several productions over the next few years including _V.I.P.'s, The (1963)_ , The Sandpiper, the dynamic _Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966)_ and The Taming of the Shrew. However, Burton was often better when he was off on his own giving higher caliber performances, such as those in Becket, the brilliant thriller _Spy Who Came In from the Cold, The (1965)_ and alongside Clint Eastwood in the actioner Where Eagles Dare.

His audience appeal began to decline somewhat during the early 1970s as fans turned to younger, more virile male stars, however Burton was superb in Anne of the Thousand Days, he put on a reasonable show in Raid on Rommel, was over the top in Bluebeard, and wildly miscast in the ludicrous The Assassination of Trotsky.

By 1975, quality male lead roles were definitely going to other stars, and Burton found himself appearing in some movies of dubious quality, just to pay the bills, including The Klansman, Exorcist II: The Heretic and The Medusa Touch. However in 1978, he appeared with fellow UK acting icons Richard Harris and Roger Moore in The Wild Geese about mercenaries in South Africa, and whilst the film had a modest initial run, over the past twenty five years it has picked up quite a cult following!

His two last great performances were as the sinister "O'Brien" in Nineteen Eighty-Four, and in the TV mini series _"Ellis Island" (1984)_ . He passed away on August 5th, 1984 in Celigny, Switzerland from a cerebral hemorrhage.

Burton was an avid fan of Shakespeare, poetry and reading. Having once said "home is where the books are".


Circle of Two (1980): $750,000
Absolution (1978): $125,000
The Medusa Touch (1978): $500,000
Equus (1977): $500,000
Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977): $1,000,000
Brief Encounter (1974): $600,000
Raid on Rommel (1971): $1,000,000
Anne of the Thousand Days (1969): $1m plus percentage of gross
Staircase (1969): $1,250,000 + % of gross
Where Eagles Dare (1968): $1,000,000 plus percentage of gross
Boom (1968): $1,000,000 + % of gross
The Comedians (1967): $750,000
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966): $750,000 + % of gross
The Sandpiper (1965): $500,000 + % of gross
The Night of the Iguana (1964): $500,000
The V.I.P.s (1963): $500,000
Cleopatra (1963): $250,000
The Longest Day (1962): $30,000
The Bramble Bush (1960): $125,000
Ice Palace (1960): $125,000
Look Back in Anger (1959): $100,000
Alexander the Great (1956): $100,000
My Cousin Rachel (1952): $50,000

He took his professional name from his schoolmaster and tutor, Philip Burton, who took the 17-year old Richard Jenkins and groomed him for success, both academically and as an actor. The two became so close, Burton attempted to adopt him as his son, but was prevented from doing so as he was too young, under the law. Nevertheless, Jenkins, who became known to the world as Richard Burton, considered Philip Burton his adopted father and honored him by taking on his surname. Years later, when Philip Burton met Elizabeth Taylor and she asked Philip Burton how he came to adopt her soon-to-be fifth (and later sixth) husband, Richard piped up, "He didn't adopt me! I adopted him!". Interred at Protestant Churchyard, Céligny, Switzerland. Spoke Cymraeg (Welsh-language) as mother tongue. He made his stage debut at Maesteg Town Hall in Wales. The twelfth of thirteen children, he insisted that his way out of an impoverished Welsh childhood was due not to acting, but to books; he read one a day. Appointed a Commander of the order of the British Empire in 1970. He collected this award on his 45th birthday with his older sister Cis, who raised him as a child, and his wife Elizabeth Taylor. Burton received the first retrospective of his work since his death during Bradford Film Festival 2002 - almost 18 years after his death on Sunday, August 5, 1984. Twelve films were screened, among them Look Back in Anger (1959), Becket (1964), Equus (1977) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984), his final picture. The festival, which christened its Burton season Lion of the Welsh, also featured a strand on legendary unfinished films that included a clip of Burton in Laughter in the Dark (1969), a movie from which he was allegedly fired by director Tony Richardson. The picture, based on the novel by Vladimir Nabokov, was shut down and eventually made with Nicol Williamson in Burton's role. Died shortly after the filming of Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) was completed. He was in terrible health during filming from years of alcoholism and heavy smoking, and had to wear a neck brace during rehearsals. He was once bought a complete set of "The Everyman Library" by Elizabeth Taylor as a present. During World War II, he was admitted to Exeter College, Oxford to take the "University Short Course" for six months as a Royal Air Force cadet. While at Oxford in 1943-1944, he was a member of the Oxford University Dramatic Society. Cadets were promised that they could return to Oxford to complete their education after the war, but he did not, instead becoming a professional actor after being demobilized in 1947. Almost thirty years later, he was invited back to Oxford to teach poetry to undergraduates for a semester. He, Ray Milland, Anthony Hopkins and Catherine Zeta-Jones all were born within a 10-mile radius in south-western Wales. Had to turn down the lead role of the British Consul in John Huston's adaptation of Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano (1984) as he was appearing in a touring production of Noel Coward's "Private Lives" co-starring with Elizabeth Taylor. The role was subsequently played by Albert Finney, who won an Oscar nomination as Best Actor. Was famous for his high intelligence and for being incredibly well-read. Burton was widely admired for his command and understanding of English poetry, which he taught for a term at Oxford University in the early 1970s. He once got into a contest with Robert F. Kennedy, whom he greatly admired, in which they tried to out-do the other by quoting William Shakespeare's sonnets. Both were word-perfect, and Burton was forced to "win" the contest by quoting one of the sonnets backwards. Won Broadway's 1961 Tony Award as Best Actor (Musical) for "Camelot" as well as a Special Award in 1976. He was also twice nominated for Tony Awards as Best Actor (Dramatic): for "Time Remembered" (1954) and for "Hamlet" (1964). He was engaged to Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia (Serbia & Montenegro) between the time of his two marriages to Elizabeth Taylor. Princess Elizabeth is the mother of Catherine Oxenberg whom he later coached on acting. Was nominated for a 1958 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for "Time Remembered". Three years later he won a 1961 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for "Camelot", and three years after that, he was again nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his 1964 "Hamlet", which was directed by his mentor John Gielgud. Burton also received a Special Tony Award in 1976 after appearing as a replacement in "Equus". Like his friends Laurence Olivier and Peter O'Toole, Burton was an unique and utterly electrifying stage actor whom commanded the rapt attention of his audience. Since Elizabeth Taylor was unable to have children, she and Richard adopted a German girl as their daughter, legally naming her Maria Burton. She was born in Germany c. 1964 with a deformed jaw that was fixed while she was still a baby. He was forced to drop out of the Los Angeles run of "Camelot" in 1981 due to crippling back pain, most likely caused by his chronic bursitis. Doctors at the hospital couldn't understand how he had managed to entertain live audiences night after night. At first they couldn't operate because Burton was three stone underweight, so he had to remain in bed to build up his strength. His backbone was rebuilt in a delicate operation that could easily have left him paralyzed for life if something had gone wrong. Burton called his friend Richard Harris to replace him as King Arthur, and then returned to his home in Switzerland to recover. Won a Grammy in the "Best Recording for Children" category for "The Little Prince" (featuring Jonathan Winters and Billy Simpson). [1975] The producers of the film Equus (1977), who envisioned either Marlon Brando or Jack Nicholson in the role of the psychiatrist "Martin Dysart" in the film version, would only consider Burton for the role if he agreed to undertake a screen-test of sorts by playing the role on Broadway. Though considered one of the most brilliant theatre actors of his generation, Burton had not been on the professional stage in a dozen years (though he had appeared in an Oxford Undergradate Dramatic Society production of Doctor Faustus (which subsequently was filmed as Doctor Faustus (1967)) in 1966. Having suffered a slew of failures since 1970 that had undermined his bankability as a movie star, Burton agreed to take on the grueling role for a 12-week run. Though he was scheduled for his Broadway debut on a Sunday, he took over a Saturday matinée for the departing Anthony Perkins (who had received excellent notices after taking over for Anthony Hopkins, Burton's fellow Welshman who had grown up in his neighborhood in Wales and who had won a 1975 Drama Desk Award Outstanding Actor in a Play for originating Dysart on Broadway). The film producers frankly were worried that Burton's alcoholism, which had nearly killed him during the production of The Klansman (1974), had not only destroyed his powers as an actor but his stamina also. Their fears were borne out the first night when a nervous Burton stumbled during the matinée. However, by Sunday's show, with the vultures out to see a great actor brought low, Burton wowed the audience with a brilliant performance. Burton astounded theatre-goers and the critics, winning himself a Special Tony Award and the role in the film. (His run was extended another two weeks due to demand to see the legendary thespian and hell-raiser and easily could have gone on for many more weeks had Burton chosen to remain with the play.) Burton's career was recharged. The momentum of Burton's professional renaissance nearly brought him an Academy Award in 1978, but sadly, it was reckoned that the performance caught on film by director Sidney Lumet was only a pale shadow of the genius that had been on show on Broadway. (Ironically, this was the charge that had plagued Burton in his early career, that the talent, the genius, did not come through the lens to be caught on film. Burton himself said he did not learn to act on film until he co-starred with Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra (1963).) Reverting to his 1970s habit of poor film choices, such as Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) and The Medusa Touch (1978) tarnished Burton's newly burnished lustre too and Richard Dreyfuss beat him for the Oscar in his seventh (and last) Oscar nomination. Although he worked steadily until his death, Burton's post-Equus (1977) career never gained any real traction and he never again was a bankable star. After his second wife Elizabeth Taylor's close friend Montgomery Clift died before shooting began on Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967), Burton briefly considered taking over the vacated role of the closeted homosexual Major Weldon Penderton that had been slated for Montgomery Clift. Though Burton would later play homosexual parts in Staircase (1969) and Villain (1971), it was thought that he would not be a good fit for the role of an American soldier. The part subsequently went to Marlon Brando, who gave what critics now believe was one of his greatest performances. Marlon Brando and Elizabeth Taylor became friends, giving Burton a chance to socialize with America's greatest actor. According to Melvyn Bragg's biography (that was based on Burton's own diaries) in 1959, he turned down an offer of $350,000 (approximately $2.25 million in 2005 terms) to star as "Christ" in Nicholas Ray's remake of King of Kings (1961) due to superstition. A Welsh-Irish drunkard had read the palms of Burton and some friends, including Dylan Thomas, who were performing poetry on B.B.C. Radio's "Third Programme" and were waiting for show-time in a local pub. The drunk predicted the friends' deaths, which in the case of Dylan Thomas, was accurate. After two other friends died within their prescribed time frames, Burton (who had been told he would die at the age of 33) decided to take the year 1959 off so as not to tempt fate. Although he thought Nicholas Ray might make a good film and was keen to shoot on location in Spain, Burton, who already was a millionaire and did not need the money, turned the offer down. For the same reason, he also turned down the role played by Audie Murphy in John Huston's The Unforgiven (1960), which was shot in Durango, Mexico. Loved to do crossword puzzles and was dismayed that American newspapers' crosswords were more geared towards encyclopedic information rather than puns and wordplay. According to his long-time friend Brook Williams, the son of the man who had given Burton his first professional break Emlyn Williams, Burton turned down a role in The Sea Wolves: The Last Charge of the Calcutta Light Horse in 1980, which reunited The Wild Geese (1978) director Andrew V. McLaglen, screenwriter Reginald Rose and co-star Roger Moore. The Wild Geese (1978) had been a big hit (Burton was always popular and a box office draw in military roles) and Andrew V. McLaglen had directed Burton's post-The Wild Geese (1978) film Steiner - Das eiserne Kreuz, 2. Teil (1979), but Burton turned it down. Brook Williams believed that Burton's third wife, Susan Hunt, didn't want Burton away on a lark with his old friends (and drinking companions) as he was in frail health and battling alcoholism at the time. Frankly told the press that he appeared in the movies Steiner - Das eiserne Kreuz, 2. Teil (1979), Circle of Two (1980) and Lovespell (1981) (generally considered by critics to be three of his worse films, all of them critical and box office disasters that eroded the reputation he had recently fought back to reclaim with his appearance on stage and screen in Equus (1977)) for the money. Burton, who had effectively been cleaned out financially by his two divorces from second wife Elizabeth Taylor, was paid $750,000 for each picture (approximately $2.25 million in 2005 terms). Conversely, he was willing to appear in Absolution (1978) at the same time for one-sixth his fee as he believed in the project very strongly. In 1969, Richard Burton bought his second wife Elizabeth Taylor one of the world's largest diamonds from the jeweller Cartier after losing an auction for the 69-carat, pear-shaped stone to the jeweller, which was won with a $1 million bid. Aristotle Onassis also failed in his bid to win the diamond, which he intended to give his wife Jacqueline Kennedy. The rough diamond that would yield the prized stone weighed 244 carats and was found in 1966 at South Africa's Premier mine. Harry Winston cut and polished the diamond, which was put up for auction in 1969. Burton purchased the diamond from Cartier the next day for $1,069,000 (approximately $6 million in 2005 dollars) to give to Elizabeth Taylor. The small premium Cartier charged Burton was in recognition of the great publicity the jewellery garnered from selling the stone, which was dubbed the "Burton-Cartier Diamond", to the then-"world's most famous couple". Ten years later, the twice-divorced-from-Burton Elizabeth Taylor herself auctioned off the "Burton-Taylor Diamond" to fund a hospital in Botswana. The last recorded sale of the "Burton-Taylor Diamond" was in 1979 for nearly $3,000,000 to an anonymous buyer in Saudi Arabia. The ring was the centre of the classic "Here's Lucy" (1968) episode "Lucy Meets the Burtons" in 1970, in which Lucy Carter, played by Lucille Ball, gets the famous ring stuck on her finger. The actual ring was used and the episode was the highest rated episode of the very popular series. According to Burton's diaries, when he and Elizabeth Taylor appeared on the "Here's Lucy" (1968) (episode: "Lucy Meets the Burtons"), he was appalled by the tedium of shooting the show. He found Lucille Ball's meticulous professionalism to be ludicrous as he felt it was out of place on a TV show. Lucy was entirely focused on making the show work, and Burton -- who thought it would be a lark -- didn't have any fun on the set. He was quite impressed by Ball's co-star Gale Gordon, but was dismayed that Lucy, personally, directed him to play his "part" -- which was himself, after all -- very broad so that he was shouting. When he did shout, she told him that he was finally playing comedy as it should be played. The episode featured Lucy meeting Burton, who was fleeing the press and hid in her office, and then Liz, and putting on Liz's 69-carat, pear-shaped stone diamond, which became stuck to her her finger. Following the release of The Robe (1953), his first Hollywood production, the critics would accuse Burton of being a wooden film actor, a charge that would stay with him throughout his career. It was not until The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965) that critics would be unanimous in their praise of his performance, yet after an excellent five years his mastery of film technique had seemingly deserted him and much of his later work, such as Villain (1971) and Equus (1977), would be dismissed by many as overacting. He was a close friend of fellow Welsh actor Sir Stanley Baker from childhood, and provided the narration for Baker's epic film Zulu (1964). An article Burton wrote in memory of his longtime friend Sir Stanley Baker following the actor's death in June 1976 caused so much offence that Baker's widow, Lady Ellen, considered suing Burton. However, shortly afterwards she recalled standing near the tree where Baker's ashes had been scattered and hearing his voice saying, "You know what Rich is like when he's in his cups.". Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) ran over schedule, causing Burton to pull out of Robbery (1967), which instead went to Stanley Baker. Until he married Elizabeth Taylor in 1964 Burton's favorite drink was always beer, thereafter it was mainly vodka. While filming Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984), he suffered from a terrible pain in his neck and had to wear a neck brace during rehearsals. He had to wear heavy make up in the film, since the director felt he looked twenty years older than his age. He minimized his famous voice for the part of O'Brien, although he had great difficulty remembering the lines and would sometimes require nearly forty takes to get a scene right. The result was one of his most critically acclaimed performances, and well as his most underplayed. Underwent treatment for alcoholism at a clinic in America after filming The Klansman (1974). Producer Dino De Laurentiis wanted Burton to play Napoleon Bonaparte in Waterloo (1970/I), but the role went to Rod Steiger instead. Was offered the role of Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons (1966), but he turned the part down. Paul Scofield, who went on to win a Best Actor Oscar for his performance, was cast instead. He would often tell interviewers that he had played Hamlet on the London stage when he was 23. He was in fact nearly 28 at the time. His younger brother Graham Jenkins worked for the BBC and was responsible for getting Burton the job of narrating the Royal Wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana for BBC Radio on 29 July 1981. There had been some concern that Burton would say something controversial, given his past attacks on Churchill. However, as it turned out he made only one mistake during the five hour broadcast.