PeterRS Posted 2 hours ago Posted 2 hours ago For most reading Gay Guides, Richard Burton must have featured more than a little in our lives. He was after all not only a star of the cinema screen, he was regularly featured in the gossip columns of newspapers for a whole variety of reasons. Perhaps ironically, as in the previous thread, he came from the same Welsh stock as Sir Anthony Hopkins, although raised following the very early death of his mother in a poor Welsh village by one of his devoted much older sisters, Cecilia. His inexplicable acting talent was discovered by the English teacher at his school, Philip Burton, whose name he assumed for his acting career. Like Hopkins, he was also known for his drinking, although in Burton's case he could never stop. And it was largely a result of this drinking that he died. One newspaper stated he died 100 years ago this month aged just 58. In fact the 100th anniversary of his death was in August last year. But the error is as good areason for remembering him. Remembered mostly for his massive affair with Elizabeth Taylor, herself a fellow drunk during their whole time together when they made the movie Cleopatra and their subsequent two marriages, he seemed to become almost a caricature of himself, his talent subsumed by a narcisism and his alcoholism. It was almost as though he wanted to be larger than life itself, larger even than the massive rock of a diamond he bought for Taylor paying US$1.1 million in 1969. But we also remember that voice - that extraordinary rich low baritone which boomed through the cinema loudspeakers when portraying all manner of characters. Like Hopkins, his career veered between theatre in the UK and roies in Hollywood. But then he added Broadway when he successfully played in Lerner and Loewe's successor to My Fair Lady as King Arthur alongside Julie Andrews in Camelot. But it was certainly Cleopatra and all its surrounding hoopla that brought him to world attention, even though it is not much more than a mediocre movie made at massive expense. On a budget of US$5 million, its total costs in 1963 came to over $50 million, an amount so hugh it was almost unbelievable in those days. Filming took two-and-a-half years! Arguably Burtin's best movies were the adaptation of John Le Carre's The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Edward Albee's black comedy Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf, made with Taylor. Others will no doubt add his portrayal as Thomas Becket in the historical film Becket, a role for which he was nominated for Best Actor Oscar, an award he never won. Perhaps surprisingly for this most aggressively straight actor, he told a good friend in 1975 that he had "tried homosexuality". He also suggested that all actors were "latent homosexuals". The 2000 biography of Elizabeth Taylor even suggests there had been an affair between Burton and Sir Laurence Olivier. In addition to booze which almost killed him in 1974, he was a heavy smoker all his life. By then he admitted to drinking three bottles of vodka each day. I often wonder what demons were held captive in his mind as there surely must have been many. Rather than end with a clip of his own films or interviews, I add this short tribute to one of his friends of more that 30 years, Frank Sinatra. Not only will it open your eyes to a part of Sinatra's life, it reminds us how magnificent that glorious speaking voice was. It would fall silent within a year. Quote
