The Richard Burton Diaries (208 page)

Monday 28th February 1972 Budapest
Merely to record that I missed yesterday's entry out of sheer inability to get down to the job. The apartment seemed eternally full of various people from time to time on Saturday and again yesterday.

[...] Grace came to dinner last night just with Howard and Mara and us. I had three slices of layer cake and ice-cream and was so tired that I was to all intents and purposes drunk. As a matter of fact I did not have one single drink through all the endless weekend though it did cross my mind at one moment when my fatigue was so great that I could not think of another way to go. However I didn't succumb and just as well. A drunken me as well as a tired me would have been too much and possibly disastrous. The news is just about on. I have turned it off. The usual stuff. Nixon home claiming to have made no secret deal with China.
¹⁰³
A protest march in Paris (including Simone de Beauvoir) re the shooting of a picketing striker at the Renault car factory.
¹⁰⁴
They carried pictures of the dead man.

Francis Warner intimated at more than a fellowship but a doctorate and KBE.
¹⁰⁵
We shall see. [...] I don't know what to do about
Little Prince
. I think I'd better listen to the tapes and decide for myself whether I can do it. [...]

The party was a huge success. That means four parties – the cocktail party when we arrived, the cellar party, the brunch party next day and the posh party at night. All apart from a nasty incident with Alan Williams at the cellar party went without a hitch.
¹⁰⁶
There was a press conference which went alright. I had to do it alone. [...] I saw a couple of hours of Welsh and Lions rugby on 16mm and by god they were really good.

Both Grace and E turned out first class jobs, both looking pretty with E – at the last party particularly – looking absolutely dazzling. Raquel Welch arrived. She is very pretty though a trifle hard faced. I recounted our conversations to E who said ‘She was making a pass at you.’ I protested but E was adamant. [...] Stephen Spender gave me – or rather – us a volume of his latest verse and I gave him a cheque for £1000 and a promise to write an article for the magazine which will keep the world informed as to where the behind-the-iron-curtain
writers are imprisoned so that they will at least know that the rest of the world knows that we know where they are and in some way we must let the incarcerated know that their names live on the lips and in the pen and ink of caring people outside their lands.
¹⁰⁷

[...] The weekend was an undoubted success. I am sure that were it not for the fantastic exuberance of my family that it would not have been half so good. They seemed to relax everybody and nobody has ever seen Grace let her hair down – literally and figuratively – as much as Grace. Her lady-in-waiting too a Mme Aurelia was a ball of fire. Grace confesses that she never knew she had it in her. She danced wild Hungarian dances and at one time as I was sitting in a booth with Frankie Howerd Susannah York and husband and Ladas and Spender the rest of the party swept past us doing the conga.
¹⁰⁸
I was goggleeyed. Led by the family the whole thing passed before our eyes with Grace in the middle of it all. Unbelievable.

MARCH

Wednesday 1st, Budapest
[...] St David's Day and they're all going to school in Wales bearing daffodils and leeks and there will be singing in the Assembly Hall and competitions and a great many will get drunk tonight except me of course.
¹⁰⁹
[...]

It was nightmarish yesterday going into work and finding, as I walked on the set that the scene was yet another party, dinner jackets and ladies in evening dresses. For a second I thought that I was doomed to parties for the rest of my life. [...] I talked to Aaron and at last we have decided to return to England and pay our taxes. I also – they have come back to me with a bang – finally and irrevocably turned down
Petit Prince
. So my next definite stint is
Volcano
.

We have asked Simon and Sheran to look for a place near theirs and not too far from Oxford with plenty of ground to keep a horse or two and a large dog or two, so that I can nip in to Oxford when I feel like it.

I have to send telegrams etc. this morning setting the wheels turning for the return to England. We shall do our damnedest not to winter there though we shall pay the taxes.

Wednesday 15th
It is our eighth wedding anniversary. By some standards that is nothing. By others it's a monumental achievement. During that time too we have the rare distinction – in our business – of having been faithful to each other and for three years approx before that. So it's unofficially 11 years.
¹¹⁰
And
where do we think we shall celebrate tonight – in a small cafe, tete-a-tete, eyes misting over with memories, our favourite tunes playing on a gypsy violin, dancing cheek to cheek, alone together in a crowd. Ah no. We have something far better than that. We are going to be at the British Bloody embassy with their excellent bores the ambassador and dress.
¹¹¹
A silly mistake on our parts and not to be repeated.

[...] E had bought me a score or more of books, many crazy pens and pencils, a mug for tea drinking – reputedly 150 years old – the perfect size. And an Art Nouveau picture frame, a small one for a desk. I have nothing for E except my presence.

E adores occasions. Wedding anniversaries, birthdays, Xmas, Thanksgiving etc. I loathe them except for personal things like the anniversaries. But commercialized things like Xmas and Mother's day and Father's day (yet) and so on give me a royal pain in the ass.

[...] Wish we didn't have to go out to the Embassy, especially as they think of actors and actresses as just so many clowns. Envying them just the same. Some ambassadors are very good company but they are few and far between. Some are even intelligent. I can't remember what this feller was like. Nothing stunning or I would have remembered him from the birthday party. A little gentle sending up is called for I think. After all, it's not their fault that they happened to ask us on our anniversary and it is my fault that I had forgotten that it was until too late. [...]

Thursday 23rd, Dorchester Hotel
Back again to the somewhat dilapidated Dorchester in one of those horrible non-suites.
¹¹²
We flew from Budapest around 6pm and arrived about 8. [...]

We went straight to 2 Squires Mount where there were a great many people including Tom and Hyral, Will and son, Graham and son, Menna and husband, Wendy and Derek but no Cassie, Dai, Hilda, our Dai and Betty or Cis and Elfed.
¹¹³
They'll be alright and all there today. I am looking forward to being on the plane tomorrow morning though but not looking forward to Pest.

Sweet Liza is here which makes up for a great deal of the pain.

I don't think E should stay very long. She will go mad with boredom, for Gwen, much as I adore her, is not exactly a laugh a minute.

I couldn't sleep at all last night and feel like taking a swift kip now which would be catastrophic. Oh, that lovely Janine was there. Paul is apparently able to walk with the aid of crutches.
¹¹⁴

Very warm. By English standards a heat wave. Too lazy to write more.

MARCH 1972–APRIL 1975

Richard Burton ceased keeping his 1972 diary in late March. For over three years he appears not to have made any attempt to maintain his personal record.

After Ivor's funeral Richard seemed to go into a deep depression. This was manifested both in a return to heavy drinking and in a cavalier attitude towards his marriage to Elizabeth. By May he may have been unfaithful, having affairs with some of his co-stars in
Bluebeard
, including Nathalie Delon. Elizabeth responded by being seen in public with Aristotle Onassis. Burton and Taylor spent an increasing amount of time apart: he had to return to Yugoslavia and to
The Battle of Sutjeska
while she made
Night Watch
in London. Burton did spend some time at St Peter's College, Oxford, but his plan to write a micro-history based on the Peregrina Pearl was not executed. Richard and Elizabeth teamed up once more in the autumn of 1972 to make the double TV film for Harlech Television
Divorce His, Divorce Hers
, shot in Rome and Munich. This was an unhappy experience and, again, did nothing for their critical reputation when it was broadcast the following year.

The year 1973 opened with Richard once more in Rome, making
Massacre in Rome
, while Elizabeth filmed
Ash Wednesday
in Treviso and in the ski resort of Cortina d'Ampezzo. By the summer the rift between them was serious. An attempt at reconciliation in New York failed and on 3 July 1973 their separation was announced. Elizabeth went to Beverly Hills, where she began a relationship with businessman Henry Wynberg. Richard initially based himself at Aaron Frosch's home at Quogue, Long Island, and then returned to Italy to start work on
The Voyage
, co-starring alongside Sophia Loren. Loren and her husband Carlo Ponti (who had produced
Massacre in Rome
) hosted him at their estate near Marino, where he was visited by Elizabeth in late July, but any attempt at reconciliation was short-lived. Divorce papers began to be drafted.

While filming
The Voyage
in Sicily in November, Richard learned that Elizabeth had been taken into hospital in Los Angeles, and he flew to California to be with her. Upon her recovery Elizabeth visited Richard in Naples, and over the following weeks they spent time together in New York, Hawaii and then in Gstaad. Early in 1974 they were together in Puerto Vallarta, and in March Richard began working on
The Klansman
in Oroville, near Sacramento, California. His disintegration was becoming a public spectacle, and rumours of liaisons with young women were widespread. In April he was taken into St John's Hospital in Santa Monica in order to ‘dry out’. Elizabeth filed for divorce and this was granted at Saanen in Switzerland on 26 June 1974.

A single man for the first time in more than a quarter of a century Richard left hospital and sailed to Europe, staying for a while at his home in Céligny
before travelling to Winchester to work alongside Sophia Loren once more in
Brief Encounter
. In October 1974 he became engaged to Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia (herself married to Neil Balfour), and began work on a drama-documentary about Winston Churchill – titled
The Gathering Storm
/
Walk with Destiny
. A public furore followed the appearance of two articles by Burton in the
New York Times
and the American
TV Guide
, both of which were unrestrained in their attack on the former British Prime Minister. Shortly afterwards Richard's relationship with Princess Elizabeth collapsed, Burton having begun seeing Jeanne Bell, an African-American actor and former
Playboy
centrefold, whom he had first met on the set of
The Klansman
.

At the beginning of 1975 Burton, along with Bell (1943—), Charlotte Rampling and James Coburn, started filming
Jackpot
in Nice, but this project remained unfinished owing to financial difficulties. Burton returned to Céligny with Bell, and again took up his pen.

JANUARY

Friday 28th, Phoenix
¹
Yesterday we went to Sara's house for lunch and for the last time, thank God. It was the first time for me to see the place in daylight and it could be a very pleasant little abode were some money and taste expended on it. Sara's brother (80 next September) and his wife were there. He is a thin spare man with marvellous high Indian-looking cheek bones and Howard said of him: If you dip him in a barrel of salt water – clothes and all – then put him out in the sun to dry, he might approximate to looking like Sam. Sam was the pioneering adored grandfather.
²
[...]

Last night I had a unique experience – for me that is. I went to have dinner with the Voldengs in the swankest country club in Phoenix, or the richest, or both. However, the uniqueness was that I discovered towards the end of the dinner that the Club was restricted to gentiles only. NO JEWS ALLOWED. Mary Frances told me so.
³
She said that they, the Club, had told them, the Jews that there are just too many of you and before long you'll be running the place so why don't you form a club of your own. I was flabbergasted. I should have immediately announced this to the rest of the family and we would have undoubtedly swept out en masse. However I thought of Sara and that the only reason why we were dining with the Voldengs was to get her out as easily and unrancorously as possible, but I simply couldn't sit there and say nothing. She promptly gave me an opportunity to salvage my conscience as she said with twinkling glee ‘And do you know Richard they ran into financial difficulties and had to appeal to us gentiles for help. What about that!’ I swooped. ‘How strange to hear that,’ I said, ‘our lot doesn't usually get into that kind of difficulty.’ She took the blow with an air of not knowing quite whether I was making a little British joke or not. I now laid it on. ‘Elizabeth, as you obviously don't know is a convert to Judaism and our daughter is of course a Jewess and my grandfather was a Jew’. She was helpless. She said ‘Yes’ but it had several additional vowels in it, impossible to write down but it was something like ‘Yeaaeahowes.’

To reiterate here the platitudinous idiocies of their conversation would be tedious. E and I and Howard and Mara had gone there knowing what to expect but so exactly did they react to any given suggestion that they were little different from Pavlovian dogs. One rang the bell of this idea and they tolled the precisely expected answer. To the very anticipated word. We all agreed afterwards that they were so brain-washed that nothing, no argument, no appeal to intelligence, could possibly change them. For instance, and only one example will I give, Dr Voldeng said that the thing that had made this country great was that it was a melting pot for all the peoples of the world. Yawn. Yawn. But they had just said that Jews were not allowed in their club! There was therefore absolutely no point in asking about the blacks.