The Richard Burton Diaries (34 page)

We sat quietly at home for the evening and read. We dined à deux and read and sometimes talked to each other and read out interesting bits to each other even while we ate. It has suddenly become quite summery. For the first time I had to open completely the car windows when driving.

Rome is now, on certain windless days as smog-ridden as any of the really big cities. That deadly miasma is slowly creeping all over this earth. Will no govt. act to stop this immense planetary asphyxiation. Ah well it won't all be the same in a hundred years. Man's inhumanity to himself is stupefying.

The British elections take place on the 31st.
¹⁷
It is, to me, a fascinating thing to watch. The mud slinging and pettish accusations of both sides is almost too childish to be believed but yet I am compelled to read it. The unction of the Tory Press, the immense vulgarity of the
Mirror
, the blindness of them both, will not be believed an age from now if, as I mentioned above, there is an age from now.
¹⁸
Wilson will win it appears from Polls.
¹⁹

Georgie our Laza Apso is very ill.
²⁰
Poor old boy.

Wednesday 23rd
E. had two fittings today for her dress to be worn to the Ballet tomorrow night. What am I doing going to a ballet again? This is the second time in six months. Rudolph Nureyev notwithstanding.
²¹

We both had medical examinations for Insurance. It appears to be alright. The doctor sweated a lot and looked as if he could do with a check-up.

We dined at home and E. had her second fitting after dinner. I tried to read Barzini's
The Italians
but found it intolerably prolix and self congratulatory.
²²
I'll try it again and will make another desperate attempt to like
The Italians
and the Italians.

Thursday 24th
We went to the Opera to see Rudi N dance, and dance he did. How he makes the others look like carthorses, even a brilliant fellow like Bruhn the Dane.
²³
Rudi did an extract from Sylphides.
²⁴

The paparazzi behaved like lunatics, getting inside the theatre and taking snaps even during the performance. The management and the police seem equally helpless. Afterwards we went to the Little Bar in the Via Sistina for a
quick drink.
²⁵
Met an actor there with Ron Berkeley and his girl Vicky called Coffin!
²⁶
[...]

Friday 25th
The boys arrived from La Suisse.
²⁷
Liza E and I had lunch at Ostia on the edge of the sea.
²⁸
An enormous and terrible lady journalist appeared and asked us questions. I sent her off in a burst of fury.

I felt dreadful all day long – melancholy and distant – and so did E. Georgie died. He must have caught something from some alien dog in the pound he was at. Now E'en so is ill.
²⁹
Pray God she's alright. I love that old Chinese lady.

We dined early with the children and went to bed quite early too. I'm getting nervous about the film and E firmly believes she can't learn her lines. [...]

Saturday 26th
I woke to my astonishment at 11.00. How late. I would like to awake, until my death, about 6 to 7 in the morning but, life and nerves being what they are, one is lucky to be up and shouting at 4 in the afternoon. There is a kind of lethargy, induced only by vulgarity, which prompts late rising. I remember the days when to sleep more than 5 hours a day was considered self-indulgence. And I am now self-indulgent. It must be booze and age.

The children were about for lunch. They giggled a lot and found great pleasure in being idiotic. They pretended powerful interest in going to the studio. We procured for them ham and cheese sandwiches and sent Maria home. That left us with Michael and Christopher and Liza. We then went to see a film called
The Silencers
starring Dean Martin.
³⁰
It was of an obviousness so anticipatory as to take one's breath away. [...] I fell asleep. And the children noticed to my shame.

Wales, I understand, beat France in Rugby and a lot of difference that is going to make to the world.
³¹

I also saw a vision of myself on the screen. I was gay stupid and fat. So, as they say, I'm fat, I'm gay I'm stupid and I'm fat and that, as they say, is fat.

I worry enormously about the fact that we have no money. I worry that I will not be able to look after my wife and my children after I'm dead –
nobody else will – and that worries me more than the silliness of Good Gracious Me!
³²

Anyway we went to a restaurant over a cow-shed and the food was good. And the children were dying of cold and boredom. And so was I. [...]

Sunday 27th and Monday 28th
Took E and the children to the beach on Sunday afternoon in the Toronado. We had some fun, for the kids, in beating most other cars.

We then had a ‘draw’ for the Grand National, run yesterday, and we drew 5 or 6 horses each. Maria won with outsider (50–1) Anglo.
³³
[...]

Monday lunch with Jack Cardiff and Haggiag.
³⁴
Cardiff seems half-diffident half-cocky – continually mentioning
Sons and Lovers
– presumably his most successful film. I think he was nominated for an Oscar. Or perhaps the film was.
³⁵
Anyway he knows a rather promising sounding process owned by Pinewood.
³⁶
[...]

Went to studio and had my hair permed. Ghastly business. Home, supper with the boys, and early bed.

I have to test again tomorrow. Oh happy Day.

We
had
beaten France. Skin of teeth. 9–8.

Tuesday 29th
I went to the studio and made-up and dressed and tested again. E came with me. About 2.30 we went to lunch at the tiny village 10 minutes away – the place with cows called I Streghi or some such name.
³⁷
(The cows are on the right of the restaurant looking at it – not in the restaurant.) The entire village is owned by one of the Borghese family.
³⁸

Afterwards we had brandy with the proprietor. And then went quietly drinking down the afternoon and home and bed. E very worried about that old internal bleeding that's started up again.

Wednesday 30th
At last I began to learn the script. What a dilatory actor I am. How to succeed without really trying.

Some agonizing on the part of Franco Z about my initial costume. I hope he's not going to be a bore when we start to work. They are changing or rather adapting the present costume. I wish I had Larry's and John's – indeed most actors’ love of dressing up and all that goes with it – the fittings, the finicky fussing etc. and always the pouffs.
³⁹
I went to the Studio and played a sort of buffer or mediator between Franco, who is not entirely masculine it seems, and Irene who is not entirely feminine, and so I strode in Limbo for a quarter of an hour. And then came home to old fatty who stayed in bed all day to watch, take care of, that bleeding mentioned above. The election takes place in Britain tomorrow. I've read the political columns until I'm sick of ‘em. Shan't read the British ones until the next election. Perhaps not even then.

Thursday 31st
[...] Today I received a letter from Franco saying that he felt better able to write his thoughts than speak them as his English is not too reliable. A very good excuse for not facing somebody with something unpleasant. Wasn't it Winston Churchill who always fired his underlings by letter? Who would have thought the Old Man to have had so much milk in him.
⁴⁰
Anyway, the letter said that he had designed and had had made a new first costume for me and would I come in at 4.00 to try it. I went and of course waited twenty minutes. At first I was dismayed by its weight and size but having tried it on felt better at once. I tested it immediately and will see the result tomorrow at about 11 o'clock. It had better be good. Irene Sharaff is obviously upset and since I find her bone-lazy, inflexible faintly condescending to most people, an intellectual (though she is not overblessed in that department) snob and a crashing bore my sympathy is tempered with discretion. Old Snapshot however adores her and I must use tact and so on to keep her.
⁴¹
Lizabet also thinks her talented but I tend to think, as always, that, apart from the odd one here or there, dress designers are like photographers – mere copiers. Take enough snaps, copy enough paintings and some of ‘em are bound to be alright.

We learned lines, read books, learned a little Italian (me) in the bedroom suite, had a dinner, both of us ravenous, of roast chicken, potatoes, salad, cheese, and fruit all washed down, in my case with water – I don't fancy drink at the moment – in Snapshot's case with a Vin Rosé. [...]

APRIL

Friday 1st
What a day! I went in at about 11.30 to see the test of the new costume. It was alright – at least it was better than the other. I then had it refitted and will try it on again tomorrow, Saturday.

Since the atmosphere is now electric I decided to try and do something about it so I took Irene home for lunch and told Zeffirelli I would see him at 6.00. He agreed. The lunch was frightening. Irene really hates the Italian and described my costume as 1930 Opera. She was not, she said, prepared to be a sketch artist for FZ.
⁴²
I don't know what else she is supposed to be. Shumdit says she didn't mean it that way.
⁴³
Finally, at lunch, I was so exasperated by the repetitious complaining that I left the table snarling ‘You'll excuse me, I'm in a bad mood.’ Shumdit said with her usual immense tact, ‘Really, Richard?’ I snarled again something witty like ‘Shut your mouth’ and went tramping furiously over our few acres with E'en So.

When I returned I kissed Shumdit better and then began to attack again because I thought she'd gossiped with the Princess something-or-other who is designing her frock for Mike Todd Junior's TV show about his father.
⁴⁴
Then we kissed it all better again.

And so to the studio. I told Z that things must be altered, that he shouldn't make costumes behind our backs. He said he had to take the law into his own hands as Irene was so inflexible and that his respect for her had turned into disrespect. He described her costume as 1930 touring version of
Shrew
in America. I said, as far as I was concerned, he could do all the bloody costumes but E Shumdit was adamant re Irene's clothes and that if she turned cold on him that that would be the end of her performance. If there were any more hold-ups I said due to costume problems somebody, I said straight in his eyes, would have to go. We had invested $2,000,000 in this venture and I didn't want another
Cleopatra
.

McWhorter, who was present throughout, asked if he had any other costumes in preparation. Z. said No! No! but I knew he was lying. I suggested that he stop being devious and meet head-on with Irene and scream at her if necessary so that she could scream back. But stop, I begged, being so bloody Machiavellian. He said he would, but only after he'd seen E. Shumdit. So we are to have lunch with him tomorrow. Immediately I was in the car on the way home I realized that Mario had mentioned taking the children to the Spanish Steps to see the flowers and so will cancel the lunch tomorrow when I get up.
⁴⁵

I was so fed up I had three glasses of wine and two large brandies in about
¹
/
₂
hour, ate my pasta, and went to bed. We shouted at each other a bit but nothing serious.

Labour won the election easily. Don't know the final count but it's likely to be about a 100 majority. Anyway they're in to stay.

Saturday 2nd
And we drove to Rome to the Spanish Steps which wasn't a very good idea as the floral decorations have only just begun; they will obviously be prettier by next weekend. We lunched at a very good restaurant called ‘Chianti’.
⁴⁶
I had an enormous and very good rare T. Bone Steak. E had the speciality chicken. We all (the children were with us) had ravioli to start. Delicious. Maria seemed still asleep at lunch – she had slept all the way in in the car. She suffers, poor dab, from permanent nasal and bronchial irritations.

E + I went to see FZ at the studio. A lot of talk went on but I can't remember much about it. By that time I was sloshed.

We then went to Garden City for Pizza and then home when we talked with Mario about that frightful weekend at Porto Santa Stefano 4 years ago.
⁴⁷

It depressed me profoundly and I stared a lot and slept at last.

Sunday 3rd
Woke late again at 10.30 largely I suppose because we both woke at 1.30 – 2.00 in the morning and talked until 5–6.

We went for birthday lunch to Richard Hanley's and J. Lee and very nice it was [...] I met Chas Beal the negro pianist.
⁴⁸
Aaron was there as well as M. Todd Junior, Irene Sharaff, Mai-Mai, MacWhorter and wife, Agnes and Frank Flanagan, Frank LaRue, Ron Berkeley.
⁴⁹
[...]

We had an early dinner at L'Escargot and went home.
⁵⁰
Little Liza fell down the stairs, little clown and bruised her face quite badly. She is likely to have a couple of splendid black eyes tomorrow. I asked her if she cried. She said Yes. I could eat her.

Very edgy and cantankerous. No doubt the prospect of working tomorrow is the reason. Always the same before I start a job.

Monday 4th
My first day on the film. I was as nervous as a horse at the thought of riding one around a roaring fire with extras all over the place. However I did it reasonably competently.

I was at the studio at 7.30 having driven myself in the Toronado (picked up by the Police Car overtaking a lorry over the continuous white line but fortunately I was being followed by our own policeman who arranged everything satisfactorily and amiably) and found that I was 1
¹
/
₂
hours too early. My call was for 9.00. I rehearsed with Cyril Cusack and Victor Spinetti but in fact did not appear before the cameras until about 3.30.
⁵¹