The Richard Burton Diaries (76 page)

And then there were two girls, one negress, and one Chinese doing the French-Language scene from
Henry V
, before the King arrives, elbows, bilbows, fingers, [...] who had to be heard to be believed so enchanting.
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[...]

Monday 9th, Dorchester [Hotel]
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Another alien typewriter. Jane assumed that I would bring the one from Gstaad.

[...] We helicoptered from Gstaad to Geneva despite the protests of the pilot, who said it was too late and too dark to fly. I forced him to anyway, and the flight was thrilling. To creep over an alp at two hundred feet is a sight indeed.

Little Liza was very tearful when we left. So was her mother. How those two love each other. I quite fancy them myself.

We flew from Geneva to Paris, dropped E and C off and I continued onto London with Jim Benton and Bob Wilson. We used a ‘Lear’ jet. It is very small and not comparable with the HS 125.
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No lavatory. No bar. However for such short journeys it doesn't matter I suppose.

I became very drunk and abused people a great deal and insulted E a lot on the telephone when I arrived. One might call the last few days ‘The Diary of a Dipsomaniac.’

I miss Elizabeth terribly already. I wish I didn't love people. And I wish I didn't shout at people.

[...] I wrote a letter to Mrs Trench saying how much we'd enjoyed the show. She is very like Phil Burton. She said, as a result of the over-attention paid by the press and radio to Liza and E and myself, ‘I suppose nobody cares that I'm the one who's responsible for the excellence of this performance. Some of us must always live in the shade.’ Phil to the life. [...]

I feel dazed and hurt, though all I did yesterday was daze and hurt other creatures. Oh bugger it. After all I shall see Ivor tonight.

Thursday 12th
We've shot everyday in the unbelievable dreariness of the English weather. If ever I need reminding that I never ever want to live here again, I must turn up this page in the diary. It, the weather, is not dramatically bad, no winds, no tempests, no howling blizzard but simply a low grey cloud that squeezes the spirit like a vice. And the cold is no colder than Paris or Gstaad but it is damp and seems to penetrate the very pith of one's fibres. The French people with us find it difficult to credit the English for wanting to live here. I tell them that some of the Saes actually like it, but that the vast percentage of them have no choice.
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And again the ordinary people in the street look so pinched and puny and mean. Only the occasional young girl mini-skirted and swinging her bum and breasts give any pleasure. It is rare for me to be made uncomfortable by low temperatures, but [...] I found myself between shots running back to the trailer to warm myself in front of the gas fire. [...] And on top of everything there is no E here to share my discontent and bear the burden
of my complaints. I didn't think it possible to miss anybody so much. We talk to each other half a dozen times a day on the blower but it's agony all the same. I miss her like food.

We filmed in Windsor the first two days but it was so dark that we only achieved one shot the first day.
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It was lucky that there was a warm little pub nearby which is where I spent most of my time. Yesterday we worked at a very gloomy house on the outskirts of a village called East Horsley.
¹⁸³
[...] It was freezing but the people who worked there (it has been converted into a training college for engineers or something) didn't seem to be affected by the cold at all. Mind you, I think that deep down, atavistically, I loathe the English. They are an admirably lucky lot of clods, that's all. They
were
lucky, I should say. And they are immeasurably snob-ridden and conceited. All classes.

Today we work somewhere near Kensington Gardens in a moving bus. It should at least be warm as they will have to have lights inside the thing. [...]

The two boys arrived from School yesterday and since I wasn't here they went to [...] Norma Heyman's. I thought Mike looked very thin and pale and after about
¹
/
₄
hour he fell asleep on the sofa [...]. About an hour later perhaps I saw bubbles come out of his mouth and then, still asleep, he began to vomit. Everything he'd had for days seemed to come up but as Ron and I tried to wake him – it is possible after all to choke on your own puke – and clean him up at the same time we recognized the unmistakeable bouquet of red wine. He was stoned. I was so relieved that it was merely booze. I thought at one time he was having one of his father's epileptic fits which is something E and I have had a secret dread of for years. Finally I rubbed ice on his forehead and half carried him into the bathroom where he was sick again. He was terribly apologetic. I told him that everything was alright but that he should learn how to handle booze. [...]

Chris has a girl-friend! He took her to dinner last night. So that's another worry over, I hope. He's not going to be queer. He's still, despite his age, he is nearly fourteen, a little boy.

I am not very impressed with Millfield. Craig, Ron's son, was wearing pyjamas under his suit and had a big tear in the seat of his trousers, Michael had a big rip in the knee of his and all three boys were absolutely filthy.
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Their hair was dirty and they'd obviously not changed their underwear or shirts for weeks. I wish I could get them into Eton or Harrow where cleanliness is insisted on.
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And they would look splendid in Eton collars etc. instead of these bloody Edwardian clothes they wear now, which could of course look marvellous, but not when they're stinking dirty. [...] I wish all children
stopped at the age of ten and then vaulted to the age of 21. Puberty and adolescence, smelly sex, wet dreams, ambition and agony and calf-love, fear and examinations and not knowing what you're going to do. A loathsome time.

Saturday 14th, Paris
A most extraordinary thing happened yesterday. In the script it says that Charlie and Harry ride on their motor-scooter past Buck House ‘while a platoon of Horse Guards canters by’.
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And it happened. The Horse Guards actually appeared on the dot. How lucky can Donen get!

[...] After shooting which was over by 11.30 I sought sanctuary at the Dorchester where I was joined by Rex, Jim, Vicky, Elizabeth Harris, a girl-friend of hers, Tony Pellissier, Hugh French, Sheran, Norma, Bob Wilson, and the two boys.
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It turned into a party. We left for Gatwick Airport about 3 and got there about 5. The customs man was Welsh and spoke the language. So that was alright. The flight to Le Bourget was smooth and uneventful and took 32 minutes.
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[...]

E seems in great agony. Sara was here when I arrived with Graham and his wife Hilary. Graham and I took the dog Jacob for a walk and stopped in a bistro for
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/
₂
dozen oysters for me and
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/
₂
dozen snails for Graham. When we returned Ringo Starr and Maureen, his wife, were here.
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I was rightly stoned.

Elizabeth is in such pain that I fancy she's going to end up in a wheelchair. So I'll have my two favourite people in the world, E and Ivor, tottering around on crutches. Quelle Vie.

We dine tonight with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor at a bistro. I've just read an extraordinary and compelling story about me in the
Telegraph
’s Magazine. It's not me at all but I'd like to meet the man he writes about. I sound idiotically listenable. Which of course I am!

Friday 20th
Almost a week since I've written in this. Don't know why. Simply couldn't get round to it.

We did indeed get around to having dinner with the Duke and Duchess. At one point I felt so friendly that I found myself, to my horror, calling His Nibs ‘David,’ which wasn't well received. There I went again.

[...] For the last three days I've been ‘dubbing the film. It's my most unfavourite aspect of the job I think. Donen and the cutter who is patently a homosexual, had little giggles between the takes.
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Sick-making. [...] But somehow or other I kept my temper and got through all they asked of me [...].

Yesterday morning at 9.30 I saw
Where Eagles Dare
. It is in parts the most hair-raising film I've ever seen. Some of it made me shake even though I knew what was coming. The children adored it and went back to see it a second time. And that presumably will be our main audience. [...]

I am very worried about E. She is so totally undisciplined about her physical life. The MDs all say she should lie flat on her back for at least a month. The film people have very generously stopped shooting on the film for her to have a rest, and I've yet to see her rest on her back for more than an hour except when asleep. Also she says that the Docs say it's alright for her to drink, but it can't be alright for her to drink
and
take the doses of drugs that Caroline is forever pumping into her. As a result of the complete lack of auto-care I get impatient when she hobbles around in pain. At this rate her malady will never never get better. And talking to her about it is like talking to the wall. I don't care what the medics say. They've virtually killed her a couple of times, and actually did kill my mother out of sheer neglect. How many really good actors do you get out of a thousand? If you're lucky, about five. The rest are out of work. The same proportion applies to doctors but none of them are out of work – they're all busy somewhere prescribing the wrong drugs, misdiagnosing or butchering some poor unconscious etherized bastard. Oh I could tell you tales that would freeze and harrow.
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The children are all here now. Chris is still very handsome and Liza has slimmed down and looks adorable. Mike, as he has now for a couple of years, looks as if he's just crawled through several hedges and got mud in his hair. Maria had her hair cut by someone in Gstaad and looks demented. But they're all very engaging kids, though where it used to be Maria who would never stop talking, now the chatterbox is Liza. Blabbing all day long.

I am delighted the film is over. I was dissipating myself into an early death but when the work is over I don't need artificial stimulants. In fact I don't want them. I plan to get reasonably fit in the next few months, something I haven't been for a long time. I just lighted a cigarette and hastily and guiltily put it out. I'm longing to see and be in Gstaad. I might take up ice-skating again when we have a sufficiently long stay there. I think skiing especially with my recklessness, showing off and long neglect will break me a leg. Which is all I need.

We are worried about Maria. [...] Please don't let her be a simpleton. What does one do with her if she turns out so. I am not a very patient person with intelligent children let alone sub-normal ones. Almost all children, including my own, bore me after a time. Maybe I'm basically selfish.

Saturday 21st
We're off to Gstaad today until the 5th of January. We have chartered a large plane, I'm not quite sure what it is but it seats about 16 and is a
turbo-jet. The reason is that we have so many people coming with us: Sara, Michael, Chris, Liza, Maria, Caroline, John Something-or-other who is Simmy's boy-friend from Hawaii, and our two bad selves. Otherwise it's going to be one of those quiet, pipe-smoking, slippered, log-fired Xmasses with a well-loved and well-remembered volume of Dickens. It's going to be a screaming mad-house. I shall lock myself in the bedroom for three days and sneak out for walks in the woods when nobody's looking. Maybe I can read
A Christmas Carol
before the log fire in our bedroom.
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And do all the Xmas puzzles. I forgot to mention that we are also taking four dogs a cat and a canary. I think I'm going to suggest in future that the family en masse travel without me and I'll go it alone. How lovely it must be to take just the one passport, one bag, a briefcase and a typewriter. And ride in a slow train at night and wake up to cowbells and Swiss chalets. Instead of ‘Liza, get a move on for Christ's sake and stop patting that stray dog. Maria, sit down, SIT DOWN. Chris will you for God's sake stop lighting matches all over the bloody airport. Mike get your feet off the pilot's back. He's trying to drive the plane. Watch out for Fatso. Catch the cat. Clean up Jacob's shit somebody. Get that bloody cat's claws out of the canary's cage. Will somebody for the sake of sanity stop Oh Fie from cocking his leg against the navigator's ditto. Oh bugger it, where's the parachute? I'm getting out of here.’ I should have said five dogs, I'd forgotten Jacob.

Yesterday, after work, I came straight home and settled in the spare bedroom to read for the rest of the day. [...] I read three thrillers, one of which I'd read before but couldn't remember I had until the last few chapters. And then a chunk of a book called
The Bible as History
.
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Fascinating, the last.

There's a photo today in the
Express
of E kissing the Duke of Windsor, with Sara on the side and the Duke and myself in the background (hullo?) the caption saying. ‘The extraordinary breadth of the Windsors’ acquaintances.’

Sunday 22nd, Gstaad
We arrived yesterday in furious fettle. Dick Hanley had ordered a
35 seat
aeroplane to carry us to Geneva. I didn't really mind until I discovered from Pierre Alain, who was travelling with us, that there was no bed on the plane for Eliz. Why not? I asked. ‘Because nobody asked for one, they asked for a bigger plane for the extra luggage.’ Well now. It was a turbo-jet built for tourists so the seats would not even slide back. The result being that today E is a cripple again. The old adage applies: if you want something properly done, you have to do it yourself. A 35 seater plane for 9 people and 32 small bags. Hopeless. [...]

We helicoptered from Geneva to Gstaad and it was thrilling as ever. I was in one of my absolutely unstoppably filthy moods, insulting everybody right left and centre. Nobody except Caroline took any notice. Elizabeth screamed a
bit. I accused her of being a hypochondriac, and that she was ill only when she chose to be. How odd, I said, that when you were in Paris and had to work you were unable to move, but once here in Gstaad you're gambolling around like a spring lamb etc. etc. And I couldn't keep away from the subject. It's like a bloke who nearly kills a child in his car and smacks it for frightening him. I shout at E out of fear for her health. I rarely think of anything else. I miss the days when she was able to move around. Tonight for instance I'm going down to the village to take all the children to dinner without Elizabeth. Inconceivable a month or two ago.