The Richard Burton Diaries

by Richard Burton

  They didn't. Frank Robinson hit a home run against Drysdale and that was the only run of the match. 4 straight to Baltimore. It would appear to be a fix if it were not for the last two games. What price the demise of the Dodgers as a great baseball power now.204

  Monday 10th Woke and arose at 7.00. E works today so we shall go in together, which means I shall be late. [...] Wrote two letters, one Mike, one Chris, saw the rushes. Saw the first reel cut with some music. Impressed for the first time. [...]

  Aaron due for lunch today. Lots of business I suppose. I hope he's feeling better.

  Aaron very nervous when he arrived but he relaxed after a short while. He has stopped smoking after the warning heart attack in NY. Bobby came later and we lunched on hot dogs.205 She is a lovely woman. Shot the hell descent about 3.30. And hell it was. The fear of heights conturbat me.206

  Became thoroughly drunk afterwards and went home and to bed (around 9.30) in silent fury. I really loathe drinking but what's to do if everybody around is drinking. And I don't just mean E but practically everybody Bobby Frosch, John Lee, Bob Wilson, Ron B, The Flanagans.

  Tuesday 11th Woke at 6.45 feeling drugged. Splashed myself with cold water. Ran in place for a count of hundred, did 20 push-ups, 20 knees bends, twenty touch-toes, twenty arms fling, twenty sideways bends. And felt better.

  Brilliant sunshine to begin but has now clouded over. [...] The Churchill family according to D. Frost ask me to play Winston C on film.207 And De Laurentiis and J. Huston wish me to play Napoleon. I've already played Alexander the Great, Mark Antony and St. Thomas à Becket. I shall have delusions of reflected grandeur.

  Aaron arrived after lunch with E who had just officially become a non-American. She is now British.208 Hello there Ma'am welcome aboard.

  Had lunch with Dave Crowley, former boxing champion, and propr of ‘The Pub’ in Rome. What a lovely man with all his cockney winks and sly nods. He bewitched me for a couple of hours with stories from his life. [...]

  Wednesday 12th Shot gold-making scene with Andy Teuber yesterday.

  Today did some pick up shots on Shrew. [...] Then on to old age for three pick up shots as Faustus in the afternoon. Saw Richard Dynevor who talked about his castle and grounds and of his scheme to make it a cultural centre. Lovely man. Will try to help him.

  Aaron was here all day being very legal. We shot ‘till 7.30 and drank ‘till 9.00 and home and bed. Dog weary. Last day tomorrow I hope.

  Received letter from John Gielgud asking if I'd be interested in The Tempest as a film. Have written but not posted him a letter saying yes. He would be a splendid Prospero but persuade money men of that! I would again play Caliban. That would make 3 times. Old Vic and USA TV being the others.209

  Am thoroughly tired and need relaxation sorely. [...]

  Thursday 13th Last day at last. Shot the last 4 lines of Faustus and finished about 6.30. Tomorrow they will shoot the nudes without me while we're on our way to Positano.210

  Bobby Frosch saw the rough-cut of Shrew and enjoyed it immensely [...] if that's the general reaction we'll be very happy.

  After the shooting we had drinks with the crew. They have been very nice especially ‘Gianni Props.‘211 Everybody likes him.

  And so to bed.

  Friday 14th – Rome – Positano Woke early, had hot toddies, we both have colds, and slept again until 11.45 or so. [...] Stopped for lunch on the Autostrada. [...] Then off again to the hotel in Positano. [...] Read reminiscences of famous baseball players from the turn of the century. Rather touching and funny sometimes. Read until I couldn't keep my eyes open.

  Saturday 15th Positano. Hotel Sirenuse Glorious morning. [...] We had café complet for breakfast with bacon. Must go out and buy some dog leads and some books if findable. Couldn't find dog-leads though in frustration bought a pocket dictionary to make sure I hadn't made a mistake in my Italian. I hadn't. [...] A lady [...] greeted me [...] she said we'd met at Ardmore studios, Bray, Ireland with Marty Ritt.212 Another man, very distingué, asked me if I were R.B. I said yes. He said he was a great admirer etc.

  Had lunch down on the beach. [...] Walked up the hill home. It's a short walk but steep. We must drop two hundred feet in 400 yards. We went to bed for a time and then, I at least, sat in the sun and read. E. slept. I'm reading Cornelius Ryan's book The Last Battle.213 It is very readable but journalese. I'm afraid though I feel sorry for the Germans in Berlin in the last weeks of the war I am not overwhelmed with that passion.

  We sat in the bar downstairs and had a couple of negroni vodkas. It's like a goop except for soda instead of tonic water I think.214 The place gradually filled up with collared and tied gents with ladies in old fashioned dresses – not the remotest relation to a mini skirt. Almost everyone there was English speaking.

  We ate in the hotel restaurant. [...] I read ‘till 11.30 and slept.

  Sunday 16th [...] I'm sitting on our balcony, with a pair of underpants on only, writing this. [...] There's quite a fresh breeze today but it's confortable in the sun.215 Quite a lot of people on the beach below us. It's a noisy little town. Surf breaking, traffic and horns, church bells, lots of hammering going on, dogs, whistles, boys shouting on the beach playing football, babies, all softened of course by the sea's ‘harsh withdrawing roar.‘216 We shall go out for lunch in 1/2 hour or so. E deeply engrossed in Iris Murdoch's latest.217 I must say that she writes and (jacket photo) looks like a lesbian. I have the feeling she smokes cigars and wears disfiguring trousers and sweaters.

  Lunch today was splendid. Zuppa di Vongole (clam soup with the clams in their shells) and a delicious little pasta called Crepes al formaggio. Light pancakes stuffed with molten cheese and prosciutto. Cake to follow. All good. Rivera to drink. The whole thing was slightly marred by fans, a couple of parties of rowdy ones and a very persistent middle-aged whining female professional photographer. There were amateurs too of course and one frantic woman who ran along beside us screaming: ‘If she only takes off her glasses for me to see her beautiful eyes.’ [...] I loathe Latin fans (any fans for that matter); they make me intensely nervous and self conscious even after all these years.

  Later, without E, I took E'en So for a walk up the hill from the hotel but, since I literally stopped traffic, I went back after a couple of hundred yards. Let's hope it's just week-end crowds otherwise we'll have to move on or back. Why do they do it? I never gaped at anybody in my life and much as I admire certain famed people, Churchill, and various writers – R.S. Gwyn and Dylan Thomas, T.S. Eliot, Spender, Greene, MacNeice etc. etc. I have never asked them for an autograph.218 I actually feel as embarrassed seeing a public figure as being one.

  [...] Read late a very fat book called The Detective – a novel by a man called Thorp.219 Crashing bore and full of boring middle-brow sex talk but it had a plot which I was determined to unravel. I'm afraid, rare for me, I skipped pages here and there. [...]

  Monday 17th Got up about 9.0. Very cloudy and threatens rain. Walked down to the beach. [...] A car stopped and a professional Yankee photographer asked if he could buy E flowers or clothes or something and snap her while she did it [...] I was fairly polite as there were children and wife (I guess) in the car with him, but left him no hope except perhaps a short snap of us walking down the street. [...] Photographers are all the bloody same. ‘It won't take you more than 1/2 hour Dick!’) Ugh.

  Got back to the top sweating like a miner. Was hailed by a man with grey hair about my age who said ‘Hullo Richard, you won't remember me but we were at a party together at Stratford with Bob Shaw (1950!). I also know your wife through Peter Finch.’ I said ‘Ah yes old Boozy Finch.’ He told me his name was Tony Britton.220 I remembered the name. I wasn't very polite. I'm sorry now.

  [...] Slept and read all the afternoon. [...] Early to bed, a howling night, rain pelting, high winds. Ah pity all poor sailors. Had a hot toddy and read in bed. Nice and achy all over now – not as earlier.

  Tuesday 18th Woke at 9.00 feeling a lot better – lovely day and hot
in the sun. We shall go to Sorrento for lunch – in the car.221 Gaston suggested we go by boat but the sea is quite swelly and getting in and out of small boats is a bore. Especially with 30 people watching your every move. [...]

  We went by car and lunched in a dreadful little restaurant called Minervetta (?) I think.222 It was one of those vast featureless restaurants which – upstairs and downstairs – probably seats 500. It was glass enclosed on the edge of the cliffs. The food was indifferent. There were only two waiters. It is recommended in Michelin.223 So much for that lot. We drank Sambuca and said nasty things to each other. We drove back in silence to Positano. I slept most of the way. We had soup in the room and read and slept. Christ how I hate such days. Beware of Sambuca. It brings out evil things. It is a turner over of stones in damp caves. Mulieribity.224

  Wednesday 19th Woke early and made friends. Down to the beach by 8.30 to have breakfast. Orange juice, rolls, jam, caffé latte and on the way back home we shopped. That is, E did. It was very pleasant as nobody bothered us at all – Too early perhaps for the tourists or perhaps they're getting used to us. I sat on the balcony and did my Italian – it is coming more and more trippingly off the tongue [...] E paraded in her new clothes. [...] She adores new clothes. Very few women don't. [...] E on a stand-by for Monday. Brando, Huston etc. have all unfortunately arrived from USA therefore there's no delay. We lunched at Saraceni's on the beach.225 It's a splendid little restaurant. E had what she claims to be the best Cozze (Mussels) she's had outside France and England. I had a few too. They were delicious.

  [...] Downstairs at cocktails with Ron, Vicky, Gaston. Then, as we've discovered, the fatal error of trying to eat two full meals in one day. We had to abandon the evening meal, apart from soup and totter upstairs. We read in bed and slept. [...]

  Just before we put the lights out there a tremendous storm. [...]

  Thursday 20th Woke about 8.00 to a fine morning but threatens storm or rain later on. We walked down to the caffé-bar and had caffé-latte and cream-puffs for breakfast. Ron joined us for a while and showed us pieces of glass in various colours which Vicky Tiel had collected from the beach to make a coffee table. What a wee little thing to do for her wee little apartment in Paris. Wee. Wee. Wee. Ron falls for it.

  We were going to have the pork for lunch but changed our minds and dined in the restaurant of the hotel instead. After lunch at about 4.30 E was fitted for her costumes for Reflections. They are 1948 period and look odd and awful. 1948 does not seem like a period at all to me. Huston is a simpleton. But believes himself to be a genius. And a self aggrandizing liar. Cunning at it. Dorothy Jeakins is, now that we talk of precious people, the weest girl of them all. She is 80 years old or 50, is 6 feet tall and is wee from head to foot. She has the hallmark of the consummate bore – a sweet half-smile that plays across her self-conscious mouth. The kind of mouth you want to wipe with the back of your hand. Her eyes are dewy with youth and look at you with trusting confidence. She makes me want to fart in public or pee on the carpet. Dorothy Jeakins is the lady who has designed E's clothes for the film.226 There are worse people in the world I suppose. Like Jack the Ripper.227

  [...] We drank with the Reflections party in the bar. I was surprised how little, how really little, Jeakins and Tiziani knew about art.228 I have an idea that I know more and I know nothing. E put them on a bit.

  Later we went up to the room to eat the pork with boiled potatoes which I'd bought that day in the grocer's across the street. I put the stuff on to boil at 20 to 8. At ten to 8 all the lights went out. No potatoes. No dinner. Procured the smallest flashlight I've ever seen, from the concierge, and after some debate we walked in the darkness down to the beach.

  Gaston was there with Big Nino (our guard from Rome) and two fairly dubious looking ladies. Nino looked embarrassed. Ron and Vicky arrived later and Ron and E bet me I couldn't write a publishable book of not less than 100 pages by Xmas this year. $1000 is the bet. $900 E. $100 Ron. We'll see. I have so many books to write I'll probably end up not writing one.

  [...] It was very cosy down at the beach. Tony Britton came over and I salved my conscience by chatting a bit.

  Friday 21st Woke about 9ish and I had boiled potatoes for breakfast! Later we went to the coffee bar and had doughnuts and caffe latte about 11.00. Delicious. E did some shopping on the way down to the beach and bought some pretty handbags for Vicky – it's her birthday today.

  Later, around 1.00, we walked to the other beach [...] and two hundred yards from the Restaurant were caught in a downpour of rain. So, somewhat damply, we had a bottle of Ischian wine and soup with pasta in it.229 [...]

  Dopo la tempesta we walked back to the main beach.230 I sat and drank Sambucca and beer with Tony Britton while E went to do more shopping with Mrs (Eva) Britton. She is a Dane but speaks perfect accentless English. The Brittons have a fairly dreadful child called Jasper.231 Let's hope he grows up nice. His parents certainly are.

  Later we tottered up the hill with me complaining all the way that there was no point going all the way up in order to come all the way down again in an hour for Vicky's party. Ah well I lost, and we went down to the party and I spoke bad French and worse Italian to Big Nino and his wife and Gaston's girlfriend. I ate practically nothing, but drank a lot of wine. Quite a heavy drinking day for me today. [...]

  Saturday 22nd We read today in the Rome Daily American that there's been a terrible tragedy in Aberfan.232 200 small children 5–12 years old were feared buried under a moving slag-heap that torrential rains had turned into sludge. Christ how many blows have those thin valleys taken. Neither E nor I can get the thing out of our minds. The details are heart rending and I found them so pitiful that I had to stop reading about them. Elizabeth wept. Somebody is at fault. I hope he or they are suitably punished. If not by law then by themselves.

  We stayed in all day. I sat in the sun and read and did some Italian.

  We had thin, medium-rare, slices of roast beef for dinner with a bottle of Torre Quarto to wash it down. A gorgeous evening with just two tiny boats on the huge sea.

  Read in bed and slept. Elizabeth has been given an extra day so we don't go back until Monday. We are delighted.

  Sunday 23rd Rose, lazed about, read books. Made myself boiled eggs for breakfast. Gaston brought a leg of lamb from Naples which was cooked for us here at the Sirenuse and we ate it for lunch. It was very good.

  Later that day after reading more about the Welsh tragedy we went down the beach and had pizza with Ron and Vicky. Ron was pretty sloshed and repeated himself endlessly. There was an odious American woman who bothered us for a while. Ferdy Mayne and a Welsh actor called Something Griffiths were there when we arrived.233 They were just leaving. I drank quite a lot but couldn't seem to get drunk so turned to Sambuca. Still no joy of it. The pizza was very good. [...]

  Monday 24th Positano – Rome We woke about 9.30. I bathed and packed. [...] We were going to stop en route for lunch but finally since E, as usual, took an incredible time to bath and make-up we decided to lunch at the beach and leave after lunch. [...]

  The kids were waiting. E played with them until 10.30. [...] She's on stand by tomorrow. And is nervous. I must be nervous for her too. I dreamt the old dream of not knowing my lines on a first night.

  Saturday 29th, Rome We went to the Studio on Tuesday and E only rehearsed after all. She didn't film. Marlon B came in for a drink, as did Julie Harris at the end of the day.234 E suspects the other man Brian Keith has an alcohol problem as he always refuses drink.235 Met the other protaganist too who plays Williams. Think his name is Forster (Robert?)236 They all seem very nice and E, after some trepidation initially, now finds J. Huston very easy to work with. Chiefly he doesn't much care if you don't exactly know the lines which is always a great help. All that fuss about every ‘The’ ‘but’ and ‘And’ being correct is generally unimportant and can, to some people, be quite unnerving. I saw endless people in a seemingly continuous procession: Frosch, John Bryant re Barbouza, P. Gl
enville re Comedians F. Zeffirelli re Shrew Ray Stark re everything.237 Talked on phone to California to Frankenheimer re Fixer by Malamud. McWhorter talked to Wallis re Anne of the Thousand days for me.238 [...]

  We've seen a lot of Brando who is very nice – much nicer than he used to be – and very engaging and silly after a couple of small drinks. After 11/2 vodkas the other day he said that ‘unquestionably, the easliest anquage [sic] to learn was Spanish and not’ as I had asserted, ‘English.’

  E seems pretty happy in her work and everybody seems very impressed with her. I think she's probably better than all of ‘em.

  I saw Faustus and Shrew all the way through. The latter is very fine. I'm not sure about the former but there's a lot to be done with it and we may have a most interesting piece by the time we've chopped changed and diffused the weaker spots.

  The boys arrived from Gstaad today. [...] They seem in good form and Mike's standards seem to be improving.

  [...] Have been reading all kinds of books. Europe without Baedeker by that pompous bastard Edmund Wilson.239 He seems to be wrong about everything – his book deals a lot with immediate post-war Europe. His reflections on national character are puerile. He seems to have talked only to journalists and second rate artistic people (Santayana, an exception) and from them has received these earth shaking impressions.240 He talks about the overwhelming American influence on English writing for instance and writes more like an Englishman than almost anyone I know. He is also lacking in humour. He is a bore. See his book on Internal Revenue. Memoirs of Hecate County, is unreadable.241

  The above was written in something like impotent fury – he is much better than that – but his determination to prove that the Decline of the West stops its headlong flight just west of the British Isles and Ireland is startling to read. His misunderstanding of the British is colossal. And he doesn't have the courage to say ‘I hate the British’ but all his stories about them with about two or three exceptions among 100s show them as snob-ridden bores of the traditional, as he describes one Englishman himself, ‘Music Hall’ kind. He has a mindless short story in it about an English woman and an American woman both working for UNRRA in which the warm homespun democracy of the American and the cold dispassion and cynicism of the Englishwoman are juxtaposed.242 Need I say who the winner is. He is a sour man who seems to rely for ecstasy entirely on fugitive glimpses of slender women in caught attitudes. He is quite nice for once about an English girl called coyly ‘G’. He is, I think, like Hemingway, fascinated by the passionately dispassionate prep-school, finishing school, mater and pater sexiness of the middle and upper-class British woman.243