The Richard Burton Diaries

by Richard Burton

  He is, as I have already stated, a bad writer but his single-minded determination to destroy all who are not American is compulsive. Though I fling the book across the room a dozen times (metaphorically) I have to retrieve it and go on reading.

  NOVEMBER

  Wednesday 2nd I have been more or less drunk for two days. I don't know why but I enjoyed it thoroughly. I didn't do too much harm except that I was rude to Bob Wilson on Monday and he sulked all day yesterday (Tuesday). I also made a feeble pass at Karen, our Maria's nurse, and apologized immediately and straightaway told E who thought it funny but probably harmful to K. I apologized again the next morning in front of E. Now what on earth possessed me to do that? It must be my impending 41st birthday. I think no permanent damage has been done to Karen I hope to God; she's such a very good person.

  I also attacked Marlon B for embarrassing R. Stark by taking off his boot to demonstrate that poor Stark wears lifts. I accused Marlon of wearing them too. I think he does though what the devil harm there is in it I don't know. Women wear lifts all the time and I wore them throughout Shrew to make myself look bigger. Also I don't much like looking up at people especially those who were born to be looked down on.

  It's a glorious Wednesday morn which makes a change – we have had a thunderstorm which seems to have lasted a week. Long low rumbling and sheet lightning. The lights go out all the time of course but we are well prepared with candles. The children love it when the lights go out and prefer flashlights to candles. What a lovely light a candle makes. They take me back at once and unbearably to my bed in the box-room in 73, Caradoc Street.244 All the books I read, all the things I learned, all my early furtive shame in one little room by candlelight. I was showing Shrew yesterday to a group of people including the children when the power failed and stayed failed for about 45 minutes or an hour. Here we are about to land on the moon while it sometimes takes a fortnight, via Airmail, to get a letter from England – One script from Emlyn Williams took over a month – it is virtually impossible nine times out of ten to understand what anyone says on the phone without fantastic concentration, and a lot of rain will put the lights out three times a night. [...]

  Thursday 3rd [...] For some reason I worried a lot about E this morning, whether she loved me or not and how awful it would be to lose her etc. I worked myself up to a rare state of misery and was absurdly relieved when she telephoned from the Studio. What's the matter with me?

  Left for the studio at 12.30 and had lunch with E, the 3 boys and Brando [...] Managed to obtain skulls left from Faustus for the boys to take back to school. They left the house at 7.40pm to catch their plane. Before going E made hot-dogs on the barbecue. There was a howling wind and the portable barbecue which is on the balcony outside the bedroom flamed and roared like a mad thing. The kids loved it.

  I had a couple of drinks and played sad songs on the Joanna.245 I always worry when somebody close to me goes somewhere in an aeroplane.

  I've decided after many years of tolerance that I really don't much care for Ray Stark. He's a very little person I think and is wind blown and windy and, though meaning well, is not to be entirely trusted. He is blindingly transparent and his particular immorality offends me. He is greasy handed. His mind is dirty. I shall probably not work with him again. Short sandy and seventh-rate.

  Marlon's immorality, his attitude to it is honest and clean. He is a genuinely good man I suspect and he is intelligent. He has depth. It's no accident that he is such a compelling actor. He puts on acts of course and pretends to be vaguer than he is. Very little misses him as I've noticed.

  Monday 7th Tremendous storms hit N. Italy, Switz and Austria last Friday. Over a hundred people have been killed and both Florence and Venice have been severely flooded.246 There is great fear for the safety, not only of the people but for great works of art. In Florence 6 million precious books are under the deluge. We received only the tail end of the storm here and it was enjoyably wild, not tragic. Two or three trees in the garden were torn out by the roots but Rome is untouched. They are the worst floods in the history of Italy. And that's quite a time.

  E finished a little early on Friday and we had planned to go to Venice on the overnight train! But the Gritti Palace was closed for the season so we decided to stay.247 Just as well. We haven't left the house since, except on Saturday we took the children to lunch at the Flavia and from there to the Zoo.248 We were soon followed by a small crowd but I was amiable for once.

  [...] Stanley Baker very insistent that we do a TV spectacular for the Aberfan disaster.249 I think it's a mistake. They have, according to the press, already received £420,000, and don't know what to do with it. It would be silly to add to their embarrassment. E suggests we should turn it over to the Italian disaster fund. Good idea.250

  Tuesday 8th [...] A glorious day – as yesterday, blue skies and sun. I sat outside and got some sun on my face but I became too hot and had to change my sweater for a cooler shirt. [...] I cut down smoking cigarettes yesterday from my normal 50 or 60 to 17! It wasn't any great hardship but I wonder if 17 isn't as bad as 50 because I smoked each cigarette thoroughly whereas when I smoke thoughtlessly I probably take no more than two or three real ‘drags,’ the rest simply vaporizing away. My appetite increased too though this may be the effect of not drinking which I haven't for 3 days.

  Zeffirelli [...] arrived about 3.30. He told us all about going to Florence to get his Auntie and her dog and the impact of the terrible floods on that lovely city. Cows, cats, cars, trees, tapestries, clothes, furniture etc. etc. all piled up in distorted corners of the city. A cow and a calf who had somehow fled before the flood or had been carried along by it finding refuge in the cemetery of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning which is apparently on highish ground.251 Whole family businesses wiped out and ironically a great shortage of drinking water. [...] I am to run Shrew again tomorrow at 3.00. I don't like making films. I don't like acting in them and I don't like cutting them – especially the latter.

  We dined with the children and Karen on lamb and artichokes and potatoes and salad followed by an apple tart. I made myself a martini before dinner just like a little old American. It tasted awful and put me in slightly bad temper. I read the whole of Anita Loos, A Girl like I in one sitting not because it was compulsive reading but feeling that if I stopped at any one place I wouldn't start up again.252 She tells stories well but they're a little too polished to be true – some of them. She is of course a determined feminist and is kind to her own kind, even going so far as to describe Margalo Gillmore as being one of the great ladies of the American theatre.253 Poor old talentless intoxicated Margalo. Anyway the book kept me awake until 2.00 in the morn. She is so determined to be witty and different that she succeeds only in becoming anticipated. My sighs punctuated the whole reading. And what a dreadful story she tells about dead defenceless Alex Woollcott even if it is true.254 It sounds terribly like what she would like to have happened. It was unforgivable to print it. [...]

  Wednesday 9th [...] E went reluctantly to work an hour ago. I am to join her for lunch.

  Tuesday 16th255 Haven't written for 5–6 days. Since that time I have become 41 years old. I don't seem to feel physically any older and tend to think Well thank God that's another year gone. I'll change my refrain later when I'm 60. If I reach that age.

  I received lots of presents, pullovers and shirts and books (one immensely valuable one from E.) a brief case, which I shall now use in preference to the other, a huge writing pad to encourage me to be an author etc. And a splendid movie camera from E.

  Sheran Cazalet who has been here since Friday left this morning for England.256 I wonder if she'll ever get married. It seems unlikely now. She is 33, I think, and is virtually a virgin (one to bed according to her) and probably does not like it much. Perhaps someone could teach her. She seems too not to have any ability in any other direction that could lead her to a career of any outstanding kind. She should be married and lead a life of social ease with a nic
e husband and a couple of children, a place in the country and a pied-à-terre in Town.

  Marlon B and Christian Marquand came to dinner on Saturday night.257 Everybody became sloshed to the gills and a thoroughly forgettable time (literally ‘forgettable’ as no two people remember what happened at the same time) was had by all.

  Meade Roberts, a writer that I've tried to help, is in an hysteria about something.258 Money and injured pride. I had asked him to do the screenplay on Falesa – Dylan Thomas – but had decided to abandon the project.259 Therefore he has threatened to kill himself etc. What can I do? [...]

  We've just heard from the Press that E. Fisher is suing E for divorce, for a property settlement and for custody of Liza.260 Over my dead body – the latter.

  I taught Liza to play Gin-Rummy the night before last and she immediately became very good. She is a very clever girl.

  I wrote the above [...] because she Liza was standing over my shoulder while I wrote. But she is very good at card games and it's all quite true.

  [...] I tried to comfort E re Eddie – She is so ashamed of herself for having married such an obvious fool. He really is beneath contempt – a gruesome little man and smug as a boot.

  Wednesday 17th Woke with Eliz this morning at 7.15. We both took baths in our separate bathrooms – she a short one and a long one for me. And off she went to work. I shaved, and dressed in my new sweater and cardigan (birthday present from E) fawn trousers and fawn desert boots with thick crepe soles [...]. I looked rather, I thought like a chocolate mousse. I ran back and asked [...] if we had any English kippers left. We did and I had one with salt, pepper and vinegar, toast and butter, and two cups of sweet tea. Delicious and followed by the first cigarette of the day. Equally delicious. I then sat in the sun and read an article in an American magazine by a man who, with a friend, rowed across the Atlantic.261 Their attitude is one that I think I understand but have no desire to try [...] to beat the physical body beyond human reason and still make it go on. But they say what they talked and dreamed of all the time was food and walks in country lanes and magnificent dinners in London etc. In short it must surely be masochistic, like the lunatic who when asked why he knocked his head so much against the wall said that it was so nice when he stopped. Now that they're safely on land and in warmth and comfort they probably think a great deal about the sea and its fascination. They'll try something hazardous again and doubtless one of these days kill themselves in the attempt. Good luck feller-me-lads – I'll content myself with reading about it.

  I have just read Tread Softly for You Tread on my Jokes – ghastly title by Malcolm Muggeridge.262 It's a series of articles collected over the years from newspapers and magazines and shows it. He repeats himself quite a bit and is peculiarly engrossed by pornography and sex. I have the feeling that he is not being honest in his reactions. Why does he not like pornography? because, according to the Oxford Dictionary it gives rise to lewd thoughts? So what? We'd have lewd thoughts anyway pornography or no pornography. If you're lonely and unwanted it can solace you, and with a companion to share it it can become unimaginably delightful. The unctuous rubbishy shit written about pornography is nonsense. Practically all good pornography is best selling so I understand, and yet I have never found anyone who when asked if they enjoyed it will ever admit so. They will say they've read it – Fanny Hill, Chatterley's Lover, Tropics of Capricorn, Cancer, Candy etc.263 But they're still too inhibited to say it gave them pleasure of a sexual kind. Blah. I know bloody well it did. I've heard too many men talk in too many barracks and Nissen huts and clubs not to know what they think, and too many honest women have confessed to me things they've thought and heard from other women not to know what they think either.264 There are, doubtless, pure souls who through some act of God are physically neuter, or who have had sexual normality scourged out of them in youth, or are too old to care, who may genuinely be horrified by pornography. I'm sorry for them. Journalists of course are pornography's greatest scourge, working for newspapers who wouldn't dream of having one issue without at least one scantily clad model or actress in the middle pages. Oh how they love to be superior. How they love to pontificate. How they play in the dark we'll never know. They are the real dirt.

  There is the argument that pornography can make a man a sex maniac or something perverted. Well now I am I understand a potently sexy man but it hasn't turned me into a sex fiend, a sex killer a sex sadist or a sex masochist and I've been reading the stuff for years – at least twenty. I knew a girl once married to an older man with whom she'd fallen out of physical love but still loved otherwise who relied upon reading pornography urgently and quickly in the bathroom before going in to his bed to satisfy his desires and to inflame her own. The moralists would flay her alive if she had left him for another man to marry. They would excoriate her if she had extra-marital affairs. So? And what's the difference between reading it and thinking it. I myself have had in my time to make love in the dark to women by whom I was bored, desperately trying to imagine they were somebody else. And doubtless some women have had to do the same with me. Muggeridge quotes Kingsmill as saying that the act of love is ludicrous and disgusting. Speak for yourself Kingsmill.265 I love its disgustingness and comicality. Put some jaundice in your eye and the act of walking is ludicrous and obscene, and swimming and, above all, eating. All those muscles, in most people, 50% atrophied, sluggishly propelling people over land or through water or gulping oysters. Come off it.

  I've written the above carelessly but will elaborate on it one day. It is an important thing to kill cant and humbug even if one is a humbug oneself.

  I went to the studio for lunch. [...] At 2.30 I met Sheila Pickles and the Italian TV man re the documentary on Florence.266 I have agreed to do it on Friday here in Rome. I will try to do the narration in Italian for the Italians and in English for the UK and USA I fear I'll have to write it too – not in Italian of course, they'll translate that. I looked up Florence and flood in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations – there is practically nothing that is apt except from Inge.267 I read some more of the Disraeli biography by Robert Blake.268 I'd no idea he was quite so vain and quite so devious in petty things. So far I'm about up to his 35th year so there's a lot to go. [...]

  Thursday 18th Rose early bathed and breakfasted at 8.30. [...] Finished the diary entry for yesterday had a cup of tea and toast and jelly and took E'en So for a walk. A beautiful warm Autumn day. A horseman on, what looked to my untrained eye, a thoroughbred posted past on the outside hedge. I ran or rather jogged about 1/2 mile having already done my PT in a fury when I got up.269 Will my arms ever come back to what they were. I don't so much mean their looks but their strength. Four years of atrophy from pinched nerves? bursitis? arthritis is a long time to make up at 41. Well, keep on trying anyway. Perhaps I should pick up weights. [...]

  Went to the studio by 1.00 and waited until 2.45 before E came back from location for lunch. I ate like a fiend – roast turkey, beans-and-bacon-and-onions, mashed potatoes and gravy. Still felt bloated at midnight. We went into Rome after work to see the documentary on the disaster in Florence that I am to narrate tomorrow and next week. The force of water is unbelievable – cars bowled along like match boxes, the shops and houses on the Ponte Vecchio smashed to bits though the bridge held, a corpse floating down the street a dead drowned horse with his head over the stall door.270 Another horse upside down, manuscripts and pages from drowned books in the Uffici plastered to the ceilings.271 Awful. I drank a little today. One vodka and some Lafitte Roth 1962. Didn't taste like anything. [...]

  Friday 19th Went into the TV Studios in Rome and worked until 7.15 at night starting at mid-day. All day long – apart from lunch – I read Italian off a teleprompter. It was torture but I was very patient and so were they. Tomorrow to London.

  We lunched in a restaurant which was very Roman and cold of course, flagged floors and damp. It was pouring outside and the traffic was choked. Nauseous fumes from buses. We were stuck for minutes on end b
etween two diesel-waste-vomiting species of them. The smell of petrol cities is becoming intolerable to me – and especially the diesel smell which is particularly foul. [...]

  I don't know quite what I shall do on the Sunday Show – it all seems so band waggoning – the poor people have already had £800,000 and are embarrassed. We can only add to it. The Mayor seems to be the only one who enjoys it.

  Went home with Ron Berkeley and B. Wilson, had some drinks and ate some food sole with croquettes and Fontana Candida. Became furious, nerves nerves nerves, because of what I considered to be over packing. For two nights in London we have two large suitcases. But that wasn't the reason really. It was nerves from a hard day and nerves about flying and nerves about the Aberfan show.

  Smoked myself furiously to sleep and before doing told E She was not to come with me to London. Leave me alone I screamed as I slammed doors. Give me some peace! What nerves and booze will do. I couldn't go without her.

  1967

  Richard stopped making entries in his 1966 diary in mid-November. Between then and the start of his 1967 diary he gave an interview to Kenneth Tynan, part of which was broadcast in April 1967, and a transcript of which appeared in print in Acting in the Sixties (ed. Hal Burton, London: BBC, 1970). Christmas and New Year were spent in Paris, and early in January Richard and Elizabeth travelled to Dahomey (now known as Benin) in West Africa, to prepare for the filming of The Comedians.