The Richard Burton Diaries

by Richard Burton

  E has become very slim and I can barely keep my hands off her. It turns out that she's not that less in weight but, as a result of massage and exercise the weight has been redistributed. She is at the moment among the most dishiest girls I've ever seen. The most. I mean dishiest.

  It is extraordinary how when the festival awards are over, the whole village [...] becomes quiet. Nobody in the bar, no paparazzi, and the sea, beneath us and the gardens, hot and misty like a promise of extreme heat. A dredger in the bay moving uneasily on the water as if floating on oil. And churchbells all the time. Millions of saints. Millions of Masses. It is a little hot province Sicily. Everything is a little burned. Even the bougainvillea as E mentioned is yellow and sere.

  There were many pictures in the papers, in two of which my child looked good enough to marry. [...]

  Monday 31st, Rome [...] We had not gone to bed until about 2.30 so we were pretty shaky on the road to Catania. Lovely the way the Sicilians decorate their horses – one horse, looked as if he was 17 or 18 hands, a giant, had a really splendid plume which he tossed and nodded with great pride. Many people sitting outside on ordinary kitchen chairs, the houses sun bleached and pinko grey and peeling. Catania is surprisingly large and it took us quite a time to get through it. Mini-skirts are still relatively rare in Sicily and at one moment when we were halted by traffic in a narrow street E's skirts had ridden up and half her (admittedly pretty) thighs were revealed and one young man was so obsessed by the eroticism of the scene that I thought he was going to have an orgasm on the spot. E was too shy to pull her skirt down until we had moved on so the pimply feller had a long long stare. He will dream tonight.

  Rome was hot. R. Wilson was there looking and behaving like a new man. Went to the Studio where we had a somewhat pathetic lunch at Dino de Laurentiis studio with Tiziani and J. Losey. He is going to be a bore I think.

  [...] Staying the night in the Grand Hotel – the most luxurious suite I've seen in Europe.103 It is the Royal Suite though the service is anything but Royal.

  AUGUST

  Tuesday 1st Have decided to stay until Friday. All our baggage except hand baggage had gone on to Geneva so I suggested that E raid Pucci's which she did to great effect. I planned to go out and replenish my wardrobe with shirts socks shorts etc. when Jane brought us the news that the bags had turned up.104 E was allowed to go on anyway.

  We stayed in all day. I felt rotten having drank too much the day before. I drank some Martinis which helped temporarily but I was still shaky in the evening. It is hot in Rome but the suite is air conditioned and therefore much more comfortable than outside. I shall go out tomorrow and buy some books.

  [...] J. Losey came to chat with E. It is so evident when she dislikes someone. There's a sullen look in the eyes and the face becomes distant and hard. And her language becomes a trifle 4 lettered.

  We are both on the ‘drinking man's diet’ and it seems to be working and unlike some high protein diets with counting of calories it is much more fun to count carbohydrates. Also it allows one to have a few drinks. We'll keep on with it for a few weeks anyway.

  Wednesday 2nd What a dreadful and terrible day and good too. All my pettiness and resentment and idiocy all rolled up into one day. I'll blame it on Rome. All the bad things that have happened to me have almost always happened in Rome. Something to do with its elevation perhaps. It is too near sea-level. [...]

  Nothing worked except for a couple of hours of recording of La Traviata with Mckenna and Merrill.105 I didn't move a muscle though I sweated like a worker. When I returned to the hotel with the two M's and their wives we had some drinks and Merrill and his wife took us out to dinner. Elizabeth was at the bar like a real broad and a two-fisted one.

  In the middle of the early night Elizabeth and I exchanged insults in which I said that she was not ‘a woman but a man’ and in which she called me ‘little girl’. A lovely charming decadent hopeless couple.

  I am stupendously disappointed in myself. Something went wrong in my head at the wrong time. Anyway ... something went wrong. And will never be put right. I am, I think, sublimely selfish.

  Thursday 3rd Make-up day when we both kissed and apologies were flying in all directions. We lunched alone together at Capriccio's off the Via Veneto, slept a little in the afternoon and dined around the corner at Taverna Flavia.106 [...]

  Tomorrow we leave for Switzerland. It was very hot all day.

  Friday 4th, Geneva We flew uneventfully to Geneva arriving about 1.45 leaving Rome at 1.30 (There's an hour's difference in time at this season.) We waited about 1/2 hour in the Swiss Air Caravelle on the airstrip and it was very hot and sticky until we were airborne. First class on Caravelles is not very comfortable unless you have the VIP seats, which we had booked too late to get. One's knees are around the ears and getting the small tables into position for the lunch is a conjuring feat. However nobody gives a bugger as long as the plane doesn't crash.

  We stayed at the Président Hotel which though spacious downstairs is disappointingly box-like – à la Hilton hotels – upstairs.107 [...]

  We dined on ham and au gratin potatoes at Cambesy.108 A charming little restaurant that seems to have burgeoned enormously since I was last there. The food was delicious. Both very excited at the expectation of Howard Mara and the children arriving tomorrow. They are expected at 9.05 from the States.

  Thursday 10th, Gstaad The multitude arrived safely after their enormous trip. Leighton immediately fell down the steps of the airport bus and then fell out of the car when we stopped at Rolle for a drink.109 Later on he was shot by one of the air-rifles. Staying just that one night in Hotel President cost me $3000. E bought me a money-clip watch for $600 and one for herself for $2500. Hers is very very beautiful – a Piaget as thin as a few sheets of paper and jade green face. Hers is a wrist watch of course.

  We have all been drinking fairly steadily and not sleeping much the result being that last night we both had a frightful time trying to sleep. [...]

  Lord Harlech (formerly David Ormsby-Gore) came from Lake Maggiore to have lunch.110 He and his three children, a boy (12) Francis a girl (13) Alice and a girl (20) Victoria.111 They were all charming and Alice who is wildly beautiful was extremely sad and inward. She is obviously still affected by her mother's death.112 She was killed in a car crash about a month ago. She had gone out, Harlech says, to post a letter after a wonderful weekend they'd had at Harlech. [...]

  We are leaving tomorrow in a chartered plane for Sardinia with all the children and us on board. God help us all. I dread the start of this film as I do all films until we find out how the director works etc. I've only read the script twice and learned not a word. I must learn a few pages today. [...]

  Lord Derby is still fighting our consortium for the TV Franchise for Wales and the West.113 We've won I think. In any case I don't think I'm much interested. My bit was to use our names to get it. I don't want to do much more.

  Friday 11th, Gstaad – Sardinia A terrible day, frantically disorganized, thousands of bags all over the place, nine children, six adults all on one plane, Howard and Mara's incessant screaming, my and E's pre-film nerves, nine children, plane-fear, Gaston [...] has fallen in love again, dwarfly serious, with Patricia's mother (Patricia is Christopher's girl friend) nine children, the Kalizma hasn't arrived, nobody at the airport to meet us, nine children, (Dick Hanley, Bob Wilson, John Lee cost us and Mike Todd roughly $1000 a week) and hot and a small room and a multi zillion dollar picture and I screamed ‘fuck’ out of drunkenness in the hotel lobby, and pasta (not very good) and screaming and heavy stoned sarcasm, and a sloshed memory of fields and farms and towns of France and Italy, and the purple sea, and shame and booze and fear and nine children, and I want to be left alone, and Gaston saying that he has explained to Cecile that he can't marry her because she can't have children, August is the cruellest month, and E making any excuse – not difficult to do since they (the excuses) were handed to her on a platter – not to start the film on Monday
, and J. Losey is an arrogant ignorant fool so far and thinks he's a genius and you can't be at his pock-marked age without showing it before, and a frightful day and I hope never to live through another which I will tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.114

  To scream ‘fuck’ in the lobby was the only possible way to meet the justice of the day.

  Wednesday 16th, Hotel Capo Caccia, Alghero, Sardinia115 The boat has still not arrived and everybody, high and low has his neck permanently cricked towards the horizon. [...]

  Losey so far is a bit of a crasher and a fusspot interfering with every dept. He keeps on thinking that I must be kept busy. Leave me alone!

  On the first night here we frightened him so much that he later, so we're told by the Heymans, cried. Whether it was fright, nerves or disappointment we shall never know.

  [...] How and Mara are in three rooms with all the children, because our bloody boat is not here. They seem, with the assistance of two guards and a nanny to be coping alright. [...]

  The boat arrived late this evening. Went on board and found a drunken man in Liza's room unconscious on the bed. Don't trust Barbosa and think the cook is a stirrer. Boat looks pretty though.

  Thursday 17th, Sardinia [...] Went downstairs this morning and saw Dick Hanley. I wish he would retire to California. He is a semi-invalid and I'm afraid to say anything authoritative to him in case he has a heart attack. We now have John Lee working with Dick, Jane Swanson working for them, and now if you please they have employed a man to look after them. We don't even have a nanny.

  Gaston has brought his latest (41 year old) girl friend with him here and her daughter. Was about to order him to send her back to her job in Suisse when it turned out that his brother had died. The telegram arrived 4 days late so the funeral is over. So the lecture will have to wait.

  I took Howard to see the locations. By Boat. Speedboat. He is odd when something excites him – he screams, almost like a girl. [...] Where E is passively passionate, he is frenetic. [...]

  [There are no further entries in the diary until early September. It seems probable that at least some of the entries made during this period have been lost. During this period filming began on Boom!]

  SEPTEMBER

  Thursday 7th

  [There as appear to be some pages missing here. The diary was being written in Venice, where the party had gone in part to attend a ball, having obtained the agreement of John Heyman and Joseph Losey].

  [...] All hell broke loose after permission was given – E's Kabuki dress had to be brought from Rome by Evan Roberts Tiziani, her Kabuki headdress was flown from Sardinia by ‘Lear’ Jet with Jeanette in charge.116 Alexandre Mara and How went out shopping to buy polo necked sweaters for Howard and myself. We wore them with our dinner jackets with necklaces! The press were all over the place [...] But it was all worth it for Mara made the success of her life. And lo and behold the most publicized snap of the evening in the papers next day was one of E, Mara and Princess Grace all sitting side by side and all looking ravishing – especially, of course, E.

  Before going to bed tonight a note was handed to me by Pedro.117 It had been sent from shore by Claudye. It said that Robin Marlowe had approached Gianni (Claudye's boyfriend) and asked him for a contraceptive, as she and Michael intended to make love! Gianni said she was a bit young (she is 13!) and asked if he could see Michael (he is 14!) but Michael refused. I sat up and waited for them and told them to go to bed warning Nella beforehand that they were to be kept apart but the fact is that if they're going to do it, they're going to do it and nothing will stop them. I told Michael a few days ago to be careful. I hope he will be.

  Monday 18th, Kalizma, Capo Caccia A fairly hardworking day. I think, despite weather, we did about 31/2 minutes. [...]

  E talked with Michael about Robin and M was apparently furious with Robin, saying: ‘I told her she shouldn't have done it.’ He spent the afternoon on the set alone for a time as she Robin presumably had gone back to the hotel in a huff. She came back later and M was terribly sweet with his mother for the rest of the day.

  Mary Morgan – W. John Morgan's wife – arrived from the other side of the island where she is staying with an English group of Oxbridge intellectuals – one called Love and somebody who wrote for the N. Statesman.118 Boring, envious, clever and very impressed and, I suspect, just above mediocre and absolutely predictable. I could have written their dialogue for the rest of the hour I was with them after the first 3 minutes.

  [...] Hell of a job deciding what to do for Liza and Maria regarding school. Liza is 10 and bright. Maria is 61/2 and slow. One, the latter, to London? Maria to Ive and Gwen in London where I read they have a very successful machine for teaching slow children? E very depressed. Me too.

  Tuesday 19th Worked like dogs and did 71/2 minutes – we are nearly 2/3 of the way through the script after only 31/2 weeks or 4.

  Nasty incident that everyone laughed at when Michael Dunn the dwarf was pulled off his feet by Robbie the Giant Schnauzer dog.119 He carried it off very well calling the dog a dumb head.

  E did a remarkable scene in which she nearly coughed her lungs up. Everybody was impressed.

  Noël Coward arrived looking very old and slightly sloshed and proceeded to get more sloshed. He embarrassed us both (separately) and lavished compliments on E about her beauty and her brilliance as an actress. Occasionally he threw a bone to me. He is a most generous man but sadly he is beginning to lose the fine edge of his wit or perhaps like me he repeats himself when tipsy. He moves like an old man but I suddenly remembered that he's always moved like an old man. Stoop-shouldered non-necked he has the curved body of a very tall man but in actual fact he is no taller than I. He is now almost completely bald and the bags under his eyes have made his eyes even more asiatic than hitherto. He calls himself ‘the oldest chinese character actress in the world.’ Coming off the plane he was asked how his journey was [...] and he said peering his way towards customs ‘My whole life has been an extravaganza.’ He is a delightful man. ‘I am completely muddled,’ he said, ‘by J. Heyman. I have talked to him on the phone and communicated with him by letter and I had firmly made up my mind that J. Heyman was a short hairy greasy Jewish gentleman running rapidly to fat. Instead of which I find a golden boy. It is most off-putting.’

  We drank with Noël, his friend Graham Payn, and his secretary Coley until about 9.15 then left for the boat to dine with the children.120 The boys leave tomorrow for Millfield and everybody is very down in the mouth.

  Wednesday 20th, Capo Caccia [...] The boys left early in the morning both coming into the stateroom and kissing us in the dark. Very depressing. [...] E and N. Coward are madly in love with each other, particularly he with her. He thinks her most beautiful which she is, and a magnificent actress which she also is. We all saw rushes and some assemblage last night. It looks perverse and interesting. I think we are due for another success particularly E. I was worried about her being too young but it doesn't seem to matter at all. Wrote a long letter to Phil which I still haven't finished. [...]

  Thursday 21st Was first called, though the night before they had said I was on a stand-by. Did two shots talking on the telephone and was finished for the day by lunchtime. Showered and shampooed and then lunched with E and Noël, Coley and G. Payn. Many stories were told. We talked about D. Niven and how, though they had been fast friends, he cut E dead for seven months when she was involved in the ‘scandal’ with E. Fisher and how though we were still friendly it could never be the same again.121 [...]

  E did a retake in the afternoon but it was one of the ‘jinxed’ shots – there is one in every film – which for various technical reasons (in one take they ran out of film!) took over three hours to do. She was heavy eyed and exhausted when they finally got it at 7.00. She then fitted for clothes with Evan Tiziani for the Paris and Oxford premieres of Shrew and Faustus respectively while I finished my marathon letter to Phil. We had a few drinks with Noel and Co and repaired to the Kalizma and supper about 10
.30.

  Noel told E after having seen the rushes and assemblage ‘My God you have such fantastic authority. I didn't have such authority at your age.’ He told me, holding my wrist firmly in his beautiful brown hands which at 67 have a couple of faint liver marks, that E and I were so packed with dynamic personality that he expected us any minute to burst at the seams and flow like volcanic lava. He is a great flatterer if he genuinely likes you.

  [...] I have decided it's going to cost me more than £50,000 a year to run this ship – more like $100,000. But, if, as we plan to live on it while making films for most of the year, it could be very practical. Anyway it's a splendid toy and a lovely luxurious home.

  Friday 22nd [...] Norma Heyman was with us all day and stayed to chat with me when E left. We comforted her as best we could re her marriage. It appears that her husband J. Heyman has fallen in love or is infatuated with Joanna Shimkus who plays – very badly – E's secretary in the film.122 She is a nice enough little girl (of 23 she says) but certainly not the femme fatale and breaker-up-of-homes type. She is tall, auburn haired, pleasant faced, aquiline nosed, nice-eyed, pleasant smiled and breastless. She is also hard work to talk to. From things I hear from Norma she is most definitely on the make for John. She probably thinks he will help in her career. I can't think that she will last very long even if John does marry her.

  I became quite tipsy with Norma and went to bed after she'd left – about 11pm I think – and slept until 5.00. Went ashore and found no car to take me to the set but eventually as I was walking to the set, it's about 21/2 miles perhaps Valerio the Unit Manager picked me up in his car.123 He was with Francesca Roberti who is the step-daughter of Peter Thorneycroft, the MP.124 E looked dead beat and was. She said that she'd had a terrible time with Noel who was so nervous that he'd dry up again and again. It must have been horrible. Perhaps it was first shot nerves. It would be bad luck if his performance was destroyed by lack of memory.