The Richard Burton Diaries

by Richard Burton

  Saturday 23rd, Capa Caccia – Bonifacio, Corsica Sailed this morning from Sardinia about 9.30 arriving at Bonifacio (It was our second visit we having gone there before a month ago) about 3.30.125 [...] We all napped. I got up about 12.30 and sat and sunbathed with Norma and had a cheese and tomato sandwich. Delicious. Bonifacio was lovely – we tied up exactly where we had last time when the kids had that gorgeous mad hour doing cannon balls etc. from the top deck – and walked to dinner at La Pergola, I think it's called, which is right on the harbour about 200 yards from the mooring. We giggled a lot and drank endless bottles of wine. And so to bed.

  Sunday 24th, Bonifacio, Corsica A glorious day with a light breeze ruffling the harbour waters. I got up reasonably early and found that Norma was up before me. It was about 9am I suppose. We sunbathed and read on the upper deck when we heard a lot of shouting as of at a football match so we slipped on some clothes and walked ashore to see it. It was a soccer match played between two teams of foreign legionnaires. After about 1/2 hour somebody thought he recognized me and went excitedly to his friends. ‘Ca c'est Richard Burton c'est vrai, c'est vrai.’ Fortunately nobody believed him and we were left undisturbed. There were many snarky remarks to the enthusiast on the general level of ‘What would Burton be doing in a shit-house like this?’

  Norma and I went for a walk afterwards along the quayside. It is almost entirely cafes, cafe restaurants, restaurants, little general stores, a couple of antique shops, ‘live lobsters sold here’ etc. The town is a mysterious looking place. The houses are pale grey, or orange, or that peculiarly french blue, and from towering serrated docks the houses go sheer up from the edge. I wouldn't love to live in one. But the harbour is lovely. I bought a bellows for the barbecue, which we've just had sent from Rome, and a wooden pair of tongs to pick up and turn over bangers, hot dogs, hamburgers, steaks and so on.

  The harbour master told us of a superb fish restaurant about 9 miles away and offered to drive us there. It appeared though that one could go by speedboat so off we set. It took us 31/2 hours approx to find it. What the harbour master had not told us was that it was 9 miles by road which is tortuous, but only 2 miles by sea. Eventually however, soaked with spray as there was quite a choppy sea, we found it. It was called ‘Le Gaby’ and was hidden in a tiny inlet so shallow that the speedboat, having a two foot draft at most, had to be manoeuvred very carefully. But it was worth it. They were expecting us and I had the best Bouillabaisse I've ever had and E and Norma had lobster which they thought the best they'd ever had. And its situation is like a dream. The restaurant is open to the sea which is a gesture away, one could almost spit in it from our table, and gives the impression, perhaps true, of having been built exclusively from flotsam and jetsam thrown up by the sea. In the middle of the room was a hollowed-out log set at about table height which, filled with sea water, had 1/2 dozen live lobsters in it. One of them was a giant. Elizabeth was looking infinitely sexy. She wore mesh white net leotards and the shortest mini-skirt I've ever seen. It barely, and when she moved didn't, cover her crotch. The beach boys around, who all appeared to be stoned, were beside themselves. And as we left they shouted various invitations to her and offered to kiss her in various parts of her anatomy – the mini-dress was also very low cut – including sundry offers of fornication. They were careful that I was on the boat and moving rapidly away before these generous offers were made. They weren't averse to Norma either, who is also a beautiful girl but built on less generous lines than E.

  Later on the ship E barbecued steaks and with her own special sauce it was delicious. Michael Dunn, who is a dwarf – he is 3ft 10ins high, ate a steak almost as big as himself. In the meantime a French deep sea diving ship pulled alongside and moored. It was the French Navy and discovering E was on the next ship they immediately began to get drunk and started to dive into the harbour with all their clothes on. The Captain was in despair but tolerant. Eventually we went on board and E charmed the Captain out of a large fragment of a vase which, the Captain guessed, was about 2000 years old. We tried to get a beautiful anchor which the Captain, who professed to be no expert, guessed to be Phoenician. It was about 31/2 – 4 feet high and about perhaps 2ft wide at its base. I lusted after it and so did E but all to no avail. [...]

  Monday 25th, Capo Caccia Arrived back about 11am to discover that it was actually 10am because the Italians had changed from Summer time to normal time. E went ashore to fit for clothes for the premieres of Faustus and Shrew, and I went on the speedboat with David Heyman and Michael Dunn and drove them around to the other bay very slowly, almost idling, because David, who is 7 years old and one of the most delectable boys E and I have ever known, wanted to fish.126 Eventually to my delight he caught a fish which the cook fried for him for lunch. He ate 1/2 of it but wanted to keep the other half for his father who is not due back from London, or Rome, or Paris, or wherever he is, until Wednesday. [...]

  About 5 in the afternoon we were awakened by the sounds of a tremendous altercation going on above our heads in the captain's quarters. It seems that the Captain, with my approval, had fired the cook Miquel and his wife Amalia. The cook, who is a balding, middle-aged, holier than thou, long suffering, sweet smiling hypocrite went stark staring mad, broke a glass and jammed it in the Captain's face and smashed the remainder of the glass on the Captain's head – it took 5 stitches we discovered later. In the meantime, and during the screaming and bawling, his boot (the cook's) had come off and when his wife tried to intervene he hit her with it and then, when Pedro the little steward, also tried to intercede he was also belted over the head by the boot. So they all three have nasty headaches. We pretended we knew nothing about it and went ashore as if nothing had happened. I wrote a letter to the cook and his wife saying how sorry I was that they were leaving but, in a choice between the Captain or the Cook, I had no alternative. I am not sorry he's gone. He had the most terrible cough and I always had the feeling that some of the hawking and snorting might get into the soup. Anyway they are leaving tomorrow morning for Monte Carlo.

  Tuesday 26th Am writing this at 31,000 feet in a Hawker Siddeley twin-jet on the way from Capo Caccia to Paris.127

  Last night, out of my usual loyalty (!), stayed up all night with E and N. Coward and Co, I wrote, typed, a long letter to Howard and Mara as to what they should do with the 100G. we gave them as a present. Occasionally I joined E and Noel for chat and gossip. Noel says that the longest he'd ever taken to write a play was 10 days for Cavalcade.128 The shortest 5 days for Blithe Spirit which he wrote in Portmeirion.129 He had the idea on the train journey to Wales and had it written in his head before he sat down to the typewriter. Joyce Carey (actress) was with him and was writing, he says vaguely, something about Keats or something.130 Private Lives took a week.131 Hay Fever 6 days.132 Astonishing. He has command of his nerves now E says and has become his usual brilliant self. The cook and his wife left for Monte Carlo and, to our astonishment, with Sianni our Yorkshire Terrier, claiming that Liza had said they could have her! It shall be back in two days or they, the cook and wife will be in gaol. Apart from our delight in the dog, who is 4–5 years old, she cost $1200. [...] I am very angry about Sianni and shouted and bawled a great deal and was very cantank. Steal money, jewels, anything except living things! Still at 31,000 ft and descending to Paris. Might buy this plane or one like it. 1 hour 35 minutes to Paris which by commercial jet including changes at Rome or Milan would take 51/2 hours. It seats 10. Is smooth – so far. And seems to make one feel more secure. I hope. Shall think a lot about it.

  Saturday 30th, Paris – Capo Caccia We have had in Paris what is mildly known as a triumph particularly E. Having arrived in Paris on Wednesday, about 5ish we dressed for the dinner at Jacqueline de Ribes and her husband, the Count – a humorous man who quite clearly dotes on E.133 We went there about 9–9.30. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor were there, Baron Elie (or is it Guy) de Rothschild, Rex and Rachel Harrison etc.134 There were 24 people in all. I became very sloshed and sang and r
ecited poetry until E decided I was the worse for wear and, like a good boy, I went home with her. I understand from Eliz that I staggered backwards on being confronted by the paparazzi as we left the house. Drunkenly of course. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor were very sarcastic about Rachel Harrison and, when I told them that Rex was wearing a toupée and full make-up, about him too. [...]

  The following day after about 2 minutes sleep we woke about 8 acutely but excitedly exhausted. We drank beer and talked about the previous evening and the one about to come. We were told that the whole of Paris was agog with expectation and from the point of view of the press it certainly seemed to be true. We had as much, if not more attention as we used to have in Rome, Paris etc. during ‘La Scandale.‘135 They had put crush barriers around the streets looking on to the Opera and there must have been several hundred if not thousands of spectators. A lot of people had stayed up all the previous night to ensure a vantage point.

  However at about 12 noon this same day I did something beyond outrage. I bought Elizabeth the jet plane we flew in yesterday. It costs, brand new, $960,000. She was not displeased. I think we can operate it at a reasonably practicable rate – perhaps with luck almost nothing. This might sound suspiciously like famous last words but I feel safe in it. It can, in 12 to 15 hours, and with one or two stops depending on weather, cross the Atlantic. It can land on any small airfield including unpaved ones. It can land at Abingdon when we go to Oxford next month. It can land at Saanen. It also means that we never have to land at that horrible London Airport ever again. Hurray!

  But about the evening of the film and gala. It was an outstanding success and the Press coverage was enormous. The film is widely praised and apart from a carp or two in the Herald Tribune and one French paper – not very important – the critical reaction was joyous. E wore a diadem specially created for her by the De Beers company of Van Cleef and Arpel, designed by Alexandre, which cost $1,200,000. With her other jewellery she wore a total of roughly $1,500,000. When we left the hotel, surrounded by 8 guards, all the hotel guests were forming an aisle to the street. There were many photographers but at the Opera it was a madhouse. Despite the presence of 5 ministers of the Government, one of whom gave us a message purporting to come from De Gaulle himself, and numerous luminaries of the cinema, stage, and society and the arts E was unquestionably the Queen of the evening.136 They hardly ever photographed anyone else. I did quite well too and the flattery we were subjected to was very rich and heady. It however, I hope, has not gone to our heads. It was nevertheless sweet revenge for the social ostracism we endured such a relatively little time ago.

  Later, worn out by the excitement [...] we fled with a few friends, Jacqueline de Ribes and husband, Curt Jurgens and wife, two Rothschilds etc. to the hotel where we had a few jars and talked (me) a great deal.137

  We flew back on ‘our’ jet in 1.35 minutes and worked through the night though I finished by midnight but stayed up anyway.

  OCTOBER

  Sunday 1st, Capo Caccia We slept ‘till noon while B. Wilson, Ron B and Gaston together with Bob's girl, Judy Hastings, flew in the jet to Nice to try and persuade the idiot chef to give up Sianni. After ten fruitless [...] hours arguing and cajoling and threatening – the Police joining in – they gave up. Now I will have to depose and it looks as if the man and his poor wife will go to prison. He has made us both so angry that I feel as if I could strangle him with my bare hands.

  We sat in the sun in the afternoon and took Norma and David for a run in the speedboat which I nearly crashed on the way back against the Kalizma putting the Riva accidentally into reverse. [...]

  Friday 20th, Capo Caccia We flew in the 125 to Oxford last Friday landing, by special permission, at Abingdon and went straight to ‘The Bear’ at Woodstock.138 We were nerve-racked and nightmared at the prospect of 48 hours of solid public exposure. On Saturday we televised with D. Lewin, Alexander Walker, [...] N. Coghill, Lord D. Cecil, and a Professor Rosenberg of Berkeley California.139 The scholars were fine but the journalists, especially D. Lewin, were quite silly and shaming – on and off TV. Cecil was a joy and both E and I quite fell in love with him. He is the best kind of well-bred eccentric, sane, compassionate but acerbic brilliant maiden aunt – though married and clearly male. Nevill said, upon being asked on TV, that E would have made a fine scholar because she was among ‘the most intelligent creatures he'd ever met’ and was paradoxically ‘an instinctive intellectual.’ So there. He said that I was among the three greatest Welshmen he'd known, the other two being Dylan and David (In Parenthesis) Jones. He didn't realize – and I didn't correct him – that Jones is a Cockney.140

  At lunch afterwards at Merton College D. Lewin, quite sober, further disgraced himself. His mind is poverty stricken, and rises only to the lowest levels of the Daily Mail, and nevertheless, fool rushing in, he dared to cross scholarly swords with Professors Coghill, Cecil and Rosenberg all of whom treated him with icy politeness. Once or twice his presumptive idiocy drew Nevill to the edge of open anger but like the near-saint that he is he drew back. Not so E. She let him have it with both barrels, both there and on TV. She became almost inarticulate with fury and malapropized freely.

  On Sunday morning I read poetry at the Union with Wystan Auden. He read a great deal of his own poetry including his poems to Coghill and MacNeice.141 Both very fine conversation pieces I thought but read in that peculiar sing-song tonelessness colourless way that most poets have. I remember Yeats and Eliot and MacLeish, who read their most evocative poems with such monotony as to stun the brain. Only Dylan could read his own stuff. Auden has a remarkable face and an equally remarkable intelligence but I fancy, though his poetry like all true poetry is all embracingly and astringently universal, his private conceit is monumental. The standing ovation I got with the ‘Boast of Dai’ of D. Jones In Parenthesis left a look on his seamed face, riven with a ghastly smile, that was compact of surprise, malice and envy. Afterwards he said to me ‘How can you, where did you, how did you learn to speak with a Cockney accent?’ In the whole piece of some 300 lines only about 5 are in Cockney. He is not a nice man but then only one poet have I ever met was – Archie Macleish.142 Dylan was uncomfortable unless he was semi-drunk and ‘on’. MacNeice was no longer a poet when I got to know him and was permanently drunk. Eliot was clerically cut with a vengeance. The only nice poets I've ever met were bad poets and a bad poet is not a poet at all – ergo I've never met a nice poet. That may include Macleish. For instance R. S. Thomas is a true minor poet but I'd rather share my journey to the other life with somebody more congenial. I think the last tight smile that he allowed to grimace his features was at the age of six when he realized with delight that death was inevitable. He has consigned his wife to hell for a long time. She will recognize it when she goes there.143

  And so to Sunday evening and the opening of Faustus. It rained like mad, as usual in that splendid climate, and there were lots of people outside the theatre in macs and under umbrellas who applauded etc. A nurse, it was a charity performance for the Nuffield Hospital, and therefore a nurse, presented E with a bouquet of flowers and if you please curtsied.144 E and I were delighted. I met Quintin Hogg and thinking him to be Boothby asked him ‘Where is your Sardinian wife.‘145 He replied that he was not Boothby. I recovered fast, told him I was pulling his leg and asked ‘Why aren't you the leader of the Tory Party?’ He: ‘They had their chance in 1963 and lost it. Now I'm too old at 59.’ Me: ‘Winston didn't become PM ‘til he was 65–66.’ He: ‘Hmm.’

  The Duke and Duchess of Kent arrived and were all presented.146 The Duchess is adorable and both E and I loved her. She was frantically nervous as we all were but she showed it in close-up. Muscles twitched uncontrollably around her mouth. He was shy. The show went alright.

  The party afterwards was alright but exhausting – between us we must have met a 1000 people. Incidentally when we entered the theatre we were greeted by a fanfare of trumpets, then silence as we took our seats and then another fanfare for
the D and Duch of Kent. I record that because it shows the idiocy of fame. 5 years ago we'd have had a fanfare of raspberries. If we were lucky.

  [...] Ken Tynan came up from London to discuss the Churchill play The Soldiers.147 Will write about that later.

  The weather was dreadful and made me feel that I never wish to see England again. [...] Don't think out of choice that I would live in England again even if they paid me to.

  Am in a violent temper. E, as usual, has to combat everything I do or say in front of the children. I wish to Christ she'd not contradict me in front of them and wish likewise that I didn't do likewise. But it's the status quo. I'd best shut up.

  Saturday 21st, Alghero Bettina and a friend Jorgen Wigmoller (?) stayed with us for two day.148 She is of course enchanting as ever and very giggly and, despite aging, essentially feminine. He is slim and Danish blond and is I'm afraid a little boring. Largely the latter because he doesn't have the capacity to listen. I also suspect that he's a nose ahead in the white-lying selling plate. [...]

  Ivor and Gwen and the two girls are with us on the boat and today – J. Losey being ill and therefore no work – we sailed to Alghero. [...] We sat around endlessly talking of this and that – mostly about Kate and Sybil. At one point Ivor reached into the depths of his bowels and brought out a cosmic fart that shattered the eardrums. E was delighted and tried to respond but her netherhand [sic] was not talking.

  [...] It's pleasant to sit around on the boat and remember with infinite nostalgia the days when a penny was a penny was a penny, and a green cap with a badge on it and membership of the secondary school was the height of human felicity. And selling papers, dung, blackberries, winberries, dewberries was almost the sum-total of one's life. How I remember that green sweater, that stinking green sweater. And the names of the houses on the way to school are like a roll-call of the dead. ‘Pleasant View’ for instance had a view of an exactly similar house in Abbey Road called ‘Rest Bay’ and ‘Sans Souci’ was a very careful house. And so now to Church and the mumbo-jumbo of Latin imperfectly spoken. And an obeisance to little Liza who bought, out of her allowance, a quite expensive present for Maria – our new Anglo-Welsh stewardess – and the conversation went like this: