The Richard Burton Diaries

by Richard Burton

  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.190 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.191

  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.192 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.193 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.

  Eventually I went to bed sulking at about 9.30 with Schlesinger's 1000 Days with Jack Kennedy.194 I read until 5ish and slept until 1 o'clock after noon. [...]

  Now for the long bore of Christmas.

  Tuesday 24th [...] Yesterday I went shopping. How I loathe the latter. Put me in a foul mood for the rest of the day. However I just walked around Cadonau's and bought about twenty things in about ten minutes.195 I may if they're good enough get a ruby or two for Eliz. They sent to Geneva or Zurich or both for all I know, for a selection for me yesterday and they've just phoned to say that they've arrived. So I shall pop down to the village after I've finished this and make my choice, if any. To match the diamonds and the emeralds they have to be pretty good.

  There are three men on their way to the moon. Americans. What a hell of a time to send men to the moon.196 Two of them have ‘flu’ and one of them is vomiting and has the Tripoli Trots. What a lovely place
to have the Aztec Two-Step. I've forgotten what they do with excrement in outer space. Can they jettison it?

  Simmy and her boy-friend John Gross announced their engagement last night. He is an extraordinary chap and very likeable. I hope they both know what they're doing. Elisheba came for a drink around 6.30. She's very brittle. We are to have Xmas dinner with them tomorrow night. She said three times that her former husband is an American Jew and that she hoped I would be nice to him.197 Why the devil shouldn't I? Some of my best friends are Princesses. [...]

  Tuesday 31st The last day of the year and I'm not sorry. It's been an upsiddy-downy year, mostly down than up. The list of calamities I've recounted before. There is however one bit of news to welcome in the New Year which I hope will prove to be propitious. Ivor in the last ten days has been able to stand up three times and has also been swimming three times. Always with assistance of course but at least it's a sign. Give us more signs Oh Lord! I have a bad chest nose and throat cold which I cannot shake off. I seem to be having colds much more frequently of late. I've stopped drinking and cut down on smoking to try and clear it up as it makes me, a cold I mean, very irritable and impatient and vile with everybody. I stayed in the bedroom all day yesterday and read or rather re-read Schlesinger's massive tome on JFK. I must have read without interruption including mealtimes and visits to the lavatory for about 16 hours. The result being that this morning my right eye was bright red. It's the legacy of that fight outside Paddington Station some seven years ago when my eye was so badly kicked by a winkle-pickered boot that I lost the conjunctiva and nearly lost the eye. In middle age those things begin to tell. The base of my spine too gives me hell sometimes, a result of the same fight but perhaps not of the same winkle-picker. There were six of these little monsters against Ivor and myself.198

  Three days ago we went to Curt Jurgens’ house in Saanen for drinks and dinner. It was horrible, full of Germans. I cannot like the latter, much as I try. I feel fine about them for a time and then I meet them en masse or in a group and the old hatred returns. Fortunately David Niven was there and Caroline, Elisheba and of course my E. Everybody became thickly drunk except us and Niven at about midnight took me into the bedroom and said that it would be a good idea to get all my party out of there as he suspected that some sort of exhibitionism or orgy was going to start up any minute. I told him I had the same feeling myself and so we all scarpered fairly rapidly. However, I was now in a drinking mood having only had some very indifferent wine at Curt's, and so we stopped off at the Palace for a night-cap which in my case lasted until 8.15 in the morning. E was furious – she having gone home about 3.30. There was one hysterical interlude when we were joined by four of the squarest Americans I've ever met. The questions they asked were beyond belief. I replied with such seriousness but without their knowing it and for Mike's and Elisheba's benefit with such innuendo and nuance that M and Sheba laughed for about four hours. I spoke Hamlet Macbeth Antony and Cleopatra Richard II and III all deliberately tongue in cheek. Finally the father of the Americans turned on Elisheba when I'd left the room for a moment and roundly condemned her for giggling when I was speaking this immortal verse with this immortal voice! [...]

  My chief worry for the New Year among the usual worries about children etc is E's health. It is getting no better and she does maddeningly little to help it. [...] If she survives this film she is not going to work for a long time. And if she continues to be in trouble with sciatica I'll insist that she never works again. It's not fair to her and certainly not to the film companies who employ her. I stayed in bed all day yesterday for instance while she spent the entire day until well after midnight sitting in the main room gossiping etc. And of course inevitably sipping away at the drinks. I dread it at night when she has had her shots etc. of drugs and is only semi articulate. In addition to all this she is being given cortisone which apparently bloats you up and therefore you have to go on a fairly stringent salt free diet to combat it. She lasted two days on the diet. [...] The most frightening thing is that as a result of E's total self-indulgence that when she moans and groans in agony I simply become bored. And what is more frightening is she has become bored with everything in life. She never reads a book, at least not more than a couple of pages at a time. It took her over a month to read a cheap thriller by Carter Brown that I could have read in an hour.199 She hasn't asked to read this diary, to which she has free access and which normally gave her a giggle, for nearly two months. I have always been a heavy drinker but now as a result of this half-life we're leading I am drinking twice as much. The upshot will be that I'll die of drink while she'll go blithely on in her half world. Don't be so depressed Rich, the World will be new tomorrow. I am just praying now that she gets through this film relatively easily. After this one, and if by chance it turns out to be only moderately successful, she'll find it very hard for anybody to pay her a $million a picture again. [...]

  1969

  JANUARY

  Saturday 4th, Gstaad We leave in a couple of hours for Geneva by helicopter and from there to Paris by Mystere. [...] There are six of us travelling together – Mike, Chris, Sara, Caroline and the two of us. Simmy and John Gross, her intended are staying behind until she has to go to school in about five or six days. E tells me that the former hasn't had a single bath since we arrived and only one hasty shower. Last night Simmy cooked us an Hawaiian dish which was delicious. Some sort of marinated steak and guacamole [...]

  We stayed in all day and read. I read three books: A history of the Daily News journalistically written by somebody called John Chapman ‘the distinguished theatre critic'!!!!1 Lord Hornblower by C. S. Forester, and Fair Stood the Wind for France, by H. E. Bates.2 I was fascinated by Bates’ notices, quoted on the front and back covers. One would have thought he'd written a towering masterpiece. It is abjectly readable and that's about all. I read it only yesterday and already it's forgotten. Competent as the devil but totally without reality. Christ, one has to beware of critics – good or bad, one might be constrained to believe them. [...]

  Sunday 5th, Paris We arrived back at the Plaza Athenée yesterday. We shall be here for about a month or a bit I suppose, depending on how quickly they set about finishing this monumental film of Elizabeth's. So far, including stoppages for illnesses etc. it has been going on since last September. [...] In future, we must try and make sure that, if we work at all, the director is a young man, and if possible, a new young man. They can't afford to muck around. And under no circumstances should they be called by others or themselves ‘geniuses’ or ‘significant’ or ‘artists in movement’. One ends up with a picture that's over-written by the critics and underseen by the audience.

  I cannot find the last volume of my diary which covers about 18 months from last September. Presumably I put it in such a safe place before I left that I cannot remember. It wouldn't be very nice if it got into the wrong hands. It's too revealing about other people, but above all about myself. It's supposed to be for the old age of E and myself.

  When we arrived back yesterday we found a present and a couple of notes from The Duchess of Windsor. The letter is rather sad. [...] Also was a little china box of two children in bed together. With it the note said that it reminded herself and the Duke of Staircase. This was the day that Rex left the set in a huff and I pretended to do a scene with no film in the camera to give the Duke and Duchess something, at least, to see.

  I lost my temper with the French Customs and Passport Authorities yesterday in Geneva. A stream of bloodcurdling insults came streaming out of my mouth with infinitely greater fluency in French than I normally command. They said nothing but looked at me with such implacable hatred out of their obsidian French eyes that I was constrained to go further. I told them that they were a nation of women and that without the assistance of Anglo-Saxon men they would have lost three wars instead of just the war of 1871. I doubt that I will be received with Ça va biens the next time I go through Geneva. What a mean avare the normal Frenchman is.3 I prefer
the Italians with all their venality. At least they do not believe in the glory of arms. The French do and fail to practise it except under a foreigner like Napoleon. A Corsican Italian.

  Tuesday 7th [...] I did stills with Rex yesterday, all of which seem to me to be eminently silly or needless or undignified and all three. However rather than hold things up we went through with them. Rex has a cold and is going back to Portofino until it's better. [...]

  On Sunday last I took the two boys to Fouquet's for lunch together with Bertrand, E's chauffeur. We then pub-crawled all the way home which meant that we were all pretty squiffy by the time we arrived back at the hotel. To compound matters Kevin McCarthy (actor and brother of Mary, the writer) suddenly hove into view with his future wife, a rather hard little Scandinavian.4 E wasn't too pleased. I promised I wouldn't do it again, but of course I inevitably will.

  [...] An odd thing happened last weekend at this hotel which after all is one of the most reputable in Paris. In the lobby beside the lift on the 1st floor John Lee and a friend of his observed, lying on the divan, a completely naked man with a clothed woman ‘going down on him.’ That is to say she was orally masturbating him. John called the Night Manager (it was quite early – about 10.30 at night) who called the police. After a tremendous struggle in which the naked man threw vases and flower pots etc. into the well of the hotel he was finally overpowered and carried away in a strait-jacket. It turned out that the man was high on drugs, probably LSD and the lady was of the streets. It is just the kind of thing that one wishes Liza, Maria and Kate to see. What a world.

  I read last night in bed some collected articles of Henry Longhurst, the golf correspondent of the Sunday Times.5 I laughed until the tears poured down my face and became quite uncontrollable.