The Richard Burton Diaries

by Richard Burton

  E is eating as if she is about to acquire some dreadful disease which will include a loss of appetite, and so that while she is hungry she will eat and eat and eat. I keep on telling her that she is as round as she is tall which is a complete lie as apart from her impossible stomach and her hereditary double chin she is not really all that tubby. She is well covered though. She is one of those who can only diet when the mood takes her and then she goes too far. Since she doesn't have a weight problem of any consequence she could eat very well, not dieting and still remain trim without too much trouble, but milady has all the discipline of a mountain pony. I enjoy self imposed discipline, there must be a masochist hidden here somewhere, though in the matter of dieting I find it hardly any trouble at all. [...]

  Evening

  I finished my so called two days’ work in less than a day since yesterday we worked only from three ‘til 5.45 and today I cleared the lot by lunchtime. Much private rejoicing as I hate that aspect of the work. After it was over I saw a reel of the film leading up to and including the assassination. It will look good I'm sure when all the thuds and noises are put in and the blood is very effective and will be more so in a good print.

  Trap and Joe [Joseph and Patricia Losey] and the children are coming for dinner and I have just seen a pair of diamond earrings for a cool million dollars. They were two pendant diamonds 30 carats each and very beautiful and superbly cut but I told Gianni Bulgari's man that the price was outrageous and that I would find it nasty to buy them even at 1/2 half that cost.406 Bet you an offer nearer the latter than the former will come through ere long.

  Saturday 18th, Ariel407 I stayed in bed for as long as I could bear it but finally – foot or no foot – I got me up and with cunning contortions managed to dress myself, sat me in a chair in the bedroom, placed another chair as a table and wrote yesterday's entry. I then began [...] the article for the Mail. I have a vague shape of it in my head and I did about 200 words though they have yet to be polished and balanced. At the moment I have only the vaguest idea as to how long it will be – anything from 1000 words to 3000 would be my guess.408 [...]

  Chris arrived last night very late and I was so bushed that I simply couldn't wait up for him. [...] Chris looks magnificent and is his usual sarcastic denigrating nothing-is-any-good self. Ron and E say that last night he excelled himself and Ron said, ‘You'd better get him the hell out of that school in Krautland Richard – they're turning him into a Nazi.’ I replied that nobody had to worry about his turning into Attila the Hun but Attila was the bloke to worry about. What did he say or do, I asked. They said that after he arrived Vicky asked him if he wanted to play Yahtsee and he replied: No, it's a boring repetitive and stupid game. Well, said I, in Chris’ defence he's right and it is. However, I agreed he might have been slightly more non-committal as everybody else there was obviously enjoying the game. In any case I would prefer, in anybody, more jaundice and cynicism than over-sentimentality.

  Sunday 19th, Gstaad409 I went out last night to the Olden which was very crowded [...] Ron became sweetly and uncomfortably drunk very quickly and by uncomfortable I mean that I was afraid he was going to do something disastrous like fall off his chair or something. [...] we limped out and home in the car. Astonishingly after about 15 minutes at home and two games of table-tennis with Mike, Ron became merely pissed again instead of paralysed. [...]

  Tuesday 21st, Ariel410 Yesterday's entry is missing because I worked all day long, as I had most of the previous day and far into the night, on the story for the Mail. I read the first rough unhesitant plunging in up to the neck to Elizabeth who told me, though I was piqued at the time, but only for a second, that I must simplify it. So back I went to work, balancing and measuring and for the only time in my nothing writing life I looked up something in Roget's which I have never done before except for crossword puzzles and amusement. I can't remember what the word was that I was having difficulty with but in any case Roget's was no help and I ploughed on with my own built in one. I did almost all the work in long-hand, and not having written with pen and ink or pencil for many years I had the forgotten writer's cramp. It's very evident in the script, the writing starting off so neat and trim and mathematical and ending in huge drunken sprawling hieroglyphics. The deadline was this morning and assuming that I could send it by telex from the Palace Hotel I typed it laboriously out. Inevitably as I typed I deleted and added and changed the structure of sentences. I have never written anything so long (for publication I mean) in so short a time. The previous shortest for 2 or 3 thousand words was about 6 weeks. This one was 3,400 approx and in 3 days. Phew. I would have liked another week on it. E thinks it marvellous so that's ok and the Editor was bubbling over with words like Scoop. We all think it is a scoop. The staff are delighted etc. which is ok too. [...] I am worried about my sweet E. She doesn't seem to be at all well and her back is kicking up again like fury. It's a dreadful thing to think when we love this house so much but I am beginning to have the horrifying suspicion that the altitude is too much for her. She sparkled in Dubrovnik, she was radiant in Rome, she was a young girl in Paris but here she seems listless and slightly bored all the time, not just with me, but with everybody and everything. I think that already she is wishing that we were here just the two of us. We must use this time as a testing period for if it is the altitude then we must simply go lower down.

  David Niven and wife Hjordis came up for an after lunch (at the Olden) drink and were in very good form and David, as usual, made us laugh a lot. He is tremendously excited about the success of his autobiography which is lovely to see and enjoy with him.

  I feel so relaxed and almost smug about having got the article in on time and the Mail’s liking it, but above all and especially E.

  Brook and Liza arrived last afternoon and Claudye and Gianni arrived today so the house is now bursting at the seams though the latter couple are not staying with us but at the Olden.

  Liza is a bundle of energy and I spoil her with shamelessness though I have to mentally belt her now and again.

  Brook is irremediably sad and lonely. And he is still a drunk though he claims that at home he only drinks at weekends and then only wine. I feel so sorry for him and wish I could help him more.

  1971

  [Richard ceased making entries in his 1970 diary in early September as he was about to start making Villain in London. On 6 October Richard and Elizabeth attended the wedding of Michael Wilding Jr and Beth Clutter at Caxton Hall Registry in London, Richard acting as Michael's best man. In the same month they appeared with Joseph Losey at the Round House Cinema City Exhibition before a showing of Boom!, after which they discussed their work with the audience. Conversations took place at this time between Burton and Laurence Olivier, about the possibility of Burton succeeding Olivier as Director of the National Theatre. On 10 November 1970 Burton attended Buckingham Palace to receive his CBE. Elizabeth's long-serving secretary, Dick Hanley, died in Los Angeles in January 1971, but Taylor, then filming X, Y and Zee in London, was unable to attend the funeral. Burton and Taylor spent part of January 1971 filming Under Milk Wood in the vicinity of Fishguard, Pembrokeshire, Wales. In May Richard and Elizabeth began filming Hammersmith Is Out in Cuernavaca in Mexico. Richard began his 1971 diary in late June.]

  JUNE

  Sunday 27th, Gstaad Feel inordinately lazy and somewhat disappointed as the Tito treatment is not very good.1 A series of loud bangs like any other old war film. I will attempt to get them to make it more Tito than guns and local partisan heroics, which, though probably true, have been seen in every Hollywood film ever made. If they do not I shall have to withdraw. I will still struggle away with learning Serbo-Croat. I find it fascinating. [...]

  Monday 28th Have been up since seven. Two cups of coffee and it is now eight-thirty. Can't get up steam to do anything except loaf around. I am going through that period which I call my crossword-puzzle time. Can't read a book of any kind except illustrated art books and such stuff. Times, Telegraph and a col
lected edition of double-crostics from the Saturday Review and the puzzles from the Times and Telegraph are the present limit of my intellectual activity.2 And a bit of Serbo-Croat thrown in for good measure.

  Liza is at the most irritating and silly stage of her teens – at least I hope she is. It would be intolerable if it got worse. [...] Am getting another extra day off from Heathfield for Liza.3 Don't like to do it but she is so persistent that I give in just for a quiet life. Like W. C. Fields I really have no patience with young people.4 I find them all inordinately boring.

  Must do something about Tito today or tomorrow. On reflection I think I could do something with it if I can persuade the writers to agree.

  Wednesday 30th Missed yesterday as I have a gouty or arthritic left wrist, exquisitely uncomfortable. Usually I get it in the left ankle and foot. Better today but still uncomfortable and since Christy Brown wrote a whole and good book typing one letter at a time with one toe I argue that I should manage with one finger and an elbow.5 Or rather two fingers.

  Raymond found the lost volumes of diaries in the wine cellar where I had put them before leaving Gstaad last time for England and Villain which I think is a goodish film but so far isn't doing very well in the States but has not yet opened in Britain and the Commonwealth where it should do better I hope.

  Liza left for school yesterday inevitably forgetting to take her passport and ticket. A car was sent after her with the documents but she missed the plane and took the next one. It is a good 21/2 hour drive to Geneva from here. I hope Mrs Ladas (known and named by me ‘Snakes and Ladas') will not be too cross.6

  Have just had an offer, by letter, from Stan Stennett (very broad Welsh comedian) to play the Baron in a Cinderella pantomime to be staged in Porthcawl!7 Must say I'd love to be in a panto. I've done practically everything else. Impossible of course. [...]

  JULY

  1st, Gstaad [...] I was so uncomfortable last night that in bed the slightest movement made me to groan as if demented. Elizabeth says that I am the world's champion ‘conyn’ which is Welsh for moaning hypochondriac. [...]

  To my delight we were able to watch the Wimbledon male semi-finals on our TV set here all bright and beautiful in colour on eurovision. The matches themselves were badly one-sided – Gorman losing to Stan Smith and the formerly great Rosewall losing to Newcombe.8 The French announcer said they would, most of them, be playing at Gstaad next week so let us hope the weather keeps good.9 [...]

  It looks as if I will do a film written by Tony Shaffer, twin brother of the other playwright Shaffer, in September instead of Tito.10 Perhaps the Jugs can shift the Tito affair to next spring when they could have a script with dialogue. If not will have to forgo same. Oddly enough Joe Losey called yesterday and asked if I would play Trotsky.11 Trotsky and Tito in one week and both world famous communists. [...]

  9th, Gstaad Wrote the [...] article for Vogue and at the behest of the editor, a lady called Beatrix Miller, who cornered me at the Snowdons’ party a couple of weeks ago.12 Left hand and wrist still gouty so am still typing with two fingers though can now use left hand for short periods. E did something bad to her back and is in agony. [...] We went out gouty and lumbered for half an hour to a cocktail party at the Palace hotel given for the tennis festival. There were no tennis players there as far as we could see but hordes of stupid middle-aged autograph hunters. E insisted on taking the masseur (Ulrich Behrens) and his wife to the party. They were frostily received by the management Messrs Scherz until they saw they were with us when their lofty scowls turned into beaming smiles of welcome. The Swiss are as snobbish as the British. You see Herr Behrens is a visiting masseur to the Palace Hotel. [...]

  Sunday 11th Liza arrived yesterday evening accompanied by a large thunderstorm. [...] The weather until about four o'clock yesterday has been superb and I do most of my writing, Italian, French and Serbo-Croat in the sun. [...]

  We go to see the tennis finals this morning. And then to lunch at the Palace perhaps. E's back much better. Liza looking like a cabbage out of which rises a beautiful face and wearing the most unflattering dress I've ever seen.

  Monday 12th Went to see the men's singles finals. Newcombe of Australia and Okker of Holland. Newcombe won in five sets.13 Half a dozen good rallies but mostly serve and volley. [...]

  Played table tennis with Liza after breakfast and again after lunch. Her conversation is entirely standard cliché and platitude out of Heathcliff, I mean Heathfield. Her accent is awful at the moment, a terrible amalgam of Berks and Kensington refained. She is quite puppy fatted and pretends to be going on a diet with me and E but I don't think she'll stand it for very long. What she needs is a thumping lot of exercise. She went horse riding this morning and plays a couple of hours of ping pong a day with me which is a good thing for all concerned.

  Wrote five letters yesterday and actually sent them off. Usually I write letters, which I like doing when in the mood and then find them in my briefcase six months later.

  [...] Still not in a bookreading mood. Anything else will do. National Geographic, Encyclopedia Britannica, Larousse, painful reading of French and Italian. Well Italian is painful. French is ok reading one Maigret after another but not a sustained word in English. Heard in Cadonau's this morning that Julie Andrews is in town also that John Kenneth Galbraith has just left.14 Wish it were the other way round.

  15th It's afternoon and am sitting on the lawn outside the library. Julie Andrews and Blake Edwards (husband, film director) came to dinner. They seemed very nice together. He had sent a book the day before by Kingsley Amis called the Green Man.15 It is, as one expects from Amis, expertly written but has ‘don’ written all over it. About ghosts which is never my cup of tea. But this one held my interest to the end which considering my inability to read at the moment is a fair old feat. They may use the house, this one at Xmas. Have ordered a lock-up filing cabinet to put away all the papers and diaries etc. Good idea anyway, even if we don't have visitors. Answered [...] letter from George Thomas, MP and wrote to David Harlech, Stan Baker and James Wishart passing on the message.16 [...] Why do we send such obvious mediocrities to the Commons when there are such brilliant chaps on every street corner at home? I suppose we are all so bloody lazy that we let the dull and insignificant – like Lord Llew Heycock for Christ's sake – who are prepared to go to party meetings in vestries and half-empty halls, do the job for us.17 [...]

  16th Received [...] telegram yesterday from the editor of Vogue.18 Why do notices and things similar about what little writing I do thrill me and notices for acting leave me totally indifferent? I was on air for the rest of the day after getting Miller's cable regardless of whether she has any judgement or not. Elizabeth played a trick on me which for a moment took me in completely. I [...] was awoken from a fairly deep nap by E brandishing the telegram and saying ‘Your first rejection slip. I'm sorry Rich.’ She said that my face for a second was a pathetic sight and ‘all scrunchled up’ as if I were about to burst into tears. Cheeky devil.

  [...] I am slowly recording on a Philips tape machine the whole of Assimil in English for our German masseur and his wife who are very anxious to learn English.19 The English is somewhat archaic – I imagine the text must be several decades old but it is good enough to start with. Also it means that I am getting a rough knowledge of German as I read the German listening to the English.

  Sunday 18th [...] Very sad article yesterday in Ici Paris about the death of Maria's grandmother and the torment her mother and father have been suffering since allowing her to go for adoption.20 Why don't the miserable French gutter press leave them alone. I have kept the article hidden away. Perhaps Maria will want to see such things one day.

  Headlines in all the papers and front page that Nixon is going to meet Mao Tse Tung in Peking before next May.21 Fancy Nixon graduating to statesmanship. Perhaps the office has made yet another man though I find it hard to believe. I dislike drunkards (and he was drunk as the devil the last time I saw him – before becoming Presid
ent) having dominion over palm and pine and me and mine.22

  Lovely down here in the library with the fire going and the beautiful books all around in disciplined ranks. [...]

  We have our neighbours – who have been so generous with Maria, in for drinks tonight. They are Germans I think. [...]

  Monday 19th [...] The German neighbours called Kehl, he's a banker in Dusseldorf and comes here for weekends only. She very outdoorsy looking, blonde and a little weathered though she can only be in her thirties. Skiers, horse-riders, early morning swimmers etc. and mountain walkers and picknickers. Nice enough. He with a loud cracked voice which seems typically Germanic and suggests an underlying nervousness. Perhaps hysteria. They must have a fair amount of money as the chalet next door, though smallish, must have cost a pretty penny and he flies to Gstaad from Dusseldorf every Friday and flies back again every Monday morning. Made fun of the German Swiss. Naturally. So did we rather lamely and affectionately. [...] Shall go shopping for odds and ends in a minute. I'm getting to the stage where I have a hatred of being stared at so the time for shopping for me is the early morning while the tourists are still a-bed and only the Swiss are around who couldn't give a cuss who you are. [...]