Richard Burton
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He made his first stage appearance in 1943, but his career did not begin in earnest until after he left the British Navy in 1947.
The Last Days of Dolwyn (1948) provided young Burton his film debut, and he made a striking impression in a stage revival of
The Lady's Not for Burning in 1949.
When Burton came with the play to Broadway the following year, he registered solidly with American producers, and was chosen to play the male lead in My Cousin Rachel (1952), a Daphne du Maurier mystery. His success in that film led to a flurry of Hollywood activity in such pictures as The Robe (1953), The Rains of Ranchipur and Prince of Players (both 1955), but he did not set the box office on fire and subsequently spent much of his time on the stage both in Britain and in the U.S...(scroll down).
Burton starred in several respectable British films in the late 1950s, including Look Back in Anger (1959),
but his elevation to superstardom began with his casting as King Arthur in the Broadway musical Camelot in 1960 (which won him a Tony Award), and
his role as Marc Antony in
the 1963 film version of Cleopatra. A star-crossed production, it was begun and halted several times in several different countries with several different directors. During the making of the film, Burton and his co-star Elizabeth Taylor carried on an affair, which led both to divorce their current mates-and become headline fodder around the world.
The Burton-Taylor team became hot box office, and although he played Hamlet on stage (which was also photographed for showing in movie theaters) and Becket in the movies (both 1964), he commanded the most audience attention in slick entertainments with his wife, such as
The V.I.P.s (1963) and
The Sandpiper (1965). Art and commerce found a common ground in the couple's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
(1966) and The Taming of the
Shrew (1967), but audiences grew restive with both his on-again, off-again relationship with Taylor, and the later films they did together: The
Comedians (1967), Dr. Faustus, Boom! (both 1968), Hammersmith Is Out (1972), and the
TV movie Divorce His-Divorce Hers (1973).
In fact, Burton became notorious for appearing in films-always for the money, which he never denied-that wasted his considerable talents, including Bluebeard (1972), The Voyage (1973), The Klansman (1974), Exorcist II: The Heretic
(1977), The Medusa Touch (1978), Lovespell (1979), Absolution (1981, filmed in 1978), and Wagner (1983). Burton
was honored seven times with Oscar nominations, as
Best Supporting Actor for My Cousin Rachel (odd, since he was the male lead) and as Best Actor for The Robe, Becket, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (1965), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), and Equus (1977), but he never won the gold statue.
His final work was in a well-received 1984 miniseries, Ellis Island (which featured his daughter, actress
Kate Burton) and the impressive remake of 1984 (1984). He wrote of his relationship with Taylor in the slim but charming volume Meeting Mrs. Jenkins (1966).
OTHER FILMS INCLUDE: 1951: Green Grow the Rushes 1956: Alexander the Great
1959: Bitter Victory 1962: The Longest Day 1964: The Night of the Iguana 1968: Candy 1969:
Where Eagles Dare
1971: Raid on Rommel 1973:Massacre in Rome 1978:
The Wild Geese 1980: Circle of Two.
Richard Burton Dvds @ amazon.co.uk
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War of the Worlds Dvd
© - Paul Page (2011)
He was married five times:
Died of cerebral hemorrhage shortly after the filming of Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) was completed, on the 5th August 1984 in Céligny, Geneva, Switzerland.
Burton died less than a week before he was due to begin shooting Wild Geese II, a sequel to his successful
mercenary thriller The Wild Geese,
made in 1978. He was the only actor returning for the film and, as Colonel Allen Faulkner, would
have led a team of crack mercenaries to spring aged Nazi Rudolf Hess from Spandau Prison in Berlin. Burton's
death caused huge problems for producer Euan Lloyd, the man behind the original Wild Geese and its follow-up. With the rest of the cast - Scott Glenn, Barbara Carrera and Laurence Olivier, playing Hess -
in place,
Lloyd had just a handful of days to find a replacement for Burton. He selected British actor Edward Fox, who joined the cast as Alex
Faulkner, Burton's brother. Burton's no-show in the film was explained by one character telling Fox that they'd heard his famous warrior brother had died. The film was dedicated to Burton's memory.
Richard Burton Dvds @ amazon.co.uk
This Site:
© - Paul Page (2011)
Clint Eastwood
was reluctant to take second
billing after Burton, but an
$800,000 fee changed his mind.
As such a valuable part of
the production, and because
much of the action was quite
dangerous, Eastwood wasn't
allowed to do his own stunts;
frustrated, he dubbed the
film Where Doubles Dare.
Richard Burton and his troop of elite
commandos parachute behind
enemy lines to infiltrate a
Bavarian castle. Clint Eastwood's
laconic assassin, the obligatory
traitor in their midst, a devious
final twist and a load of Nazis
who can't shoot straight are the
winning ingredients in this World
War II Boy's Own adventure,
scripted by Alistair MacLean.
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Richard Burton Playing The Krays & The Richardsons In One Go!! []