Richard Burton
Overview
- Occupation Actor
- Birthname Richard Walter Jenkins, Jr.
- Birthdate November 10, 1925
- Birthplace Pontrhydfen, South Wales
- Education Oxford
- Died August 5, 1984 (Celigny, Switzerland)
- Character Major John Smith
Biography
In his early career Richard Burton was dogged by the label ”promising actor”. His brilliant performances, particularly in British stage productions of Shakespeare, never confirmed that promise. During his career critics complained the promise went unfulfilled. But they all agreed, anyway, that his voice was of an extraordinary quality.
Burton was the son of a miner and the 12th and 13 children. We he started school he came under influence from a teacher named Philip Burton, who helped him lose his Welch accent and get in into Oxford at 16. At this time he also made his stage debut, in Druid’s Rest. He had now taken his mentor’s surname. A serious of minor films followed, which the first on, The Last Days of the Dolwyn, was the best.
Richard Burton’s big breakthrough came 1952 with his first Hollywood movie: My Cousin Rachel. It earned him his first of seven Oscar nominations (though he newer won Academy Awards). After a few less successful movies he made a successful return to the stage in the Broadway hit Camelot. While playing in this musical he agreed to take a part in 20th Century-Fox’s production of Cleopatra. This movie made him worldfamous, but he also met Elizabeth Taylor. Burton divorced his first wife, to marry Taylor in 1963. The couple were divorced, remarried and divorced for a second time in 1970s.
When Burton’s film career hit another low ebb, he returned to Broadway as Dr Dysart in Equus 1976. He was Oscar nominated for the screen version, but it was not a box-office hit. He appeared with Taylor in a stage production of Private Lives, but it was soundly trounced by the critics. His last film role was as O’Brien in a remake of George Orwell’s 1984.
Selected films
- Last Days of Dolwyn, The - 1949
- My Cousin Rachel - 1952
- Desert Rats, The - 1953
- Robe, The - 1953
- Alexander the Great - 1956
- Sea Wife - 1957
- Look Back in Anger - 1958
- Bramble Bush, The - 1960
- Longest Day, The - 1962
- Cleopatra - 1963
- Becket - 1964
- Sandpiper, The - 1965
- Spy Who Came in From the Cold, The - 1965
- Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? - 1966
- Taming of the Shrew, The - 1967
- Comedians, The - 1967
- Boom - 1968
- Dr Faustus - 1968
- Anne of the Thousand Days - 1969
- Where Eagles Dare - 1969
- Assassination of Trotsky, The - 1972
- Massacre in Rome - 1973
- Volcano - 1976
- Equus - 1977
- Wild Geese - 1978
- Circle of Two - 1980
- Wagner (TV) - 1983
- 1984 - 1984
Curiosa
- His daughter, Kate Burton, is a respected stage actress.
- Richard Burton once said: In a film you're a puppet, on a stage you're the boss.
- Richard Burton has been nominated for an Academy Award® seven times
- He took his professional name from his former schoolmaster, Philip Burton.
- Interred at Protestant Churchyard, Celigny, Switzerland.
- Together with Peter O'Toole, he currently holds the record for the most Oscar nominations (7) without a single win.
- Spoke Cymraeg (Welsh-language) as mother tongue.
- Richard Burton made his debut onstage at Maesteg Town Hall in Wales.
- Suffered from acute insomnia.
- The twelfth of thirteen children, he insisted that his way out of an impoverished Welsh childhood was due not to acting, but to books; he read one a day.