Richard Burton

He was a talented actor but also regarded by many as a pompous asshole and a drunk, OP. So there's that.

He guest-starred on THE LUCY SHOW (or was it HERE'S LUCY?) and guess what: he and Lucy absolutely despised one another.

I saw his last Broadway performance of Equus. The play was schlock but that voice was glorious. He knew it and showed it off to maximum effect. I mean why not? He was spouting nonsense.

His monologue in WAOVW is some of the most beautiful acting I have ever seen

[quote]He guest-starred on THE LUCY SHOW (or was it HERE'S LUCY?) and guess what: he and Lucy absolutely despised one another.

R1, you can't say this and not elaborate on their mutual hatred.

I can't find the whole episode but I did find two clips. Lucy Meets the Burtons, season 3, episode 3.

clip 2

I read his diaries, which were depressing because he was a depressive alcoholic. By the early 70s he seemed to love reading and not much else.

[quote] He has some of the greatest performances ever documented- The Lady's Not Burning, … Twelfth Night…

Are you claiming that these two stage productions were documented on film or recorded on audiotape?

Brief moments may have been shot with a still camera but that's an unsatisfactory document of performance.

What did he not have to be so depressed about?

Gielgud could have been Carleton Carpenter's mento and it would have made him Hamlet.

Burton was too broken and self-loathing to be a great actor. He was lazy, alcoholic (famously pissing himself on stage), "clever" in the worst ways, and prone always to fall back on one or more of his four tricks when inspiration left him.

I never saw him on stage, and would have appreciated seeing him young before he was ruined by adulation and an unserious approach to the theatre. Ultimately, despite much fair-to-good work in film, he also left "Becket," "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold" and "1984." And "Look Back in Anger."

Towering talent snuffed out by alcoholism. I agree that Virginia Wolf was his best film performance- I think one of the best ever. Of course he should have won the Oscar.

He made turkeys throughout his career. I wouldn't blame it all on Liz or even the drink. He made poor choices and could ham it up with the best of them.

One poll years ago named him both the Best Actor and the Worst Actor, because he made a lot of schlock for the money (probably to keep Elizabeth Taylor in a $1 million diamond and furs), among other things, plus his acting wasn't consistent.

He's excellent in Nicholas Ray's 1957 war film "Bitter Victory".

But when he was great he was incredible . A real actor.

Burton had gravitas just out of the box. His early work - see his first couple of films - had weight. A rare thing in a young actor. I don't buy his avoiding Olivier on stage. There's just too much brilliant work on the part of Larry for Burton to miss. Saw him in Equus. Brilliant. Two others: WAOVW, and his low-key performance used to great effect in "Spy Came In From Cold." If you were a young actor in the early 50s, you'd probably want to throw in the towel. Just like if you were a young actor in the mid-60s and saw Nicol Williamson in "Inadmissible Evidence," you'd probably say, why try.

Gold lamé shoes.

Stumpy.

He could hold his own amongst great actors: Take Becket, for example. He was working with Peter O'Toole, John Gielgud, and Donald Wolfit. Those guys were no slouches. Yet Burton is the one who shines.

[quote] Just like if you were a young actor in the mid-60s and saw Nicol Williamson in "Inadmissible Evidence,"

Did anyone see him? He was movie box-office poison

Imagine if he were to have married Bea Arthur.

Like a T-Rex with PMS chewing his way through Jurassic scenery. What's not to love?

R19 She'd be Bea Burton.

R10 Virginia Wolf

Virginia Woolf .

She is a writer. Some Americans are afraid of her

Yeah, reply 18. I saw him. I was 16. He was brilliant. That he fucks himself up after he started making movies is the same cautionary tale that plagued Burton. Larry said to him, do you want to be a movie star or an actor. Sadly Burton went celluloid with a bottle of scotch in his hand. Ditto Nicol.

This has always been a guilty pleasure of mine. Burton is clearly permanently pickled by this point, but still…that voice.

With Burton AND Richard Harris as co-leads, how did this film stay on schedule or ever get finished? There must have been a liquor embargo of some sort going on.

I'm of the school that Elizabeth let liquor and Burton get to her. Here's my tribute to the 10 year anniversary of ET's passing last year.

He said he wanted to be a movie star as did Hopkins and O'Toole. At least Burton appeared a few times on the Broadway stage and was even great in a musical! Hopkins I believe appeared in Equus(can somebody confirm that for me?) and I understand O'Toole's one appearance in Pygmalion was a disaster. Anybody see it? He was wanted for the film of MFL even over Harrison.

[Quote]At least Burton appeared a few times on the Broadway stage and was even great in a musical!

Yes, indeed.

At 2:23, he and Elizabeth duet in a Welsh love song, named "Ar Lan y Môr," which means "Down by the sea." He's excellent; I wish he could've sung it alone. According to the comments, his Welsh is impeccable.

He was an arrogant cunt, and arrogant cunts don't get Oscars.

His early films, "Now Barabbas Was a Robber..." (1949) and "The Woman with No Name" (1950) are impossible to find. I've been looking for them for 30 years without ever finding them.

R30, if you're in London or nearby "The Woman With No Name" is available for viewing at the BFI.

^ And a digital file for "Now Barabbas Was a Robber..." can be accessed on request

R31 - R32 - thanks very much for the information! I'm nowhere near London (Arizona), but I wonder if you're allowed to view digital films from abroad. Probably not, but another reason for me to visit London!

[quote] Now Barabbas Was a Robber.

I saw that years and years ago on TV except it was called "Now Barabbas".

My general impression was that it was dingy, depressing, studio-bound talk-fest about gaolbirds.

And that Dick Burton only had a small part.

Jesus, lots of actors were better than him.

Paul Scofield

Ralph Richardson

James Mason

Michael Redgrave

Peter O'Toole

Burton phoned in 90% of his performances AL (After Liz).

[quote]According to the comments, his Welsh is impeccable.

Why wouldn't it be? He's Welsh, born and raised.

R35 It's pointless making that claim unless you have videos of the different actors performing the same role.

R17 In fact, it was O'Toole's Henry that shone in Becket. His dynamism wiped the floor with Burton. "First among equals", as one review delicately put it. O'Toole towered over that film.

There's an old joke amongst the classical music crowd about Strauss: If it's Richard, give me Wagner, if it's Strauss, give me Johann.

If it's Richard, give me Harris.

Look, I like Burton well enough, but he deteriorated rapidly after the 1960s except for Virginia Wolf and some stay performances. I'll give him props the Anvry Young Man stuff, Wolf, and The Spy Who Came In From the Cold (one of his best, I thought), but . . . Few better??!! Please.

To paraphrase Samuel Jackson in Jackie Brown, Burton did alot of repugnant shit.

^*stray performances

Angry Young Man

He's my favorite actor of all time. He was certainly beautiful at one point. I love his eyes and his slightly flawed skin. Such intensity. Such, gravitas, as was said above. How could Liz resist?

^*Havimg favourites is fine, it's kind of the name of the game. It's asserting that your faves are better is a problem.

It's not as if the era was short on actors with intensity and rich voices.

When he brought it, he brought it. Most of the time he didn’t even try.

R38

[quote] Virginia Wolf

Virginia Woolf.

Virginia Woolf was a writer and obviously quite a few Dataloungers are ignorant, if not scared, of her.

[quote] Becket. His dynamism wiped the floor with Burton

They were playing two different roles, R38.

One was a priest and the other was a nutcase.

You can't compare two actors if they're playing different roles,

I wonder how far he would have gone if he stayed true to his birth name.

Richard Jenkins.

Overrated drunk ham. He gave one of the worst movie performances I've ever seen in The Rains of Ranchipur. You know something's not right when Lana Turner (!) acts circles around you.

It's not easy playing an Indian.

A genuine Indian accent in that Hollywood melodrama would have had the audience laughing in the aisles.

[quote] Sir John Gielgud was his mentor.

He was directed by Gielgud in one play.

He told the public that he wasn't "copying" Gielgud because they have such vastly different personas.

Burton had a commanding physical presence and was beautiful when young, morphing into haggard bender/hangover by the early 60s. This alone made him irresistible even when chomping down on Tennessee Williams like a rabid grizzly.

R15, R18

[quote] Nicol Williamson (1936 – 2011) was a British actor and singer, once described by playwright John Osborne as "the greatest actor since Marlon Brando". He was also described by Samuel Beckett as "touched by genius" and viewed by many critics as "the Hamlet of his generation" during the late 1960s.

No, he was ugly, balding and boring.

His Hamlet film with Judy Parfitt and Marianne Faithfull was tedious. He was throughly upstaged by sexy Anthony Hopkins playing his father-in-law.

Tony Richardson was supposed to be a homosexual man of taste but he really bombed out backing Nicol Williamson.

'There's an old joke amongst the classical music crowd about Strauss: If it's Richard, give me Wagner, if it's Strauss, give me Johann.'

I was in the classical music biz for a long time and knew a lot of classical music fanatics and I never heard that. And anybody who would have said it would have been considered a total asshole. It's about as stupid a remark as one could make.

He didn't do schlock just because of Liz, he was providing for his family members who come from Welsh working class stock - he was the second youngest of THIRTEEN. I think he put a number of them up in houses.

R51

[quote] as stupid a remark

Yes I don't understand it either. I would have thought Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss rather similar.

Burton's Hamlet of 1964--the one with Hume Cronyn and Alfred Drake--YMMV, but I find Burton's technique in this production annoying. He mumbles part of a line . . . then SHOUTS a seemingly random word . . . then goes back to mumbling. I admire his performances in such films as Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (especially), The Comedians, and The Sandpiper; but when he's being self-indulgent and just being Richard Burton Being Richard Burton Voicing Lines, I find him hard to take.

[quote] Very few were better actors than him...

[quote] How did he never win an Academy Award despite being nominated SEVEN times!?

Was it because of the awful grammar of his fans?

His life would have been so different if he'd never left his wonderful wife Sybil for Elizabeth Taylor. He lost a lot of his acting cred after marrying Liz; he was regarded as more of a tawdry celebrity than a respected actor. I'm sure he would have won an Oscar if he'd never become part of Liz and Dick. His life with her was utter chaos, all the time. Always a drinker, the alcoholism really took him over during his time with Taylor. His health deteriorated, he did terrible movies; he became a wreck. But towards the end of his life things seemed to improve; in was in a good marriage with his wife Sally and things were looking up. And then boom, he was dead of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age 58. People tend to lose sight of how good he was, how talented, because of he specter of his relationship with Elizabeth Taylor. But at his best, he was really, really something.

Laurence Olivier gave him some advice. Olivier divorced the glamorous, showy, but very crazy Vivien Leigh in order to marry the ordinary looking but very stable Joan Plowright. When Burton left Sybil to marry Elizabeth Taylor Olivier warned him, saying something to the effect of "My boy, you're going in the wrong direction." If only Burton had listened to him.

[quote] Olivier warned him, saying something to the effect of

Yes, it was a private telephone conversation between Borehamwood and Chelsea some time in March 1963.

Williamson was a wonderful, drug-addled Sherlock Holmes in "The Seven-Per-Cent Solution".

"A phony actor. Richard Burton doesn't act; he recites." -- Montgomery Clift

Robert Stephens was the better Shakespearean, but he is forgotten about.

R44 In case you forgot, Thomas A B was Henry's boon companion in drinking, whoring. fighting, political cunning trickery, etc.

His religious appointment was a political one by Henry and a reward for his friend's support. It was a power move, not a religious one.

TAB had his Come To Jesus moment afterward. Hence his fabled quite, "Had I but served my God as well as i served my king. . ."

Calling that character a "priest" is absurd in light of th the two men's history together.

Both men were dynamic, fierce, seasoned warriors, and politicians.

The actor has an obligation to play the character in a eay that reflects his past as well as his present, because that roistering man is still part of his character.

O'Toole overshadowed Burton in this, including his love for the other man, his dismay at the unexpected turn, and his grief and guilt at doing what he did to rid himself of that "troublesome priest".

^*fabled quote

R59 I also recall reading Clift describing Burton as "a phony who loves to hear himself talk more than anything." He'd have fit in well on here.

It bothered him that he never won an Oscar, having being nominated so many times. He was the only one of the 4 leads in Virginia Woolf not to win an Oscar. And he didn't live long enough to receive an Honorary Oscar.

pasp the SAAAAAAALT!!!!!!

R64 George Segal never won an Oscar. On that note, I think he's someone never got the appreciation he deserved.

Montgomery Clift was just jealous of Burton. Liz and DIck were besotted with each other and he resented that.

I saw the Burton Hamlet when I was in high school. I was far too young to evaluate its quality, but oh what an event it was. Hundreds of people gathered outside the theater to catch a glimpse of Liz ( which i did as she peered from a window in her limo. Those kinds of crowds were not common in those days.

As for his Oscar or lack thereof, O'Toole never won one either, so there's no assurance that a Liz-less Burton would have done. Liz herself did some of her best work (WAOVW) after hooking up with him. Although she too settled for a lot of crap.

Burton may have spent a lot of money helping family members, but he could have helped them a lot more if he had spent less on jewelry, yachts, furs, etc. to please Liz.

One of my guilty pleasures is watching "Where Eagles Dare" whenever it's on (which seems to be a lot on TCM).

Liz Taylor's best performance was as Pearl Slaghoople in The Flintstones (1994).

[quote] How did he never win an Academy Award despite being nominated SEVEN times!?

We praise the Academy for nominating him seven times. But no, we damn the Academy for not giving him the gold.

The Academy is telling us he's not first rate, he's second-rate.

[quote] pompous asshole

Universally acclaimed as …The greatest actor our time… whose greatest enemy was himself.

R61 = Aaron Blum Wolowicz

(later rebranded as Harold Brent Wallis)

[quote] The Academy is telling us he's not first rate, he's second-rate.

"The Academy" did no such thing. The Academy frequently gives awards to the undeserving and snubs the ones who do. The Academy is, by and large, a crock of shit.

The Academy is a vulgar horse race which lost any shred of credibility decades ago!

[quote] It shouldn't matter what kind of person he was, you freaks.

Oh shut up, you ass. It SHOULD matter. If he was a rapist or child molester would you still be singing his praises? I guess you would. You're the one who sounds like a freak.

Opps. R77 should be in the Peter Bogdanovich thread.

I have been avoiding the Peter Bogdanovich thread. Was he a rapist or child molester?

R26, I saw O'Toole's Henry Higgins in the play's West End production. I don't remember much about it except that it was fun to see him and he spat a lot. We were in one of the first few rows.

Richard Burton was more handsome than Peter Bogdanovich who resembled some sort of dog.

Retaining his true name 'Richard Jenkins' would have given him some "street credibility".

Especially when he was trying so very, very hard to be an unemployed Angry Young Man despite being 34 years old and wealthy.

[quote] I have been avoiding the Peter Bogdanovich thread. Was he a rapist or child molester?

Possibly a child molester. He developed a fixation on his dead girlfriend's sister. She was 13 years old at the time. He eventually married her. Sick.

He was great in "Look Back In Anger." There's a scene where he and Claire Bloom are having a violent argument. He's very menacing and seems on the verge of hitting her. Instead she hits him, slapping him in the face. Instead of hitting her back (during their argument he seemed enraged) he's silent and touches his cheek like a little boy who's been hurt by a mean person. They end up on a bed and their kiss is one of the best, most passionate kisses I've ever seen in a movie. They were having an affair; maybe that's why the kiss was so hot.

Faggot!!!

I think Liz does a better job than him in Cleopatra. He shouts, barks his lines out, like he's in a great rush to get the thing over with. (understandable, perhaps) Too theatrical, even for that movie.

I hate that barking thing. I started [italic]the Wild Geese[/italic] and quit because I couldn't stand his performance.

What? No love for his early Hollywood stuff? (All before the aforementioned "Rains of Ranchipur".)

My Cousin Rachel

The Robe

The Desert Rats

Prince of Players

And there's 1957's "Sea Wife" with Joan Collins.

Or The Longest Day (right before Cleopatra.)

The V.I.P.s

Night of the Iguana

[quote] He shouts, barks his lines out.

That is his speciality.

He isn't an actor. He is a ranter!

R88 Night Of The Iguana was one of his best acting performance. He should have at least been nominated for an Oscar for it!

R90 Playing a drunken failure was not much of a task.

I think he was nominated for Becket the same year Iguana was released, and you can only be nominated once per category each year.

Look these shocking pants!

It's number 20 out of 26 pictures.

I guess they're OP-Art boat pants.

SEA WIFE was one of my favorite movies as a kid. Joan Collins--but she was good! And it ranked right up there with my fave nun's stories, like...well, THE NUN'S STORY. And HEAVEN KNOWS, MR. ALLISON.

Robert Stephens was an even bigger drunk than Burton, as if that were possible. He and Maggie Smith generated massive amounts of publicity and attention during the 1960s. She finally left him after he publicly humiliated her with multiple public adulteries. Their son Toby is gorgeous and talented with a successful acting career.

[quote] He shouts, barks his lines out, like he's in a great rush to get the thing over with.

Probably because he knew "Cleopatra" was a huge, overblown, expensive piece of shit. Doing that movie, and getting involved with Elizabeth Taylor, were probably the worst mistakes he ever made in his life.

I think it’s unfair to blame Liz for his problems. He was happy to play rich movie star. I actually think he had a worse effect on her than she did on him. He would’ve been a depressive, self-indulgent drunk either way.

I think Robert Stephens is the most boring actor every which is quite an achievement. They tried to make him a star for some arcane reason but he had neither looks nor charisma. His attempts to act are like a stationary boulder attempting to change shape.

R98 Robert Stephens was good as Sherlock Holmes and a few Shakespearean supporting actors. However, every time I watch him, I think they should have gotten Jeremy Brett.

That is so true and I understand Brett and Stephens were very good friends. Maggie Smith and Brett though they performed together hated each other. I would love to know the story there. Brett comes across as very strange in his first wife Anna Massey's autobio. In the film of My Fair Lady as Freddie I find him one of the most handsome men I have seen on screen and he brings a real warmth and longing to the role. I got to meet him once and I told him the film was one of my favorites and he said it was one of his as well.

Saw Burton as Hamlet at the Lunt Fontanne Theater in 1964. My senior high English class was bused in from Long Island for a matinee. It was a modern dress production. I remember how sonorous his voice was. I remember more Eileen Herlie as Gertrude, having seen her two years earlier in All American as Ray Bolger's love interest. (PS: I hate Shakespeare!)

Fast-forward to Zurich in 1982 where Burton was filming "Wagner". He was in a trailer on the grounds of a villa where the movie was being shot. The door was open, but I didn't peek in and feel his chest hair.

Bitch stole my act.

R100

[quote] Brett comes across as very strange in his first wife Anna Massey's autobio.

Very strange = homosexual.

[quote] I think it’s unfair to blame Liz for his problems.

If's his fault for marrying her but if he hadn't dumped his wife and married Liz Taylor and become a fixture in the tabloids his life probably would have been much better. With her his life was insanity, chaos, all the time. Never a minute's peace.

It's also true that if he hadn't married Liz, he may never have been cast in SHREW, WOOLF, etc.

I guess homosexual tightly in the closet growing up in a country where it was illegal with terrible repercussions if you were caught.

[quote] It's also true that if he hadn't married Liz, he may never have been cast in SHREW, WOOLF, etc.

He might not have been in those movies, but I think he would have had a better career without being associated with LIz. A more respected, important career.

Agree to disagree, but I don’t think Liz was solely responsible for all of the chaos. Drunks cause chaos enough on their own. It’s what they do. I just think he would have sloshed out of the theater with or without her.

I also think, as evidenced in her marriage to senator what’s his name, that if Burton had told her he wanted to settle down in London long term and perform night after night at The Old Vic or wherever, she would have put on her dutiful wife apron and gone along with it. Would she eventually have gone mad with boredom, sure, but she would have tried.

Burton as barker, shouter, ranter. They said the same about Peter O'Toole when he became erratic - see snippet of his MacBeth on U Tube. Burton's best performance - Night of the Ig

O'Toole was always erratic without a strong director.

Drunks have NO discipline.

I apologize for skipping to the end of this thread but Burton always seemed hammy on film. Way over the top except for Virginia Wolf. He must have been beautiful as the King on stage in Camelot.

R111 Well you may apologize for skipping the thread but if you paid attention you'd know you have a misspelling in your contribution to this thread.

R112 Oops. Woolf.

R68, Why would Monty Clift be jealous of Burton? He remained friends with Liz through her previous marriages, and he was friendly with all those past husbands, so what's one more?

[quote] Why would Monty Clift be jealous of Burton? He remained friends with Liz through her previous marriages, and he was friendly with all those past husbands, so what's one more?

I think he knew Taylor was wildly besotted with Burton and that made him a tad jealous. His disparaging comments about Burton seem to indicate that.

Thank you, R93.

[quote] Look these shocking pants!

Years ago I saw a picture of him wearing those pants but could never find it again.

What a horror!!!

I seem to remember that in the photo I saw (with the pants) he may have been exiting a plane and was also wearing a short fur coat!?!?! Whatever was he thinking? Looked more than ridiculous. There are no words.

He was pretty back in 1951.

[quote] He was lazy, alcoholic

And he surrounded himself with cronies from his golden days at the Royal Shakespeare Company.

He asked for these fellow actors to appear in his films three times— Harry Andrews, William Squire, Kenneth Griffith and Niall McGinnis.

He asked for these fellow actors to appear in his films eight times—Michael Hordern and Claire Bloom.

And this person appeared with him twenty times— Brook Williams.

R118 To be fair, Harry Andrews and Michael Hordern are very good actors.

Michael Hordern is very good at what theatre people refer to as 'mugging'.

He was superficial, appeared in too many comic roles and incapable of genuine drama.

Everyone on DL should be grateful for his wonderful study of the homosexual experience in "Staircase".

R120 I guess you missed him as King Lear. To me, he was one of the top five Lears of the 20th Century (Not Wolfit, but pretty close).

Not sure Liz would have settled for a cottage in the Cotswolds while Burton enjoyed a lchallenging series of serious roles. They both were addicted to the jewels, the yachts, the travel. And had to make oodles of money. By the time Liz married John Warner, her movie star days were over.

R123 That's why John Warner and her didn't last. He said no.

As ridiculous as some actors are with trying to stay young, I look at folks like Burton and wonder how well they might have aged if they had taken better care of themselves.

You look at folks like Clooney or Pitt or even Fatfleck and realize that they are many years older than Burton was in that Lucy guest starring role which was done in 1970. Burton was born in 1925, so was only 45 years old, but looks decades older by today's standards.

In the NBC "Mama's Family Fran urged Thelma to throw out her loser son and his kids who were mooching off her. But when he does threaten to clear out of there and storms out Thelma wails after him "VIIIINTOON!" No wonder the NBC version flopped. Who would want to watch these awful people week after week?

I doubt Clift was jealous of Burton. He was just a bitch who didn't hide it when he wasn't fond of someone.

Oops! R126 belongs in the Mama's Family thread.

Burton was way too hammy and OTT. He never adjusted to the movies. He always acted like he was trying to impress some audience member in the 50th row.

Well, R129, that must have been you moaning in the 51st row.

R16 He was obviously proud of his legs and wore a very short skirt in this epic turkey.

It had some good actors but no plot at all.

He was a ridiculous scenery-chewing maniac. My god. Made William Shatner’s technique look subtle in comparison.

Still very talented

Oh, com on. Not all of his performances were first rate, but he was amazingly talented. And that voice! Such a shame that alcoholism was a demon he struggled with to the end.

He made schlock as early as the 50s. I wouldn't blame his squandering of talent only on his drinking.

R131 Deflected attention from his skin.

[quote] I wouldn't blame his squandering of talent only on his drinking.

He did a lot of crap just to make money. That's understandable. He was supporting his Welsh relatives and he liked to live large. And of course after he married LIz he had to keep her happy, which meant bying obscenely expensive jewels for her all the time. He had intended that the extravagant jewelry be a joint investment for the two of them but when they divorced he generously let her have all it.

I saw Burton twice on stage. First time was when he replaced Anthony Hopkins in “Equus” on Broadway. Hopkins had made a huge impression, and won a Tony. He was wonderful, playing this tormented , repressed psychiatrist. Burton replaced him in 1976, and his performance ran rings around Hopkins. Gone was the overt drama, replaced by the realization of an ongoing inner torment the character had never realized. He was riveting.

The second time I saw him was in the 1980 revival of “Camelot.” How I wish I’d seen the legendary original 20 years earlier! What I saw in 1980 was a frail man sort of walking through it. The legend was over, and this man just looked out of place, especially opposite the Guinevere of Christine Ebersole. Until the end of Act I, when he had a monologue of maintaining the Round Table, despite his wife’s love for his best friend. Suddenly, the frailty disappeared, and Burton commanded the stage. Lightning raising goosebumps. Brilliant.

Film is funny. You only really have to get it right once for the camera. The stage is far more demanding, but so much more rewarding when you witness such electricity.

R138, I too wish I could have seen the original with Burton, Julie Andrews and Robert Goulet. My parents used to play the soundtrack album endlessly. BTW, what in God's name made the movie producers decide to cast three non-singers as leads in their film?

The non-singers were big big stars (except. for Franco Nero, who was undoubtedly a lust magnet for Josh Logan.)

An afficionado's screen shot from his first movie before he got fat and before he had got the RSC vocal training to transform his thin voice into his trademark "snarling fruity tones".

[quote] Larry said to him, do you want to be a movie star or an actor.

I wonder when this alleged conversation occurred?

Did it occur? They appeared in one movie but I think they appeared in separate scenes.

He was a special breed of British talent, but there were far greater:

Olivier, Gielgud, Richardson, Redgrave, Scofield, Mason, Harrison, O'Toole, Hawkins, McCowan, Finney, Hopkins, Lee, Cushing, and Wolfit

[quote] Lee, Cushing

Hammer trash.

OMG, he played Tatum's lover in this film!

R6 Autobiographies are not for people who are looking for the Feel-Good things. A life is not about spending time laughing and being drowned in happiness, unfortunately. He didn't need a ghost writer and Lord, he could write!

[quote] Lord, he could write!

Did he write?

R147 Yes he did. Very well.

'what in God's name made the movie producers decide to cast three non-singers as leads in their film?'

The same thing that made the producers decide to cast three non-singers as leads in Paint Your Wagon.

Just an FYI - the dude from Bulgari, himself, insisted that Liz bought the jewelry and only said Burton bought it to give the pieces provenance and therefore value. She loved the jewels, but she also loved the investment opportunity. Liz was nobody's fool. Very, very smart business woman.

I can’t remember who said this, an actor I think, who thought Burton got off on the sound of his voice.