Richard Burton CBE (born Richard Walter Jenkins JR.; 10 November 1925 – 5 August 1984) was a Welsh actor. He was nominated for seven Academy Awards without ever winning (His old drinking buddy Peter O'Toole takes the gold with eight nominations). On stage, he played Arthur in the original production of Camelot and won high acclaim from critics and audiences for his performances of William Shakespeare's plays, particularly his Hamlet and Coriolanus at the Old Vic Theatre in the 1950s.
In addition to his stage and screen roles, he's also known for providing the voice for The Journalist in Jeff Wayne's musical version of The War of the Worlds.
Burton was also famous for his marriages to Elizabeth Taylor. They met on the set of Cleopatra and engaged in an affair, which resulted him in leaving his first wife Sybil Williams, for Taylor. They married in 1964, divorced in 1974, remarried in 1975, and divorced again in 1976. After his second marriage to Taylor ended, he later married twice more, to Suzy Hunt (1976-1982) and Sally Hay (1983-1984).
His daughter Kate Burton is also an actress, they appeared together in two made for television movies.
On August 5, 1984, after years of alcoholism, he died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 58.
He's often mistakenly referred to as Sir Richard Burton, although he was never knighted. This could partly be due to confusion with (the unrelated) Sir Richard Francis Burton, the 19th Century British explorer and author.
No relation with Tim Burton.
He ended at #96 in 100 Greatest Britons.
His film roles included:
- Philip Ashley in My Cousin Rachel (1952)
- "Tammy" MacRoberts in The Desert Rats (1953)
- Marcellus Gallio in The Robe (1953)
- Alexander in Alexander the Great (1956)
- Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights (1956 TV)
- Jimmy Porter in Look Back in Anger (1959)
- Caliban in The Tempest (1960 TV)
- Richard Campbell in The Longest Day (1962)
- Mark Antony in Cleopatra (1963)
- Paul Andros in The V.I.P.s (1963)
- Thomas Becket in Becket (1964)
- Reverend Shannon in The Night of the Iguana (1964)
- Narrator in Zulu (1964)
- Hamlet in Hamlet (1964 - Filmed Stage Play)
- Alec Leamas in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965)
- George in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
- Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew (1967)
- Maj. Jonathan Smith in Where Eagles Dare (1968)
- Henry VIII in Anne of the Thousand Days (1969)
- Breck Stancill in The Klansman (1974)
- Father Philip Lamont in Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)
- Dr. Martin Dysart in Equus (1977)
- Father Goddard in Absolution (1978)
- Col. Allen Faulkner in The Wild Geese (1978)
- Richard Wagner in Wagner (1983 TV)
- The White Knight in Alice in Wonderland (1983 TV - Broadcast Stage Play)
- O'Brien in Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)
Tropes:
- The Alcoholic: Famously one of the drinking foursome with Peter O'Toole, Richard Harris and Oliver Reed.
- Alcoholic Parent: He described his father as a "twelve-pints-a-day man" who sometimes went off on drinking and gambling sprees for weeks, and that "he looked very much like me".
- Baritone of Strength: He had a truly magnificent voice that helped in his portrayals of both heroic or overbearing and menacing characters. Burton's voice became deeper as he got older, due in no small part to his excessive drinking and smoking.
- The Casanova: Tended to play these especially during his younger days.
- Money, Dear Boy: The seven-time Oscar nominee, and most acclaimed Shakespearean actor of his era, also starred in the following second-rate movies: The Sand Pipers, Boom!, Staircase, Hammersmith is Out, Candy, The Assassination of Trotsky, Where Eagles Dare, Bluebeard (1972), Exorcist II: The Heretic. Presumably Burton just did many of these roles for the paycheck, though he also once claimed that doing a film, no matter how bad, gave him something to do in the morning other than drink. On the other hand, Burton had a tendency to take even bad films seriously, which decidedly invoked Narmy results.
- Rags to Riches: He grew up in poverty in a Welsh mining village. Acting saved him from working down a coal mine.
- Shakespearian Actors: Quite an accomplished one, though almost exclusively on stage. He only made two Shakespeare films: Hamlet (1964), essentially a recording of his Broadway performance in that role, and The Taming of the Shrew (1967) opposite his then-wife Elizabeth Taylor. He also appeared as Caliban in a highly abridged made-for-television production of The Tempest.
