Furious Love (56 page)

Suzy tried to nurse him back to health, but it wasn't pretty. Richard was hospitalized again on October 7, for a perforated ulcer. He was a bitter invalid, in constant pain, and abusive to Suzy. He hated his own behavior but could do nothing about it. She finally left, and on February 20, 1982, they announced their separation. In the ensuing divorce settlement, she ended up with the house in Puerto Vallarta and $1 million. He didn't blame her; it had all been too much for Suzy. But Elizabeth could have handled it.

 

In 1982, Burton took on the last of his “great men” roles, playing the august German composer Richard Wagner for an eight-hour television series directed by Tony Palmer and filmed in Vienna. Burton was not in good shape, smoking four to five packs of cigarettes a day, and beginning to drink heavily again. The mild epilepsy that had once been kept at bay, ironically, by alcohol, had now returned, and he suffered occasional seizures. For
Wagner
, he reunited with three of the greatest actors of the English stage—his heroes, his friends, and his bêtes noires Sir John Gielgud, Sir Ralph Richardson, and Sir Laurence Olivier. John, Ralph, and Larry. The only one at the table without a knighthood was Richard. He was supposed to have been their heir, “the greatest stage actor of his generation,” but now Burton no longer had the stamina to play the tormented king of Shakespeare's greatest tragedy; he wondered if he would have the physical strength to carry Cordelia across the stage in her death scene.

Each of the four veteran actors took turns hosting dinner parties for the cast. Burton's was the last, given at the famous Palais Schwarzenberg in Vienna. Also present were director Tony Palmer and the great cinematographer Vittorio Storaro. It was a splendid evening of storytelling and mimicry and good humor, with Richard avoiding the wine sitting in front of him. Finally, he reached for a glass, and started drinking. The transformation was like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Richard turned on the “three knights” with uncharacteristic viciousness, Tony Palmer recalled. He called Olivier “a grotesque exaggeration of an actor. All technique. No true emotion.” Gielgud was next, and Burton made snide remarks about his homosexuality (a sad and curious insult to the man with whom he had probably had an affair thirty-two years earlier). And he told Sir Ralph that his fabled timing was really just a result of poor memory, a “darting about” to read his lines from cue cards. The three old actors stared at him in silence. Despite shaking their heads over him throughout the years, as Burton had reeled from one terrible movie after another, they had always admired, even loved him. Afterward, Palmer recalled, Richard berated himself, moaning, “Oh, God, oh, God, I've gone too far!”

In December 1981, Elizabeth separated from John Warner, and Richard would finalize his separation from Suzy Hunt three months later. Those two marriages, Liz Smith believed, had been “big ‘fuckyous' to each other. Suzy Hunt was everything Elizabeth was not—tall, thin, and blond. And John Warner was this handsome, sober, distinguished, ex-navy secretary who became a senator. It was a continuous game of one-upmanship.” But those marriages had been necessary. Burton had needed someone to help keep him sober and return him to a quieter life. Elizabeth's four years with Warner, in which she had relished living in a country estate and helping to get him elected to office, ended up showing her what she had always needed: a chance to perform, and an audience who could not get enough of her. The republic of her fans had never been a burden to Elizabeth—she had
always connected with them, and like true royalty, she reigned because of their devotion.

Rumors of a possible reunion started flying again when Taylor came to London with
The Little Foxes
and Burton flew in from Vienna on a break from filming
Wagner
, to appear onstage in a reading of
Under Milk Wood.
Liz Smith thought at the time, “she'll have to get him back, because Richard couldn't resist the allure of Elizabeth.”

 

Nine months earlier, on May 7, 1981,
The Little Foxes
had opened in New York for six months of sold-out performances, then toured New Orleans, Los Angeles, and now London. It was the first time the play had been performed on Broadway since Tallulah Bankhead had starred as the scheming, duplicitous Southern lady, Regina Giddens, in 1939. (The play's author, Lillian Hellman, had a fit when she learned that Elizabeth—whom she insisted on calling “Lizzie”—would take on the juicy role.) Despite a two-week bronchial infection, Elizabeth managed to perform in 123 sold-out performances. Mike Nichols had been concerned that she didn't have the vocal equipment to project onstage, but she proved everybody wrong. Though some critics sniffed, Elizabeth was nominated for a Tony Award.

So, on February 27, 1982, Elizabeth celebrated her fiftieth birthday in a gala celebration at London's Legends nightclub, hosted by Zev Bufman, a fifty-two-year-old Israeli producer who coproduced
The Little Foxes
with Elizabeth, and with whom she'd formed a theatrical production company, The Elizabeth Theatre Group. The guest list numbered 120, including international celebrities like Rudolf Nureyev as well as Elizabeth's children, Liza and newly married Maria Burton Carson, and Senator Warner's two daughters, Mary and Virginia. That night, Elizabeth looked wonderfully well—slim, triumphant.

Newly separated from John Warner, she arrived at the party arm-in-arm with Richard Burton.

They danced together that night, billed and cooed, and Richard drove her back in his Daimler to her rented townhouse at 22 Cheyne
Walk, in Chelsea. She invited him inside, and Burton laughed when he saw that she'd had the house redecorated, all in lavender. They talked together, as they had over the last four years over the phone, about their children: Maria, who had grown up to be tall, coltish, and beautiful; their grandchildren—on her side, not yet on his. And brilliant, bilingual Kate, who had graduated Brown University with a degree in international relations, but who decided to go into the family business, after all, and had enrolled in the Yale School of Drama. And the beguiling, boisterous Wilding brothers, Michael and Christopher, who finally seemed to be finding their way, to Burton's great relief.

The press was ecstatic to welcome back the two ex-lovers, and much speculation was given to their obvious delight in being in each other's company again. They missed “Liz and Dick,” who made much sexier copy than Mrs. John Warner and the clean-living Burton.

The following night, Richard revisited his favorite Dylan Thomas radio play,
Under Milk Wood
, at a public reading at the Duke of York Theatre to raise funds for a memorial stone for the author in Westminster Abbey's Poets' Corner. Unbeknown to Richard, while he was reciting to a rapt audience, Elizabeth quietly entered the theater and slipped onto the stage, standing behind him. The audience was thrilled at the sight of her, and Burton wondered what the excitement was all about. Wearing jeans and a loose sweater, she suddenly upstaged him by curtsying and throwing a kiss to the standing-room-only audience. She then whispered to Richard, in perfect Welsh, “I love you.”

“Say it again, once more, my petal. Say it louder,” Burton answered.

Elizabeth, now addressing the audience, repeated the words:
“Rwy'n dy garu di.”

It brought down the house. Flustered, Burton lost his place in the text and apologized to the audience. It took a lot to knock this old pro off his pins, but Elizabeth had done just that. In the theater that night was a young Irish actor, Gabriel Byrne. It was, recalled Byrne,
“the most unforgettable thing, perhaps the most theatrical moment I'd ever seen on a stage. I never forgot it.”

Afterward, Richard took Elizabeth to dinner at the Garrick Club, a famous watering hole for theater people. The liveried waiters served Jack Daniel's on the rocks to Elizabeth and poured two double vodkas for Richard. He then drove her to her leased town house in her chocolate-colored Rolls-Royce, a gift to Elizabeth from Zev Bufman.

When they arrived, the couple was greeted, as usual, by Elizabeth's entourage. This time Burton took a stand and ordered them to leave. “Get out,” he shouted, and they all scattered to other parts of the house.

Elizabeth took a long look at Richard and said, “Hey, Buster. You're thin. Aren't you going to kiss me?” Burton took her in his arms and kissed her.

“I can't believe it all happened with us,” she whispered.

He stayed the night.

The next few nights, the couple were seen around town, and Burton seemed newly smitten by Elizabeth. He told one reporter, “Elizabeth and I are destined to get back together again. I can't live without her. I love the woman.” He even penned a little poem on a napkin: “I know a lady sweet and shy,/Oft have I seen her passing by,/Beguile my heart I know not why,/And yet I love her 'til I die.” But—still ambivalent—he told another reporter, “I couldn't take it with Elizabeth anymore. I am involved with her as an ex-wife and mother, and as a legend. She's a dear, sweet, wonderful legend—and a little bitch.” Elizabeth was more guarded, or perhaps more coy, in her comments to the press: “I have had no contact with him and don't intend to. He is a figure of the past.”

Yet it was Elizabeth who would find a way to bring them back together. Not as Elizabeth and Richard, but as “Liz and Dick.”

 

Buoyed by the success of
The Little Foxes
, Elizabeth had looked for a play she could appear in with Richard by her side. She considered
Tennessee Williams's
Sweet Bird of Youth
, about an aging actress who takes up with a young lover, with the telling line, “There's nowhere to go when you retire from movies, except oblivion.” But it wouldn't suit her purposes. “I knew the role of the fading Southern belle would suit me,” she later observed, but there was no role for Richard, who “was too old for Chance,” the young drifter played by Paul Newman in the film adaptation of the play. She settled on that delightful old chestnut for fading movie stars,
Private Lives
, by Noël Coward, who had always wanted them to take on the roles of Amanda and Elyot, the ex-married lovers who rediscover each other just after marrying other people. Noël Coward had written the play as a vehicle for himself and his favorite actress, Gertrude Lawrence. He'd knocked it out in four days while recovering from the flu in Shanghai.

It was a kind of siren call to Richard, who was already planning to do more theatrical productions, such as Eugene O'Neill's
Long Day's Journey into Night
, and as ever, he still hoped to take on
Lear.
Richard—sober and looking fit, if a bit thin—flew to Elizabeth's home in Bel Air to discuss the production. She offered him $70,000 a week for what would turn out to be a seven-month tour. Burton accepted.

For the first time in eight years, Burton returned to writing his diary, where he put down his trepidations about taking on the part. He was anxious about reuniting with Elizabeth in such a public way. He knew what he was getting into—the crucible of public attention and the frenzy of renown that followed her, and thus him, everywhere she went. Though he had mentioned to the press that they might get back together, he wasn't really sure it was a good idea. Part of him wanted to be with Elizabeth again, but he was apprehensive. Over the phone, Burton discussed the idea with Gielgud, who seemed to have forgiven him his earlier, intemperate remarks.

Sir John counseled against it. “You're not really going to do
Private Lives
, are you?”

“I expect Elizabeth will make me do it,” Burton answered.

So Elizabeth and Richard announced their plans to reunite in a tour of
Private Lives
at a press conference at the Beverly Hills Hotel on September 23, 1982. The next morning, the newspapers got it right: “The Liz and Dick Show” was back in business. There was no backing out now, especially when the play was announced in the
New York Times
with an ad showing an enormous heart with an arrow through it, and the words: “Together Again.” Elizabeth had always been a genius about publicity. “I'm ready for Nouveau York,” she proclaimed.

They began rehearsals on the second week of March 1983, in the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on West 46th Street, where Richard had triumphed in
Hamlet
a lifetime ago. Elizabeth moved into Rock Hudson's apartment in the Beresford on West 81st Street, with stunning views of Central Park. Burton checked into the Lombardy. The next day, Maria dropped by Burton's hotel with her new baby, and they went to visit Elizabeth in the Beresford. It was a happy family reunion. Burton looked around Rock Hudson's apartment and noticed—with a sneer, no doubt—that there wasn't one single book in the place.

Burton was still on the wagon, but John Cullum, who played the discarded spouse Victor Prynne in the four-character play, and who had been Laertes to Richard's Hamlet, was alarmed at how fragile Burton looked when he showed up for rehearsals. “He'd lost all the weight in his torso,” Cullum recalled. “His voice was the same, but he didn't have the strength that he'd had, because he was always so virile. But he put himself through it.” Cullum thought the whole experience was surreal. “It was a weird company,” he said. “Let me tell you. She was the boss.” Elizabeth later demurred, “Believe me, I've had the tact not to point out to Richard that now he's my employee,” but Richard was well aware of it.

Burton recorded his frustration with trying to work with Elizabeth, who had gone back to her old bad habits. “E…. drinking. Also, has not yet read the play! That's my girl!…This is going to be a long
seven months.” But by March 27, something clicked and Elizabeth suddenly pulled it all together and “was tremendously better” “for the first [time] I enjoyed rehearsals,” Burton recorded.