The Richard Burton Diaries (10 page)

The phrase ‘taken together’ imposes an artificial coherence on disparate bodies of work. The 1940 diary was kept not by Richard Burton but by Richard Walter Jenkins, who had little idea at the age of fourteen what awaited him in life. That, naturally, is the source of its charm and its power, but it was not part of any conscious series. While the 1965 to 1972 diaries do form a coherent whole, they vary enormously from year to year: that of 1965 totals fewer than 5,000 words; that of 1971 runs to more than 105,000. And as for those that come after, they may not be the only ones ever to have existed, even if it appears that they are the only ones to have survived.
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The diaries that are published here were given to Swansea University in 2006 by Richard Burton's widow Sally. They form the core of the Richard Burton collection, which also includes correspondence, film posters, press cuttings, photographs, a collection of Burton's books, and a variety of audio-visual materials.

An important consideration in assessing the diaries is the extent to which their existence was known to others, and whether their contents were kept entirely private.

As to the first question, it seems highly unlikely that anyone close to Richard would not have known that he was keeping a diary. It may well be that his 1940 diary was a birthday gift, and we know that Elfed James wrote (abusively) in it. The 1960 diary was probably viewed by Burton's wife Sybil. The 1965 diary was a gift from Elizabeth Taylor, who also contributed some entries. Thereafter, although Burton remains almost the only person to write in his diaries (Elizabeth Taylor contributes a handful more entries, and there is one – ‘Richard is the best’ – by Brook Williams in 1970) he usually typed up his day's account on one of his portable typewriters, often in full view of family and household members. The fact that Richard kept a diary, for certain periods of his life at least, was a matter of public record – commented on in interviews and noted in correspondence.

If Burton was disinclined to secrecy in the matter of diary-keeping, to what degree did he seek to keep their contents private? As already noted, Elizabeth Taylor herself wrote in some of the diaries. Thereafter, there is no evidence that Richard sought to conceal the contents of his diaries from his second wife. In fact he appears to have encouraged her to dip in and out as she wished, remarking on 31 December 1968 that Taylor had ‘free access’ and that the diary's contents ‘normally gave her a giggle’. And, in August 1980, we find Burton reading passages from his diary out to his third wife Susan.

If Burton's diaries were open, at least to his wives, then one would think this must have affected what he chose to include in them. We have some evidence of self-censorship: in August 1971 he refrained from committing to paper his worries about Elizabeth's mother's state of health for fear of Elizabeth coming across his entries. Yet at the same time Burton could be remarkably frank about the state of his relationship with Taylor, and unabashed about detailing some of her medical conditions. The explanation may be that Burton felt comfortable with a ‘warts and all’ portrait of his marriage, providing he was reassured that his writing would not be studied by anyone other than himself and Taylor. There is very little evidence, for example, of the children, members of the entourage, or of friends reading the diaries.
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In January 1969 Burton noted that he could not find ‘the last volume of my diary’, and thinks he must have put it ‘in such a safe place ... that I cannot remember’. This turns out to be the case – the diaries were in the wine cellar at Chalet Ariel. But he worried ‘[i]t wouldn't be very nice if it got into the wrong hands. It's too revealing about other people, but above all about myself. It's supposed to be for the old age of E and myself.‘
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If this suggests that Burton had a very restricted sense of the audience for the diaries, at least at the time of writing, and perhaps for the foreseeable future, it also raises the question of why Burton was keeping a diary in the first place. The answer here necessarily excludes the 1940 and 1960 diaries, which would not appear to have been kept as part of any grand design. And there is very little direct evidence: when Burton starts the 1965 diary he does not open with any kind of prospectus or justification. This raises the possibility that there was an earlier diary begun in 1964, perhaps following his marriage to Taylor, but we have no evidence of that. Perhaps, rather than attempting to set out a rationale for what he was doing, Burton just got on and did it. He may well not have been entirely clear in his own mind precisely what his objective was.

If one confines oneself to the ‘diary years’ sequence of 1965 to 1972, then it may be argued that they were not kept with a view to being published in their raw state. They were written in relatively fluent English (though with typing errors and a surprisingly haphazard grasp of spelling), substantially free of
abbreviations or coded messages, and, as a consequence, are rarely difficult to decipher. But they were not written in the polished, carefully crafted style of Burton's published articles for newspapers and magazines. Instead they read as rough notes, ideas, memories, a daily catalogue of people and places, meals and conversations. They functioned as a private record of his life, an aide-memoire to which he presumably intended to return at some future, unspecified date.

For precisely what purpose he would return was nowhere made explicit – but it seems that Burton regarded writing the diary as a good habit, a corrective to what he believed was his latent idleness, a way of forcing himself to ‘keep my mind in some kind of untidy order’ (9 January 1969). In such comments we may discern an awareness of the redemptive value of labour, and an obeisance to a Nonconformist work ethic. Burton was not someone who was content with his personality, with his achievements or his prospects. He was undeniably restless, predominantly dissatisfied, measuring himself against his ambitions and against the achievements of others. Diary-keeping was one record of that persistent itch, that yearning to achieve, to become, to realize.

But Burton could also be dismissive of his diary-writing efforts, referring to ‘today's entry for the idiot stakes’ (13 November 1968), ‘this pathetic journal’ (20 March 1969) which was ‘stupendously tedious’ (15 June 1970). Sometimes he struggled to complete a single page of typescript; on other days the words kept flowing. When he stopped keeping the diary the reasons were occasionally given in retrospect – too many things happening (‘when events tumble over each other I don't write it down’ – 1 November 1969), ‘acute unhappiness’ (20 March 1969), drinking too much, sleeping too late, not feeling he had anything worth recording (‘[w]hen faced with this machine latterly I feel as dull as drinkwater’ – 31 May 1970). But often there was no explanation provided for the gaps, and there is no comment at all in the diaries from 1975 or later in the more substantial run of diaries dating from 1965 to 1972. The only extraneous evidence in these later years comes from an interview conducted by the talk-show host Dick Cavett in 1980. Asked about his diaries, Burton responded:

Rarely, it would appear, did Burton re-read his entries or attempt to develop a narrative that spanned successive days. On 23 July 1969 he commented that he ‘must start putting this diary together. I just slide it into the nearest drawer and so can't look back and find out what I wrote or didn't write about what or who or which.’

There is the possibility that Burton thought he would some day write his autobiography. In October 1968 he recorded that he had been offered a million dollars for a month's worth of the diary. He was not entirely convinced that it would be interesting, and thought the notion ‘mad’. In August 1976 agent Robbie Lantz wrote to Burton concerned by a report that had reached him that Burton might be writing a book, presumably an autobiography; there is no record of Burton's reply.
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Burton was lukewarm, from the evidence contained within the diaries themselves, about any autobiographical project, uncertain whether there was really an audience for his life, and suspicious of the genre of actors’ autobiographies. Of course, had he lived longer, he might well have come to feel that such a project was worthwhile: that he had some flair for autobiographical writing is evident from his published output, particularly his pieces
A Christmas Story, Meeting Mrs Jenkins
, and his writings on rugby union.

Burton's sudden, unanticipated death at the age of fifty-eight meant that his intentions for his diaries were not made clear. At the time of the publication of Melvyn Bragg's biography in 1988 various claims were made to the effect that Burton had intended them to be destroyed, or that they should have been closed for at least twenty years after his death.
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Burton himself may have had what was then the ‘thirty-year rule’ for the closure of official records in mind. In his papers there is an undated telegram sent to his solicitor Aaron Frosch, explaining in response to an apparent enquiry concerning an autobiography that:

Reading the diaries today, one is struck by the incongruity of the sentiments expressed in this telegram. There is relatively little that was libellous, even at the time of writing (when most of the subjects being written about were still alive). Burton does not provide the reader with a list of his female conquests or shed light on the hitherto concealed sexual preferences of some of his fellow actors. There are no great revelations of corruption or of criminality. Instead
the diaries tell us about the life and thoughts of Richard Burton. But do they tell the truth?

Diaries, Biography and ‘Truth’

At one level, the appeal of the diary as a ‘truthful’ source is straightforward. It is a record kept by an individual of their activities, feelings and opinions. If the author is the only reader, then no legitimate purpose, one might argue, would be served by the compiling of an inaccurate, insincere or otherwise false account. Diaries may be presented as unmediated, unreflective and natural commentaries, offering a direct route to consciousness and events not enjoyed by most rival source materials.

Yet it is clear that such a depiction of diary-writing as a genre is one-dimensional and misleading. The very process of remembering, most certainly of writing, is itself an editorial process, offering many opportunities for self-censorship. Diarists, it can be argued, always have one eye on a readership, even if that readership is to be found after their own death, or even if it is only themselves. There is no sense in which diaries (written at the time) are any more ‘natural’ than autobiographical memoirs written years after the events being described, although obviously they offer different kinds of information and are subject to their own genre conventions.

Not everything in the diaries, it has to be acknowledged, would pass muster in a court of law. Yet it is possible to agree with Robert Fothergill that these diaries, like other diaries, are ‘true to life’ if not necessarily ‘truthful’. As Fothergill writes, ‘[e]ven in their disguises, evasions, and lies diarists are responding to the pressure of first-hand experience; they are being, for better or worse, themselves.‘
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The extent to which Burton's diaries were accessible to his wives, and more generally known to exist by his family, friends and entourage, has already been discussed. That Burton knew that Elizabeth, or Susan, or Sally, might read his entries may have encouraged a certain degree of self-censorship. That should not surprise: all diarists, even those who keep diaries written in code and in locked vaults, must edit themselves and their testimonies to some degree.

The fact that Richard did not write about something in the diary does not mean it did not happen. There were days, weeks, sometimes months, even during the ‘diary years’, when he did not write. From July 1965 to March 1966, from November 1967 to July 1968, and from September 1970 to June 1971, he appears to have kept no record.
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And, of course, he decided how much to
write, which could vary enormously. Variations in the length of the diaries means that the nature of the record kept is quite different. Although he kept a diary in 1975, ostensibly over a period of eight months, this amounted to only a little over 8,000 words. Most of the entries are quite short.

Furthermore, at times Richard did not, or could not, remember what had happened even though he was keeping a diary. There are days in some years when the only entry is the word ‘booze’. That might cover a multitude of sins! One must ask whether Richard was always fully honest with himself in entering his record of the previous day's proceedings. He sometimes records that he and Elizabeth rowed, or that he behaved badly in a public or social context, but rarely does he go into any great detail. He chose not to relive those episodes beyond a brief mention. Equally there were other events and episodes which do not reflect badly on Richard but which also fail to appear in the diaries.