The Richard Burton Diaries (40 page)

Friday 30th
[...] Franco Zeffirelli and Pickles came to lunch [they] said how much they adored Phil. Christian, Phil's friend, is not around much any more.
¹⁶⁶

Was interviewed by a Mr Lucas of the
Christian Science Monitor
.
¹⁶⁷
Might he say, he said quite seriously, that by example and by making healthy comic classics like
Shrew
and morality tales like
Faustus
, I was trying to compensate for the great evils that Films had introduced to the World? My eyes crossed. [...]

Read highly moving very interesting book called, believe it or not,
My Dog Tulip
. The only decent book on dogs I've ever read.
¹⁶⁸
[...]

OCTOBER

Saturday 1st
Glorious morning. Sea heavy and noisy. Sun in and out but lots of clouds promising lots more rain. [...] I cannot imagine what I'm going to do with myself in ten days time when
Faustus
and
Shrew
(extra shots) is over. I can learn
Comedians
.
¹⁶⁹
Later I can learn the songs etc. of
Mr. Chips
.
¹⁷⁰
Maybe I'll write something other than this diary. Maybe I'll just read and read and read. I have hardly had a drink for about two weeks. An occasional beer and twice I became mildly sloshed on a couple or three goops. Not only do I not miss it I actually feel as if I never want to booze again. Drink yes, booze no.

[...] Maria told Karen a story today: Once there were two tiny babies in a hospital and they were herself and Liza and they belonged to nobody. One day Richard (me) saw these two babies and decided to steal them. So he went away and came back at night in his car and stole them. He took them home and put them to bed and then went to Maria and said. ‘I've got a surprise for you.’ And there we were.

So there you are. If she's adopted Liza's adopted.

[...] The children L and M came to lunch today and watched me throw a pie in a friar's face – in the film of course – and managed to get themselves a ride on Pipo the Donkey.
¹⁷¹
[...] Steak and kidney pie with Jack Hildyard and wife (future) and drank Mouton 59–60.
¹⁷²
[...]

Sunday 2nd
We woke about 9.00, walked on the beach in a light rain and I, sans mac, became somewhat damp. Returned to rooms and changed into dry clothes. Sunday papers arrived per Gaston and I settled down for the day. E cooked splendid steak, quite the most succulent and delicious I've had for a long time. We had Mouton ‘59 with it.

The Times
has been bought by Lord Thomson of Fleet.
¹⁷³
I wonder if there'll be any more radical changes. The front page changed a few months ago. Now it has news like any other newspaper. The personal columns are on the inside cover.

What a smug little bastard Peregrine Worsthorne (
S. Telegraph
) is.
¹⁷⁴
He is so unctuously knowing I could knock his block off. Even when he's right I want him to be wrong.

We took another walk in the afternoon but were followed by a crowd of people who finally drove us to our rooms. We sneaked out later and walked the opposite way on the beach. [...] Soup for supper and bed about 11.30.

Last eight or nine days of
Faustus
coming up. Thank God.

Monday 3rd
Both E and I felt ghastly, lousy and dull all day long. She with the shivers, me with a headache – very rare for me, two perhaps in 10 years. Ron has the Roman roundabouts. Perhaps it was something we all ate or drank. Anyway we're home and the children are running about with all the decorum and grace of a riot.

We finished the devil-Pope scene. I wonder if it will work. I saw about
¹
/
₂
hour of
Faustus
this morning and I was disappointed. [...]

Tomorrow we go to Rome to accept Golden masks or Silver masks or whatever for being rich and infamous, I suppose.
¹⁷⁵
That's a splendid fracturing bore to look forward to.

Spent the afternoon browsing through
Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
. I looked up Robert Graves.
¹⁷⁶
He still only has one quote ‘Goodbye to all that.’ What do the compilers have against him? S. Spender has two. R.L. Stevenson about 6 columns, Voltaire 1
¹
/
₂
. Even Sam Goldwyn has one. One of the quotes accorded to RLS is ‘Pieces of Eight.’ Come on!
¹⁷⁷

Dahomey is 44,000 square miles, roughly same size as Cuba. (Wales is about 13,000 square miles.) So it's quite sizeable. We go there next year for Greene's
Comedians
. Alec Guinness and E co-stars. Glenville directing for MGM.
¹⁷⁸
I've never been to Black Africa. I shall be interested. I hated Egyptian and Arabian North Africa. Ah where were those noble sheiks. [...]

Listened to World News, News from Britain and Sports News from the BBC, London. I don't listen very often but when I do it gives me a peculiar feeling. The precise over-mellifluous accents, the static noise I love best which is as if the voices were being carried by lonely uncertain winds over the sea and farm and alp. The voice saying: ‘that was Sam Longpox talking from Washington,’ or ‘David Mogs-Vaughan from Bechuanaland.‘
¹⁷⁹
It is peculiar to me I think because I remember the 9.00pm news as a child and the remoteness of it. Franco has fallen. Dunkirk. Battle of Britain. One of our aircraft is
missing. This is Sandy MacPherson on the Theatre Organ at Blackpool.
¹⁸⁰
The Palm Court Orchestra at Bournemouth. ITMA. Munich.
¹⁸¹
Hunger Strikes. Jarrow.
¹⁸²
All remote. All beyond seeing. All too far away. Still far away but I know that if I picked up the phone I could be in London for late supper tonight and New York for tea and Los Angeles for dinner tomorrow. It is 8pm and we could, if we really tried have a 11.30 supper at D'Chez Eux, and drink a little, and be back for breakfast.
¹⁸³
It's a short way to Tipperary.
¹⁸⁴
But on the radio it still sounds impossibly far.

Tuesday 4th
Woke by alarum at seven. Opened shutters in the den and there was a lovely morning with a brilliant sun and wisps of ground mist. [...] We have already done the first shot 15 minutes ago. The War Tent shot, the start. It is now 9.50. I feel immensely better today. The Dodgers play Baltimore in the World Series. Everyone here, i.e. Yankees, very excited. Mostly all of them are Dodgers’ Fans. I hope quietly that Baltimore win because I've always liked the American League. We hope to listen to the play on Wednesday night at 9.30 if I can get a good reception. It should be fun.

Lunched with E in the dressing room. [...] E drank Fontana Candida (Frascati). I, nothing though I had a vodka and tonic with Nat and Louise White (Aaron's secretary) who are here for a few days.
¹⁸⁵
Nat wants me to join the Players Club in NY. I'm a most unclubbable man as the Good Doctor said of somebody but I may join.
¹⁸⁶
It's the thought of those horrible Piper Nights and Founders Nights etc. which give me a turn. Band of Hope and Urdd Gobaith Cymru and Concerts at the YMCA.
¹⁸⁷

Have done the bulk of the war tent scene. Now remains close-ups and one speech. It's about 4.40 so we may only have a couple of shots remaining tomorrow.

Prepared for the Mask of Silver awards. Will write about this later. What a provincial lot the Italians are. Even worse than the Americans or the English. E tells me to say how pretty she looked last night.

The award evening was monstrous. For about
³
/
₄
hour endless hard faced breastless models paraded before our bored eyes an extraordinary tasteless concourse of fashions. Then every performer in Italy, old clowns, Alberto Sordi, Marcello Mastroianni, Vittorio Gassman, Virna Lisi, Monica Vita, F. Zeffirelli, Rossana Podesta, TV comics, stage stars, great stage hands were awarded Masks of Silver.
¹⁸⁸
We were the last. [...]

After the awards we repaired to the Hassler (?) Hotel and talked and drank with Franco Zeffirelli and Sheila Pickles.
¹⁸⁹
E was telling us all about her operations when Pickles threw up. All over the carpet. It cleared the bar rather faster than a typhoon.

Eventually home.

Wednesday 5th
Did not go into work. Woke late and so ashamed that rather than be late would rather not turn up at all. So not going to turn up. E called and explained, lying like a trooper, that I was desperately ill. It must be the first day of work that I've ever wilfully missed. And I don't care. I have one disease that is incurable. That is, or, as they say in Italian, Cioè, that I am easily bored. I am fascinated by the
idea
of something but its execution bores me. That is why I think, for instance, that when I explain the particular genius of other actors I impersonate what I think they should have done rather than what they actually did do. I am the best apologist for Gielgud or Swinley, or Ainley or Olivier or Scofield or Brando than they.
¹⁹⁰
They are very good but in recollection, in my recollection of them, they are massive Gods.

[...] In case there is any mistake. This diary is written for my own benefit. [...]

Thursday 6th
Brilliant morning again and I left for work feeling somewhat shaky. Arrived about 7.45, shaved, had tea and was made up by 9.00. Baltimore won the ball game 5–2 – the Robinson boys hitting back-to-back homers off Drysdale in the first innings.
¹⁹¹

For the first shot I was locked into armour with what appears to be swords going right through my body.

Read something in a mag about Syb being a ‘late bloomer’ in company with
¹
/
₂
dozen other women. With me she was ‘dowdy and tubby’ but since me she
has lost 30–5 pounds and is a chic type. Cheek. She was never dowdy and dumpy! Just short that's all. [...]

E should work this afternoon I should think. It will be her last but one shot in the picture. Which latter is becoming endless seemingly. Bet E $500 that Orioles would win series. I deliberately bet to lose. Funny giggle if they do.

E found the World Series. Brava! Baltimore won again 6–0. Six errors by Dodgers, 3 to one man Willie Davis.
¹⁹²
That's a record equalizer. He's probably cut his throat. Worked till 8.30 tonight. Koufax lost.
¹⁹³

Friday 7th
Started on the dreaded but beautiful last speech of
Faustus
today after cleaning up yesterday's scenes. [...]

Slowly we are drawing to the end of the picture but no real immediate respite as we are doing what I guess may be two more days on
Shrew
. Close-ups here there and everywhere.

R. Hanley found me a short history of Africa so that I can find out something more about Dahomey. Sheran Cazalet sent me (us) a copy of her grampa's new book of short stories. He is P. G. Wodehouse.
¹⁹⁴
Not vintage so far but readable.

One of the boys from Oxford, one Nick Loukes gave us a dead mounted framed tarantula as a thank you present.
¹⁹⁵
Because ‘we doubtless had so many beautiful things an ugly one might be welcome.’

I feel jaded and sweaty and unactory today. One of those days when acting seems peculiarly silly. What a sloppy job to have.

[...]

Saturday 8th
It's now 11am and I have done one shot. Two more and I hope to finish this sequence up to the descent into hell. [...]

Received letter from Lord (Richard Rhys) Dynevor about his new art attempt in Dynevor Castle and grounds.
¹⁹⁶
It seems to have started rather well. We are to lunch with him next Wednesday. [...]

Report in the
Daily American
that the Welsh, under the King of Gwynedd discovered the USA 200 years before Columbus.
¹⁹⁷
Can't wait to show Elizabeth
and must send a copy to Harvey Orkin.
¹⁹⁸
Some Welsh maniac has spent 20 years proving it and the results of his researches are to be published in a couple of weeks.
¹⁹⁹
I may make it a party piece.

After this next scene I should be able to relax. I don't feel exhausted or anything extreme but simply uninterested in the work however much I double-think myself into enthusiasm. I must arrange more holidays for myself. And for E too.

[...]

E's hair in certain lights reveals a lot of grey hair. She accuses me of making all my wives grey haired before their time. (Syb comes from a family of prematurely grey haired people.)

[...] Went to the Party. The minute we entered Rome I wanted to leave again. The smell of petrol fumes – a smell I loved as a boy – is now loathsome to me. The Party was given by Ken Muggleston Assistant Art Director I think.
²⁰⁰
It was obviously given for other art directors; there must have been six there. Afterwards we went to Dave's pub where in one hour I had one drink. [...]

Dodgers lost again 1–0 but because of the bloody party we were unable to listen to the match.
²⁰¹
Went to bed about 2.0 I think.

Sunday 9th
Woke at 8.30 and dressed, both of us, and went for a short walk as far as the stables. Back at the house I read a detective story by Josephine Tey, not very good, called
A Shilling for Candles
.
²⁰²
Gaston brought the barbecue from the beach and E made a tr[ul]y delicious steak. She is really becoming an excellent cook.

After the dinner (5.0 pm) E cooked hotdogs for the kids and Karen. I read another detective story [...] by Stanley Ellin.
²⁰³
Not very good.

Have now turned into Voice of America or AFM in the hope of listening to the Baseball game from Baltimore. It seems unlikely that the Dodgers can make up lost ground but let's hope they win tonight at least.

They didn't. Frank Robinson hit a home run against Drysdale and that was the only run of the match. 4 straight to Baltimore. It would appear to be a fix if it were not for the last two games. What price the demise of the Dodgers as a great baseball power now.
²⁰⁴