Richard Burton

Richard Walter Burton was a Welsh actor.
Noted for his mellifluous baritone voice, Burton established himself as a formidable Shakespearean actor in the 1950s and gave a memorable performance as Hamlet in 1964. He was called "the natural successor to Olivier" by critic Kenneth Tynan. Burton's perceived failure to live up to those expectations disappointed some critics and colleagues; his heavy drinking added to his reputation as a great performer who had wasted his talent. Nevertheless, he is widely regarded as one of the finest actors of his generation.
Burton was nominated for an Academy Award seven times but never won. He was nominated for his performances in My Cousin Rachel, The Robe, Becket, The Spy Who Came In from the Cold, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Anne of the Thousand Days and Equus. He received numerous accolades, including a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award and a Grammy Award. He received the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for his portrayal of King Arthur in the Lerner and Loewe musical Camelot.
In the mid-1960s, Burton became a top box-office star. By the late 1960s, he was one of the highest-paid actors in the world, receiving fees of $1 million or more plus a share of the gross receipts. Burton remained closely associated in the public mind with his second wife, Elizabeth Taylor. The couple's turbulent relationship, married twice and divorced twice, was rarely out of the news.

Early life

Childhood

Burton was born Richard Walter Jenkins Jr. on 10 November 1925 in a house at 2 Dan-y-bont in Pontrhydyfen, Glamorgan, Wales. He was the twelfth of thirteen children born into the Welsh-speaking family of Richard Walter Jenkins Sr., and Edith Maude Jenkins. Jenkins Sr., called Daddy Ni by the family, was a coal miner, while his mother worked as a barmaid at a pub called the Miners Arms in the village where she met her husband. They married, without approval of her parents, at Neath Register Office on 24 December 1900. According to biographer Melvyn Bragg, Richard is quoted saying that Daddy Ni was 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". Jenkins Sr. was badly burned in a mining explosion and his father Thomas relied on a wheelchair after a mining accident.
He remembered his mother to be "a very strong woman" and "a religious soul with fair hair and a beautiful face". Richard was barely two years old when his mother died on 31 October, six days after the birth of Graham, the family's thirteenth child. Edith's death was a result of postpartum infections; Richard believed it occurred because of "hygiene neglect". According to biographer Michael Munn, Edith "was fastidiously clean", but her exposure to the dust from the coal mines resulted in her death. Following Edith's death, Richard's elder sister Cecilia, whom he affectionately addressed as "Cis", and her husband Elfed James, also a miner, took him under their care until the age of seventeen. Richard lived with Cis, Elfed and their two daughters, Marian and Rhianon, in their three-bedroom terraced cottage on 73 Caradoc Street, Taibach, a suburban district in Port Talbot, which Bragg describes as "a tough steel town, English-speaking, grind and grime".
Richard remained grateful and loving to Cis throughout his life, later going on to say: "When my mother died she, my sister, had become my mother, and more mother to me than any mother could ever have been ... I was immensely proud of her ... she felt all tragedies except her own". Daddy Ni would occasionally visit the homes of his grown daughters but was otherwise absent. Another important figure in Richard's early life was Ifor, his brother, 19 years his senior. A miner and rugby union player, Ifor "ruled the household with the proverbial firm hand". He was also responsible for nurturing a passion for rugby in young Richard. Although Richard also played cricket, tennis, and table tennis, biographer Bragg notes rugby union football to be his greatest interest. On rugby, Richard said he "would rather have played for Wales at Cardiff Arms Park than Hamlet at The Old Vic". The Welsh rugby union centre, Bleddyn Williams, believed Richard "had distinct possibilities as a player".
From the age of five to eight, Richard was educated at the Eastern Primary School, and he attended the boys' segment of the same school from eight to twelve years old. He took a scholarship exam for admission into Port Talbot Secondary School in March 1937 and passed it. Biographer Hollis Alpert notes that both Daddy Ni and Ifor considered Richard's education to be "of paramount importance" and planned to send him to the University of Oxford. Richard became the first member of his family to go to secondary school. He displayed an excellent speaking and singing voice from childhood, even winning an eisteddfod prize as a boy soprano. Whilst a pupil at Port Talbot Secondary School, Richard also showed immense interest in reading poetry as well as English and Welsh literature. He earned pocket money by running messages, hauling horse manure, and delivering newspapers.

Philip Burton years

In 1939, Richard was bolstered by winning a certificate at Maesteg Town Hall during a local eisteddfod and wanted to repeat his success. He chose to sing Sir Arthur Sullivan's "Orpheus with his Lute", which biographer Alpert thought "a difficult composition". He requested the help of his schoolmaster, Philip Burton, but his voice cracked during their practice sessions. This incident marked the beginning of his association with Philip. Philip later recalled, "His voice was tough to begin with but with constant practice it became memorably beautiful." Richard made his first foray into theatre with a minor role in his school's production of the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw's The Apple Cart. He decided to leave school by the end of 1941 and work as a miner like Elfed. However, he ended up with a job, which he came to dislike intensely, at the local Taibach Co-operative retail store as a draper's assistant in the menswear department, limited at that time by war-time rationing. He also simultaneously considered other professions for his future, including boxing, religious ministry and singing. It was also during this period that Richard took up smoking and drinking despite being underage.
When he joined the Port Talbot Squadron 499 of the Air Training Corps section of the Royal Air Force as a cadet, he re-encountered Philip, who was the squadron commander. He also joined the Taibach Youth Centre, a youth drama group founded by Meredith Jones and led by Leo Lloyd, a steel worker and avid amateur thespian, who taught him the fundamentals of acting. Richard played the role of an escaped convict in Lloyd's play, The Bishop's Candlesticks, an adaptation of a section of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables. The play did not have any dialogue, but Alpert noted that Richard "mimed his role". Philip gave him a part in a radio documentary/adaptation of his play for BBC Radio, Youth at the Helm. Seeing the talent Richard possessed, both Jones and Philip re-admitted him to school on 5 October 1942. Philip tutored his charge intensely in school subjects and also worked at developing the youth's acting voice, including outdoor voice drills which improved his projection. Richard called the experience "the most hardworking and painful period" in his life. Philip called Richard "my son to all intents and purposes. I was committed to him", while Burton later wrote of Philip, "I owe him everything".
In March 1943, aged 17, Richard left his sister's home as a result of his brother-in-law's resentment at supporting his resumed education. He sought the help of Philip Burton, who arranged his transfer to the home of widow Elizabeth 'Ma' Smith where he himself lodged. By the autumn of that year Philip planned to adopt Richard but was not able to do so as he was 20 days too young to be 21 years older than his adoptee, a legal requirement. As a result, with consent of his father, Richard became Philip's legal ward and, just aged 18, changed his surname on 26 November 1943 to "Burton", after Philip's own surname, by means of deed poll. It was also in 1943 that Richard qualified for admission into a university after excelling in the School Certificate Examination. Philip requested Richard to study at Exeter College, Oxford, as a part of a six-month scholarship programme offered by the RAF for qualified cadets prior to active service.

Career

1943–1947: Early career and service in the RAF

In 1943, Burton played Professor Henry Higgins in a school production of another Shaw play directed by Philip, Pygmalion. The role won him favourable reviews and caught the attention of the dramatist, Emlyn Williams, who offered Burton a small role as the lead character's elder brother, Glan, in his play The Druid's Rest. The play debuted at the Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool on 22 November 1943, and later premiered in St Martin's Theatre, London in January 1944. Burton thought the role was "a nothing part" and that he "hardly spoke at all". He was paid ten pounds a week for playing the role, which was "three times what the miners got". Alpert states that the play garnered mixed critical reviews, but James Redfern of the New Statesman took notice of Burton's performance and wrote: "In a wretched part, Richard Burton showed exceptional ability." Burton noted that single sentence from Redfern changed his life.
While an undergraduate at Exeter College, University of Oxford, Burton featured as "the complicated sex-driven puritan" Angelo in the Oxford University Dramatic Society's 1944 production of William Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. The play was directed by Burton's English literature professor, Nevill Coghill, and was performed at the college in the presence of additional contributors to West End theatre including John Gielgud, Terence Rattigan and Binkie Beaumont. On Burton's performance, fellow actor and friend, Robert Hardy recalled, "There were moments when he totally commanded the audience by this stillness. And the voice which would sing like a violin and with a bass that could shake the floor." Gielgud appreciated Burton's performance and Beaumont, who knew about Burton's work in The Druid's Rest, suggested that he "look him up" after completing his service in the RAF if he still wanted to pursue acting as a profession.
In late 1944, Burton successfully completed his six-month scholarship at Exeter College, Oxford, and went to the RAF classification examinations held in Torquay to train as a pilot. He was disqualified for pilot training because his eyesight was below par, and was classified as a navigator trainee. He had a short term posting for training at a temporary RCAF training base in Carberry, Manitoba. He served in the RAF for three years, during which time rather than flight crew he was assigned as an Aircraftman 1st Class to perform an administrative role in a Wiltshire-based RAF Hospital, RAF Wroughton.. Burton's habits of drinking and smoking increased during this period; he was involved in a brief casual affair with actress Eleanor Summerfield. Burton was cast in an uncredited and unnamed role of a bombing officer by BBC Third Programme in a 1946 radio adaptation of In Parenthesis, an epic poem of the First World War by David Jones. Burton was discharged from the RAF on 16 December 1947.