Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1963)

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continued D M January of 1948, he made his true debut in a play called “The Druid’s Rest.” The following day he wrote to his beloved Sis. “Well,” he began this letter somewhat jokingly, “I earned two pounds last night. So I guess that by the end of the week I shall have earned that ten I once spoke ter you about. Perhaps even a little bit mere than that.” Then, on the more serious side, he wrote, “It was really quite an evening. There I walked onto a stage in the West End and I knew, stomach full of butterflies, that among the thousand anonymous faces, were world-famous critics. I am happy that early this morning I read all the newspapers, and that these critics say that I am good enough to go on being a professional actor.” There were other plays for Richard Burton in the year that followed: “Castle Anna,” “Captain Brassbound’s Conversion,” “The Boy With A Cart.” There was film work too, early in 1949 — a lead in a picture called “The Last Days of Dolwyn.” It was, in fact, while Richard was making this film that he wrote another letter back home. And ended it with this notation: “Sis — there is a girl I have met. She is an actress, very fine. She is young and extremely pretty. She is Welsh — from Mountain Ash. Her father was a mine manager, a manger in the colliery, specifically, and so she is not too far removed from us in background and spirit. She is sweet, truly. I think that I am head over heels in love with her . . . Her name is Sybil. . . Says Sis today — -seated in the den of her house on Baglan Road — of Richard and Sybil: “They were married very soon after they met. I couldn’t have been happier for my brother. For nowhere else could he have found a girl like Sybil. Nowhere. She is the most amazing girl. From the very beginning it never mattered to her what Richard did, or wanted to do — she would always say all right. Rich would leave for somewhere in the morning and say he’d be home for lunch. Perhaps he wouldn’t come home till late that evening. And Sybil would never chide him, the way most any other wife would do. “I remember once I was with them and Richard came in at two o’clock in the morning. He said, ‘Do you know, Sybil, I’m hungry.’ And her only comment was, ‘What would you like, Rich?’ He told her. And there, at two o’clock in the morning, she popped into the kitchen to make a full meal for him. She understood him from the beginning. She loved him. I couldn’t have been happier when they married. Or chosen a better girl for him.” Says Dillwyn Dummer, Richard’s cousin, of Sybil: “I first met her shortly after they were married. And I could see right off — she was a girl in a million. She is the homey type. The only people she thinks about are her own people — her husband, her children, her family. There’s never been a bit of the big-headed, the big-time stuff about her. She’s good as gold. And good for Richard. He was a pretty wild young man, after all. And Sybil cooled him down. Give Rich a pound back in those days and he’d spend two. It was the same with everything else about him. But Sybil, she cooled him down a fine bit. And don’t let anyone tell you that he didn’t love her right from the very beginning, that he didn’t appreciate her. I know. I used to see it. He’d come back to Port Talbot once in a while for a few days’ visit. And no sooner was he here than he’d be on the phone, talking to her all the time. He’d ask her to come join him these few days. He’d go wild if she explained that she was working in some play or was busy with chores, and couldn’t. And for a fellow to be like that — he’d have to have loved her a great deal, now wouldn’t he?” Says someone who loathed Richard Burton: “He’s treated her shabbily from the day they met. He’s been rude to her. Unfaithful. He’s had girls from this end of the map to the other and back again. And still she stood for it from the beginning. Why? Well, Mephistopheles gets the best music to sing in ‘Faust,’ doesn’t he? Isn’t it ever the way for the poor, sad Marguerites of the world?” Says someone who loves both Sybil and Richard: “She knew him for what he was the first moment she laid eyes on him. She loved him so much it couldn’t have mattered less to her whom else he went around with from time to time — or how he treated her. One of Sybil’s own favorite stories about Rich concerns the day they were married. The wedding ceremony took place at nine o’clock one morning. After a wedding breakfast, Sybil had to rush off to do a matinee. Richard and a brother of his stayed on at the flat to listen to a rugby match between Scotland and Wales. Was Sybil annoyed that her husband of a few hours didn’t accompany her to the theater? Not at all. Did she mind when, walking back into the flat after her matinee, Richard — despondent that Wales had lost the game — looked up at her and hollered, ‘Well, woman, what do you want?’ Not at all. In fact, she roared with laughter. After all, if she had wanted simply a conventional husband, she would have married someone else, now wouldn’t she?” And so, at any rate, were Sybil and Richard Burton married on the morning of February 5, 1949. And so did the first twelve years f Continued on page 100)