Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1963)

Olivier, Ralph Richardson, John Gielgud, Anthony Quayle — all different types— immediately took to the brilliant young actor from Wales.) And parties, parties galore. (At one of these parties, in New York, Richard first met a gorgeous young American actress named Elizabeth Taylor. “She was so beautiful,” he has said of her and that meeting, “that I nearly died laughing. ') And then, inevitably, in 1953, came the offer from Hollywood. The lead in "The Robe,” the most expensive production of the year. Which Richard first turned down. “I don’t want the Hollywood bit,” he said to a friend at the time, already using the patois of that town to the West. “I want to go back to London. And work on the stage. The stage is life. The rest — it’s all false. Dylan said it once. Dylan Thomas knew the truth of this. Just last year, before he died, he wrote a poem. ‘Our Eunuch Dreams,’ he called it.” And then Richard recited from the poem : “In this our age the gunman and his moll/Two one-dimensioned ghosts, love on a reel/Strange to our solid eye/ And speak their midnight nothings as they swell/When cameras shut they hurry to their hole/Down in the yard of day/They dance between their arclamps and our skull/impose their shots, showing the nights away/We watch the show of shadows kiss or kill/Flavoured of celluloid give love the lie.” “No,” he said then. “No. No. I don’t want any part of it. All this. This Hollywood they offer me. . . . It’s London and my stage that I want.” “But. Rich,” said the friend. “Don’t you see the way it works? You don’t get the plum stage parts any more — not even in London — unless you establish yourself as a cinema name too. Look at Larry. Look at Ralph. They’ve had to do it this way — haven’t they? And it must he the same with you. So go to Hollywood. Make the money and the name for yourself. And then come home in triumph.” With this in mind, Richard finally accepted the offer to make “The Robe.” Hollywood? Disappointing Those first Hollywood years were a disappointment to him. Partly, there was the disappointment that he felt in himself— since lie found himself growing fonder and fonder of the money he was earning, and accepting parts in pictures he didn’t really give a damn about. Partly, too, it was an egocentric disappointment in the fact that — aside from “The Robe” and a picture called "My Cousin Rachel” (for which he was nominated for an Academy Award) — he was failing to cause much of a ripple among the fans, the top-flight producers, even among his colleagues. (Jean Simmons once said of Richard: “It's strange, but he doesn't have the appearance of a movie star. No one ever stops him to ask for an autograph.”) And inside him now were planted, it seemed, the seeds of a yearning — a yearning not at all peculiar to most anybody in show business — a yearning to become what is known in the business as a top star, a world renowned personality. Meanwhile, however. Burton worked away at whatever parts were given him. The next few years passed. He returned to London from time to time to do a play. He visited Sis and Dillwyn and his other friends and family in Wales when he had a chance. His heart, in fact, was always close to his home. In the summer of 1956. for instance, on hearing of the death of Dillwyn's dad. he wrote — from Los Angeles — this letter to the widow Dummer: “Dear Auntie Margaret Ann. “This is a brief note to tell you how deeply I sympathise with you — I have just heard from Sis of Edwin's passing. There is no need for me to tell you how very fond I was of him : he was such a kind and generous man always, and he was always so good to me when I was a little boy. We will all miss him very much. Tell Dillwyn. who is like my brother, that he has a brother’s sorrow and sympathy — I’ve thought of you all so much in the last two or three months because I knew in my heart that Edwin wouldn’t last the year. Don’t bother to reply to this. If you need anything let me know at once. Sybil sends her sympathy and love. As ever and in deep sympathy. Richie.” Then a few more years passed. And then, in 1959. came the first of the two great offers of Richard Burton’s career. The first was the offer to play King Arthur in the Broadway musical by Lerner and Lowe: “Camelot.” Which he did play, magnificently. Thanks to his own great flair for this kind of regal role. Thanks too, to his old schoolmaster at Dyffryn Grammar — P.H. Burton — who had also come to the States by this time and who had taken over the reins of the show when Moss Hart, the musical’s original director, was taken seriously ill during out-of-town tryouts. The second great offer, which came about a year after the opening of “Camelot.” was the role of Marc Antony in the picture they were planning, “Cleopatra.” The great goodbye The night was September 16. 1961. The place: the Majestic Theater on New York’s West 44th Street. Richard Burton played his last performance in “Camelot” that night. When the curtain was rung up for his solo bow. the audience went wild. They clapped. They cheered. Whistled. Some cried. Some rushed to the stage and reached over the footlights to touch the robe Burton was wearing. At a backstage party following the show, every big name in New York theater circles was there to congratulate him and wish him well in Rome, with “Cleopatra.” Richard thanked them all. made his usual jokes, kept pouring the champagne . . . and “thanks, thanks, thanks,” he said. But to one of the well-wishers, towards the end of the party, he said these words: “This is the big chance of my life, you know. The entire future of Richard Burton depends on what happens from here. They have to talk about me now. Else all is for nothing.” The day was September 17, 1961 . . . the following day. The place: the so-called celebrities’ lounge at New York’s Idlewild International Airport. Richard, a little bleary-eyed from the farewell party the night before, stood in the center of the lounge — scotch and water in hand, Sybil and his two daughters at CLEAR UP ACNE — PIMPLES with 2 tiny Capsules a day! IMPORTANT The Halsion Plan is fully guaranteed. 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