On May 16, 1968, Richard Burton purchased the 33-carat Krupp diamond — named after a wicked industrialist who’d used forced labour during the war — for £127,000 (around £3million today). It was just one of many exquisite jewels he’d give to Elizabeth Taylor.
Three years after, during a reception held at Kensington Palace, Princess Margaret observed the diamond, which was placed in a ring, and commented to Taylor: ‘It is quite distasteful.’
Taylor responded, “Yes, isn’t it fantastic? Would you like to give it a try?”
Ma’am did so.
“Isn’t it less offensive now?” the actress remarked, prior to departing from the event.
On May 16, 1968, Richard Burton purchased the 33-carat Krupp diamond — named after a wicked industrialist who’d used forced labour during the war — for £127,000 (around £3million today). It was just one of many exquisite jewels he’d give to Elizabeth Taylor.
One month later, Taylor showcased her diamond jewelry at a high-class wedding, outshining other attendees such as the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret, who appeared to be dressed in second-hand clothing.
In the span of four years since their initial collaboration, Burton and Taylor earned an astounding $200 million (£164 million) from their films, and they struggled to spend it all fast enough.
For instance, on October 23, 1968, Burton wrote in his diary that he had recently gifted Taylor a diamond ring worth £127,000 just because it was a Tuesday. He mentioned that he takes pleasure in being unconventional.
In 1969, Burton purchased the renowned Krupp diamond, weighing an impressive 69.42 carats, for a staggering $1.1 million. Cartier was responsible for creating a necklace to showcase this precious gem, and insurance providers required the diamond to be constantly guarded by bodyguards.
Taylor quite liked the idea of having the Burton-Taylor Diamond placed on a bed of lettuce and parading it around the Lanai Restaurant at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
Burton expressed his opinion, stating that the object would fit perfectly on a yacht in the Bahamas or the Mediterranean. He described it as having a captivating presence.
Their yacht, the Kalizma, had seven double-berth state rooms, Chippendale furniture and paintings by Monet, Van Gogh and Picasso. When Burton had to be in London for the filming of Where Eagles Dare, the vessel was moored on the Thames and used purely as a kennel for Taylor’s dogs.
In 1967, the Burtons purchased a Hawker-Siddeley de Havilland 125 twin-engine executive jet, with the intention of using it to fly to Nice for lunch. Even he acknowledged that this extravagant purchase was “beyond outrageous”.
The Burtons were criticized by The New York Times the next year for reaching ‘the pinnacle of genuine vulgarity’, to which she defiantly responded, ‘I am aware of my vulgarity, but do you prefer me to be any different?’
Can we? There might be an excessive emphasis placed on appearances, and there will always be individuals who are repulsed by Burton and Taylor’s materialistic behavior. They definitely stand out in stark contrast to the cold and arrogant neopuritanical mindset of our 21st century (if it can even be called a mindset), where people are swiftly condemned and ostracized if they fail to demonstrate virtue.
But I absolutely refuse to disapprove of Taylor and Burton. I prefer to see vulgarity as an antidote to drabness and uniformity; the triumph of the bizarre over the ordinary. Where they were revolutionaries is in the way their sense of power, their energy and neediness made them live their lives flat out. They were joyously vulgar in that they were a ludicrous intensification of themselves.
When they encountered each other in Rome in 1962 for the production of the movie Cleopatra, both of them were already married to different individuals. Elizabeth Taylor was married to her fourth husband Eddie Fisher, while Richard Burton was married to his wife Sybil from Wales, with whom he had two children. However, Burton and Taylor quickly began a passionate and intense affair, disregarding their marital commitments, children, and responsibilities.
Taylor expressed that despite being aware of the negative consequences and the harm it would cause others, they felt compelled to be with Richard.
They were spellbound by each other, enchanted, as were their characters Mark Antony and Cleopatra. Watch their performances now, and you can see Burton’s muscles and nerves alerted, his eyes devouring her.
“She described him as the embodiment of the ocean and the sunset. He is an incredibly expansive individual,” she expressed. “When she gazes at you with those eyes, it stirs up a whirlwind of emotions within you,” he commented about Taylor.
Richard Burton and his wife, Elizabeth Taylor, were seen together after their joint performance of prose and poetry readings at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in New York.
They were an unlikely match in numerous aspects; their backgrounds were vastly different. In his early life in Pontrhydyfen, Wales, Burton gathered dung and sold it to individuals for their gardens. He was born into a large family, with nine older siblings, and unfortunately, his mother passed away shortly after giving birth to the tenth child.
His father, Dick Jenkins, earned only £3 a week as a coal miner, and became a drunkard after his wife’s death. Burton was taken by his sister Cis to live with her and her new husband. Though he saw the rest of the family every weekend, he felt himself to be an orphan.
Richie’s schoolmates remembered him as extremely uncontrollable when he got angry. They compared his wildness to that of a hawk. Despite this, Richie was not a troublemaker and actually achieved the remarkable feat of being the first in his family to receive a grammar school education. It was at this school that he caught the eye of Philip Burton, a teacher who had a transformative impact on his life.
Philip was the one who taught the future actor the importance of skill and quality, but I have always found him unsettling. It is easy to understand why Taylor, who was lively, passionate, and spontaneous, would serve as a strong and essential contrast. Philip, on the other hand, was refined and exact, and he referred to this as his “Pygmalion Complex,” a strong desire to fulfill his own ambitions as an actor or writer through someone else. Perhaps I should be more critical of myself and label it as a “Svengali Complex.”
Can a paedophile be trying to clarify it in that way?
Later on, he expressed: ‘I found [Richard] extremely captivating. I believed he possessed immense potential and had significant requirements . . . His virility was quite apparent.’
He also added, as paedophiles always do, ‘he courted me’. In his deliberately misleading account of their relationship, Philip stressed how Burton jostled to get his attention, piping up in class, wanting to join the Air Training Corps to increase proximity. ‘He saw to it that he did fire-watching duty on my nights.’
Cis’s spouse compelled Richard to leave school at the age of 15 and begin working as an assistant in a draper’s shop, a position he strongly disliked. Thankfully, another educator, acknowledging his scholarly talents, successfully advocated for his reentry as a student at the age of 17.
Philip took advantage of Richard’s conflicts with his brother-in-law and his increasing fascination with amateur theater. He provided him with lessons in speaking and acting at his place of residence, guided him in the school production, began purchasing clothing for him, and ultimately convinced his family that it would be beneficial for the boy to reside with him.
On March 1, 1943, St David’s Day, the teenager moved in for good. In adulthood, he would always celebrate the anniversary by getting drunk.
Philip ensured that Richard acquired refined manners, instructing him on proper etiquette and the correct way to handle utensils. However, despite living together, they frequently argued and slammed doors. Cis claimed that Richard would visit her directly after school for an extended period, indicating his dissatisfaction with their living situation.
Philip was able to convince Richard’s father to allow him to adopt the boy and change his last name to Burton. There was a financial transaction, believed to be £50, in exchange for Dick’s signature, granting Philip full custody without restrictions.
Richard, on the other hand, reflected on this time with Philip as a dreadful experience. Subsequently, he resorted to alcohol consumption as a means to cope with the feelings of shame.
Years later, he disclosed to one of his romantic partners, the actress Mary Ure, that Philip had made an advance. To another partner, Rosemary Kingsland, he admitted that there had been a sexual involvement. She primarily recalled Burton’s intense anger and resentment towards Philip, describing him as “very, very dark and furious.”
Afterwards, he openly stated, ‘I had a brief period where I identified as homosexual, but it didn’t last. I experimented with it, but it wasn’t successful, so I abandoned it.’ It was commonly believed that he was making a jest.
One bizarre link between Burton and Taylor is that she, too, had a homosexual parent. Her father Francis worked as a minor art dealer in London and Los Angeles, but seems to have left little mark on her life; he complained that his wife Sara ‘wanted the child all to herself. She dotes on her night and day’.
Taylor did not have any friends and there was a noticeable presence of excessive emotional control. People who visited Taylor’s family house in Los Angeles remembered a being that was being groomed to become another Shirley Temple.
Sara ordered, “Sing, my dear!” Afterwards, she would dramatically and rhetorically inquire of the group, “Have any of you witnessed a face, hair, or teeth more exquisite than hers?”
Her wish came true when her daughter became a famous child actor, but unfortunately, she also grew up too quickly. This is why, in 1941, when Taylor was only nine years old, a casting director commented, “Elizabeth’s eyes appear mature for her age. She does not have the appearance of a child.”
She had a privileged childhood, with the studios taking care of her education, travel arrangements, accommodations, transportation, and event planning. The producer of Cleopatra later remarked that she had grown up in a fantasy world and was unfamiliar with any other reality.
This toy existence left her with a child’s introspection, and a child’s need for instant gratification of basic needs. Taylor got whatever she wanted. She was determined never to be crushed by the movie moguls, as Judy Garland was — Judy who, said Taylor, ‘never talked back. She followed the studio’s orders. They pumped pills into that poor girl to keep her awake, to put her to sleep, and to keep her slim.’
At the age of 18, she entered into marriage with Conrad Nicholson Hilton Jr, who was set to inherit the hotel chain. During their honeymoon, unexpectedly and without any prior indication, he struck his wife in the stomach.
Hilton, who died in 1969, aged 42, at least had one attraction for her. ‘He had absolutely the largest penis — wider than a beer can and much longer — I have ever seen,’ said a starlet named Terry Moore. ‘To make love to him was akin to fornicating with a horse.’ Taylor would ever after be appreciative of well-endowed men. Even Burton was heard to boast, ‘If I’m called upon, I can sometimes summon up a good 11-and-a-half inches. But of course, I’m only joking.’
Taylor’s initial marriage revealed a strong correlation between sex and violence, suggesting that desire can encompass a desire to cause harm. The enduring impact of this experience on her psychological well-being was profound.
While filming Cleopatra, Rex Harrison, who portrayed Julius Caesar, became aware of the tumultuous nature of the Burton/Taylor relationship.
“He mentioned that during their peak, Elizabeth and Richard continuously engaged in physical altercations, resulting in black eyes for both of them,” he stated. Allegedly, while filming The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, John Le Carré witnessed Taylor physically assaulting Burton.
Ernest Lehman, the screenwriter who adapted Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, also observed instances of violence. He stated, “Elizabeth has a penchant for fighting. She would frequently strike and punch Burton.”
Many of the couples they played on film are like them, from Mark Antony and Cleopatra to the disintegrating pair in Divorce His, Divorce Hers (1973): ‘It’s no fun behaving badly if you’re not going to punish me,’ says Taylor’s character. ‘Beat me black and blue, but please don’t leave me.’
Her own views on sex were explicit: pleasure and pain were the same thing; making love was inseparable from danger and suspense.
She clarified that women often attempt to exert control over men, seeking to exploit their power. However, deep down, they secretly desire to be submissive and long for the man to assert his dominance.
However, she never permitted herself to remain under someone’s control for an extended period. To her, the essence of love and being in a relationship was found in the confrontations, outbursts, and intense moments of panic.
The excessive quantities of alcohol consumed by the couple intensified and made everything more crude.
Eddie Fisher attempted to reduce Taylor’s alcohol consumption, but Burton actually encouraged it. They would have cocktails containing vodka, grappa, and ouzo, and hide brandy in Coca-Cola bottles. As for Burton, a day without excessive drinking for him would consist of a whisky and soda, a few glasses of wine, multiple brandies, and a few more whiskies and sodas. Taylor didn’t provide any support in curbing their drinking habits. She would tell Richard to have a drink, claiming that he was incredibly boring when he wasn’t drinking.
With Taylor by his side, Burton no longer had to worry about material possessions such as private jets, jewels, fur coats, or even carrying money. He could simply enjoy the luxuries of life, lounging on yachts or hotel balconies. Their chauffeur, Gaston Sanz, took care of all the expenses. The trunk of their Rolls-Royce was overflowing with fan mail, which they never bothered to open. They even had identical mink coats worth $120,000 each.
They can be perceived as a humorous pair due to their predominantly displayed absurdity. However, in reality, they are sorrowful. If they believed that being famous would grant them freedom and an unrestricted life, they soon realized it was merely another form of captivity. Burton confessed to John le Carré, expressing regret about not being able to visit a pub anymore and acknowledging Elizabeth’s greater fame than the Queen’s. Although this admission was significant, it may not have been entirely sincere.
Taylor had the diamond adorning her necklace during the 1970 ‘Oscar’ event held in Beverly Hills, California.
With Taylor in his life, his became an enclosed existence — the star in Swiss chalets, private planes and yachts, opulent hotel suites. He was always in lovely places — Italy, Switzerland, Mexico — but in 1977, he admitted that for the past two decades he’d ‘very rarely gone out’. His response was a sort of paralysis, a loss of identity, which is why he drank.
Before long, constant closeness resulted in insults, sarcasm, and physical altercations such as saying “Go f*** yourself,” “P*** off out of my sight,” and other similar offensive remarks.
Taylor called Burton ‘a boozed-up, burned-out Welshman!’ Service was returned in kind, with Burton saying of Taylor, ‘She has the shape of a Welsh village girl. Her legs are really quite stumpy.’ Chivalrous to the end, he also called her ‘Miss Tits’, ‘that fat little tart’, a ‘French tart’, ‘that fat Jewish wife of mine . . . Beautiful, plump, jewel-studded – and very hairy.’
His nickname for her was ‘Monkey Nipples’, which may begin to explain why Taylor spent hours in the bathroom, depilating. And he liked to mock her lack of formal education: ‘Oh yes, I forgot. You don’t know any Shakespeare, do you? Not one bloody word that doesn’t come out of the dictionary of clichés.’
She responded in a confident manner, stating, “I am not knowledgeable about the theatre, but it is irrelevant as I am a star.”
Just like the characters they played in many films they made together, they started screaming and fighting, hurling things at each other. By the late 1960s, Burton was someone to whom Taylor could say: ‘Now, you s***-faced bastard, give me a drink.’
During their arguments, he would be disturbed by the intense hatred and contempt that is evident in the blazing eyes. Her beautiful face transforms into an unattractive expression of loathing.
However, he was not completely calm either. Taylor stated that Richard takes pleasure in losing his temper.
“He resembles a miniature atomic explosion. There are flying sparks, trembling walls, and vibrating floors.”
In July 1973, the widespread panic and discontent resulted in an official split. After eight months, Taylor paid a visit to Burton in California while he was working on The Klansman.
A crew member reported, “I overheard their arguments during the night in their room. There were loud screams followed by the sound of a door being forcefully shut. When I glanced outside, I saw Elizabeth lying on the ground, presumably thrown there by someone.”
Burton journeyed to St John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, where he received intravenous feeding and blood transfusions for a period of six weeks due to his chronic alcoholism. His liver was severely damaged, rendering it unable to process the Antabuse medication.
Taylor sadly informed the Press that the attempt to reconcile had been unsuccessful and the marriage had ended due to irreconcilable differences.
In June, she expressed to a divorce judge in Switzerland that living with Burton was unbearable. Shortly after the divorce was finalized, she called her former spouse.
“Richard,” she inquired, “do you believe our actions were justified?”
Adapted from Erotic Vagrancy by Roger Lewis (Quercus Publishing, £30), to be published on October 26. © Roger Lewis 2023. To order a copy for £27 (offer valid until October 30, 2023; UK P&P free on orders over £25) go to mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937.