0:00:16 > 0:00:20'Richard Burton was a Welsh miner's son who left the valleys
0:00:20 > 0:00:25'to become one of the most acclaimed stage actors of his generation.
0:00:26 > 0:00:31'Burton had the looks, the charisma and that fantastic voice.
0:00:31 > 0:00:33'But in the eyes of some,
0:00:33 > 0:00:39'he sacrificed his artistic promise by becoming a huge Hollywood star.
0:00:39 > 0:00:44'He was permanently plastered across the newspaper front pages,
0:00:44 > 0:00:48'more famous for his lifestyle and relationship with Elizabeth Taylor
0:00:48 > 0:00:51'than for his roles and his talent.
0:00:51 > 0:00:54'It was a criticism Burton didn't necessarily reject.
0:00:54 > 0:00:57'In interviews throughout his career,
0:00:57 > 0:01:00'he would openly admit that he was driven by money
0:01:00 > 0:01:02'and that he didn't rate many of his performances -
0:01:02 > 0:01:07'downplaying, perhaps, his seven Oscar nominations for Best Actor.
0:01:07 > 0:01:12'We join Burton here for an interview with Michael Elwyn
0:01:12 > 0:01:15'from the 1965 programme My Time Again,
0:01:15 > 0:01:20'which begins with him discussing the craft of acting.'
0:01:20 > 0:01:23How absorbed into a part do you get?
0:01:23 > 0:01:26You seem to use little theatrical tricks
0:01:26 > 0:01:31and that it is very much your own brooding personality and voice,
0:01:31 > 0:01:36with little...technical means of getting something over.
0:01:36 > 0:01:40How much, you know, do you feel in a part?
0:01:40 > 0:01:43Well, I didn't think that I was capable of,
0:01:43 > 0:01:48I don't know quite what the word is, but when you get close to a part...
0:01:48 > 0:01:52In my case, it's a sort of osmosis,
0:01:52 > 0:01:55the transference of something from one thing to the other,
0:01:55 > 0:01:58that I actually begin to feel
0:01:58 > 0:02:01curiously like the character that I'm playing,
0:02:01 > 0:02:03even if it's in a film.
0:02:03 > 0:02:08I'm not, by any means, a method actor.
0:02:08 > 0:02:12I don't deliberately think myself into these kind of things.
0:02:12 > 0:02:14There is an odd thing that does happen
0:02:14 > 0:02:17when you're totally absorbed in a part.
0:02:19 > 0:02:22I'm a fairly grey fellow, latterly very grey and...
0:02:26 > 0:02:28..live within myself, as it were,
0:02:28 > 0:02:32because I'm playing a part who is grey and lives within himself.
0:02:32 > 0:02:35He's not heroic - antiheroic.
0:02:35 > 0:02:38I wouldn't accept a fight from anybody at the moment.
0:02:38 > 0:02:41Maybe a year ago, I would have.
0:02:41 > 0:02:45You made your name playing Hamlet, Henry V, Iago, Coriolanus,
0:02:45 > 0:02:50roles like these, and never Troilus, Florizel, Romeo.
0:02:50 > 0:02:54How... I hate those parts. It's completely alien, is it?
0:02:54 > 0:02:58Oh, yes. I think Romeo's probably the worst part written by anybody.
0:02:58 > 0:03:00That's so famous, I mean. There are worse parts.
0:03:00 > 0:03:04I once played Ferdinand in The Tempest. I'll tell you a story.
0:03:04 > 0:03:08When you start to get bad notices, it's interesting to collect them.
0:03:08 > 0:03:12My favourite bad notice is for Ferdinand in The Tempest.
0:03:12 > 0:03:16He's a kind of stand-in, a kind of understudy for Romeo
0:03:16 > 0:03:18and all those abject Shakespearean heroes
0:03:18 > 0:03:21who, quite clearly, are ladies.
0:03:21 > 0:03:25I was playing this part, Ferdinand, in The Tempest.
0:03:25 > 0:03:30I loathed it with a passionate intensity and begged them to let me out of it.
0:03:30 > 0:03:33I said, "I'll be one of the dancers. I'll be a nymph, anything,
0:03:33 > 0:03:36"but don't let me play this diabolical Ferdinand."
0:03:36 > 0:03:39However, they forced me to play it.
0:03:39 > 0:03:43I'm not short - but then, I'm not tall, either.
0:03:43 > 0:03:47I'm exactly five feet ten and a half inches in height,
0:03:47 > 0:03:49and I tend to width.
0:03:49 > 0:03:54They put me in a costume that had bunches of grapes over here.
0:03:54 > 0:03:59I looked like some strange Welsh Stone-Age troglodyte.
0:03:59 > 0:04:02And I pretended that I wasn't on the stage.
0:04:02 > 0:04:05I had a toy sword in my hand and those terrible things
0:04:05 > 0:04:09they give you in Shakespeare that make your legs look two inches high.
0:04:09 > 0:04:13I was perfectly convinced that nobody knew I was on the stage.
0:04:13 > 0:04:15The critics were suitably kind.
0:04:15 > 0:04:19They said I "contributed effectively to the atmosphere", something like that.
0:04:19 > 0:04:24Except for an old friend of mine called Ken Tynan, who said,
0:04:24 > 0:04:28"This is the first time in our experience,
0:04:28 > 0:04:32"that we've ever seen Ferdinand played by a bull."
0:04:32 > 0:04:34INTERVIEWER LAUGHS
0:04:36 > 0:04:39You moved on from the English theatre to Hollywood when you were,
0:04:39 > 0:04:44as many people said, on the threshold of greatness in the English theatre.
0:04:44 > 0:04:46Did you leave for financial reasons
0:04:46 > 0:04:49or has the cinema always held
0:04:49 > 0:04:53a stronger fascination for you than the live theatre?
0:04:53 > 0:04:56No. Not particularly. I went to Hollywood.
0:04:56 > 0:05:00I made a couple of films, both of which were very successful.
0:05:00 > 0:05:04One was called My Cousin Rachel and the other was called The Robe.
0:05:04 > 0:05:10If you call that the threshold, I was on the threshold of earning a great deal of money.
0:05:10 > 0:05:13And I was very sensible, I thought,
0:05:13 > 0:05:18and played for a year at the Old Vic and therefore got into debt.
0:05:18 > 0:05:22I played Hamlet and...Coriolanus
0:05:22 > 0:05:27and the bastard in King John and Caliban and...I've forgotten.
0:05:28 > 0:05:31Then I went back to Hollywood, did another film,
0:05:31 > 0:05:34then went back to the Old Vic for another year.
0:05:34 > 0:05:38I spread it out fairly evenly between the two worlds.
0:05:38 > 0:05:41"Greatness" is a word I don't understand.
0:05:41 > 0:05:46I asked the question because you seem to have spent a long time in cinema
0:05:46 > 0:05:48trying to come to grips with the camera.
0:05:48 > 0:05:51Critical success has eluded you until recently
0:05:51 > 0:05:54in Beckett and Night Of The Iguana.
0:05:54 > 0:05:56Yeah, the reason for that is my wife.
0:05:56 > 0:05:59She knows a great deal about film acting and she persuaded me
0:05:59 > 0:06:02that I mustn't pretend film acting is just a means
0:06:02 > 0:06:05of filling in time between stage performances.
0:06:05 > 0:06:09And, indeed, made me work at it, which I'd never done.
0:06:09 > 0:06:13I really, I think, fundamentally, profoundly believed
0:06:13 > 0:06:17that film acting was only an excuse for acting.
0:06:17 > 0:06:20Until, as you kindly pointed out,
0:06:20 > 0:06:22latterly, the last three or four years.
0:06:22 > 0:06:26You feel you're now beginning to feel at home?
0:06:26 > 0:06:31I wouldn't go as far as to think that I'm good or anything like that
0:06:31 > 0:06:34in the film half of the business,
0:06:34 > 0:06:38but certainly I've... I try much harder than I did.
0:06:38 > 0:06:42Do you film more because, basically, you're Byronic,
0:06:42 > 0:06:46and the location work and the travelling and the unreal atmosphere
0:06:46 > 0:06:50makes just as big a contribution to your own personal happiness
0:06:50 > 0:06:54as does the actual creating of a role?
0:06:54 > 0:06:56Yeah, that's a dicey question.
0:06:56 > 0:06:59"Byronic" is such an extraordinary word to apply.
0:06:59 > 0:07:03I don't like travelling very much. You don't? No.
0:07:03 > 0:07:06I like being in places. I hate getting there.
0:07:06 > 0:07:10I hate planes. I don't mind trains and I don't mind boats.
0:07:10 > 0:07:14Nowadays, one has to fly everywhere, so I hate getting from one place to the other.
0:07:14 > 0:07:16Also, we have an enormous family.
0:07:16 > 0:07:22Travelling from one place to the other with four children is not easy.
0:07:22 > 0:07:25No, that has nothing to do, I don't think, with the film business,
0:07:25 > 0:07:30my desire to travel or my lack of desire, it's just that one has to.
0:07:30 > 0:07:32If I could change tack,
0:07:32 > 0:07:37how important is the literature of theatre to you?
0:07:37 > 0:07:40Immensely important. Much more important than anything else.
0:07:40 > 0:07:42What do you read and who...?
0:07:44 > 0:07:46I don't read plays very much.
0:07:46 > 0:07:50I don't like plays to read, except, of course, Shakespeare.
0:07:50 > 0:07:56My chief world, I suppose, as a reader,
0:07:56 > 0:07:59is almost entirely poetic.
0:07:59 > 0:08:02Or the opposite - detective stories.
0:08:02 > 0:08:07I'm a voracious reader, omnivorous, I will read anything.
0:08:07 > 0:08:11But the thing that draws me back all the time is poetry.
0:08:12 > 0:08:17I'm not really interested in Brecht or any of the non-poetic writers.
0:08:17 > 0:08:20People who are clearly instinctively poetic,
0:08:20 > 0:08:22like John Osborne or Harold Pinter
0:08:22 > 0:08:26who, despite the fact they write in prose are unquestionably poets,
0:08:26 > 0:08:28are fascinating.
0:08:28 > 0:08:32Or the man that I'm going to play next, that I've never played,
0:08:32 > 0:08:35Edward Albee. Although he writes in prose,
0:08:35 > 0:08:40there's no question about this man's stupendous eloquence and poetry.
0:08:40 > 0:08:46But to play...some of those chaps who write Lonsdale comedies
0:08:46 > 0:08:49never interested me at all.
0:08:49 > 0:08:51If you wrote a play, would it be in verse?
0:08:53 > 0:08:56It would be in monologue and I would play the central part.
0:08:56 > 0:08:58LAUGHTER
0:08:59 > 0:09:05Do you have any plans to return soon to the live theatre?
0:09:05 > 0:09:09In England. I know you've done Hamlet recently on Broadway.
0:09:09 > 0:09:13This was your first return to classical roles for a long time.
0:09:13 > 0:09:18Are we going to...? Yes, I think next year I go back to Oxford,
0:09:18 > 0:09:20to OUR university,
0:09:20 > 0:09:24and play Marlowe's Faustus
0:09:24 > 0:09:29with Dr Nevill Coghill directing, and the rest of the company,
0:09:29 > 0:09:32apart from Helen of Troy - who shall be nameless -
0:09:32 > 0:09:35will be played by the boys at Oxford.
0:09:35 > 0:09:39'That performance of Doctor Faustus did go ahead,
0:09:39 > 0:09:43'with Burton and Elizabeth Taylor waiving any salaries,
0:09:43 > 0:09:47'and Taylor taking the non-speaking part of Helen of Troy.
0:09:47 > 0:09:51'The pair of them also faced some prickly prodding from the press,
0:09:51 > 0:09:53'once the production had ended.'
0:09:53 > 0:09:57MAN: You must at some time, Richard Burton, have faced the question
0:09:57 > 0:10:01of whether you should have continued as an imposing and even,
0:10:01 > 0:10:03in the view of many people,
0:10:03 > 0:10:07great stage actor, or moved into the world of films,
0:10:07 > 0:10:12which is more commercially rewarding but perhaps not so rewarding artistically.
0:10:12 > 0:10:16Do you ever regret having moved into the commercial cinema?
0:10:16 > 0:10:19Oooh! Excuse me, Richard. That makes me so angry!
0:10:19 > 0:10:23Because he has NOT left the stage! That's absolute bloody rubbish...
0:10:23 > 0:10:26Elizabeth, pull yourself together.
0:10:26 > 0:10:29Last year, he was just doing a thing here for Oxford on the stage.
0:10:29 > 0:10:33On Broadway, that was the stage. How can you say he's left the stage?
0:10:33 > 0:10:37That is not a continuous stage career, in the sense, for example,
0:10:37 > 0:10:39of Paul Scofield or Laurence Olivier.
0:10:39 > 0:10:43HE's not continuous on the stage. He does film appearances for money!
0:10:43 > 0:10:48So does Paul Scofield. Scofield has made one film in ten or 14 years.
0:10:48 > 0:10:53Richard was, at one time, after Coriolanus particularly,
0:10:53 > 0:10:57hailed as potentially the greatest stage actor England ever produced.
0:10:57 > 0:11:02I wonder whether, in a way, your making of Faustus,
0:11:02 > 0:11:06which is the story of a man who sells out for a dream, almost,
0:11:06 > 0:11:09is perhaps comparable with your decision then.
0:11:09 > 0:11:11No, I don't think so.
0:11:11 > 0:11:15One of the differences between myself and some other actors
0:11:15 > 0:11:20is the fact that they really have... almost an anguish.
0:11:20 > 0:11:22For instance, Sir John Gielgud,
0:11:22 > 0:11:25who's almost my favourite actor in the world.
0:11:25 > 0:11:31John really is helpless, upset unless he gets onto the stage and gets his teeth into a part.
0:11:31 > 0:11:35Even though it's a part he doesn't want to play. He has to be there.
0:11:35 > 0:11:38I don't have that sense of compulsion.
0:11:38 > 0:11:41Also, I need roughly six weeks of active playing after the rehearsals,
0:11:41 > 0:11:47after you open, before the part matures as fully as I can make it.
0:11:47 > 0:11:50And then it begins to crack and flaw.
0:11:50 > 0:11:52I don't have...
0:11:52 > 0:11:56I have enormous energy, but I don't have the kind of moral stamina
0:11:56 > 0:12:01that Laurence Olivier has and Paul has and John has, to go on and on.
0:12:01 > 0:12:04I want to ask Elizabeth Taylor if your irritation
0:12:04 > 0:12:07was because you felt that the cinema was not
0:12:07 > 0:12:11the creative medium... No... I wonder why you got so cross.
0:12:11 > 0:12:15Because you said the exact phrase that I knew you were working up to,
0:12:15 > 0:12:19"sold out", and it offends me to my soul.
0:12:19 > 0:12:22I'm going to sell out, I hope one day, to the stage.
0:12:22 > 0:12:26It's exactly the same thing. If I go on the stage, I'm selling out.
0:12:26 > 0:12:30You feel the two arts are, in their own medium, just as comparable?
0:12:30 > 0:12:32Of course they are. Quite.
0:12:32 > 0:12:37Richard Burton's cinema performance is as creative as he could have done on the stage?
0:12:37 > 0:12:42It's just as tasking, perhaps sometimes more tasking because it's more difficult.
0:12:42 > 0:12:44I don't know about that... Technically.
0:12:44 > 0:12:48You start a scene where you have a flow and you stop for two hours,
0:12:48 > 0:12:50then you start again.
0:12:50 > 0:12:54I promise you, your concentration has to be finely whittled down.
0:12:54 > 0:12:57Anyway, David, I think usually that "sold out" business
0:12:57 > 0:13:00is written in England.
0:13:00 > 0:13:02By cheap journalists.
0:13:02 > 0:13:07I left England in 1957. The last play I did in England was in 1957.
0:13:07 > 0:13:10Since that time, I've done six plays,
0:13:10 > 0:13:13five of which were enormous successes in New York.
0:13:13 > 0:13:19Since you disappear from the London scene, they sometimes think you're not still acting on the stage.
0:13:19 > 0:13:24And I don't care whether they think I've sold out or not.
0:13:24 > 0:13:28One thing you have said, Richard, about your life with Elizabeth
0:13:28 > 0:13:30is that it is a continuous excitement.
0:13:30 > 0:13:36One can never really be sure what she's going to do next, as I found out just now.
0:13:36 > 0:13:39Would you say that the excitement will continue?
0:13:40 > 0:13:43We enjoy each other's company very much.
0:13:43 > 0:13:45We're people of very high temperament,
0:13:45 > 0:13:47as you may have noticed from Elizabeth.
0:13:47 > 0:13:50LAUGHING: Indeed, yes.
0:13:50 > 0:13:52We find it very difficult
0:13:52 > 0:13:56to be apart from each other for more than two or three hours.
0:13:56 > 0:14:02In fact, our film careers are absolutely - film and stage -
0:14:02 > 0:14:05bound up in the fact that we must never ever be separated.
0:14:05 > 0:14:08You don't mind being known as the "Laurel and Hardy"?
0:14:08 > 0:14:11No, I named me that.
0:14:11 > 0:14:14What's wrong with that? We should BE so lucky!
0:14:14 > 0:14:17Do you ever wish you WEREN'T so beautiful?
0:14:17 > 0:14:20Oh, God! I wake up every morning saying, "Jesus!
0:14:20 > 0:14:25"If only I weren't so gorgeous!" What do you mean? Well, you are.
0:14:25 > 0:14:29NEW MALE SPEAKER: Of course she doesn't wish she wasn't beautiful.
0:14:29 > 0:14:33INTERVIEWER: But sometimes a woman who is an actress says,
0:14:33 > 0:14:36"If I weren't, they'd take me more seriously," as Richard is saying.
0:14:36 > 0:14:41One's heard of those mythical, apocryphal actresses
0:14:41 > 0:14:44who jump into a bath of milk every morning and splash themselves,
0:14:44 > 0:14:48"I AM beautiful!" Elizabeth doesn't do that. It's a bath of gin.
0:14:48 > 0:14:51LAUGHS I don't like gin! Champagne!
0:14:51 > 0:14:56'Richard Burton's marriage to Elizabeth Taylor would last into the next decade,
0:14:56 > 0:15:01'but by 1974, the years of high living and hard drinking
0:15:01 > 0:15:04'had taken their toll, as Barry Norman explored
0:15:04 > 0:15:08'in an interview on the set of Burton's latest film, The Voyage.'
0:15:08 > 0:15:13NORMAN: 'Burton has become as famous for his flamboyant purchases
0:15:13 > 0:15:17'of yachts and aeroplanes and fur coats and fabulous diamonds,
0:15:17 > 0:15:19'as for his acting.'
0:15:24 > 0:15:26Wait a second.
0:15:26 > 0:15:31'The Burton-Taylor marriage, as far as one can tell with such a volatile couple, is over,
0:15:31 > 0:15:33'but it was exciting while it lasted.
0:15:33 > 0:15:37'Quarrels, reconciliations and the frequent exchange of lavish presents
0:15:37 > 0:15:41'and always, on Burton, the dominating influence of his wife.'
0:15:41 > 0:15:43Richard, looking back on your career,
0:15:43 > 0:15:48it seems to be divided in two almost exactly by Cleopatra.
0:15:48 > 0:15:50Would you agree with that,
0:15:50 > 0:15:53that it changed course completely after Cleopatra?
0:15:53 > 0:15:57I don't know. I think my life was changed by a woman, you know,
0:15:57 > 0:15:59who was called Elizabeth Taylor.
0:15:59 > 0:16:05I'm not entirely sure what exactly she did to me.
0:16:06 > 0:16:08But certainly...
0:16:12 > 0:16:15I don't know exactly what to say.
0:16:17 > 0:16:23Those people, you know, like Laurence Olivier and Paul Scofield
0:16:23 > 0:16:31and...Marlon Brando and Elizabeth Taylor and people like that,
0:16:31 > 0:16:36they're very rare, very strange, very odd, very perverse.
0:16:36 > 0:16:43And they obviously believe that they are very extraordinary people,
0:16:43 > 0:16:45in their odd way.
0:16:46 > 0:16:51They believe firmly, of course, that they are...
0:16:52 > 0:16:55..gifted by God or something like that.
0:16:55 > 0:17:01Unfortunately, I don't believe that, you see - I mean, about myself.
0:17:01 > 0:17:09There's unquestionably a kind of passion, a strange idiocy,
0:17:09 > 0:17:11where you...
0:17:13 > 0:17:18..you walk on the stage or you walk on the screen or whatever it is,
0:17:18 > 0:17:22and you feel a strange kind of power.
0:17:24 > 0:17:27I defy the power, of course.
0:17:27 > 0:17:31What would you say it is that YOU do, when you're in front of the camera?
0:17:31 > 0:17:35I think I'm a sort of animal.
0:17:35 > 0:17:38I get on there and I chunter out the words.
0:17:38 > 0:17:42I have a reasonable voice and so on.
0:17:42 > 0:17:48I just get out there and become an animal, in some strange way.
0:17:48 > 0:17:52In the same way that the other people become animals.
0:17:53 > 0:17:55Except that they believe
0:17:55 > 0:18:00that they are fundamentally powerful and beautiful and so on.
0:18:00 > 0:18:03I don't believe that at all. Certainly, I'm not powerful.
0:18:03 > 0:18:05Certainly, I'm not beautiful.
0:18:05 > 0:18:08I don't understand what these fellows do.
0:18:08 > 0:18:12Except that I appreciate what they do, if you know what I mean.
0:18:12 > 0:18:16What keeps you going in the same profession?
0:18:16 > 0:18:17Money.
0:18:17 > 0:18:20But you don't need the money now, surely?
0:18:20 > 0:18:22You've got to be joking!
0:18:22 > 0:18:25I've got about 50,000 people to take care of.
0:18:25 > 0:18:28I have to pay everybody off.
0:18:28 > 0:18:34I have to pay lawyers...legends...
0:18:34 > 0:18:36I have to keep this dog.
0:18:37 > 0:18:40At the moment, I'm doing all right.
0:18:41 > 0:18:47I pick up a lot of money for films and, I don't know.
0:18:47 > 0:18:49It's absolute nonsense.
0:18:49 > 0:18:53The whole idea of the film business is nonsense.
0:18:53 > 0:18:57On the stage, of course, I'm absolutely sure, I'm certain.
0:18:57 > 0:19:00I can go anywhere and play anything.
0:19:01 > 0:19:08But I don't REALLY know what prompts the imagination of the public...
0:19:08 > 0:19:11DOG WHINES Shut up.
0:19:11 > 0:19:16It's a funny Chinese dog. The only Chinese dog who speaks Welsh.
0:19:16 > 0:19:18NORMAN LAUGHS
0:19:19 > 0:19:24No, I really think it's very odd and very perverse.
0:19:26 > 0:19:32Laurence Olivier once said that were it not for the fact that he were an actor,
0:19:32 > 0:19:34he would have gone mad.
0:19:36 > 0:19:39I'm beginning to think that I would have gone mad, too.
0:19:39 > 0:19:44But I don't put myself in the same category as Laurence Olivier,
0:19:44 > 0:19:47because he really loves the theatre.
0:19:47 > 0:19:50He's obsessed by it, and so on.
0:19:50 > 0:19:51I'm not.
0:19:51 > 0:19:56On what basis do you choose the roles you're going to play in movies?
0:19:56 > 0:20:00Sometimes, you seem to make very curious choices,
0:20:00 > 0:20:03films like Bluebeard and Hammersmith Is Out.
0:20:03 > 0:20:06One wonders why you chose to do those films. Yeah.
0:20:06 > 0:20:09I long to be a failure(!) NORMAN LAUGHS
0:20:11 > 0:20:13And...?
0:20:13 > 0:20:18And I AM a failure. Well, yeah, but a really successful failure.
0:20:18 > 0:20:20No, I manage. I get along.
0:20:21 > 0:20:25I'm afraid that, in about five or six months,
0:20:25 > 0:20:28I'm going to go back on stage.
0:20:28 > 0:20:31It terrifies me. It appals me.
0:20:31 > 0:20:34But I go back on stage. SIGHS
0:20:34 > 0:20:36Why? Is it sheer masochism?
0:20:37 > 0:20:40Perhaps, perhaps. Never thought of that.
0:20:40 > 0:20:45Richard, where do you go from here? How do you envisage your future?
0:20:45 > 0:20:49Are you going to go back to the stage, continue making movies?
0:20:49 > 0:20:53You once told me you were going to retire.
0:20:53 > 0:20:59I think, er...that the, er...essential, er...
0:21:01 > 0:21:04..thing that I must do is, um...
0:21:04 > 0:21:06quietly, er...
0:21:09 > 0:21:13..room myself into the grave, you know.
0:21:13 > 0:21:18Sleep, sleep, sleep. Sleep is so fundamental.
0:21:18 > 0:21:22Did I ever tell you that poem about sleep? I bet I didn't.
0:21:22 > 0:21:25No, I don't think you did. Oh, yeah.
0:21:28 > 0:21:31But... BURTON CHUCKLES
0:21:31 > 0:21:34Is it going to be back to the theatre or more movies?
0:21:37 > 0:21:42No, no. The only thing that's important are the children
0:21:42 > 0:21:44and Elizabeth
0:21:44 > 0:21:46and, er...
0:21:46 > 0:21:51being alive, I suppose, in a sort of extraordinary way.
0:21:51 > 0:21:55I don't know. I don't know. I really don't.
0:21:55 > 0:21:59That sounds a very depressed attitude for you to be taking.
0:21:59 > 0:22:02I would have thought that the position you're in now
0:22:02 > 0:22:05you would be feeling much more bucked-up about things.
0:22:05 > 0:22:08You must understand, Barry, that I'm sending you up.
0:22:08 > 0:22:10I thought you might be. Yeah(!)
0:22:13 > 0:22:14Er...
0:22:15 > 0:22:20I think I'm reasonably...intelligent,
0:22:20 > 0:22:22er...clever,
0:22:22 > 0:22:24good, kind.
0:22:26 > 0:22:28Sweet.
0:22:28 > 0:22:29Nasty.
0:22:33 > 0:22:35Gifted?
0:22:35 > 0:22:38Oh, no. I'm not gifted, no.
0:22:39 > 0:22:42MAN GIVES INSTRUCTION IN ITALIAN
0:22:45 > 0:22:48'Do you feel very vulnerable, then, when you're acting?
0:22:49 > 0:22:51'Oh, I HATE acting.
0:22:53 > 0:22:57'You did tell me a few years ago that you planned to give it up.
0:22:57 > 0:23:00'But you've made a lot of films since then.
0:23:00 > 0:23:04'I have to make the money. I have to make the money.
0:23:04 > 0:23:07'If you give your wife a jewel
0:23:07 > 0:23:11'or something costing, shall we say,
0:23:11 > 0:23:16'about $100,000 or whatever it is,
0:23:16 > 0:23:19'what the hell are you going to do?'
0:23:19 > 0:23:23No, no. I just count the shekels, I count the money.
0:23:23 > 0:23:26Do you really do it just for the money, Richard?
0:23:27 > 0:23:29Now, Barry. I mean...
0:23:29 > 0:23:33We're in a very, very, very strange state today.
0:23:33 > 0:23:37Who knows...what happens?
0:23:37 > 0:23:39I don't know.
0:23:41 > 0:23:43May I have a cigarette? By all means. Yes.
0:23:43 > 0:23:48Do you enjoy this superstar status, the tremendous celebrity,
0:23:48 > 0:23:52the fact that you can't move without being mobbed?
0:23:52 > 0:23:55Do you really enjoy it, that kind of life?
0:23:55 > 0:23:57If it stops, I'm dead...
0:23:57 > 0:24:01'Just two months later, Burton was divorced
0:24:01 > 0:24:04'and had just spent six weeks in hospital
0:24:04 > 0:24:07'battling his legendary alcoholism.
0:24:07 > 0:24:10'But he was still able to undergo another interview,
0:24:10 > 0:24:13'this time with Michael Parkinson.'
0:24:13 > 0:24:15APPLAUSE
0:24:20 > 0:24:23Richard, welcome. Let's talk about that background of yours,
0:24:23 > 0:24:25because it does interest me.
0:24:25 > 0:24:29The path you've come has been quite extraordinary.
0:24:29 > 0:24:33You'd think a novelist had written it and if a novelist did write it,
0:24:33 > 0:24:36you could accuse him of over-exaggeration.
0:24:36 > 0:24:39All right, the background - humble, comparatively so.
0:24:39 > 0:24:41We've agreed on that. Yeah.
0:24:41 > 0:24:45What, in fact, did it give you, that background, do you think?
0:24:45 > 0:24:48I think a tremendous sense of...
0:24:49 > 0:24:51..strength, I suppose.
0:24:51 > 0:24:55Because I presume that if you survive such a...
0:24:55 > 0:24:58I'm talking like Churchill. Isn't it funny?
0:24:58 > 0:25:04If you survive such a background, you must have come from an extraordinary...er...
0:25:04 > 0:25:06race of people.
0:25:06 > 0:25:09I'm enormously proud, of course, of being Welsh.
0:25:09 > 0:25:10This extraordinary voice of yours,
0:25:10 > 0:25:14would you say that it's a kind of Welsh voice? Is there such a thing?
0:25:14 > 0:25:18Oh, yes. It's the deep, dark answer from the valleys to everybody.
0:25:18 > 0:25:21LAUGHTER I can't help the voice.
0:25:21 > 0:25:26It is part of me and I didn't cultivate it or anything.
0:25:26 > 0:25:30It was given to me and I'm very lucky to possess it, I suppose.
0:25:31 > 0:25:33Er...certainly, it's...
0:25:35 > 0:25:38..it's not a gift that I would wish on anybody else.
0:25:38 > 0:25:41Why?
0:25:41 > 0:25:43Too powerful. LAUGHTER
0:25:43 > 0:25:46Too much competition, perhaps?
0:25:46 > 0:25:49Can we go back to something...? AS PARKINSON: Can we go back to...?
0:25:49 > 0:25:53You ARE a mimic. You can mimic most people quite accurately.
0:25:53 > 0:25:56No, I can't. Well, I can do some. LAUGHTER
0:25:56 > 0:25:59I might do you, Michael, by the end of the day.
0:25:59 > 0:26:01Who can you do?
0:26:01 > 0:26:03Oh, I suppose I can do...
0:26:05 > 0:26:08I can do quite a few actors and so on. Like who?
0:26:08 > 0:26:12Well, I can do...Laurence Olivier.
0:26:12 > 0:26:15Could you? Yes. Right now? Please. LAUGHTER
0:26:16 > 0:26:19I have to pitch my voice up a bit,
0:26:19 > 0:26:23because his voice is rather higher toned than mine. So...
0:26:23 > 0:26:26I have to do it physically. Do you mind? Can you pick the camera up?
0:26:26 > 0:26:30They'll follow you, that's what they're there for.
0:26:30 > 0:26:31Here he comes.
0:26:31 > 0:26:33LAUGHTER
0:26:33 > 0:26:37Richard III, right? LAUGHTER
0:26:37 > 0:26:39LAUGHING: Brilliant!
0:26:40 > 0:26:43AS OLIVIER Now is the winter of our discontent
0:26:43 > 0:26:46made glorious summer by this SUN of York
0:26:46 > 0:26:48and all the clouds that lour'd about our house
0:26:48 > 0:26:52in the deep bosom of the o-ce-an buried.
0:26:52 > 0:26:53APPLAUSE
0:27:01 > 0:27:04Who else, Richard?
0:27:04 > 0:27:08Well, I don't think I'll do anybody else in case I get into trouble.
0:27:08 > 0:27:13Do that marvellous... Over lunch, you did a marvellous Lee Marvin.
0:27:13 > 0:27:16It must be the other extreme.
0:27:16 > 0:27:20Well, yes. Lee Marvin's a very strange man and very beautiful
0:27:20 > 0:27:22and very extraordinary,
0:27:22 > 0:27:25but he becomes, when he's had a few drinks,
0:27:25 > 0:27:27he's become...he becomes...
0:27:29 > 0:27:33..incoherent in the most splendid possible way.
0:27:33 > 0:27:36He makes a series of nouns...
0:27:36 > 0:27:40CHUCKLING: ..sounds that really take one's breath away.
0:27:40 > 0:27:46Sorry, I'm not going to be able to speak because I'm getting incoherent the way that Lee Marvin does.
0:27:46 > 0:27:51And he says to... We just did a film together in the United States.
0:27:51 > 0:27:57He said to OJ Simpson, who is probably the greatest athlete in the world,
0:27:57 > 0:28:02er...enormous, fantastic, splendid black man.
0:28:02 > 0:28:06Lee was trying to explain to him how to act.
0:28:06 > 0:28:09He started off all right, Lee. He was very good.
0:28:09 > 0:28:11Started off perfectly well
0:28:11 > 0:28:16and then his language degenerated into a kind of noises.
0:28:16 > 0:28:18He said to OJ...
0:28:20 > 0:28:24AS LEE MARVIN: You know what acting's about, it's kinda...
0:28:24 > 0:28:26Shht! Swsh!
0:28:26 > 0:28:28Whoo! Kkkkkk!
0:28:28 > 0:28:31LAUGHTER That's the we we do it baby, huh?
0:28:31 > 0:28:33LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
0:28:39 > 0:28:42I look fat on that monitor. I'm not fat, actually.
0:28:42 > 0:28:45No, indeed you're not. You're looking very trim. Yeah.
0:28:45 > 0:28:50You mentioned earlier Dylan Thomas. He had a most remarkable voice.
0:28:50 > 0:28:53I remember the first time I heard that voice.
0:28:53 > 0:28:57I'll tell you what struck me about him. It was rather a posh voice.
0:28:57 > 0:29:03Yes. He used to call himself "plus fours and no breakfast" or "chiffon and cut glass",
0:29:03 > 0:29:05his particular accent.
0:29:05 > 0:29:09Dylan, of course, was a very extraordinary man,
0:29:09 > 0:29:11a genius, I suppose.
0:29:11 > 0:29:13And...
0:29:13 > 0:29:16I'll give you an example of what Dylan was like.
0:29:16 > 0:29:19We all had to go to a poetry reading.
0:29:19 > 0:29:21I was there and Dylan
0:29:21 > 0:29:24and, um...Dame Edith Sitwell
0:29:24 > 0:29:26and Dame Edith Evans...
0:29:26 > 0:29:28and Louis MacNeice.
0:29:28 > 0:29:32It was at the Lyric, Hammersmith, I remember that.
0:29:32 > 0:29:35John Gielgud was the overall director of the whole thing.
0:29:35 > 0:29:40So I said, "Could you get Dylan," I said, in my subtlest way...
0:29:42 > 0:29:45"..to speak Tennyson?" Because I know he hates Tennyson.
0:29:45 > 0:29:51So John arranged it so that Dylan spoke Tennyson and the poem was...
0:29:51 > 0:29:55"A splendour falls on castle walls And snowy summits old in story:
0:29:55 > 0:29:57"The long light shakes across the lakes
0:29:57 > 0:29:59"And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
0:29:59 > 0:30:02"Blow, bugles, blow Let the wild..." something.
0:30:02 > 0:30:07"..And answer, echoes, answer dying, dying, dying."
0:30:07 > 0:30:11So it goes on, and the envoi is always "dying, dying, dying".
0:30:11 > 0:30:15Dylan was suddenly forced to speak this poem.
0:30:15 > 0:30:19Again, I can only do things physically.
0:30:19 > 0:30:21I have to do it. All right?
0:30:21 > 0:30:25LAUGHTER So he gets now,
0:30:25 > 0:30:28"The splendour falls on castle walls
0:30:28 > 0:30:30"And snowy summits old in story:"
0:30:30 > 0:30:34And of course, an eternal Woodbine in his mouth!
0:30:34 > 0:30:36"The long light shakes across the lakes
0:30:36 > 0:30:38"And the wild cataracts leap in glory.
0:30:38 > 0:30:41"Blow, bugles, blow, set the wild echoes flying
0:30:41 > 0:30:45"And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying."
0:30:45 > 0:30:52Then he gets to the last verse. I thought, "What's he going to do to show his hatred of Tennyson?
0:30:52 > 0:30:56"He's got to show it in the words that he says."
0:30:56 > 0:31:00He says, "Oh, love, they die on yon rich sky,
0:31:00 > 0:31:03"They faint on hill and field and river:
0:31:03 > 0:31:08"Their echoes roll from soul to soul And go for ever and for ever.
0:31:08 > 0:31:12"Blow, bugles, blow, set the wild echoes flying
0:31:12 > 0:31:14"And answer, echoes, answer,
0:31:14 > 0:31:16"dying,
0:31:16 > 0:31:18"dying...
0:31:19 > 0:31:22"Oh! Dying." LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
0:31:31 > 0:31:35He was, ultimately, a very tragic man, wasn't he? I suppose so.
0:31:35 > 0:31:39He sought his own death and he found it, which is not entirely tragic.
0:31:39 > 0:31:41He certainly...
0:31:41 > 0:31:45wrote, of course, the most magical things.
0:31:45 > 0:31:47And he's alive.
0:31:47 > 0:31:49Yes. He's alive.
0:31:49 > 0:31:52One gets a sense of waste, though, surely, when you think?
0:31:52 > 0:31:57He left behind him stuff that will live for ever, but he might have left more.
0:31:57 > 0:32:00No, I don't think so. I think he's the same as...
0:32:00 > 0:32:06Well, Michael, you say a sense of waste. I wouldn't quarrel with that.
0:32:06 > 0:32:09But I think he probably burned himself out.
0:32:09 > 0:32:13He fulfilled the notion a lot of people have
0:32:13 > 0:32:16about the Welsh, the Celts, actually, generally,
0:32:16 > 0:32:20about this death wish they have, the creative people.
0:32:20 > 0:32:25Do you, first of all, accept that they have this...kind of...
0:32:25 > 0:32:28headlong rush toward... toward the edge?
0:32:29 > 0:32:32Yes, I think that we rather love precipices.
0:32:32 > 0:32:36We go towards them and withdraw, now and again.
0:32:36 > 0:32:39Temporary. Sometimes, we go over the edge.
0:32:39 > 0:32:44Certainly, it's true in Dylan's case. Hm.
0:32:44 > 0:32:50I wouldn't pretend to know what went on in his extraordinary head,
0:32:50 > 0:32:56but certainly, he searched for...destruction.
0:32:56 > 0:33:01Have you ever felt yourself going toward the precipice and pulling back short of it?
0:33:01 > 0:33:03Well, yes, I have.
0:33:03 > 0:33:05I think we all do, we Celts.
0:33:05 > 0:33:07Um...
0:33:07 > 0:33:10Would you care to tell me how? In what circumstance?
0:33:10 > 0:33:12Well...
0:33:12 > 0:33:15There was a second or two, I think,
0:33:15 > 0:33:17perhaps about a year ago
0:33:17 > 0:33:21when, er...I didn't fancy much staying alive.
0:33:23 > 0:33:25Really?
0:33:25 > 0:33:28You contemplated suicide? Oh, no!
0:33:28 > 0:33:31UNCERTAIN LAUGHTER No! I wouldn't kill myself.
0:33:31 > 0:33:35In the ordinary sense of the word. I wouldn't take pills or drugs.
0:33:35 > 0:33:38Or anything, really, in that sense.
0:33:38 > 0:33:42But I did suddenly wake up one morning
0:33:42 > 0:33:47and found how splendidly rich and extraordinary the world was
0:33:47 > 0:33:51and that I couldn't bear its richness
0:33:51 > 0:33:52and its beauty.
0:33:52 > 0:33:56And in order to obviate
0:33:56 > 0:34:01the idea of the richness and extraordinary beauty of the world,
0:34:01 > 0:34:04I thought it's best to leave it.
0:34:04 > 0:34:08We're all... We all know that we're going towards...
0:34:08 > 0:34:11an inevitable doom.
0:34:13 > 0:34:17It's rather interesting to deliberately go towards it
0:34:17 > 0:34:19and then withdraw,
0:34:19 > 0:34:24because nobody else has been there and withdrawn.
0:34:24 > 0:34:26But I've been there.
0:34:26 > 0:34:29I've seen that dark wood. I know how terrible it is.
0:34:29 > 0:34:33How frightful it is and how frightening it is.
0:34:33 > 0:34:35But I went there and came back.
0:34:35 > 0:34:39'Coming back would eventually mean three more weddings.
0:34:39 > 0:34:43'One, a short-lived reunion with Elizabeth Taylor,
0:34:43 > 0:34:47'and then to Susan Hunt and finally to Sally Hay.
0:34:47 > 0:34:52'Coming back also meant some notable career successes.
0:34:52 > 0:34:56'Equus earned Burton rave reviews on the stage,
0:34:56 > 0:35:01'and his role in the movie version that followed won him a Golden Globe.
0:35:01 > 0:35:06'He narrated the smash hit that was Jeff Wayne's War Of The Worlds
0:35:06 > 0:35:10'and scored a huge box office hit with the film The Wild Geese.
0:35:10 > 0:35:13'In fact, in spite of his health problems,
0:35:13 > 0:35:16'he found it impossible to stop working,
0:35:16 > 0:35:20'as he explained in a documentary in 1983.'
0:35:20 > 0:35:25Once, Elizabeth said, "It would be a good idea if you took a year off,
0:35:25 > 0:35:29"because you never stop." She's only done 30-something films.
0:35:29 > 0:35:3135 films.
0:35:31 > 0:35:34And she's been a star since she was eight.
0:35:34 > 0:35:37And... But she takes time off.
0:35:37 > 0:35:39I never have.
0:35:39 > 0:35:41I've done the most utter rubbish,
0:35:41 > 0:35:44in order to have somewhere to go in the morning.
0:35:46 > 0:35:49So she said, "Take a year off."
0:35:49 > 0:35:53I said, "OK." We had a lovely house in Mexico, sunny, everything.
0:35:53 > 0:35:55I lasted five weeks.
0:35:57 > 0:35:59I was off. I did a film.
0:35:59 > 0:36:02CHUCKLING: I won't bother to tell you about it.
0:36:02 > 0:36:05INTERVIEWER: Ah, come on. Let's hear it.
0:36:05 > 0:36:07A man came to see me and he said,
0:36:07 > 0:36:11AMERICAN ACCENT: "We've got a lot of wastage on the floor
0:36:11 > 0:36:14"out of a film called Tobruk."
0:36:14 > 0:36:17I said, "Oh, have you?"
0:36:17 > 0:36:20He said, "It made six million bucks."
0:36:20 > 0:36:23I said, "Did it? Who's in it?"
0:36:23 > 0:36:27He said, "Rock Hudson and... George Peppard."
0:36:28 > 0:36:34He said, "What I did was, I picked up all these bits off the floor.
0:36:34 > 0:36:37"I put them all together and I got all the writers in."
0:36:37 > 0:36:39It was Universal Studios.
0:36:39 > 0:36:43Universal Studios is still run like the old studios were,
0:36:43 > 0:36:45with a big boss and all that.
0:36:45 > 0:36:47"So I said to the ten writers,
0:36:47 > 0:36:53"make outta this, make a script so we can use the long shots
0:36:53 > 0:36:56"and use Burton in the close-ups."
0:36:56 > 0:36:59And they did it. And they made a do-able film!
0:36:59 > 0:37:02I was so fascinated, I couldn't resist it.
0:37:02 > 0:37:04We went off and we shot the film
0:37:04 > 0:37:08in three weeks and two days or something.
0:37:08 > 0:37:11The film went out and was successful.
0:37:11 > 0:37:14It's called Raid On Rommel.
0:37:14 > 0:37:17All the long shots, it's Rock Hudson
0:37:17 > 0:37:21and all the close-ups, it's an Englishman called Green.
0:37:21 > 0:37:24And all the long shots, it's George Peppard
0:37:24 > 0:37:26and all the close-ups it's me.
0:37:26 > 0:37:30One year, I earned $8 million.
0:37:32 > 0:37:34For one film.
0:37:34 > 0:37:39I got paid a million for the film and the film was so successful
0:37:39 > 0:37:42that another seven million came in.
0:37:42 > 0:37:46I remember getting a cheque just before Christmas,
0:37:46 > 0:37:50about three days before Christmas, for $1 million.
0:37:51 > 0:37:54Which added to the rest.
0:37:56 > 0:38:00And it's not that I'm frightened of the money or anything like that.
0:38:00 > 0:38:04It's not my province. I give it away.
0:38:04 > 0:38:07I give it to my family
0:38:07 > 0:38:12or I buy enormous presents for Elizabeth Taylor.
0:38:12 > 0:38:15Or did. Or for Susan.
0:38:15 > 0:38:17Or for Sally -
0:38:17 > 0:38:20who's the next one up.
0:38:21 > 0:38:23I just, I cannot hold on to it.
0:38:23 > 0:38:27I hold on to a little piece of property
0:38:27 > 0:38:30with a roof on the house and that's all.
0:38:30 > 0:38:34What's the worst film you've made? I don't know.
0:38:34 > 0:38:36I made some lousy ones in my time.
0:38:36 > 0:38:41I always start off - not that one - with very good intentions.
0:38:41 > 0:38:43The script seems very good,
0:38:43 > 0:38:46the director has a tremendous reputation.
0:38:46 > 0:38:49The producer's a good producer.
0:38:49 > 0:38:53You start off and you suddenly realise, after two weeks,
0:38:53 > 0:38:57you're in a piece of rubbish and there's nothing you can do about it.
0:38:57 > 0:38:59In a play... Oddly enough,
0:38:59 > 0:39:04I've done almost exactly the same number of plays as I've done films.
0:39:04 > 0:39:09In a play, I've only had one really, real failure.
0:39:10 > 0:39:13Which was, er...in New York.
0:39:13 > 0:39:17We only ran for two weeks or something like that.
0:39:17 > 0:39:19And a good play, too, by Anouilh.
0:39:19 > 0:39:23I think it was misdirected and miscast.
0:39:23 > 0:39:26And I don't think I was very good and all that.
0:39:26 > 0:39:33But whether that is the fact that you, yourself, can change a play
0:39:33 > 0:39:38without benefit of director, as long as you've got a good lighting man,
0:39:38 > 0:39:43we light the damn thing properly, and good actors around you,
0:39:43 > 0:39:47you can actually do things with an indifferent piece
0:39:47 > 0:39:50which you can't do with a film.
0:39:50 > 0:39:53I've never thought much of myself as an actor.
0:39:54 > 0:39:57I don't mean to be mock modest.
0:39:57 > 0:40:00At the same time,
0:40:00 > 0:40:05I don't think there's been any particularly successful thing
0:40:05 > 0:40:09that I've ever done, that one particular one,
0:40:09 > 0:40:11that gave me any...
0:40:14 > 0:40:16..special pleasure.
0:40:16 > 0:40:19I think the fact that I was able to take care
0:40:19 > 0:40:24of a certain amount of people has given me SOME pleasure.
0:40:24 > 0:40:26The fact that I had the power to do it.
0:40:26 > 0:40:32But then, there are some people, maybe three or four in the world -
0:40:32 > 0:40:35outside my family - whom I love.
0:40:35 > 0:40:37You know, I trust them with my life.
0:40:37 > 0:40:39And have had to, sometimes.
0:40:39 > 0:40:43And all the things, the troubles that they've gone through,
0:40:43 > 0:40:48you can imagine, as a result of the enormous publicity I've had,
0:40:48 > 0:40:53never once have they ever...worried me about it,
0:40:53 > 0:40:56or said, "Stop doing this," "Stop doing that,"
0:40:56 > 0:40:59or "You're being a bad boy."
0:40:59 > 0:41:02They've been terribly good with me, always.
0:41:02 > 0:41:04They're a marvellous family.
0:41:04 > 0:41:07Apart from my family and two or three other people,
0:41:07 > 0:41:10there are very few people I would trust.
0:41:10 > 0:41:11With anything.
0:41:12 > 0:41:17'This was Richard Burton's last interview for the BBC.
0:41:17 > 0:41:20'His final role, for which he was critically acclaimed,
0:41:20 > 0:41:26'was as the menacing O'Brien in the movie of George Orwell's 1984,
0:41:26 > 0:41:30'in which he co-starred with John Hurt.
0:41:30 > 0:41:32'Two months before the film premiere,
0:41:32 > 0:41:38'Burton suffered a brain haemorrhage and died at home in Switzerland.
0:41:38 > 0:41:40'He was 58.
0:41:40 > 0:41:45'In the obituaries, one of the most quoted anecdotes
0:41:45 > 0:41:50'was his response to a telegram he received from Sir Laurence Olivier
0:41:50 > 0:41:53'that said, "Make up your mind, dear heart.
0:41:53 > 0:41:58'"Do you want to be a great actor or a household word?"
0:41:58 > 0:42:00'Burton's answer was immediate.
0:42:00 > 0:42:04'He simply said, "Both."
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