0:00:12 > 0:00:19Evening. Tonight we'll recall an interview I did with Richard Burton in 1974.
0:00:19 > 0:00:27I never met anyone who was so effortlessly a star and only one or two who possessed his presence.
0:00:27 > 0:00:34He was, like all of us, the sum of his contradictions, though his were more public than most.
0:00:34 > 0:00:41While the purists tried to fathom why such a great actor turned his back on his gifts,
0:00:41 > 0:00:46Burton and his famous wife kept the world's media in a lather
0:00:46 > 0:00:51 with their lavish lifestyle and their tempestuous love affair.
0:00:51 > 0:00:55BRYAN FERRY: "These Foolish Things".
0:00:55 > 0:00:58# These foolish things
0:00:58 > 0:01:01# Remind me of you
0:01:02 > 0:01:06# I know that this
0:01:06 > 0:01:09# Was bound to be
0:01:09 > 0:01:12# These things have haunted me
0:01:12 > 0:01:15# For you've entirely enchanted me
0:01:15 > 0:01:22# The sigh of midnight trains in empty stations... #
0:01:22 > 0:01:25£49,000... £50,000...
0:01:25 > 0:01:28Mrs Richard Burton. >
0:01:28 > 0:01:32# Oh, how the ghost of you clings
0:01:32 > 0:01:39# These foolish things Remind me of you
0:01:39 > 0:01:46# The smile of Garbo And the scent of roses
0:01:46 > 0:01:52# The waiters whistling As the last bar closes
0:01:52 > 0:01:57# The song that Crosby sings
0:01:57 > 0:02:03# These foolish things Remind me of you
0:02:03 > 0:02:10# How strange, how sweet To find you still
0:02:10 > 0:02:16# These things are dear to me That seem to bring you so near to me
0:02:16 > 0:02:21# The scent of smouldering leaves The wail of steamers... #
0:02:21 > 0:02:27'What did SHE think of HIS acting abilities?'
0:02:27 > 0:02:29One of the finest actors...
0:02:29 > 0:02:34- "ONE of the finest"?!- Sorry! - LAUGHTER
0:02:34 > 0:02:38Twenty years ago, when I interviewed Richard Burton,
0:02:38 > 0:02:43he was embarking upon another chapter in his remarkable life.
0:02:43 > 0:02:50His marriage to Liz Taylor was over, he'd just spent six weeks in hospital fighting the booze,
0:02:50 > 0:02:54yet through it all, he managed to appear...grand.
0:02:54 > 0:03:02We did the interview in the morning before the pubs opened, kidnapping the audience from the BBC kitchens.
0:03:02 > 0:03:10So Burton faced sixty men in white coats. "I thought I was back in that bloody clinic!" he said.
0:03:10 > 0:03:13APPLAUSE
0:03:13 > 0:03:20Evening. My guest tonight was born Richard Jenkins, son of a miner in South Wales.
0:03:20 > 0:03:27From the humblest of beginnings, he became one of the world's best actors AND one of the richest.
0:03:27 > 0:03:35His life almost seems to have been written by a best-selling novelist with an eye on the film market
0:03:35 > 0:03:43and if they ever DO make the movie, they should offer the part to the man himself - Richard Burton.
0:03:43 > 0:03:46APPLAUSE
0:03:54 > 0:03:59Richard, welcome. Let's talk about that background of yours.
0:03:59 > 0:04:06The path you've come has been quite extraordinary, as if some novelist had written it.
0:04:06 > 0:04:11Indeed, if a novelist DID write it, he'd be accused of exaggeration.
0:04:11 > 0:04:18Anyway, a humble background - comparatively so. What, in fact, did it give you?
0:04:18 > 0:04:20I think a tremendous sense of...
0:04:20 > 0:04:23..strength, I suppose,
0:04:23 > 0:04:28because I presume that if you survive such a background,
0:04:28 > 0:04:34you must have come from an extraordinary...race of people.
0:04:34 > 0:04:37I'm enormously proud of being Welsh.
0:04:37 > 0:04:43Did you ever...? When you embarked on a career as an actor,
0:04:43 > 0:04:48did your mates ever think they'd been mixing with a wrong 'un?
0:04:48 > 0:04:52- You know what I mean? - Not quite, no.
0:04:52 > 0:04:58- LAUGHTER - Well, that there's something pansyish in acting,
0:04:58 > 0:05:04- as compared to mining. See what I'm getting at?- Yes, I do. I've got the message now.
0:05:04 > 0:05:10Um, the last thing that you can say about me is that I'm a pansy.
0:05:11 > 0:05:17- And I'm not a sissy. - Let's...- I apologise for being so intensely nervous.
0:05:17 > 0:05:23I don't do this very often, unlike Mr Parkinson who's done it a lot...
0:05:23 > 0:05:26Done WHAT a lot?!
0:05:26 > 0:05:31Now, let's get back to Wales and the business of acting.
0:05:31 > 0:05:35Your extraordinary voice - is it, in fact, a Welsh voice?
0:05:35 > 0:05:42Oh, yes, it's the deep, dark answer from the valleys to everybody. LAUGHTER
0:05:42 > 0:05:50I can't help the voice. It's part of me and I didn't cultivate it or anything. It was given to me.
0:05:50 > 0:05:53I'm lucky to possess it, I suppose.
0:05:53 > 0:05:59- Can we go back to something you mentioned...? - "Can we go back to...?"
0:05:59 > 0:06:04- You can mimic most people, can't you?- No, though I CAN do SOME!
0:06:04 > 0:06:12- I might do YOU by the end of the day!- Who can you do? - I can do...Laurence Olivier.
0:06:12 > 0:06:14- Could you?- Yes, now?- Please.
0:06:15 > 0:06:22Now, I have to pitch my voice up a bit because his voice is higher than mine, so...
0:06:22 > 0:06:30- I have to do it physically. D'you mind?- No.- Can you put the camera up? - Absolutely.- Here he comes.
0:06:30 > 0:06:35Richard III, right? BURSTS OF LAUGHTER
0:06:35 > 0:06:41MIMICKING OLIVIER: "Now is the winter of our discontent
0:06:41 > 0:06:45"Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
0:06:45 > 0:06:49"And all the clouds that lour'd about our house
0:06:49 > 0:06:54"In the deep bosom of the ocean buried." APPLAUSE
0:06:57 > 0:06:59Who else, Richard?
0:06:59 > 0:07:04I don't think I'll do anyone else in case I get into trouble.
0:07:04 > 0:07:11Over lunch you did that marvellous Lee Marvin one, didn't you? That must be the other extreme.
0:07:11 > 0:07:18Well, yes. Lee Marvin's a very strange man and very beautiful and very extraordinary,
0:07:18 > 0:07:24but he becomes, when he's had a few drinks, he becomes...
0:07:24 > 0:07:29incoherent... in the most splendid possible way.
0:07:29 > 0:07:31He makes a series of nou...
0:07:31 > 0:07:35 sounds...that really takes one's breath away.
0:07:35 > 0:07:43Sorry, I'm now getting incoherent the way Lee Marvin does... occasionally. And he says to, um...
0:07:43 > 0:07:47We just did a film together in the USA...
0:07:47 > 0:07:54And he said to OJ Simpson, who is probably the greatest athlete in the world -
0:07:54 > 0:07:58an enormous, fantastic, splendid black man.
0:07:58 > 0:08:02And Lee was trying to explain to him how to act.
0:08:02 > 0:08:07He started off all right. He started off perfectly well.
0:08:07 > 0:08:14Then his language degenerated into kind of noises and he said to OJ...
0:08:14 > 0:08:21GRUFF, LEE MARVIN VOICE: You know what acting's about? It's kinda...shhhht...
0:08:21 > 0:08:24swhish...vruum...crrrrr...!
0:08:24 > 0:08:27S'way we do it, baby, huh?!
0:08:27 > 0:08:29APPLAUSE AND LAUGHTER
0:08:35 > 0:08:41You mentioned earlier Dylan Thomas. He had a remarkable voice, didn't he?
0:08:41 > 0:08:46What struck me was that it was rather a posh voice, wasn't it?
0:08:46 > 0:08:51Yes, he used to call himself "plus fours and no breakfast".
0:08:51 > 0:08:59Here's an example of what he was like. We all had to go to a poetry reading. I was there and Dylan...
0:08:59 > 0:09:04and Dame Edith Sitwell and Dame Edith Evans...
0:09:04 > 0:09:08It was at the Lyric, Hammersmith - I remember that.
0:09:08 > 0:09:13And John Geilgud was the director of the whole thing.
0:09:13 > 0:09:19And I said, "Can you get Dylan...?" I said in my subtlest way...
0:09:19 > 0:09:23"..to speak Tennyson? Because I know he hates Tennyson."
0:09:23 > 0:09:29So John arranged it so that Dylan spoke Tennyson. And the poem was -
0:09:29 > 0:09:34"The splendour falls on castle walls And snowy summits old in story:
0:09:34 > 0:09:39"The light shakes across the lakes And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
0:09:39 > 0:09:45"Blow, bugle, blow...something... Answer echoes, dying, dying, dying."
0:09:45 > 0:09:50And so it goes on. And the envoi is always "dying, dying, dying..."
0:09:50 > 0:09:55So Dylan was suddenly forced to speak this poem and so...
0:09:55 > 0:09:59I can only do things physically. I have to do it.
0:09:59 > 0:10:02So he gets up...
0:10:02 > 0:10:08"The splendour falls on castle walls And snowy summits old in story:"
0:10:08 > 0:10:11And an eternal Woodbine in his mouth.
0:10:11 > 0:10:16"The light shakes across the lakes And the wild cataracts leap in glory.
0:10:16 > 0:10:20"Blow, bugles, blow set the wild echoes flying,
0:10:20 > 0:10:23"Answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying."
0:10:23 > 0:10:31Then he gets to the last verse and I wondered what he'd do to show his absolute hatred of Tennyson.
0:10:31 > 0:10:35He's got to show it somehow. So he says,
0:10:35 > 0:10:38"O love, they die in yon rich sky,
0:10:38 > 0:10:42"They faint on hill or field or river:
0:10:42 > 0:10:47"And echoes roll from soul to soul, and grow for ever and for ever.
0:10:47 > 0:10:51"Blow, bugles, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
0:10:51 > 0:10:56"Answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying..."
0:10:56 > 0:10:59Oh! "..dying!"
0:10:59 > 0:11:01APPLAUSE
0:11:05 > 0:11:13- He was ultimately a very tragic man, wasn't he?- I suppose so. He sought his own death and found it.
0:11:13 > 0:11:19He certainly...wrote, of course, the most magical things...
0:11:19 > 0:11:24- And he's alive.- Yes. - I mean, he's alive.
0:11:24 > 0:11:31One gets a sense of waste, though. Sure, he left behind him stuff that WILL live forever,
0:11:31 > 0:11:36- but he might've left more behind. - I don't think so. He's...
0:11:36 > 0:11:40Well, "sense of waste" I wouldn't quarrel with that.
0:11:40 > 0:11:45But I think he probably burned himself out.
0:11:45 > 0:11:50He fulfilled the notion a lot of people have about the Welsh,
0:11:50 > 0:11:54about the sort of death wish among the creative people.
0:11:54 > 0:11:59Do you accept that they have this kind of...
0:11:59 > 0:12:02..headlong rush towards the edge?
0:12:02 > 0:12:07Yes, I think that we rather love precipices.
0:12:07 > 0:12:11We go towards them and withdraw now and again.
0:12:11 > 0:12:16- Sometimes we go over the edge. - D'you ever feel that way yourself?
0:12:16 > 0:12:23- Going towards the precipice then pulling back?- Yes, I have. I think we all do, we Celts.
0:12:23 > 0:12:27- Um...- Would you care to tell me how?
0:12:27 > 0:12:30- In what circumstance?- Well...
0:12:30 > 0:12:33There was a second or two, I think,
0:12:33 > 0:12:35perhaps about a year ago,
0:12:35 > 0:12:39when I didn't fancy much... staying alive.
0:12:39 > 0:12:43Really? You comtemplated suicide?
0:12:43 > 0:12:50Oh, no! No...! No, I wouldn't kill myself - in the ordinary sense of the word.
0:12:50 > 0:12:55I wouldn't take pills or drugs or... anything, really, in that sense.
0:12:55 > 0:13:03But I did suddenly wake up one morning and found how splendidly rich and extraordinary the world was
0:13:03 > 0:13:09and that I couldn't bear its richness and its beauty.
0:13:09 > 0:13:15And in order to obviate the idea of the richness
0:13:15 > 0:13:20and extraordinary beauty of the world, I thought it best to leave it.
0:13:20 > 0:13:28- How do you leave it if you don't top yourself?- You can kill yourself any second. Not by...
0:13:28 > 0:13:33..any obvious means, but you can, of course, drink yourself to death.
0:13:33 > 0:13:36That's rather pleasant!
0:13:38 > 0:13:42It's better than falling on a sword! That's for sure!
0:13:42 > 0:13:49- Yes.- So did you try to drink yourself to death?- I had a go, yes.
0:13:49 > 0:13:52How acute did this become? What...?
0:13:52 > 0:13:58Oh, pretty bad, because the doctor in California - I was in California -
0:13:58 > 0:14:02said that if I kept on as I was going,
0:14:02 > 0:14:09I only had two weeks to live. This was fascinating because when you examine the idea of two weeks -
0:14:09 > 0:14:16every second, every minute, every hour, every day... I was absolutely fascinated.
0:14:16 > 0:14:21I wasn't frightened at all. So I thought, "Here we go again, boys.
0:14:21 > 0:14:26"We're on the edge of a terrible precipice!"
0:14:26 > 0:14:32Anyway, I decided to withdraw from the precipice, which I have done.
0:14:32 > 0:14:40- How difficult was it, having embarked on this path? How heavily did you drink?- I was the champion!
0:14:40 > 0:14:45- Were you?- If you'll pardon my using a Yorkshire word!
0:14:45 > 0:14:50I was up to... Well, you don't remember if you drink that much.
0:14:50 > 0:14:57- I was up to about two and a half to three bottles of hard liquor a day - which is a lot.- S'truth!
0:14:57 > 0:15:03I like drinking, but one day of that might blow my head off!
0:15:03 > 0:15:11That would mean, to have drunk that amount, you must've started in the morning at breakfast.
0:15:11 > 0:15:13Oh, you start at midnight!
0:15:13 > 0:15:20And you keep on through midnight and you go on and on. You don't eat.
0:15:20 > 0:15:24You don't do anything very much except drink.
0:15:24 > 0:15:27A fascinating idea, of course,
0:15:27 > 0:15:30the idea of drink on that scale.
0:15:30 > 0:15:36It's rather nice to have gone through it and to have survived. We're all...
0:15:36 > 0:15:41We all know that we're going towards an inevitable...doom.
0:15:41 > 0:15:48It's rather interesting to deliberately go towards it and then withdraw.
0:15:48 > 0:15:53Because nobody else has been there and withdrawn.
0:15:53 > 0:15:57But I'VE been there, I've seen that dark wood.
0:15:57 > 0:16:02I know how terrible it is, how frightful and frightening it is.
0:16:02 > 0:16:05But I went there and came back.
0:16:05 > 0:16:11- What did you see when you were there?- Oh, I don't know...
0:16:11 > 0:16:18Difficult to say because if you're that blind drunk, you don't know what's happening!
0:16:18 > 0:16:23All kinds of monstrosities! I mean, trying to get some...
0:16:23 > 0:16:28..some food into my mouth was an extraordinary business.
0:16:28 > 0:16:33I was in a Roman Catholic hospital called St John's...in Santa Monica.
0:16:33 > 0:16:38They said, "You must eat" and I said, "Don't want to eat."
0:16:38 > 0:16:42"You must eat!" "Don't want to!" "You MUST!"
0:16:42 > 0:16:47"OK, give me the food - some jello." That's American for jelly.
0:16:47 > 0:16:54So, it was very soft... and it was an RC hospital and I insisted that I fed myself.
0:16:54 > 0:17:00I got the spoon and, with careful application into this thing...
0:17:00 > 0:17:05Shall we say it was like this? This, by the way, is water!
0:17:05 > 0:17:07I can testify to that! BBC water!
0:17:07 > 0:17:13So, I get the thing in and I'm about to take it to my mouth,
0:17:13 > 0:17:17but my hands won't obey me - they fly all over the place!
0:17:17 > 0:17:23And a friend who was there said, "I know you're in an RC hospital,
0:17:23 > 0:17:28"but there's no need to do the sign of the cross every time you eat!"
0:17:28 > 0:17:33What, in fact, brought you back, took you back from the edge?
0:17:33 > 0:17:37I think a kind of defiance. I refused to die.
0:17:37 > 0:17:43- I may drop dead this second, but at least I'm not inviting it.- No.
0:17:43 > 0:17:48Can we talk a little about the circumstances that led up to that?
0:17:48 > 0:17:55I don't want to pry into your private life at all because I wouldn't like mine inspected,
0:17:55 > 0:18:03- but you led such a public private life...- Indeed.- ..when you were married to Liz Taylor.
0:18:03 > 0:18:09That, I take it, is the point that caused this problem in your life.
0:18:09 > 0:18:15Can we go back to that, um, marriage that you had?
0:18:15 > 0:18:20It always seemed to me to be an extraordinarily unlikely liaison.
0:18:20 > 0:18:22Well, it obviously WAS...
0:18:23 > 0:18:26..because we divorced.
0:18:26 > 0:18:33No, it was nothing to do with Elizabeth, who's a very sweet and gentle and generous person.
0:18:33 > 0:18:39It would've happened anyway. I mean, my particular...driving myself...
0:18:39 > 0:18:41Nothing to do with her at all.
0:18:43 > 0:18:46Of course, she was, er...
0:18:46 > 0:18:49You don't marry people easily.
0:18:49 > 0:18:52As you know, it's always difficult.
0:18:52 > 0:18:57And indeed, my life with Elizabeth, was a very public one.
0:18:57 > 0:19:02You could hardly, um, belch without the world knowing about it...
0:19:02 > 0:19:06and we belched quite frequently!
0:19:06 > 0:19:11Actually, she's one of the champion belchers in the world! LAUGHTER
0:19:11 > 0:19:16No, I'm very fond of her... Anyway, it was all nothing to do with her.
0:19:16 > 0:19:22- No?- No.- Can you explain how unprivate your life was?
0:19:22 > 0:19:25I mean, how much you became a prisoner
0:19:25 > 0:19:31because of the incredible publicity that followed you wherever you went.
0:19:31 > 0:19:33Well, it's... It was...
0:19:33 > 0:19:41..very difficult, I suppose, in many ways, except that I never paid much attention to the publicity.
0:19:41 > 0:19:47It really is boring when you get up in the morning and go for a walk
0:19:47 > 0:19:52and there are three photographers or one, or none - which is even worse!
0:19:54 > 0:19:59If they're not there, you scream, and if they're there, you scream!
0:19:59 > 0:20:03Of course, it gives you a great many other things.
0:20:03 > 0:20:08You're a very privileged person, you have riches and wealth,
0:20:08 > 0:20:15you have the best seat in a restaurant, the best seat on a plane...
0:20:15 > 0:20:19You're treated like a kind of demi-god,
0:20:19 > 0:20:21which is not a bad idea...
0:20:22 > 0:20:24..for me, anyway.
0:20:24 > 0:20:29But, er, certainly not a good idea for your own ego.
0:20:29 > 0:20:37But she was a very different animal to you, having had, since a tender age, this kind of star treatment.
0:20:37 > 0:20:41And your origins were entirely, absolutely different.
0:20:41 > 0:20:48Therefore, wouldn't she be more able to cope with this than you?
0:20:48 > 0:20:50I'm not sure.
0:20:50 > 0:20:57Elizabeth used to have a kind of private veil that she put on in public.
0:20:57 > 0:21:00She didn't seem to notice...
0:21:00 > 0:21:08..photographers or journalists or whatever. She walked through them all as if through a vacuum.
0:21:08 > 0:21:15- And- I- saw the private person as well, but the public one certainly was aloof
0:21:15 > 0:21:19and enormously difficult to, um...
0:21:20 > 0:21:22..to break.
0:21:22 > 0:21:25She was absolutely...
0:21:25 > 0:21:27a strange kind of...
0:21:27 > 0:21:35I don't know how to describe her. I never do that too long. Thirteen years is a long time.
0:21:35 > 0:21:42Yes. What about the... what some people might regard as the ostentatious show of wealth
0:21:42 > 0:21:50that went with your relationship? It was as if the boy from Wales had found the world's biggest diamond
0:21:50 > 0:21:56- and said, "It's mine!" Was there a childlike side to it? - I'm afraid so.
0:21:56 > 0:22:02The diamond that you talk about, once I heard it was the largest,
0:22:02 > 0:22:05most flawless...
0:22:05 > 0:22:08..diamond in the world,
0:22:08 > 0:22:11naturally, I had to buy it - if I could.
0:22:11 > 0:22:15Took me a long time to buy it, but I got it.
0:22:15 > 0:22:21I don't know WHY I got it, not absolutely, but I HAD to get it. So...
0:22:21 > 0:22:27in a sense I may have been extraordinarily corrupted by my background
0:22:27 > 0:22:31and the things that happened to me afterwards.
0:22:31 > 0:22:34But I think everybody is,
0:22:34 > 0:22:38regardless of how self-slighting they may be.
0:22:39 > 0:22:42I think that, er,
0:22:42 > 0:22:48- the world was possibly too much with me.- Too much with you?
0:22:48 > 0:22:53Too much, surrounded by too much. Ever since I can remember.
0:22:53 > 0:23:00First of all, my brothers and sisters were all extraordinarily nice to me and...
0:23:00 > 0:23:05Also, I think I looked at the world in a very oblique way.
0:23:05 > 0:23:11Certainly, that kind of ostentation, private aeroplanes, diamonds,
0:23:11 > 0:23:14pearls...
0:23:14 > 0:23:18..women, was obviously, er,
0:23:18 > 0:23:23not the kind of thing that one would expect from somebody like me.
0:23:23 > 0:23:30- But it happened. I don't know why, but it happened. - Did you like Hollywood?
0:23:30 > 0:23:37Um, yes. It's a very nice place. I'm going there in a minute. Tonight.
0:23:37 > 0:23:41I have to say "tonight", don't I? LAUGHTER
0:23:41 > 0:23:46It's a fantastic suburb. It has no centre, no root.
0:23:46 > 0:23:51It goes on and on and on. Nothing but swimming pools and tennis courts
0:23:51 > 0:23:56and very rich people - very nice people too, at least to me.
0:23:56 > 0:24:02But not... It doesn't have any kind of, um, root.
0:24:02 > 0:24:10Now, when you went there you met an actor who, I assume, might've been a hero of yours - Bogart.
0:24:10 > 0:24:14- Oh, yes!- You share my admiration for him?- Very much.
0:24:14 > 0:24:17Great friend of mine and...
0:24:17 > 0:24:20I'd loved to have interviewed him.
0:24:20 > 0:24:24- You never met him?- No, never. - Oh, what a shame.
0:24:24 > 0:24:31- Mind you, you'd have had trouble with him. He wasn't easy. - Was he not?
0:24:31 > 0:24:33No, a very difficult man but,
0:24:33 > 0:24:40if you understood him, if you liked him, if you loved him - as I did - enchanting.
0:24:40 > 0:24:43But he frightened people to death.
0:24:43 > 0:24:51- Did you ever have the urge to do something outrageous when you were in Hollywood?- Yes, frequently!
0:24:51 > 0:24:56I did do all kinds of extraordinary things there.
0:24:56 > 0:25:02Of course, I've been back and forward for twenty-five, thirty years.
0:25:02 > 0:25:06No, I did some very extraordinary things.
0:25:06 > 0:25:09- I kicked a set down one day.- A set?
0:25:09 > 0:25:14Yes, a whole set. Olivia de Havilland was on top of it!
0:25:15 > 0:25:22- Was that just out of a paddy? - I couldn't remember my lines in a particular speech.
0:25:22 > 0:25:30I had to climb up a wall and she was at the top and I forget what I had to say. Well, I'd forgotten THEN!
0:25:30 > 0:25:35And I had to climb up this sort of drainpipe and everything...
0:25:35 > 0:25:40and I could NOT remember the lines. There's always ONE scene,
0:25:40 > 0:25:44in any picture you do, where you forget the words.
0:25:44 > 0:25:52So I climbed up once and slithered down in a temper because I'd forgotten the lines.
0:25:52 > 0:25:59Went up again, slithered down. Went up again, slithered down... I must've gone up about ten times.
0:25:59 > 0:26:07Finally I went RAVING mad and started to kick the set and the whole thing started to fall in!
0:26:07 > 0:26:14I cleverly got out of the way but Miss de Havilland didn't forgive me for a long time!
0:26:14 > 0:26:19Julie Andrews recently talked to me about the boredom of a long run.
0:26:19 > 0:26:25And she said you used to play the same line in different ways.
0:26:25 > 0:26:32One night you'd play it for laughs, the next, for tears. And the audience reacted to you.
0:26:32 > 0:26:37I do remember doing some very peculiar things on the stage.
0:26:37 > 0:26:45For instance, I was playing Hamlet once in New York, and I have a daughter, Maria Burton.
0:26:45 > 0:26:51At that time... She's German. She's adopted by Elizabeth and myself.
0:26:51 > 0:26:54But the Germans being very, er...
0:26:54 > 0:27:02..proper and legal and so on, wanted to make sure that I was a suitable father for the child.
0:27:02 > 0:27:08So they all came to New York to see me, see where I lived - I lived in a hotel.
0:27:08 > 0:27:16Don't know why they'd want to see the hotel but, anyway. All six or seven of them had seats at the front
0:27:16 > 0:27:20and I came on to speak, "To be or not to be:"
0:27:20 > 0:27:27And Elizabeth had warned me to be nice to the Germans. And I said, "Of course, I will be."
0:27:27 > 0:27:33But, you know, there's a slight kind of...tiny ache in the bones about the Germans...
0:27:35 > 0:27:41- You sound like Churchill! - MIMICKING CHURCHILL: "And when I think..."
0:27:41 > 0:27:47Anyway, I came on and instead of "To be or not to be:" I said,
0:27:47 > 0:27:50"Sein oder nicht sein: das ist die Frage..."
0:27:50 > 0:27:54And so on with "To be or not to be:"
0:27:54 > 0:27:56And the Germans were delighted!
0:27:56 > 0:28:05But Polonius and Claudius, standing behind an arras, went raving mad, as they thought I'D gone raving mad!
0:28:05 > 0:28:11Did you find that, when you look back on your career in films and on stage,
0:28:11 > 0:28:16you got your most self-rewarding sense from stage rather than film?
0:28:16 > 0:28:22Um, in my case, I see absolutely no difference between the two.
0:28:22 > 0:28:25There IS a quieter technique,
0:28:25 > 0:28:30which is easy for anybody to get, assuming that you can act.
0:28:30 > 0:28:35That, as a matter of fact, Elizabeth taught me -
0:28:35 > 0:28:39not by telling me, but simply by doing it.
0:28:39 > 0:28:47- I think she's one of the world's greatest screen actors.- Really? - Yes, I think she's magnificent.
0:28:47 > 0:28:52But she, um... I did a scene with her one day in, um...
0:28:52 > 0:28:54I've forgotten the film.
0:28:54 > 0:28:59And I said, "She doesn't DO anything! What's she doing?!"
0:28:59 > 0:29:06And a friend said, "Go and see her tomorrow on the rushes." So I did and she was doing everything.
0:29:06 > 0:29:14- Quality of stillness?- Yes... But things are happening behind those eyes, happening in the brain.
0:29:14 > 0:29:21So, you have to try and catch that, yourself, I mean - after all, I get paid for it!
0:29:21 > 0:29:26So you try to find out how to get that same quality.
0:29:26 > 0:29:30- I doubt- I- ever will - I'm too loud, too strong.
0:29:30 > 0:29:37There's a great story about you in Hamlet and Churchill in the audience.
0:29:37 > 0:29:44O'Toole said that the trouble with doing "To be or not to be:" is that everybody joins in.
0:29:44 > 0:29:49Well, for me this was true in Sir Winston's case because, um,
0:29:49 > 0:29:55he came to Hamlet and he sat in the front row of the Old Vic...
0:29:55 > 0:29:58because there's no royal box there.
0:29:58 > 0:30:03And he sat with his wife and detectives, or whatever they were,
0:30:03 > 0:30:08and I came on the stage feeling absolutely diabolical.
0:30:08 > 0:30:16And I was told, "The old man's in front" and there was only one old man and I started to speak,
0:30:16 > 0:30:20"A little more than kin, and less than kind."
0:30:20 > 0:30:28Then I heard this extraordinary rumble from the front row and I thought, "Have I got a hangover?!"
0:30:28 > 0:30:34And it was Sir Winston, or Winston, as he was then, speaking the lines with me!
0:30:34 > 0:30:42I could not shake him off whatever I did! In "To be or not to be:" he was with me to the death! Every word!
0:30:42 > 0:30:50I don't know quite what he was trying to do. I suppose he was upset that HE wasn't on stage!
0:30:51 > 0:30:54And...it was quite extraordinary.
0:30:54 > 0:31:02"O! what a rogue and peasant slave am I:" with Sir Winston joining you in a duet is NOT the easiest thing!
0:31:02 > 0:31:10"Bloody, bawdy villain! Lecherous, treacherous, remorseless, villain! O! vengeance!" and "Bwaaaaa...!"
0:31:10 > 0:31:17- Did he come backstage to see you? - Yes, at the interval, then he went back to see the rest.
0:31:17 > 0:31:22I thought he'd gone home, cos I watched through the spyhole
0:31:22 > 0:31:26and it seemed... I said, "We've lost him. He's gone."
0:31:26 > 0:31:33So I thought, "Might as well have a drink, then, since he's gone. Get sloshed."
0:31:33 > 0:31:40So I sat in the dressing room and was just about to put a whisky and soda to my mouth
0:31:40 > 0:31:46when suddenly in the doorway was Sir Winston... and he bowed very graciously
0:31:46 > 0:31:53and very courteously said, "My Lord Hamlet, may I use your lavatory?"
0:31:53 > 0:31:57LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
0:31:57 > 0:32:02 Which of the films you made are you proudest of, do you like best?
0:32:02 > 0:32:08I don't know, really. I think there are about six or seven that I made,
0:32:08 > 0:32:12which is pretty bad batting average...
0:32:12 > 0:32:18- But there are...half a dozen that I think are rather good. - What about Becket?
0:32:18 > 0:32:21I think that's all right, yeah.
0:32:21 > 0:32:28We've got a clip, actually, which I'd like to show to you, if you can roll through to that...
0:32:28 > 0:32:33It sums up what you were talking about - this sort of stillness.
0:32:33 > 0:32:39- It's the final scene, where Becket...- Must I watch it? - Can't you bear to?- I'll try.
0:32:39 > 0:32:44Your Grace, there are men at the doors. I bolted them but...
0:32:44 > 0:32:49- Does one bolt the doors during vespers?- Your Grace...
0:32:49 > 0:32:54Open them. Everything must be as it should be for divine service.
0:32:54 > 0:32:57KNOCK ON DOOR >
0:33:01 > 0:33:05# Deus in adiutorium...
0:33:05 > 0:33:10# ..meum intende. #
0:33:10 > 0:33:14CHANTING IN LATIN >
0:33:14 > 0:33:17DOORS OPENING >
0:33:28 > 0:33:31One does not carry arms into God's house.
0:33:31 > 0:33:34What do you want?
0:33:34 > 0:33:36Your death.
0:33:39 > 0:33:43APPLAUSE
0:33:47 > 0:33:51Fairly powerful stuff that, wasn't it?
0:33:51 > 0:33:53Yeah...
0:33:53 > 0:34:00- Very badly acted.- Do you think so? - Oh, yes. I could do it much better now, but I won't.
0:34:00 > 0:34:03What was wrong with it?
0:34:03 > 0:34:09Mmm... I could hear one word that was absolutely, terribly wrong.
0:34:09 > 0:34:12- One word?- One word, yes.
0:34:12 > 0:34:17"Nobody comes into the house of God during DIVINE service."
0:34:17 > 0:34:22Why did I say "DIVINE" and not "divine" service?
0:34:22 > 0:34:29That's where I overacted. Nevertheless, I got away with it. Nobody noticed.
0:34:29 > 0:34:36No, people weren't standing up in cinemas screaming, "Why did he say DIVINE?!"
0:34:36 > 0:34:39- Well, they should!- Really?!- Yes!
0:34:39 > 0:34:46Nevill Coghill said he'd only taught two people of genius - you and WH Auden.
0:34:46 > 0:34:51- Do you think you've lived up to his expectations?- No, I'm afraid not.
0:34:51 > 0:34:59- Was it an impossible one to live up to?- It was nice of him to say that, but whether I've lived up to his...
0:34:59 > 0:35:03..prognostication - or whatever the word is -
0:35:03 > 0:35:08I certainly don't know. I shan't know for a long time.
0:35:08 > 0:35:12But I WILL try to be what he asked me to be.
0:35:12 > 0:35:17- There's time left?- Oh, yes! A good thirty years, I should fancy!
0:35:17 > 0:35:20I'll be back on this show endlessly!
0:35:20 > 0:35:25When you look back at this extraordinary life that you've had,
0:35:25 > 0:35:31can you really believe it? Are you filled with a sense of wonder?
0:35:31 > 0:35:38Well, that I never lose. A sense of wonder is really... If one loses that, one loses everything.
0:35:38 > 0:35:41So, everything is a slight miracle.
0:35:42 > 0:35:47Richard Burton died in 1984 of a cerebral haemorrhage. He was 58.
0:35:47 > 0:35:54The actor, Anthony Quayle said of him, "He wasn't that concerned in contributing to great art.
0:35:54 > 0:36:02"He was concerned with the Odyssey of Richard Burton and that's what made him such a fascinating man."
0:36:02 > 0:36:07Next week, I review meetings with Frankie Howerd and Tommy Cooper.
0:36:07 > 0:36:13I leave you with Richard Burton's party piece from 1974. Goodnight.
0:36:13 > 0:36:19IMITATING CHURCHILL: "We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind.
0:36:19 > 0:36:22"I will say to the House...
0:36:22 > 0:36:25"I have nothing to offer
0:36:25 > 0:36:28"but blood, toil,
0:36:28 > 0:36:31"tears,
0:36:31 > 0:36:33"and sweat.
0:36:33 > 0:36:38"You ask, 'What is our policy?'
0:36:38 > 0:36:40"I will say
0:36:40 > 0:36:43"it is to wage WAR.
0:36:44 > 0:36:52"To wage war by sea, land, air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us.
0:36:52 > 0:36:58"To wage WAR against a monstrous tyranny with a lamentable catalogue of human crime.
0:36:58 > 0:37:01"That is our policy.
0:37:01 > 0:37:04"You ask, 'What is our aim?'
0:37:04 > 0:37:06"I can answer in one word.
0:37:06 > 0:37:12"Victory. Victory at all costs. Victory in spite of all terror,
0:37:12 > 0:37:19"however hard or long the road may be, for without victory, there is no survival.
0:37:19 > 0:37:25"We are resolved to destroy Hitler and every vestige of the Nazi machine.
0:37:25 > 0:37:33"From this nothing will turn us. We will never negotiate with Hitler or the gang that feeds his wicked will.
0:37:33 > 0:37:39"We shall fight him by sea and in the air until, with God's help,
0:37:39 > 0:37:42"we have rid the earth of his shadow."
0:37:42 > 0:37:46Subtitles by Lois Brooks BBC Scotland 1995