Elizabeth Taylor was married 8 times and divorced 7 times (widowed when widowed-3, Michael Todd), including twice married and twice divorced from actor Richard Burton. hmmm very fond marriage divorce.let's see the list of her husband
Conrad Nicholson "Nicky" Hilton, Jr. (July 6, 1926 – March 31, 1969) was an
American socialite, hotel heir, businessman, and
TWA director. He was one of the sons of
Conrad Hilton (founder of
Hilton Hotels).
Early life
Hilton was born in
Dallas, Texas. His father was
Conrad Nicholson Hilton, founder of
Hilton Hotels, and his mother was Mary Adelaide Barron. Hilton grew up with three siblings:
William Barron Hilton, Eric Michael Hilton, and Constance Francesca Hilton. He was the great-uncle of
Paris and
Nicky Hilton, the latter sharing his
nickname. He attended
New Mexico Military Institute.
Personal life
Hilton was married to
Elizabeth Taylor from 1950 to 1951. It ended because Hilton's drinking problem bothered her. Hilton was also physically and emotionally abusive towards her but Elizabeth hid this from the press until years later.
He later dated
Natalie Wood and
Joan Collins. In 1958, Hilton married oil heiress Patricia "Trish" McClintock. They had two children: Conrad Nicholson Hilton III and Michael Otis Hilton.
Hilton died of a
heart attack at the age of 42. He is interred in
Holy Cross Cemetery,
Culver City.
[1]
Michael Wilding (23 July 1912 – 8 July 1979) was an English actor.
Early life
Born in
Leigh-on-Sea,
Essex, England, Wilding was a successful commercial artist when he joined the
art department of a London film studio in 1933. He soon embarked on an acting career.
Career
He appeared in numerous British motion pictures, often opposite
Anna Neagle, but had a less productive career in
Hollywood. His screen performances include
Sailors Three (1940),
In Which We Serve (1942),
Undercover (1943),
Piccadilly Incident (1946),
Spring in Park Lane (1948),
Stage Fright (1950) and
The World of Suzie Wong (1960).
His last appearance was in an uncredited, non-speaking cameo in
Lady Caroline Lamb (1972), which co-starred his last wife,
Margaret Leighton.
He also appeared on television, including the title role in the 1957 episode "The Trial of Colonel Blood" of
NBC's
anthology series,
The Joseph Cotten Show.
Personal life
Wilding had four wives, Kay Young (married 1937, divorced 1951), actress
Elizabeth Taylor (married 1952, divorced 1957), Susan Nell (married 1958, divorced 1962)
[1], and actress Margaret Leighton (married 1964 until her death in 1976).
He and Taylor had two sons, Michael Howard Wilding (born 1953) and Christopher Edward Wilding (born 1955). In 1957 he had a short-lived romance with actress
Marie McDonald, who was nicknamed "The Body".
In the 1960s, he was forced to cut back on his movie appearances because of illness related to his lifelong
epilepsy.
Michael Wilding died in
Chichester,
West Sussex, as a result of head injuries suffered from a fall down a flight of stairs during an epileptic seizure. His body was
cremated and the ashes were scattered.
Michael Todd (February 2, 1957 – March 22, 1958)
Michael Todd (June 22, 1909 – March 22, 1958) was an
American theatre and
film producer, best known for his 1956 production of
Around the World in Eighty Days, which won an
Academy Award for Best Picture. He is also well-known as one of
Elizabeth Taylor's husbands.
Personal life
Todd was born
Avrom Hirsch Goldbogen in
Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Chaim Goldbogen (an Orthodox rabbi) and Sophia Hellerman, both
Polish Jewish immigrants. He was one of nine children in a poor family, the youngest son, and his siblings nicknamed him "Toat" to mimic his difficulty pronouncing the word "coat." It was from this that his name was derived.
[1][2]
The family later moved to
Chicago, arriving on the day
World War I ended.
[2] Todd was expelled
[citation needed] in the sixth grade for running a game of
craps inside the school.
[2] In high school, he produced the school play,
The Mikado, which was considered a hit.
[3] He eventually dropped out of high school and worked at a variety of jobs, including shoe salesman and store window decorator. One of his first jobs was as a
soda jerk. When the
drugstore went out of business, Todd had acquired enough medical knowledge from his work there to be hired at Chicago's
Michael Reese Hospital as a type of "security guard" to stop visitors from bringing in food that was not on the patient's diet.
[2]
At age 17, Todd married Bertha Freshman in
Crown Point, Indiana, on
Valentine's Day 1927. He had been serious about Bertha since age 14, but needed to develop confidence before even asking her out.
[2][4] In 1929, she bore him a son,
Mike Todd, Jr..
[5] A turning point came for Todd when his father died in 1931; Avrom Goldbogen made the decision to change his name to Mike Todd the same day.
[5] Bertha Todd died of a
pneumothorax (
collapsed lung) in 1946 in
Santa Monica,
California, while undergoing surgery at
St. John's Hospital for a damaged tendon in her finger.
[6][7][8][9] Todd and his wife were separated at the time of her death; less than a week before, he had filed for divorce.
[8][10] The following year, Todd married actress
Joan Blondell on July 5, 1947.
[11] They were divorced on June 8, 1950, after she alleged that he had abused and extorted her. Todd's third marriage was to the actress
Elizabeth Taylor, with whom he had a tempestuous relationship. The couple exchanged vows on February 2, 1957.
[12]Todd was 47 and Taylor was 24; he was her third husband. Todd and Taylor had a daughter, Elizabeth Frances (Liza) Todd, who was born on August 7, 1957.
[13]
On 22 March 1958, Todd's private plane
Lucky Liz crashed near
Grants, New Mexico. The plane, a twin-engine
Lockheed Lodestar, suffered an engine failure while being flown grossly overloaded in
icing conditions at an altitude which was too high to sustain flight with only one working engine under those conditions. The plane went out of control and crashed, killing all four on board.
[14] In addition to Todd, those who died in the crash were screenwriter and author
Art Cohn, who was writing Todd's biography
The Nine Lives of Mike Todd; pilot Bill Verner; and co-pilot Tom Barclay. Taylor wanted to fly to New York with her husband, but stayed home with a cold after her pleas to come along were overruled by Todd.
[15][16] Just hours before the crash, Todd described the plane as safe as he phoned friends, including
Joseph Mankiewicz and
Kirk Douglas, in an attempt to recruit a gin rummy player for the flight: "Ah, c'mon," he said. "It's a good, safe plane. I wouldn't let it crash. I'm taking along a picture of Elizabeth, and I wouldn't let anything happen to her."
[17]
His son, Mike Jr., wanted his father's body to be cremated after it was identified through dental records
[18] and brought to Albuquerque, but Taylor refused, saying he would not want
cremation.
[19][20] Todd was buried in
Forest Park, Illinois, at
Beth Aaron Cemetery in plot 66
[21], which is part of Jewish Waldheim there.
[22][23] In his autobiography,
Eddie Fisher, who considered himself to be Todd's best friend, stated:
There was a closed coffin, but I knew it was more for show than anything else. The plane had exploded on impact and whatever remains were found couldn't be identified....The only items recovered from the wreckage were Mike's wedding ring and a pair of platinum cuff links I'd given him.
[24]
The Los Angeles Times reported in 1977 that Fisher's story was false; Todd's remains were indeed recovered and buried in Forest Park, Illinois. The remains were desecrated by robbers, who broke into Todd's coffin looking for a $100,000 diamond ring, which, according to rumor, Taylor had placed on her husband's finger prior to his burial.
[25] The bag containing Todd's remains was found under a tree near his burial plot;
[26] the bag and coffin had been sealed in
Albuquerque after Todd's remains were identified following the 1958 crash.
[27][18][28] Todd's remains were once more identified through dental records and were reburied in a secret location.
[25]
Work
Todd began his career in the construction business, where he made, and subsequently lost, a fortune. He opened the College of Bricklaying of America, buying the materials to teach bricklaying on credit. The school was forced to shut its doors when the Bricklayers' Union did not view the college as an accepted place of study.
[2] Todd and his brother, Frank, next opened their own construction company. Their company was worth over a million dollars but came to an abrupt halt when its financial backing failed in the wake of the
Great Depression. Not yet twenty-one, Todd had lost over a million dollars with the loss of his backer. He was now the father of an infant son and had no home for his family.
[5]
He later served as a contractor to Hollywood studios,
[3] and during the 1933-1934
Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago he produced an attraction called the "Flame Dance."
[29] In this number, gas jets were designed to burn part of a dancer's costume off, leaving her naked in appearance. The act attracted enough attention to bring an offer from the Casino de Paris club in New York City. Todd got his first taste of Broadway life with the engagement and was determined to find a way to work there.
[5] He came up with the idea of producing the
Gilbert and Sullivan operetta
The Mikado with an all African-American cast.
The Hot Mikado, starring
Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, opened on Broadway March 23, 1939.
[30][31] His Broadway success gave him the nerve to try taking on showman
Billy Rose. Todd visited
Grover Whalen, president of the
1939 New York World's Fair, with a proposal to bring the Broadway show to the World's Fair. Whelan, eager to have the show at the fair, covered Todd's Broadway early closing costs. Rose, who had an exclusivity clause in his fair contract, met Todd at
Lindy's, where Rose learned his contract covered new forms of entertainment only. Todd's
Mikado dated back to 1885. To avoid any head-to head competition, Rose quickly agreed to promote Todd's production along with his own.
[32] Todd went on to produce 30 Broadway shows during his career.
Todd's business career was volatile, and failed ventures left him bankrupt many times.
[33][34]
In 1945, Todd floated the idea of holding the
Major League Baseball All-Star Game in newly-liberated
Berlin. Although baseball's new
commissioner Happy Chandler was reportedly "intrigued" by the idea, it was ultimately dismissed as impractical. The game was finally cancelled due to wartime travel restrictions.
In 1952, Todd made a production of the
Johann Strauss II operetta,
A Night In Venice, complete with floating gondolas at the then-newly constructed
Jones Beach Theatre in Long Island, New York. It ran for two seasons.
In 1950, Mike Todd formed The
Cinerama Company with the broadcaster
Lowell Thomas (who founded
Capital Cities Communications) and the inventor Fred Waller.
[35] The company was created to exploit Cinerama, a film process created by Waller that used three film projectors to create a giant composite image on a curved screen. The first Cinerama feature,
This is Cinerama, was released in September 1952.
Before its release, Todd left the Cinerama Company to develop a widescreen process which would eliminate some of Cinerama's flaws.
[36] The result was the
Todd-AO process, designed by the American Optical Company.
[37] The process was first used commercially for the successful 1955 film adaptation of
Oklahoma!. Todd later produced the film for which he is best remembered,
Michael Todd's Around the World in 80 Days, which debuted in cinemas on October 17, 1956. Costing $6 million to produce, the movie earned $16 million at the box office. In 1957,
Around the World in 80 Days won the Best Picture
Academy Award.
A William Woolfolk novel from the early 1960s, entitled
My Name Is Morgan, was considered to be loosely based on Todd's life and career.
Selected Broadway productions
- Call Me Ziggy (Play, Farce, 1937)
- The Hot Mikado (Musical, Operetta, 1939)
- Something for the Boys (Musical, Comedy, 1943)
- Mexican Hayride (Musical, Comedy,1944)
- Up in Central Park (Musical, Comedy, 1945)
- As the Girls Go (Musical, Comedy, 1948)[38]
Eddie Fisher (May 12, 1959 – March 6, 1964)
Edwin John Fisher (August 10, 1928 – September 22, 2010), better known as
Eddie Fisher, was an American singer and entertainer, who was one of the world's most famous and successful singers in the 1950s, selling millions of records and hosting his own TV show. His divorce from his first wife,
Debbie Reynolds, to marry his best friend's widow,
Elizabeth Taylor, garnered scandalously unwelcome publicity at the time. He was also married to
Connie Stevens.
He was the father of
Star Wars actress
Carrie Fisher.
Early life
Fisher, fourth of seven children, was born in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Russian-born Jewish
immigrants Kate (
née Winokur) and Joseph Fisher.
[1][2] His father's surname was originally Tisch or Fisch, but was
anglicised to Fisher upon entry into the
United States.
[3] To his family, Fisher was always called "Sonny Boy", a nickname derived from the
song of the same name in
Al Jolson's film
The Singing Fool (1928).
[4]
Fisher attended Thomas Junior High School,
[5] South Philadelphia High School, and
Simon Gratz High School. It was known at an early age that he had talent as a
vocalist and he started singing in numerous
amateur contests, which he usually won. He made his radio debut on
WFIL,
[5] a local Philadelphia radio station. He also performed on
Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts, a popular
radio show which later moved to
TV. Because he became a local star, Fisher dropped out of high school in the middle of his senior year to pursue his career.
[6]
Career
By 1946, Fisher was crooning with the bands of
Buddy Morrow and
Charlie Ventura. He was heard in 1949 by
Eddie Cantor at
Grossinger's Resort in the
Borscht Belt. After performing on Cantor's radio show he was an instant hit and gained nationwide exposure. He then signed with
RCA Victor.
Fisher was drafted into the
U.S. Army in 1951, sent to
Texas for basic training, and served a year in
Korea. From 1952 to 1953, he was the official vocal soloist for The
United States Army Band (Pershing's Own) and a tenor section member in the United States Army Band Chorus (an element of Pershing's Own) assigned at
Fort Myer in the
Washington, D.C. Military District. During his active duty period, he also made occasional guest television appearances, in uniform, introduced as "Pfc Eddie Fisher." After his discharge, he became even more popular singing in top nightclubs. He also had a variety
television series,
Coke Time with Eddie Fisher (
NBC) (1953–1957), appeared on
The Perry Como Show,
Club Oasis,
The Martha Raye Show,
The Gisele MacKenzie Show,
The Chesterfield Supper Club and
The George Gobel Show, and starred in another series,
The Eddie Fisher Show (
NBC) (1957–1959, alternating with Gobel's series).
A pre-
rock and roll vocalist, Fisher's strong and melodious tenor made him a
teen idol and one of the most popular singers of the early 1950s. He had seventeen songs in the Top 10 on the music charts between 1950 and 1956 and thirty-five in the Top 40.
In 1956, Fisher costarred with then-wife
Debbie Reynolds in the
musical comedy Bundle of Joy. He played a dramatic role in the
1960 drama
Butterfield 8 with second wife
Elizabeth Taylor. His best friend was showman and producer
Mike Todd, who died in a plane crash in 1958. Fisher's affair and subsequent marriage to Taylor, Todd's widow, caused a
show business scandal because he and Reynolds had a very public
divorce. It was because of the unfavorable publicity surrounding the affair and divorce that NBC cancelled Fisher's television series in March 1959.
[citation needed]
In 1960, he was dropped by RCA Victor and briefly recorded on his own label, Ramrod Records. He later recorded for
Dot Records. During this time, he had the first commercial recording of "Sunrise, Sunset" from
Fiddler on the Roof. This technically counts as the biggest standard Fisher can claim credit for introducing, although it is rarely associated with him. He also recorded the album
Eddie Fisher Today (1965). The
Dot contract was not successful in record sales terms, and he returned to
RCA Victor and had a minor single hit in 1966 with the song "Games That Lovers Play" with
Nelson Riddle, which became the title of his best selling album. When Fisher was at the height of his popularity, in the mid 1950s, singles, rather than albums, were the primary recording medium. His last album for RCA was an
Al Jolson tribute,
You Ain't Heard Nothin' Yet. In 1983 he attempted a comeback tour but this was not a success. Eddie Fisher's last released album was recorded around 1984 on the Bainbridge record label. Fisher tried to stop the album from being released, but it turned up as
After All. The album was produced by William J. O'Malley and arranged by Angelo DiPippo. DiPippo worked with Eddie countless hours to better his vocals but it became useless. His final recordings (never released) were made in 1995 with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. According to arranger-conductor Vincent Falcone in his 2005 autobiography, 'Frankly: Just Between Us', these tracks were "...the best singing of his life." Fisher performed in top concert halls all over the United States and headlined in major
Las Vegas showrooms. He headlined at the
Palace Theater in New York City as well as London's
Palladium.
Fisher has two stars on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for recording, at 6241 Hollywood Boulevard, and one for television, at 1724 Vine Street.
Personal life
Fisher had five marriages and four children:
In
1981, Fisher wrote an
autobiography,
Eddie: My Life, My Loves (
ISBN 0-06-014907-8). He wrote another autobiography in
1999 titled
Been There, Done That (
ISBN 0-312-20972-X). The later book devotes little space to Fisher's singing career, but recycled the material of his first book and added many new sexual details that were too strong to publish before. His daughter
Carrie declared, upon publication: "That's it. I'm having my DNA fumigated."
When interviewed, Debbie Reynolds said that she could understand being dumped "for the world's most beautiful woman (Taylor)", previously a close friend. Taylor and Reynolds later resumed their friendship, and mocked Fisher in their
TV movie These Old Broads, wherein their characters ridiculed the ex-husband they shared, named "Freddie."
Death
Fisher broke his hip on September 9, 2010 and died 13 days later on September 22, 2010 at his home in
Berkeley, California, due to complications from hip surgery. He was 82 years old.
[7]
After his death he was cremated and his ashes were buried alongside the grave of his wife, Betty (who died on April 15, 2001), at Cypress Lawn Memorial Park.
[8]
Albums
- Eddie Fisher Sings (10-inch album) (RCA Victor 1952)
- I'm In The Mood For Love (RCA Victor 1952/55)
- Christmas With Eddie Fisher (10-inch album) (RCA Victor 1952)
- Irving Berlin Favorites (10-inch album) (RCA Victor 1954)Grossinger'sz
- May I Sing To You? (RCA Victor 1954/55)
- I Love You (RCA Victor 1955)
- Academy Award Winners (RCA Victor 1955)
- Bundle Of Joy (film soundtrack) (RCA Victor 1956)
- As Long As There's Music (RCA Victor 1958)
- Scent Of Mystery (film soundtrack) (Ramrod 1960)
- Eddie Fisher At The Winter Garden (Ramrod 1963)
- Eddie Fisher Today! (Dot 1965)
- When I Was Young (Dot 1965) (re-recordings of his RCA Victor hits)
- Mary Christmas (Dot 1965)
- Games That Lovers Play (RCA Victor 1966)
- People Like You (RCA Victor 1967)
- You Ain't Heard Nothing Yet (RCA Victor 1968)
- After All (Bainbridge Records 1984)
Compilations
- Thinking Of You (RCA Victor 1957)
- Eddie Fisher's Greatest Hits (RCA Victor 1962)
- The Very Best Of Eddie Fisher (MCA 1988)
- All Time Greatest Hits Vol.1 (RCA 1990)
- Eddie Fisher - Greatest Hits (RCA 2001)
Richard Burton (March 15, 1964 – June 26, 1974) & (October 10, 1975 – July 29, 1976)
Richard Burton,
CBE (10 November 1925 – 5 August 1984) was a
Welsh actor.
[1] He was nominated seven times for an
Academy Award, six of which were for
Best Actor in a Leading Role (without ever winning), and was a recipient of
BAFTA,
Golden Globe and
Tony Awards for Best Actor. Although never trained as an actor, Burton was, at one time, the highest-paid actor in
Hollywood. He remains closely associated in the public consciousness with his second wife, actress
Elizabeth Taylor; the couple's turbulent relationship was rarely out of the news.
[2Childhood and education
Richard Burton was born
Richard Walter Jenkins in the village of
Pontrhydyfen,
Neath Port Talbot,
Wales. He grew up in a
working class,
Welsh-speaking household, the twelfth of thirteen children.
[3] His father, Richard Walter Jenkins, was a short, robust coal miner, a "twelve-pints-a-day man" who sometimes went off on drinking and gambling sprees for weeks. Burton later claimed, by family telling, that "He looked very much like me...That is, he was pockmarked, devious, and smiled a great deal when he was in trouble. He was, also, a man of extraordinary eloquence, tremendous passion, great violence."
[4]:23
Burton was less than two years old in 1927 when his mother, Edith Maude (née Thomas), died at the age of 43
[5]:2 after giving birth to her 13th child.
[6] His sister Cecilia and her husband Elfed took him into their Presbyterian mining family in nearby
Port Talbot (an
English-speaking steel town).
[3][7] Burton said later that his sister became "more mother to me than any mother could have ever been... I was immensely proud of her... she felt all tragedies except her own". Burton's father would make occasional appearances at the homes of his grown daughters but was otherwise absent.
[8]:7, 10 Also important in young Burton's life was Ifor (Ivor), the brother 19 years his senior. A miner and rugby player, Ifor "ruled the household with the proverbial firm hand".
[5]:7
Burton showed a talent for
English and
Welsh literature at
grammar school, and demonstrated an excellent memory, though his consuming interest was sports –
rugby (in fact famous Welsh centre
Bleddyn Williams said in his autobiography that Burton could have gone far as a player
[9]), cricket, and table tennis
[10] He later said, "I would rather have played for Wales at
Cardiff Arms Park than Hamlet at the Old Vic."
[8]:17 He earned pocket money by running messages, hauling horse manure, and delivering newspapers. He started to smoke at the age of eight and drink regularly at twelve.
[4]:25–26 Inspired by his schoolmaster, Philip H. Burton, he excelled in school productions, his first being
The Apple Cart.
[4]:29 Philip could not legally adopt Burton because their age difference was one year short of the minimum twenty years required.
[Did he want to? clarification needed][11]:47 Burton early on displayed an excellent speaking and singing voice and won an
Eisteddfod prize as a boy soprano.
[4]:27
Burton left school at sixteen for full-time work. He worked for the local wartime
Co-operative committee, handing out supplies in exchange for coupons, but then considered other professions for his future, including boxing, religion and singing.
[4]:27 When Burton joined the Port Talbot Squadron of the
Air Training Corps as a cadet, he re-encountered Philip Burton, his former teacher, who was the commander. Richard also joined a youth drama group led by Leo Lloyd, a steel worker and avid amateur thespian, who taught him the fundamentals of acting.
Philip Burton, recognising Richard's talent, then adopted him as his ward and Richard returned to school, and, being older than most of the boys, he was very attractive to some of the girls.
[4]:30–31 Philip Burton later said, "Richard was my son to all intents and purposes. I was committed to him."
[4]:34 Philip Burton tutored his charge intensely in school subjects and also worked at developing the youth's acting voice, including outdoor voice drills which improved his projection.
[8]:38
In 1943, at the age of eighteen, Richard Burton (who had now taken his teacher's surname but would not change it by deed poll for several years
[5]:41), was allowed into
Exeter College, Oxford for a special term of six months study, made possible because he was an air force cadet obligated to later military service. He subsequently did serve in the
RAF (1944–1947) as a navigator. Burton's eyesight was too poor for him to be considered pilot material.
[10]
Early acting career
In the 1940s and early 1950s Burton worked on stage and in cinema in the United Kingdom. Before his war service with the
Royal Air Force, he starred as Professor Higgins in a
YMCA production of
Pygmalion. He earned his first professional acting fees doing radio parts for the BBC.
[4]:35 He had made his professional acting debut in
Liverpool and London, appearing in
Druid's Rest, a play by
Emlyn Williams (who also became a guru), but his career was interrupted by conscription in 1944.
[8]:44 Early on as an actor, he developed the habit of toting around a book-bag filled with novels, dictionaries, a complete Shakespeare, and books of quotations, history, and biography, and enjoyed solving crossword puzzles. Burton could, given any line from Shakespeare's works, recite from memory the next several minutes of lines.
[12] His Welsh love of language was paramount, as he famously stated years later, with a tearful Elizabeth Taylor at his side, "The only thing in life is language. Not love. Not anything else."
[8]:43
In 1947, after his discharge from the RAF, Burton went to London to seek his fortune. He immediately signed up with a theatrical agency to make himself available for casting calls.
[4]:45 His first film was
The Last Days of Dolwyn, set in a Welsh village about to be drowned to provide a reservoir. His reviews praised him for his "acting fire, manly bearing, and good looks."
[4]:48
Burton met his future wife, the young actress Sybil Williams, on the set, and they married in February 1949. They had two daughters, and divorced in 1963 after Burton's widely reported
affair with
Elizabeth Taylor. In the years of his marriage to Sybil, Burton appeared in the
West End in a highly successful production of
The Lady's Not for Burning, alongside Sir
John Gielgud and
Claire Bloom, in both the London and NewYork productions. He had small parts in various British films:
Now Barabbas Was A Robber;
Waterfront (1950) with
Robert Newton;
The Woman with No Name (1951); and a bigger part as a smuggler in
Green Grow the Rushes, a
B-movie.
[8]:70–71
Reviewers took notice of Burton: "He has all the qualifications of a leading man that the British film industry so badly needs at this juncture: youth, good looks, a photogenic face, obviously alert intelligence, and a trick of getting the maximum of attention with a minimum of fuss."
[4]:51 In the 1951 season at Stratford, he gave a critically acclaimed performance and achieved stardom as Prince Hal in Shakespeare's
Henry IV, Part 1 opposite
Anthony Quayle's
Falstaff. Philip Burton arrived at Stratford to help coach his former charge, and he noted in his memoir that Quayle and Richard Burton had their differences about the interpretation of the Prince Hal role. Richard Burton was already demonstrating the same independence and competitiveness as an actor that he displayed off-stage in drinking, sport, or story-telling.
[8]:73
Kenneth Tynan said of Burton's performance, "His playing of Prince Hal turned interested speculation to awe almost as soon as he started to speak; in the first intermission local critics stood agape in the lobbies."
[4]:51 Suddenly, Richard Burton had fulfilled his guardian's wildest hopes and was admitted to the post-War British acting circle which included
Anthony Quayle,
John Gielgud,
Michael Redgrave,
Hugh Griffith and
Paul Scofield. He even met
Humphrey Bogart, a fellow hard drinker, who sang his praises back in Hollywood.
[4]:56 Lauren Bacall recalled, "Bogie loved him. We all did. You had no alternative." Burton bought the first of many cars and celebrated by increasing his drinking.
[8]:73–74 The following year, Burton signed a five-year contract with
Alexander Korda at
£100 a week, launching his Hollywood career.
Hollywood and later career
In 1952, Burton successfully made the transition to a Hollywood star; on the recommendation of
Daphne du Maurier, he was given the leading role in
My Cousin Rachel opposite
Olivia de Havilland.
[4]:59 Burton arrived on the Hollywood scene at a time when the studios were struggling. Television's rise was drawing away viewers and the studios looked to new stars and new film technology to staunch the bleeding.
20th Century Fox negotiated with Korda to borrow him for this film and a further two at $50,000 a film. The film was a critical success. It established Burton as a Hollywood leading man and won him his first Academy Award nomination and the
Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actor. In
Desert Rats (1953), Burton plays a young English captain in the North African campaign during World War II who takes charge of a hopelessly out-numbered Australian unit against the indomitable Field Marshal
Erwin Rommel (
James Mason). Mason, another actor known for his distinctive voice and excellent elocution, became a friend of Burton's and introduced the new actor to the Hollywood crowd. In short order, he met
Judy Garland,
Greta Garbo,
Stewart Granger,
Jean Simmons,
Deborah Kerr, and
Cole Porter, and Burton met up again with
Humphrey Bogart.
[8]:82 At a party, he met a pregnant
Elizabeth Taylor (then married to
Michael Wilding) whose first impression of Burton was that "he was rather full of himself. I seem to remember that he never stopped talking, and I had given him the cold fish eye."
[4]:60
The following year he created a sensation by starring in
The Robe, the first film to premiere in the wide-screen process
CinemaScope, winning another
Oscar nomination. He replaced
Tyrone Power, who was originally cast in the role of Marcellus, a noble but decadent Roman in command of the detachment of Roman soldiers that crucified Jesus Christ, who, haunted by his guilt from this act, is eventually led to his own conversion. Marcellus' Greek slave (played by
Victor Mature) guides him as a spiritual teacher, and his wife (played by Jean Simmons) follows his lead, although it will mean both their deaths. The film marked a resurgence in Biblical blockbusters.
[8]:85 Burton was offered a seven-year, $1 million contract by
Darryl F. Zanuck at Fox, but he turned it down, though later the contract was revived and he agreed to it.
[8]:87 It has been suggested that remarks Burton made about blacklisting Hollywood while filming
The Robe may have explained his failure to ever win an Oscar, despite receiving seven nominations.
In 1954, Burton took his most famous radio role, as the narrator in the original production of
Dylan Thomas'
Under Milk Wood, a role he would reprise in the film version twenty years later. He was also the narrator, as
Winston Churchill, in the highly successful 1960 television documentary series
The Valiant Years.[4]:90
Stage career
Burton was still juggling theatre with film, playing
Hamlet and
Coriolanus at the
Old Vic theatre in 1953 and alternating the roles of
Iago and
Othello with the Old Vic's other rising matinee idol
John Neville. Hamlet was a challenge that both terrified and attracted him, as it was a role many of his peers in the British theatre had undertaken, including
John Gielgud and
Laurence Olivier.
[8]:93 Bogart, on the other hand, warned him as Burton left Hollywood, "I never knew a man who played Hamlet who didn't die broke."
[4]:67 Once again, Philip Burton provided expert coaching.
Claire Bloom played Ophelia, and their work together led to a turbulent affair.
[8]:94 His reviews in
Hamlet were good but he received stronger praise for Coriolanus. His fellow actor,
Robert Hardy, said, "His Coriolanus is quite easily the best I've ever seen" but Hamlet was "too strong".
[8]:93
Burton appeared on
Broadway, receiving a
Tony Award nomination for
Time Remembered (1958) and winning the award for playing
King Arthur in the musical
Camelot (1960).
Moss Hart directed the musical, written by
Alan Jay Lerner and
Frederick Loewe, which was originally called
Jenny Kissed Me, and based on
T. H. White's
The Once and Future King.
[4]:67 Julie Andrews, fresh from her triumph in
My Fair Lady, played
Guenevere to Burton's
King Arthur, with
Robert Goulet as
Lancelot completing the love triangle. The production was troubled, with both Loewe and Hart falling ill, numerous revisions upsetting the schedule and the actors, and the pressure building due to great expectations and huge advance sales. The show's running time was nearly five hours. Burton took it all in his stride and calmed people down with statements like "Don't worry, love." Burton's intense preparation and competitive desire served him well. He was generous and supportive to others who were suffering in the maelstrom. According to Lerner, "he kept the boat from rocking, and
Camelot might never have reached New York if it hadn't been for him."
[4]:93 As in the play, both male stars were enamoured of their leading lady, newly married Andrews. When Goulet turned to Burton for advice, Burton had none to offer, but later he admitted, "I tried everything on her myself. I couldn't get anywhere either."
[4]:94 Burton's reviews were excellent,
Time magazine stated that Burton "gives Arthur the skillful and vastly appealing performance that might be expected from one of England's finest young actors." The show's album was a major seller. The Kennedys, newly in the
White House, also enjoyed the play and invited Burton for a visit, establishing the link of the idealistic young Kennedy administration with Camelot.
He then put his stage career on the back burner to concentrate on film, although he received a third
Tony Award nomination when he reprised his
Hamlet under
John Gielgud's direction in 1964 in a production that holds the record for the longest run of the play in Broadway history (136 performances).
[4]:148 The performance was immortalized both on record and on a
film that played in US theatres for a week in 1964 as well as being the subject of books written by cast members William Redfield and Richard L. Sterne. Burton took the role on just after his marriage to Taylor. Since Burton disliked wearing period clothing, Gielgud conceived a production in a "rehearsal" setting with a half-finished set and actors wearing their street clothes (carefully selected while the production really was in rehearsal). Burton's basic reading of Hamlet, which displeased some theatre-goers, was of a complex manic-depressive personality, but during the long run he varied his performance considerably as a self-challenge and to keep his acting fresh. On the whole, Burton had good reviews.
Time said that Burton "put his passion into Hamlet's language rather than the character. His acting is a technician's marvel. His voice has gem-cutting precision."
[4]:144 The opening night party was a lavish affair, attended by six hundred celebrities who paid homage to the couple. The most successful aspect of the production was generally considered to be
Hume Cronyn's performance as
Polonius, winning Cronyn the only
Tony Award that he would ever receive in a competitive category.
After his
Hamlet, Burton did not return to the stage for twelve years until 1976 in
Equus. (He did however accept the role of Humbert Humbert in
Alan Jay Lerner's musical adaptation of
Lolita entitled
Lolita, My Love. He however withdrew and was replaced by friend and fellow Welshman John Neville.) His performance as psychiatrist Martin Dysart won him both a special Tony Award for his appearance, although he had to make
Exorcist II: The Heretic – a film he hated – before Hollywood producers would allow him to repeat his role in the 1977
film version. Burton made only two more stage appearances after that, in a high-paying touring production of
Camelot in 1980 that he was forced to leave early in the run after he was hospitalised and his entire spinal column was found to be coated with crystallised alcohol, necessitating immediate spinal surgery in which his backbone had to be completely rebuilt. Had the operation gone wrong he would have been left paralysed.
[13] He was replaced by his friend
Richard Harris. The final stage performance in which he starred was a critically reviled production of
Noël Coward's
Private Lives, opposite his ex-wife
Elizabeth Taylor, in 1983. Most reviewers dismissed the production as a transparent attempt to capitalize on the couple's celebrity, although they grudgingly praised Burton as having the closest connection to Coward's play of anyone in the cast.
Hollywood career in the 1950s and 1960s
In terms of critical success, Burton's Hollywood roles throughout the 1950s did not live up to the early promise of his debut. Burton returned to Hollywood to star in
The Prince of Players, another historical Cinemascope film, this time concerning
Edwin Booth, famous American actor and brother of
Abraham Lincoln's assassin
John Wilkes Booth. A weak script undermined a valiant effort by Burton, although the view of director,
Philip Dunne, was that "The fire and intensity were there, but that was all. He hadn't yet mastered the tricks of the great movie stars, such as
Gary Cooper."
[4]:71 Next came
Alexander The Great (1956), written, directed, and produced by Robert Rossen (Academy Award winner for
All the King's Men), with Burton in the title role, on a loan out to
United Artists, and again with Claire Bloom co-starring. Contrary to Burton's expectations, the "intelligent epic" was a wooden, slow-paced flop.
[4]:75
In
The Rains of Ranchipur, Burton plays a noble Hindu doctor who attempts the spiritual recovery of an adulteress (Lana Turner). Critics felt that the film lacked star chemistry, with Burton having difficulty with the accent, and relied too heavily on Cinemascope special effects including an earthquake and a collapsing dam. Burton returned to the theatre in
Henry V and
Othello, alternating the roles of Iago and Othello. He and Sybil then moved to Switzerland to avoid high British taxes and to try to build a nest egg, for themselves and for Burton's family.
[4]:75 He returned to film again in
Sea Wife, shot in Jamaica and directed by
Roberto Rossellini. A young
Joan Collins (then called by the tabloids "Britain's bad girl") plays a nun shipwrecked on an island with three men. But Rossellini was let go after disagreements with Zanuck. According to Collins, Burton had a "take-the-money-and-run attitude" toward the film. Burton turned down the lead for
Lawrence of Arabia, also turned down by
Marlon Brando, which went to newcomer
Peter O'Toole, who produced a memorable performance in the multi-Oscar-winning film.
[4]:75–77
Then in 1958, he was offered the part of Jimmy Porter, "an angry young man" role, in the film version of
John Osborne's play
Look Back in Anger, a gritty drama about middle-class life in the British Midlands, directed by
Tony Richardson, and again with Claire Bloom as co-star. Though it didn't do well commercially (many critics felt Burton, at 33, looked too old for the part) and Burton's Hollywood box office aura seemed to be diminishing, Burton was proud of the effort and wrote to his mentor Philip Burton, "I promise you that there isn't a shred of self-pity in my performance. I am for the first time ever looking forward to seeing a film in which I play".
[8]:125 Next came
The Bramble Bush and
Ice Palace in 1960, neither important to Burton's career.
After playing King Arthur in
Camelot on Broadway for six months, Burton replaced
Stephen Boyd as
Mark Antony in the troubled production
Cleopatra (1963). Twentieth Century-Fox's future appeared to hinge on what became the most expensive movie ever made up until then, reaching almost $40 million.
[4]:97 The film proved to be the start of Burton's most successful period in Hollywood; he would remain among the top 10 box-office earners for the next four years. During the filming, Burton met and fell in love with
Elizabeth Taylor, who was married to
Eddie Fisher. The two would not be free to marry until 1964 when their respective divorces were complete. On their first meeting on the set, Burton said "Has anyone ever told you that you're a very pretty girl?" Taylor later recalled, "I said to myself,
Oy gevalt, here's the great lover, the great wit, the great intellectual of Wales, and he comes out with a line like that."
[4]:103 In their first scenes together, he was shaky and missing his lines, and she soothed and coached him. Soon the affair began in earnest and Sybil, seeing this as more than a passing fling with a leading lady, was unable to bear it. She fled the set, first for Switzerland, then for London.
The gigantic scale of the troubled production, Taylor's bouts of illness and fluctuating weight, the off-screen turbulence—all generated enormous publicity, which by-and-large the studio embraced. Zanuck stated, "I think the Taylor-Burton association is quite constructive for our organization."
[4]:118 The six-hour film was cut to under four, eliminating many of Burton's scenes, but the result was viewed the same—a film long on spectacle dominated by the two hottest stars in Hollywood. Their private lives turned out to be an endless source of curiosity for the media, and their marriage was also the start of a series of on-screen collaborations. In the end, the film did well enough to recoup its great cost.
Burton played Taylor's tycoon husband in
The V.I.P.s, an all-star film set in the VIP lounge of
London Airport which proved to be a box-office hit. Then Burton portrayed the archbishop martyred by Henry II in the title role of
Becket, turning in an effective, restrained performance, contrasting with
Peter O'Toole's manic portrayal of Henry.
[4]:130
In 1964, Burton triumphed as defrocked Episcopal priest Dr. T. Lawrence Shannon in Tennessee Williams'
The Night of the Iguana directed by
John Huston, a film which became another critical and box office success. Richard Burton's performance in
The Night of the Iguana may be his finest hour on the screen, and in the process helped put the town of Puerto Vallarta on the map (the Burtons later bought a house there). Part of Burton's success was due to how well he varied his acting with the three female characters, each of whom he tries to seduce differently:
Ava Gardner (the randy hotel owner),
Sue Lyon (the nubile American tourist), and Deborah Kerr (the poor, repressed artist).
[4]:135
Against his family's advice, Burton married Taylor on Sunday 15 March 1964 in Montreal. Ever optimistic, Taylor proclaimed, "I'm so happy you can't believe it. This marriage will last forever".
[4]:140 At the hotel in Boston, the rabid crowd clawed at the newlyweds, Burton's coat was ripped and Taylor's ear was bloodied when someone tried to steal one of her earrings.
[4]:142
After an interruption playing
Hamlet on Broadway, Burton returned to film as British spy Alec Leamas in
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. Burton and Taylor continued making films together though the next one
The Sandpiper (1965) was poorly received. Following that, he and Taylor had a great success in
Mike Nichols's film (1966) of the
Edward Albee play
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, in which a bitter erudite couple spend the evening trading vicious barbs in front of their horrified and fascinated guests, played by
George Segal and
Sandy Dennis. Burton was not the first choice for the role of Taylor's husband.
Jack Lemmon was offered the role first, but when he backed off, Jack Warner, with Taylor's insistence, agreed on Burton and paid him his price. Albee preferred
Bette Davis and
James Mason, fearing that the Burtons' strong screen presence would dominate the film.
[4]:155, 163 Nichols, in his directorial debut, managed the Burtons brilliantly. The script by Hollywood veteran
Ernest Lehman broke new ground for its raw language and harsh depiction of marriage. Although all four actors received Oscar nominations for their roles in the film (the film received a total of thirteen), only Taylor and Dennis went on to win. So immersed had the Burtons become in the roles of George and Martha over the months of shooting, after the wrap Richard Burton said, "I feel rather lost."
[4]:142 Later the couple would state that the film took its toll on their relationship, and that Taylor was "tired of playing Martha" in real life.
[8]:206
Their lively version of
Shakespeare's
The Taming of the Shrew (1967), directed by
Franco Zeffirelli, was a notable success. Later collaborations, however,
The Comedians (1967),
Boom! (1968), and the Burton-directed
Doctor Faustus (1967) (which had its genesis from a theatre production he staged and starred in at the
Oxford University Dramatic Society) were critical and commercial failures. He did enjoy a final commercial blockbuster with
Clint Eastwood in
Where Eagles Dare in 1968
[14] but his last film of the decade,
Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), was a commercial and critical disappointment. In spite of those failures, it performed remarkably well at that year's Academy awards (receiving ten nominations, including one for Burton's performance as
Henry VIII), which many thought to be largely the result of an expensive advertising campaign by
Universal Studios.
[15]
Later career
Due to Burton and Taylor's extravagant spending and his support of his family and others (42 people at one point), Burton agreed to work in mediocre films that hurt his career. He recognized his financial need to do so, and that in the
New Hollywood era of cinema he or Taylor would not soon again be paid as well as at the height of their stardom.
[14] Films he made during this period included
Bluebeard (1972),
Hammersmith Is Out (1972),
The Klansman (1974), and
Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977). He did enjoy one major critical success in the 1970s in the film version of his stage hit
Equus, winning the
Golden Globe Award as well as an Academy Award nomination. Public sentiment towards his perennial frustration at not winning an Oscar made many pundits consider him the favourite to finally win the award, but on Oscar Night he lost to
Richard Dreyfuss in
The Goodbye Girl.
Burton won in 1976 the
18th Grammy Awards in the category of
Best Recording for Children for his narration of
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. He also found success in 1978, when he narrated
Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds. His distinctive performance became a necessary part of the concept album – so much so that a hologram of Burton is used to narrate the live stage show (touring in 2006, 2007, 2009 and 2010) of the musical.
Burton had an international box office hit with
The Wild Geese (1978), an adventure tale about mercenaries in Africa. The film was a success in the UK and Europe but had only limited distribution in the U.S. owing to the collapse of the studio that funded it and the lack of an American star in the movie. He returned to appearing in critically reviled films like
The Medusa Touch (1978),
Circle of Two (1980), and
Wagner (1983), a role he said he was born to play, after his success in
Equus. His last film performance, as O'Brien in
Nineteen Eighty-Four, was critically acclaimed.
[14]
At the time of his death, Burton was preparing to film
Wild Geese II, the sequel to
The Wild Geese, which was eventually released in 1985. Burton was to reprise the role of Colonel Faulkner, while his friend Sir
Laurence Olivier was cast as
Rudolf Hess. After his death, Burton was replaced by
Edward Fox, and the character changed to Faulkner's younger brother.
Oscars
He was nominated six times for an
Academy Award for Best Actor and once for an
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor – but he never won. From 1982, he and
Becket co-star
Peter O'Toole shared the record for the male actor with the most nominations (7) for a competitive acting Oscar without ever winning. In 2007, O'Toole was nominated for an eighth time (and subsequently lost), for
Venus (however, O'Toole received an
Academy Honorary Award in 2003).
Television
Burton rarely appeared on television, although he gave a memorable performance as
Caliban in a televised production of
The Tempest for The
Hallmark Hall of Fame in 1960. Later appearances included the TV movie
Divorce His – Divorce Hers (1973) opposite then-wife
Elizabeth Taylor (a prophetic title, since their first marriage would be dissolved less than a year later), a remake of the classic film
Brief Encounter (1974) that was considered vastly inferior to the 1945 original, and a critically applauded performance as
Winston Churchill in
The Gathering Storm (1974). A critically panned film he made about the life of
Richard Wagner (noted only for having the only onscreen teaming of
Laurence Olivier,
John Gielgud and
Ralph Richardson in the same scene) was shown as a television miniseries in 1983 after failing to achieve a theatrical release in most countries, but Burton enjoyed a personal triumph in the American television miniseries
Ellis Island in 1984, receiving a posthumous
Emmy Award nomination for his final television performance.
Television played an important part in the fate of his Broadway appearance in
Camelot. When the show's run was threatened by disappointing reviews, Burton and co-star Julie Andrews appeared on
The Ed Sullivan Show to perform the number
What Do The Simple Folk Do?. The television appearance renewed public interest in the production and extended its Broadway run.
Late in his career, he played himself in an episode of the Television Show
The Fall Guy, repeating a stunt he made in 1970 when he and then-wife Elizabeth Taylor appeared as themselves on an episode of
Here's Lucy as part of his unsuccessful campaign to win the Oscar for his nominated performance in
Anne of the Thousand Days.
In 1997, archive footage of Burton was used in the first episode of the television series
Conan.[16]
Book
In 1964, Burton wrote a semi-autobiographical book
A Christmas Story, which is an endearing tale of a Christmas Eve in a Welsh mining village, during the Depression.
[17]
Personal life
Burton was married five times. From 1949 until their divorce in 1963, he was married to Sybil Williams, by whom he had two children: actress
Kate and Jessica Burton. He was married twice, consecutively, to
Elizabeth Taylor (15 March 1964 – 26 June 1974 and 10 October 1975 – 29 July 1976). The first marriage took place in
Montreal.
[12] Their second marriage occurred 16 months after their divorce, in the
Chobe National Park,
Botswana. In 1964, the couple adopted a 3-year-old German girl they named Maria. The relationship between them portrayed in
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was popularly likened to Burton and Taylor's real-life marriage.
[18] Burton disagreed with others about Taylor's famed beauty, saying that calling her "the most beautiful woman in the world is absolute nonsense. She has wonderful eyes, but she has a
double chin and an overdeveloped chest, and she’s rather short in the leg."
[19]
In 1957 Burton became a
tax exile by moving to Switzerland, where he lived until his death. It is widely believed he was never offered a knighthood due to his tax exile status, together with his attacks on Churchill and other controversial public opinions.
In 1968 Burton's elder brother, Ifor, slipped and fell, breaking his neck, after a lengthy drinking session with Burton at the actor's second home in
Céligny, Switzerland. The injury left him paralyzed from the neck down.
[20] His younger brother Graham Jenkins opined it may have been guilt over this that caused Burton to start drinking very heavily, particularly after Ifor died in 1973.
[21]
In a February 1975 interview with his friend David Lewin he said he "tried"
homosexuality. He also suggested that perhaps all actors were
latent homosexuals, and "we cover it up with
drink".
[22] In 2000, Ellis Amburn's biography of Elizabeth Taylor suggested that Burton had an affair with
Laurence Olivier and tried to seduce
Eddie Fisher[citation needed], although this was strongly denied by Burton's younger brother Graham Jenkins.
[23]
Burton was notorious for his unrestrained pursuit of women while filming.
Joan Collins wrote that when she rejected his on-set advances, he embarked on a series of liaisons with other women including an elderly
black maid who, according to Collins, was "almost toothless". Collins playfully told Burton that she believed he would sleep with a
snake if he had the chance, to which Burton is alleged to have replied "only if it was wearing a skirt, darling".
He was an
insomniac and a notoriously heavy drinker. However, ongoing back pain and a dependence upon pain medications have been suggested as the true cause of his misery. He was also a heavy
smoker from the time he was just eight years old; and by his own admission in a December 1977 interview with Sir
Ludovic Kennedy, Burton was smoking 60-100 cigarettes per day. According to his younger brother Graham Jenkins's 1988 book "Richard Burton: My Brother", he smoked at least a hundred cigarettes a day.
His father, also a heavy drinker, refused to acknowledge his son's talents, achievements and acclaim.
[7] In turn, Burton declined to attend his funeral, in 1957.
[10] Like Burton, his father died from a
cerebral haemorrhage, in January 1957 at the age of 81.
Burton admired and was inspired by the actor and dramatist
Emlyn Williams. He employed his son
Brook Williams as his personal assistant and adviser and he was given small roles in some of the films in which Burton starred.
[24]
Burton was banned permanently from BBC productions in November 1974 for writing two newspaper articles questioning the sanity of
Winston Churchill and others in power during World War II – Burton reported hating them "virulently" for the alleged promise to wipe out all Japanese people on the planet.
[citation needed] The publication of these articles coincided with what would have been Churchill's centenary, and came after Burton had played him in a favourable light in
A Walk with Destiny, with considerable help from the Churchill family. In one article he accused Churchill of having Welsh miners shot during strikes in the 1920s.
[citation needed] Ironically, Burton got along well with Churchill when he met him at a play in London, and kept a bust of him on his mantelpiece. Politically Burton was a lifelong
socialist, although he was never as heavily involved in politics as his close friend
Stanley Baker. He greatly admired Democratic Senator
Robert F. Kennedy and once got into a sonnet-quoting contest with him. In 1973 Burton agreed to play
Josef Broz Tito in a biopic, since he greatly admired the Yugoslav leader. While filming in
Yugoslavia he publicly proclaimed that he was a communist, saying he felt no contradiction between earning vast sums of money for films and holding very left-wing views since "unlike capitalists, I don't exploit other people."
[25] Burton courted further controversy in 1976 when he wrote a controversial article about his friend and fellow Welsh thespian Stanley Baker, who had recently died from
pneumonia at the age of 48.
[citation needed]
Burton and Taylor divorced for the second time in July 1976. The following month, Burton married Susan Hunt (maiden name Suzy Millar, whose father was a judge in
Kenya), the former wife of Formula 1 Champion
James Hunt.
[26] His fifth marriage was to
Sally Hay, a make-up artist who later became a successful novelist.
[citation needed]
Health issues
The biography of Burton by
Melvyn Bragg provides a detailed description of the many health issues that plagued Burton throughout his life. In his youth, Burton was a star athlete and well known for his athletic abilities and strength. By the age of 41 he had declined so far in health that his arms were by his own admission thin and weak. He suffered from
bursitis, possibly aggravated by faulty treatment,
arthritis,
dermatitis,
cirrhosis of the liver and kidneys, as well as displaying, by his mid-forties, signs of advanced
senescence such as a pronounced limp. How much of this was due to his intake of alcohol is impossible to ascertain, according to Bragg, because of Burton's reluctance to be treated for
alcohol addiction; however, in 1974, Burton spent six weeks in a clinic to recuperate from a period during which he had been drinking three bottles of
vodka a day. He was a regular smoker with an intake of between three and five packs a day for most of his adult life. Health issues continued to plague him until his death of a
stroke at the age of 58.
Death
Burton died at age 58 from a
brain haemorrhage on 5 August 1984 at his home in Céligny, Switzerland, and is buried there.
[27] Although his death was sudden, his health had been declining for several years, and he suffered from a constant and severe pain in the neck. He had been warned that his liver was enlarged as early as March 1970,
[20] and had been diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver and kidneys in April 1981. Burton was buried in a red suit, a tribute to his Welsh roots, and with a copy of
Dylan Thomas' poems.
[citation needed] He and Taylor had discussed being buried together; his widow Sally purchased the plot next to Burton's and erected a large headstone across both, likely to prevent Taylor from being buried there.
[28]
Awards and nominations
Academy Awards- Nominations
BAFTA Awards- Nominations
Emmy Awards- Nominations
- 1985 Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or a Special, Ellis Island
| Golden Globe Awards- Nominations
Grammy Award WinnerTony Awards- 1961 Best Actor – Musical, Camelot
- 1976 Special Award
- Nominations
- 1959 Best Actor – Play, Time Remembered
- 1964 Best Actor – Play, Hamlet
|
Filmography
Stage productions
Further reading
- Shipman, D. The Great Movie Stars: The International Years, Angus & Robertson 1982. ISBN 0-207-14803-1
John Warner (December 4, 1976 – November 7, 1982)
John William Warner,
KBE (born February 18, 1927) is an
American Republican politician who served as
Secretary of the Navy from 1972 to 1974 and as a five-term
United States Senator from
Virginia from January 2, 1979, to January 3, 2009. He did not seek
reelection in 2008 and has rejoined the law firm of
Hogan & Hartson, where he worked before joining the
United States Department of Defense. Warner was also the sixth husband to actress
Elizabeth Taylor, whom he married before being elected to the Senate. He is a veteran of
World War II, and one of only five serving in the Senate at the time of his retirement.
[1]
Early life and education
John William Warner was born on February 18, 1927 to John W. and Martha Budd Warner and grew up in
Washington, D.C., where he attended the elite
St. Albans School before graduating from
Woodrow Wilson High School in February 1945.
He enlisted in the
United States Navy during
World War II in January 1945, shortly before his 18th birthday. He served until the following year, leaving as a
Petty Officer 3rd Class. He went to
college at
Washington and Lee University, where he was a member of
Beta Theta Pi, graduating in 1949; he then entered the
University of Virginia Law School.
He joined the
Marine Corps in October 1950, after the outbreak of the
Korean War, and served in
Korea as a ground officer with the
1st Marine Aircraft Wing. He continued in the Marine Corps
Reserves after the war, eventually reaching the rank of
captain. He then resumed his studies, taking courses at the
George Washington University, and then receiving his law degree in 1953. That year, he became a
law clerk to Chief Judge
E. Barrett Prettyman of the
United States Court of Appeals. In 1956, he became an assistant
US attorney; in 1960 he entered private law practice and joined Kirkland and Ellis.
Marriages
- In 1957, Warner married banking heiress Catherine Conover Mellon, the daughter of art collector Paul Mellon and his first wife, Mary Conover, and the granddaughter of Andrew Mellon. The Warners, who divorced in 1973, have three children: Virginia, John Jr, and Mary. His former wife now uses the name Catherine Conover.[2]
- John Warner married actress Elizabeth Taylor on December 4, 1976. They divorced on November 7, 1982. Warner and Larry Fortensky were the only living former spouses of Elizabeth Taylor at the time of her death in 2011.
- On December 15, 2003, Warner married Jeanne Vander Myde, a real estate agent and the widow of White House official Paul Vander Myde.[3]
Political career
In February 1969, Warner was appointed Undersecretary of the Navy under the
Nixon administration. On May 4, 1972, he succeeded
John H. Chafee as
Secretary of the Navy. He participated in the
Law of the Sea talks, and negotiated the
Incidents at Sea Executive Agreement with the
Soviet Union. He was subsequently appointed by
Gerald Ford to the post of Director of the American Revolution Bicentennial Administration.
Warner entered politics in the 1978 Virginia election for U.S. Senate. Known primarily as Elizabeth Taylor's husband, he finished second at the state
Republican Party (GOP) convention to politician
Richard D. Obenshain. When Obenshain died in a plane crash two months later, Warner was chosen to replace him and narrowly won the general election over
Democrat Andrew P. Miller, former
Attorney General of Virginia. He was in the senate until January 3, 2009. He was the second-longest serving senator in Virginia's history, behind only
Harry F. Byrd, Sr., and by far the longest-serving Republican Senator from the state. On August 31, 2007, Warner announced that he would not seek re-election in 2008.
His committee memberships included the
Environment and Public Works Committee, the
Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, and the
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Most important, as the chairman of the
Senate Armed Services Committee, he protected and enlarged the flow of billions of dollars into the Virginia economy each year via the state's naval installations and shipbuilding firms.
Warner was considerably more moderate than most Republican Senators from the South. He was among the minority of Republicans to support
gun control laws. He voted for the
Brady Bill and, in 1999, was one of only five Republicans to vote to close the so-called
gun show loophole. In 2004 Warner was one of three Republicans to sponsor an amendment by Senator
Dianne Feinstein (
D-
CA) that sought to provide for a 10-year extension of the
Assault Weapons Ban.
Warner was considered
pro-choice[4] and supports
embryonic stem cell research,
[5] although he received high ratings from
pro-life groups because he voted in favor of many abortion restrictions.
[6] On June 15, 2004, Warner was among the minority of his party to vote to expand
hate crime laws to include
sexual orientation as a protected category. He supports a constitutional amendment banning
same-sex marriage, but he raised concerns about the most recent
Federal Marriage Amendment as being too restrictive as it would have potentially banned civil unions as well.
In 1987, Warner was one of the Republicans who crossed party line to reject the nomination of
Robert Bork by President
Ronald Reagan.
[7]
In 1993, Warner refused to support the state GOP's nominee for lieutenant governor,
Mike Farris. Farris was the only statewide GOP candidate to lose that year, but lost by a wide enough margin to make it questionable as to whether Warner's support would have made a difference. In 1994, Warner campaigned for a former state Republican Attorney General turned
Independent candidate
Marshall Coleman against fellow Republican
Oliver North in North's unsuccessful campaign to unseat Virginia's Democratic Sen.
Chuck Robb. North's loss to Robb was very close, with Coleman finishing in single digits and looking like a spoiler. This time, Warner's actions were seen as the direct cause of a fellow Republican's loss.
[citation needed]
Because of his
centrist stances on many issues and because of his 1993 and 1994 snubbing of fellow Republicans, Warner faced opposition from angry members of his own party when he decided to run for re-election to a fourth term in the Senate in 1996. Many of Virginia's staunch Republican voters began a "Dump Warner" campaign to try to deny him re-nomination.
[citation needed] However, Virginia's GOP party rules allow the incumbent to select the nominating process. Knowing he would probably lose the nomination at a convention or caucus, where only party regulars would be voting, he selected a primary. In Virginia, primaries are open to all registered voters, so Warner encouraged Democrats and independents to vote in that primary. His strategy worked and he handily defeated Republican rival
James C. Miller III for the nomination.
[citation needed]
In the general election that year, Warner was expected to win in a cakewalk over relatively unknown (at that time) Democrat
Mark Warner (no relation), who had never held elective office.
[citation needed]The election turned out to be much closer than many pundits had expected. Mark Warner was able to tighten the race mainly because he took full advantage of the discontent with John Warner among conservative Republican voters (even garnering protest votes from some of them). Still, the close election provided Mark Warner enough momentum and impetus to successfully run for
governor of Virginia five years later.
[citation needed]
According to
George Stephanopoulos, a former close aide to President
Bill Clinton, Warner was among top choices to replace
Les Aspin as the Secretary of Defense in the Clinton administration. However, President Clinton selected
William Perry. During Clinton second term
William Cohen of
Maine, another moderate Republican Senator, held this position.
[8]
During the
1996 United States Presidential election Warner served as a Senate teller (along with Democrat
Wendell H. Ford) of electoral votes.
[9] Warner was among ten GOP Senators who voted against the charge of perjury during
Clinton's impeachment (the others were
Richard Shelby of
Alabama,
Ted Stevens of
Alaska,
Susan Collins of
Maine,
Olympia Snowe of
Maine,
John Chafee of
Rhode Island,
Arlen Specter of
Pennsylvania,
Jim Jeffords of
Vermont,
Slade Gorton of
Washington and
Fred Thompson of
Tennessee). Warner and others who voted against the article angered many Republicans by their position. However, unlike Snowe, Collins, Specter, Jeffords and Chafee, the rest of the Republicans voted guilty on the second article.
As was the case in 1990, Warner faced no Democratic opposition in 2002, winning re-election to a fifth term in the Senate by a landslide over an independent candidate.
[citation needed]
On May 23, 2005, Warner was one of 14
centrist senators (
Gang of 14) to forge a compromise on the Democrats' proposed use of the judicial
filibuster, thus blocking the Republican leadership's attempt to implement the so-called
nuclear option. Under the agreement, the Democrats would retain the power to filibuster a Bush judicial nominee only in an "extraordinary circumstance", and three Bush
appellate court nominees (
Janice Rogers Brown,
Priscilla Owen and
William Pryor) would receive a vote by the full Senate.
On September 17, 2006, Warner has said US military and intelligence personnel in future wars will suffer for abuses committed in 2006 by the US in the name of fighting
terrorism. He fears that the administration’s civilian lawyers and a president who never saw combat are putting US service personnel at risk of torture, summary executions and other atrocities by chipping away at
Geneva Conventions’ standards that have protected them since 1949. Following the Supreme Court ruling on
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, which was adverse to the Bush Administration, Warner (with Senators
Lindsey Graham and
John McCain) negotiated with the White House the language of the
Military Commissions Act of 2006, suspending
habeas corpus provisions for anyone deemed by the Executive Branch an "unlawful combatant" and barring them from challenging their detentions in court. Warner's vote gave a retroactive, nine-year immunity to U.S. officials who authorized, ordered, or committed acts of torture and abuse, permitting the use of statements obtained through torture to be used in military tribunals so long as the abuse took place by December 30, 2005.
[10] Warner's "compromise" (approved by a Republican majority) authorized the President to establish permissible interrogation techniques and to "interpret the meaning and application" of international
Geneva Convention standards, so long as the coercion falls short of "serious" bodily or psychological injury.
[11][12] Warner maintains that the new law holds true to "core principles" that the US provide fair
trials and not be seen as undermining Geneva Conventions.
[1] The bill was signed into law on October 17, 2006, in Warner's presence.
[13][14][15]
In March 2007, after Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
Peter Pace spoke out about his
views on homosexuality and the military, Sen. Warner said, "I respectfully, but strongly, disagree with the chairman's view that homosexuality is immoral."
[16]
On August 23, 2007, he called on President Bush to begin bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq by Christmas in order to make it clear to the Iraqi leadership that the U.S. commitment is not indefinite.
[17]
On August 31, 2007, he announced that he would not seek a sixth term in the Senate in 2008.
[18]
Warner was a cosponsor of
America's Climate Security Act of 2007, also more commonly referred to as the
Cap and Trade Bill, that proposed to ration (cap) carbon emissions in the U.S., and tax or purchase (trade)
Carbon credits on the global market for greater U.S. alignment with the
Kyoto protocol standards and goals.
In September 2008, Warner joined the
Gang of 20, a bipartisan coalition seeking comprehensive energy reform. The group is pushing for a bill that would encourage state-by-state decisions on
offshore drilling and authorize billions of dollars for conservation and alternative energy.
[19]
In October 2008, Warner voted in favor of the
Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.
[20][21]
Committee assignments
- Committee on Environment and Public Works
- Subcommittee on Private Sector and Consumer Solutions to Global Warming and Wildlife Protection (Ranking Member)
- Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure
- Committee on Armed Services
- Subcommittee on Airland
- Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities
- Subcommittee on SeaPower
- Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
- Ad Hoc Subcommittee on State, Local, and Private Sector Preparedness and Integration
- Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
- Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia
- Select Committee on Intelligence
- Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
Current life
On December 12, 2008, the
Office of the Director of National Intelligence awarded Warner the first ever
National Intelligence Distinguished Public Service Medal.
On January 8, 2009, the Secretary of the Navy announced it would name the next
Virginia-class submarine after John Warner.
USS John Warner (SSN-785) will be the twelfth
Virginia-class submarine.
[22]
On February 19, 2009 the
British Embassy in Washington, D.C., announced that
Queen Elizabeth II would name John Warner an honorary Knight Commander for his work strengthening the American-British military alliance.
[citation needed] As a person who is not a British citizen (or a citizen of a country which acknowledges the British monarch as their own monarch), the title of
Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire only allows Warner to put the
Post-nominal letters KBE after his name.
[23]
Election results
Larry Fortensky (October 6, 1991 – October 31, 1996)
Larry Fortensky (born January 17, 1952) is a construction worker best known as the eighth husband of actress
Elizabeth Taylor. Fortensky and Taylor were married on October 6, 1991, at
Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch and divorced on October 31, 1996.
He was raised in
Stanton, California. He dropped out of high school at
Pacifica High School in the 10th grade in
Garden Grove, California. He was drafted in the Army in 1972 and discharged three months later. He married Priscilla Joan Torres in 1972. They divorced in 1974 after having one daughter Julie Fortensky. He subsequently married Karin McNeal and divorced in 1984. After being arrested for minor drugs and alcohol charges he checked into the
Betty Ford Clinic in 1988 where he met Taylor.
[1]
The $1.5 million wedding attended by 160 at the Neverland Ranch and presided over by
Marianne Williamson was a high profile event with paparazzi helicopters buzzing overhead, and a guest list that including
Nancy Reagan. Taylor's $25,000 dress was a gift from
Valentino. She was escorted by Jackson and her eldest son Michael Wilding Jr.. Their toast was with
mineral water. Fortensky's family arrived in their own cars rather than limousines.
[2]
When Taylor and Fortensky married in 1991 Fortensky was reported to have a
pre-nuptial agreement where he would receive $1 million (with no additional support) if the marriage lasted five years. The couple split after five years in 1996 with Fortensky hiring New York divorce attorney
Raoul Felder.
[3][4]
Linda Untiet, Fortensky's sister, said they were divorced because Fortensky did not want to be known as "Mr. Elizabeth Taylor" anymore and that the two had remained in contact after the divorce.
[5]
Fortensky fell down a flight of stairs at his home in
San Juan Capistrano, California on January 29, 1999 and was hospitalized for two months. He was reported to have been drunk at the time mourning the death of a prized pet.
[6][7]
He bought a three-bedroom house in
Temecula, California in 2002 with money from the divorce settlement. In 2009 Taylor reportedly gave him $50,000 to pay the $5,800/month mortgage and keep the house out of foreclosure. He reportedly asked for money again in 2011 shortly before Taylor's death but she refused to help him.
[8]
THE END, LONG JOURNEY TO FIND LOVE
