The Richard Burton Diaries (282 page)

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Authors: Richard Burton,Chris Williams

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269
Frank Sinatra had announced his retirement on 12 June 1971. He returned in 1973.

270
Baroness Orczy (1865–1947),
The Scarlet Pimpernel
(1929).
Adventures of the Scarlet Pimpernel
was published in 1794.

271
Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) and Ford Hermann Hueffer (later Ford Madox Ford) (1873–1939),
Romance
(1903). F. Tennyson Jesse (1888–1958),
Many Latitudes
(1928).

272
George Eliot (1819–80),
Adam Bede
(1859). Francis Iles (1893–1971),
Malice Aforethought
(1931). John Wain (1925–94) had by this time published five novels.

273
Iris Murdoch (1919–99),
A Severed Head
(1961). Peggy Webling (1871–1949),
The Story of Virginia Perfect
(1909).

274
Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–81). Marcel Proust (1871–1922). Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850). Alexandre Dumas (1802–70) Gustave Stendhal (1783–1842).

275
John Cottrell and Fergus Cashin,
Richard Burton
(1971).

276
Clara Cluck is a Disney character but this may well be a reference to Claire Bloom.

277
Portage la Prairie, Manitoba.

278
WAAF: Women's Auxiliary Air Force.

279
Hedy Lamarr (1914–2000), actor.

280
This would appear to be an inaccurate reference to a line from the hymn ‘Cwm Rhondda’: ‘death of death, and hell's damnation’, although it is possible that Burton was familiar with a different translation from the Welsh.

281
The first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, the second on Nagasaki on 9 August 1945.

282
Henry Longhurst (1909–78), golf columnist. Hugh McIlvanney (1933—), sports journalist. Michael Parkinson (1935—) wrote a sports column for the
Sunday Times
from 1965.

283
Sir Harold Hobson (1904–92), drama critic of the
Sunday Times
(1947–76). Dilys Powell (1901–95), film critic of the
Sunday Times
(1939–76).

284
James Agate (1877–1947), theatre and film critic.

285
Jack Hulbert (1892–1978), actor.

286
Neil Porter (1895–1944), actor and producer.

287
Anna Neagle (1904–86), actor.

288
Maxine Audley (1923–92), actor.

289
Kenneth Tynan had joined the National Theatre in 1963 as its literary manager. He wrote
Oh! Calcutta!
(1969).

290
David Niven,
The Moon's a Balloon
(1971).

291
This passage is described on p. 297 of
The Moon's a Balloon
.

292
The scene is described on pp. 292–3 of
The Moon's a Balloon
(1972). Niven uses the phrase ‘the awed and grateful audience’.

293
‘Dumbum’ or ‘Dum Bum’ was Bogart's Danish crewman on his yacht the
Santana
.

294
Proust's
A La Recherche du Temps Perdu
was published between 1913 and 1927. Burton considered a screenplay based on the novel, written by Harold Pinter (1930–2008), in 1972, but the film was not made.

295
Constant Lambert (1905–51), composer and conductor.

296
Thomas Love Peacock (1785–1866),
Nightmare Abbey
(1818). Burton appeared in the BBC Radio production on 7 November 1949, playing the part of Scythrop Glowry, generally regarded as a depiction of Shelley.

297
John Dearth (1920–84), who had played with Burton in
Look Back in Anger
.

298
The George, Oxford Circus.

299
Robert Farquarson (1878–1966). Ernest Thesiger (1879–1961), who co-starred with Burton in
The Robe
. Andrew Cruikshank (1907–88). Robert Speaight (1904–76). James Stephens (1882–1950), author of
The Crock of Gold
(1912). James McKechnie (1911–64).

300
The Savile Club, Brook Street.

301
John Ford (
c.
1586–
c.
1640), ‘
Tis Pity She's a Whore
(1633). George Chapman (
c.
1559–
c.
1634),
The Tragedy of Bussy D'Ambois
(1607). Geoffrey Chaucer (
c.
1343–1400). David Jones (1895–1974),
In Parenthesis
(1937); idem,
Anathemata
(1952). James Joyce,
Finnegans Wake
(1939).

302
Burton's father was 81 when he died in 1957.

303
The Unforgiven
(1960), directed by John Huston and starring Burt Lancaster (1913–94) and Audrey Hepburn. It was filmed in Durango, Mexico.

304
Battistoni's boutique, Via Condotti.

305
Grace Kelly's birthday was 12 November.

306
Donald Zec (1919—) would publish a biography of Elizabeth Taylor in 1982.

307
Valentino's, Via del Babuino.

308
Heading in red type.

309
We will stay at home quietly with books, newspapers and this typewriter.

310
Irving Paul ‘Swifty’ Lazar (1907–93), talent agent.

311
Heading in red type.

312
Carlo Cotti (1939—), who was proposing to act as director of a film on the last days of Mussolini.

313
Clara Petacci (1912–45).

314
Presumably Burton means Gewürztraminer.

315
Bernard Delfont (1909–94), theatrical impresario. Harold Pinter, playwright, who had written the screenplay of
The Go-Between
. John Heyman and Norman Priggen (1924–99) were credited as producers of the film.

316
Billy Wilder (1906–2002), producer.

317
Sight & Sound
, a monthly film magazine (1932—).

318
Heading in red type.

319
Wilfred Wooller (1912–97), international rugby player and sports journalist for the
Sunday Telegraph
.

320
Alan Hoby (1914–2008), sports journalist for the
Sunday Express
. Danny Blanchflower (1926–93), international footballer and sports journalist.

321
Henry Brandon (1916–93), Washington correspondent for the
Sunday Times
. Philip Toynbee (1916–81), columnist for the
Observer
. A. J. P. Taylor (1906–90), historian, columnist for the
Observer
and the
Daily Express
.

322
Mrs Grundy, a character in Thomas Morton,
Speed the Plough
(1798), taken to mean someone who is extremely strait-laced and conventional. John Gordon (1890–1974), columnist in the
Sunday Express
.

323
A reference to the 1960 Peter Sellers and Sophia Loren single ‘Goodness Gracious Me’.

324
Peter Sellers's third wife was Miranda Quarry (1948—).

325
Sellers's marriage to Britt Ekland had ended in 1968.

326
Huston and Sallis's son Danny (now an actor) was born in 1962.

327
Sallis is of mixed English and Indian descent.

328
Anna Kashfi (1934—) was born Johanna O'Callaghan in Darjeeling, India. Her family moved to Cardiff in 1947. She and Brando were married from 1957 to 1959. She has claimed that her father William, a London Irishman, was her stepfather and that her biological father was Indian.

329
President Franz Jonas (1899–1974). Giuseppe Saragat (1898–1988), President of the Italian Republic. Hotel Quirinale, Via Nazionale, Rome.

330
Ivor Novello (1893–1951), composer, actor, singer, whose musicals were renowned for their spectacular aspect.

331
Robin Stafford, foreign correspondent for the
Daily Express
.

332
The date is wrong. Thursday was 18 November.

333
Bert Mortimer was Peter Sellers's valet and driver.

334
Ritz Hotel, Place Vendôme, Paris.

335
A reference to
The Diamond as Big as the Ritz
(1922) by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940).

336
Charles Kenneth Scott Moncrieff (1889–1930), translator of Proust. Gerard Hopkins, translator.

337
Robert Graves, (1895–1985)
I, Claudius
(1934).

338
The film project
Laughter in the Dark
from which Richardson had sacked Burton.

339
Tom Jones
(1963), which was edited by Antony Gibbs (1925—).

340
Heading in red type.

341
Heading in red type.

342
Josef Shaftel (1919–96), director.

343
Mario Soldati (1906–99), director, was writing the screenplay for the film on Mussolini.

344
Heading in red type.

345
Edward Dmytryk (1908–99) would direct
Bluebeard
. Robert Siodmak (1900–73), director.

346
William Gibson (1914–2008),
Two for the Seesaw
(1958).
A Cry of Players
(1968).

347
Malcolm Lowry (1909–57),
Under the Volcano
(1947).

348
Burton is confusing William Gibson with Wilfrid Wilson Gibson (1878–1962), the poet.

349
A reference to the last line of the 1913 poem ‘The Rolling English Road’ by G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936).

350
Budd Schulberg (1914–2009), writer, producer. He was actually born in New York.

351
A reference to the line spoken by Macbeth in
Macbeth
, Act V, scene v: ‘Creeps in this petty pace from day to day / To the last syllable of recorded time.’

352
Possibly by Di Rossi Burton means Grazia De Rossi, the hair stylist who had worked on the
Taming of the Shrew
.

353
Druan
is ‘poor’ in Welsh.
Dim ond yr arglwydd
is ‘only the lord’.

354
This appears to refer to the passage on p. 350 of Cottrell and Cashin's biography in which they write of Dan-y-bont coming on to the market.

355
The
Port Talbot Guardian
and
Glamorgan Gazette
newspapers.

356
J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973), novelist, literary critic.

357
Heading in red type.

358
Burton had bought the Peregrina pearl for Taylor in January 1969 at a cost of $37,000.

359
Mary, Queen of Scots (1542–87), Queen of Scotland 1542–67, mother of James VI of Scotland and I of England.

360
Heading in red type.

361
Heading in red type.

362
César Ritz (1850–1918) built the Ritz Hotels in Paris and London. His son Charles C. Ritz (1891–1976) was President of the Ritz Chain from 1953 to 1976.

363
Malthea is the name of the nymph who nursed the infant Jupiter.

364
Mags: possibly means majesties.

365
Inter-Milan drew 0–0 with Borussia Mönchengladbach in the second leg of the quarter-final (played in West Berlin) on 1 December 1971.

366
Heading in red type.

367
The Shah of Iran (1919–80) had thrown a party in October 1971 to celebrate the 2,500th anniversary of the founding of the Persian Empire. It was estimated to have cost $100m.

368
Madame Louis Malle was Anne-Marie Deschodt who until 1967 had been married to the director Louis Malle (1932–95).

369
Andy Warhol (1928–87), the artist.

370
Sydney Smith (1771–1845), clergyman and essayist, whose character Lady Holland in
Memoir
(1855) states that marriage ‘resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they cannot be separated; often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing anyone who comes between them’.

371
Montesquieu (1689–1755).
De l'Esprit des lois
(1748). Burton's reading of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
(1798) had appeared on long-playing records in 1955 and 1960.

372
Maurice Herzog (1919—), Himalayan mountaineer and politician. Jean-Paul Binet (1917–86), eminent cardiovascular surgeon, pioneer of heart surgery, member of the Académie des Sciences and art collector.

373
‘Est-ce-que quelle-qu'n qui a une plume?’ (Has anyone got a feather?) A joke meaning an old style pen.

374
Elsa Martinelli (1935—), who had played alongside Burton and Taylor in
The V.I.P.s
, and alongside Burton in
Candy
.

375
Jacqueline de Ribes (1931—), fashion designer. Pierre Salinger (1925–2004), White House Press Secretary to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. He had published
With Kennedy
(1966).

376
Nureyev was friendly with the Kennedy family, and was particularly close to Princess Lee Radziwill (1933—), sister of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
Nicholas and Alexandra
(1971), produced by Sam Spiegel, has a running time of 189 minutes.

377
Charlotte Rampling (1946—), actor.

378
David Rothschild (1942—).

379
Andrea Dotti (1938–2007), Hepburn's second husband.

380
Cecil Beaton (1904–80), photographer.

381
Gabrielle van Zuylen (1933—), wife of Thierry Van Zuylen van Nijevelt.

382
All Souls College, Oxford.

383
Paul Valéry (1871–1945). He had two sons: Claude and François.

384
Harvey Lavan ‘Van’ Cliburn Jr (1934—), pianist.

385
François-Marie Banier (1947—), author of
Le Passé composé
(1971).

386
Word ‘Ritz’ in red type.

387
Alexis von Rosenberg, Baron de Redé (1922–2004).

388
Edouard Etienne de Rothschild (1957—) is Guy de Rothschild's son by his marriage to Marie-Hélène.

389
Heading in red type.

390
Richard L. Sterne had had a part as a Player Musician in the Broadway production of
Hamlet
and had written a book,
John Gielgud Directs Richard Burton in Hamlet
(1967).

391
Marcel Marceau (1923–2007), actor and mime.

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