The Richard Burton Diaries (56 page)

Wednesday 21st, Portofino
We have been in Portofino a week roughly and leave tomorrow for Monte Carlo. E and K have been shopping like lunatics. E has bought umpty-nine watches, sweaters, ‘puccis.’ K has bought hats and watches (two I think) and has been giggling steadily from dawn till dusk. Giggling with her has been Elizabeth. What a pair? They each think the other is the funniest comedian in the world. [...]

Kate was sculpted by one Rocchi and so was I.
⁵¹
Kate's sculpture is splendid – mine is too leonine I think but we shall see when he's finished it.

Thursday 22nd, Monte Carlo
We sailed from Portofino at approx 11.20 [...] within a short time it was realized (by E and me at least) that it was going to be a sluggish roll and pitch and glug and that our passengers might have some queasiness. Aaron did. Kate did. Bob also did but refused to admit it. Kate threw up twice but was a very good girl and didn't moan and conyn and carry-on as most people do. I was very proud of her. We kept her in our bed and first E then I joined her there and we all fell fast asleep. On both occasions that K vomited she did it onto a towel so there was no mess on the bed.

Eventually to everyone's relief we were in calm waters at Monte Carlo. R. Hanley and Gaston were there to greet us. Later [...] we had dinner at Rampoldi's.
⁵²
By this time K was completely recovered and she and I ate sole meunière with chips, with grapefruit to start with. I still feel odd after so many days in Portofino. It must be lack of exercise. The weather was sticky and warm and no breath of wind. I read and tried to sleep, failed, read again and finally slept about 3.30 am. How I hate that kind of night.

Friday 23rd
We all awoke about 9.30 and had tea on deck – K had orange juice.

Finally when all forces had been gathered we repaired to La Ferme where we had an elaborate meal which was [...] absurdly delicious.
⁵³
[...] we took Kate to swim in the Olympic Pool. I sat with Eliz while K swam. Eventually a friend of E's, and a friend of his, joined us for a drink. E has always called him ‘Little Abner’ so it was rather difficult of myself and Kate to know what he was actually a West Indian called Smatt.
⁵⁴
[...]

Saturday 24th
A brilliantly hot day with Kate anxious to swim so we thought we'd kill two birds with one stone and go to La Réserve where K could swim while we ate and drank.
⁵⁵
This we did going by the Riva speedboat. It was very pleasant K swimming in the sea and the pool. Orson Welles gargantuanly fat joined us for a minute or two.
⁵⁶
He said that every film he'd directed in his life had cost him money, that he'd never received any money from any of his films and that
Chimes at Midnight
had cost him $75,000 personally out of his own pocket.
⁵⁷
He left the table suddenly and dramatically with a sotto voce ‘darling’
to E and a conspiratorial squeeze of my shoulder. I wondered to E how he could possibly make love.

[...] We ran into Sam Spiegel and Harry Kurnitz and took them up on the hill for a drink and a cool-off.
⁵⁸

Sunday 25th
I am sitting on the after-deck at the moment while K writes her diary beside me. She writes well for a 9 year old and needs no help.

[...] we went on board the
Southern Breeze
– a big 190 foot MY – to have lunch with a friend of E's mother and her husband. Mr and Mrs Gus Newman.
⁵⁹
The yacht is very posh and they are obviously stinking rich. Useful people to know and nice with it. Puts our little
Oddyseia
somewhat in the shabby class.

Persuaded E to try and get Howard here instead of going there and to travel to Suisse by car if we can find a big limousine.
⁶⁰
Here's hoping.

Went to the Port bar and played pin ball machine with Kate, home to supper, Sunday papers and this diary.

Monday 26th – Tuesday 27th – Wednesday 28th, Monte Carlo – San Remy – Talloires
[...] K suddenly complained of a pain in her back which the doctor-masseur took care of. We suspect the pain will suddenly disappear when swimming is available.

As indeed proved on Tuesday evening at Baumanière.
⁶¹
She was into the pool like a trout and jumping and diving without a care. We had a slightly checkered journey. Before we'd left Monte Carlo the power windows blew a fuse and we had to wait in the Negresco over a beer while the car went into the garage.
⁶²
We stopped near a town called Le Luc for lunch at a restaurant called Aux Grillades.
⁶³
[...] K slept with E and I slept on a camp bed. Like a log though E says sleeping with K was like trying to embrace an earthquake.

Yesterday Wednesday we left about 10.30 when we were held up for the second day running. E had forgotten her wig box!! We stopped at the Nougat town of Montelimar for lunch at Relais de l'empereur.
⁶⁴
Very pleasant place with lovely food [...]. With it we had the local wine, which is of course Châteauneuf-du-Pape. And playing word games in the car we got to Talloires to stay at L'Abbaye.
⁶⁵
We dined at Auberge du Pere Bise and I could not eat.
⁶⁶
One of the truly great restaurants.

JULY

Thursday, 20th, Gstaad
Arrived here on the 29th June [...] en route we stopped at Domino's (Rolle) for lunch where Maria and Liza were waiting for us. Hugs and kisses all round and so on to Gstaad. K and Liza travelled ahead with Gaston. We followed with Simon and Maria (Simon is the Gstaad taxi-man.) Stopped at Bulle for a drink of vin blanc.
⁶⁷
Maria played ‘Liza's favourite song’ on the Juke-box – ‘Puppet on a String.‘
⁶⁸
[...]

We have done most of the things we promised each other we'd do. We've eaten raclette, fondue bourgignonne, Steak Diane, Chateaubriands at the madly expensive Palace. We have had the local wines including a rather good one from Sion called Chante Merle Badoud. Sweet and light – not quite a Rosé.

After much cogitation we decided not to go to the USA or Hawaii at all but to have Ive and Gwen take K to NY and to have Howard and Mara come over to Europe.
⁶⁹
That gives us extra time to relax and also gives K a few more days in Suisse. She and Liza have words now and again but obviously enjoy each other's company.

Kate, surprisingly, though highly intelligent and very charming is I'm afraid a bit of a tale-bearer or tattle-tail as she would say and oddly ungenerous – not in thought but in deed. She finds it intensely difficult to lend something even when she herself doesn't want it. Where the devil does that come from? Syb was never like that and my family loaded with vices as we are don't number lack of generosity among them. Maybe it will pass.

On the 5th July we picked the boys up at the school. A horrible day – Michael has definitely been sacked and Chris is everybody's darling winning two prizes, one for Art. I loathed the headmaster. A very big man, Swiss, with an emaciated wife and, as compensation, a lovely chubby baby daughter.
⁷⁰
Ava Gardner was there with Ricardo (Madrid) who tends to be a bit of a know-all.
⁷¹
He had a son there of 19 who still had not (or just had maybe) graduated. How the hell could Mike be fired and this obvious oaf been allowed to stay on all these years? Mike is lethargic sluggish and graceless but he's very loving and intelligent enough to hold his own in a school as scholastically indifferent as le Rosey. We shall try and get him into Millfield. Fred
(Heyman's wife) has talked to Meyer, the head, and we might get him in there.
⁷²
[...] He's probably a slow starter like his Uncle Howard.

Ivor and Gwen arrived on the 13th and we met them at the Airport. K and Liza came with us and we drove to Morges to have lunch with the Yul Brynners.
⁷³
I became a trifle stoned largely as a result of drinking ‘Williams’ a pear liqueur which is potent. Mrs Brynner is pretty silly sometimes. Her cynicism sometimes verges on the envious.

Ivor and Gwen were delighted with Gstaad and the weather was superb the whole time. We took them to the Olden and the Palace and one night July 14 (Bastille Day) we went, at Gaston's invitation, to the Belle Vue hotel where the barmaid did lots of conjuring tricks.
⁷⁴
The kids were bewitched and can now do a few of them themselves.

Ivor and Gwen left on the 18th with K for NY. We spent the night before in the Beau Rivage hotel and had dinner with Paul and Janine Fillistorf and their son Roger and his wife.
⁷⁵
[...]

I had woken up in Geneva with a painful left wrist and today as I write it is virtually immovable. I am to see the doctor in an hour's time and for me to see a
doctor
! The arm from the elbow down seems to be on fire. I hope it's just a sprain and not arthritis again. [...] I can't and nobody else can remember my hitting something or falling etc. [...]

Maria is being a hell of a nuisance since Gus (the Irish nurse) left. The other kids are too old to play with her [...]. Poor little thing. She cries a lot at night and continually wakes up Nella and Claudye in snivelling hysterics.
⁷⁶
She is a mass of fears. We must get her special treatment.

I went to the doctor in the village – a fellow about my age I think with receding hair and a very clinical look, much washed. I guessed it was arthritis and it was and is. [...] Scherz of the Palace Hotel called and asked if we would consent to be televised for Swiss TV.
⁷⁷
I said we had guests. [...]

Victoria Brynner is visiting today – 4 years old approximately and adorable.
⁷⁸
She is playing with Maria.

Michael is ‘dating’ a girl called Robin Marlowe. He appears to be much struck by her. She seemed dull and mannerless at first but has improved on acquaintance. Her father Stephen Marlowe writes books and I'm trying to read one of them called
The Shining
.
⁷⁹
It is set in Classical Greece and is torture to
read. I'd rather a second hand book of sermons or thoughts for the day. E is lucky – his book, sent to her, is a thriller-suspense story. [...]

Vivien Leigh died of TB about a fortnight ago.
⁸⁰
Jayne Mansfield (big blonde semi-star) was beheaded in a car crash.
⁸¹

Gianni, Claudye's boyfriend, was here when we arrived and is due again tomorrow. I – we – promised him the Mini-Cooper when he marries Claudye and if he stops motor racing. He is a nice Italian boy who has bright red hair – quite startling anywhere but certainly in Italy. They are obviously dotty about each other.
⁸²

The tennis championship of Suisse is on here at Gstaad and all the big names are here. Emerson, Santana, Osuna etc.
⁸³
I shall watch Saturday and Sunday perhaps.

It seems that the yacht has passed inspection and is now ours and is officially the
KALIZMA
. Kate Liza Maria (Elizabeth included in Liza). It's going to be fun when it's all fitted out. [...]

Friday 21st
Yesterday was a medicine and diet day. I had
¹
/
₂
grapefruit (no sugar) two boiled eggs (substitute salt) a piece of bread (no butter) three times, and nothing else at all except water. Result this morning: Lost 3lbs – I am now 180
¹
/
₂
lbs. It is a sobering thought that the woman who suggested this diet to me – Paula Strasberg, Lee's wife, – is dead.
⁸⁴

The effect of these pills on the arthritic arm is fantastic – for about an hour you think somebody is carefully and sadistically slitting open all the veins and that your arm is about to fall off. To counteract this I took
¹
/
₂
tablets of E's empirin and codeine. It helped a little.

Last night, loaded with drugs I fell asleep about 1.00 and didn't wake until 10.30 this morning. E had left to sleep in the other room because my snoring was so heavy. Everything so far re the arm is much better.

Sunday 23rd
Yesterday we saw in great trepidation our film of
Dr Faustus
. It is not
¹
/
₂
bad I think and has some moments of genuine quality. There are one or two unalterable vulgarities but generally speaking it is a pretty good achievement to make what appears to be a very expensive film for just over $1 million. Got mildly drunk afterwards in the Olden still sticking vaguely to our diet –
hamburger and tomato salad for lunch and a T-bone steak for dinner. My weight (and E's) had dropped 2lbs making me 178
¹
/
₂
and E 134
¹
/
₂
.

[...] We went to bed, after feeding MacWhorter and LaRue on barbecued steaks, about 3.0. E very erotic and anche io.
⁸⁵
It thundered and lightninged all night and was very heavy and stuffy. I finally tried to sleep in the guest bedroom, felt lonely, went back to E – finally went back to the guest bedroom and slept with last thoughts of
Faustus
being a little-regarded failure.

Monday 24th
[...] We went to the Palace for lunch and had two medium sized entrecotes each for the main course with a tomato and onion salad. Washed down with a rosé (two bottles which we shared with R. McWhorter who lunched with us.)

Afterwards to the tennis where we saw Emerson beat Santana in 3 sets and Emerson and Santana beat McManus and Osborne in 5.
⁸⁶
The latter looks a very promising boy. Powerful serve. [...]

Afterwards to the Olden, where I had a Gibson and E J. Daniels, and played Yahtsee. E beat me 4 out of 5. For dinner we had poached salmon and the inevitable onion and tomato salad. [...]