Richard Burton: The Life Story Behind the Welsh Stage Legend

Richard Burton had a voice that people never forgot. It was deep, rich, and Welsh, and it could make a line of Shakespeare sound like music and a line of ordinary talk sound like poetry. He was born in a small mining village in Wales, the twelfth of thirteen children, the son of a coal miner, and he became one of the great actors of his time, on stage and on screen, in London, in New York, and in Hollywood. He played Hamlet, he played Henry V, he played kings and soldiers and lovers, and he did it with a power that few actors have matched.

His life is also a love story, and a sad one. He met Elizabeth Taylor on the set of Cleopatra in 1962, and their affair became the most famous love story in the world. They married, they divorced, they married again, and they divorced again, and the press followed every step. Their love was real, and it was passionate, and it was also public in a way that made a private life impossible. Burton’s story is about talent, about a voice, about a village boy who became a star, and about a love that was both a gift and a burden.

This is the story of a boy from Pontrhydyfen, a village in South Wales, who lost his mother at two, who was raised by his sister, who was taken up by a teacher who gave him his name, and who became Richard Burton, a name known all over the world.

Pontrhydyfen, a Miner’s Son, and a Mother Lost at Two

Richard Walter Jenkins was born on 10 November 1925 in Pontrhydyfen, a small village in South Wales. He was the twelfth of thirteen children born to Richard Walter Jenkins, a coal miner, and Edith Jenkins. The family lived in a small house, and money was short, as it was for most mining families in Wales at that time. The village was a place of chapels, of choirs, and of hard work underground, and Richard grew up hearing Welsh spoken, hearing hymns sung, and hearing the voices of men who worked in the mines. Those voices, and that music, stayed with him for the rest of his life, and they shaped the voice that would make him famous.

His mother died when he was two years old, and his father, a miner who drank and who struggled to raise so many children, could not care for them all alone. Richard was raised largely by his elder sister, Cecilia, known as Cis, and her husband, Elfed, who took him into their home. Cis was a kind and strong woman, and she gave Richard a stable home, and a sense of love that he had lost with his mother. He loved her deeply, and he stayed close to her for the whole of his life. The loss of his mother at two, and the love of his sister, are two of the great facts of his life, and they shaped the man he became: a man who was strong and vulnerable at once, who needed love and who feared losing it.

At school, Richard was bright, and he was good at English, but he was also a boy who loved sport, especially rugby, and who loved to act in school plays. He was spotted by his teacher, Philip Burton, a man who saw in the boy a talent for acting and for language. Philip Burton became his mentor, his teacher, and his second father. He coached Richard, he taught him to speak clearly, he took him to the theatre, and he gave him a new name. Richard took his teacher’s surname, Burton, as his stage name, and he kept it for the rest of his life. It was a sign of gratitude, and a sign of a new identity: the miner’s son became Richard Burton, and the name carried him to the world.

Philip Burton also helped Richard to go to Oxford University, where he studied for a short time before joining the Royal Air Force during the Second World War. The war interrupted his education, but it gave him discipline, and it gave him time to think about what he wanted to do. When the war ended, he returned to acting, and he began to work in the theatre, first in small parts, and then in larger ones. He was a young man with a great voice, a great presence, and a great ambition, and he was ready to take on the world.

Oxford, the RAF, and the Stage

Richard’s time at Oxford was brief, but it mattered. He went to Exeter College, Oxford, in 1942, as part of a short course for servicemen, and he studied English and acting. Oxford gave him a taste of a different world, a world of books, of learning, and of the theatre, and it showed him that a boy from a mining village could belong in such a place. He did not finish a degree, because the war called him away, but the time at Oxford stayed with him, and it gave him a confidence that he carried into his acting.

He served in the Royal Air Force as a navigator, and he was stationed in Britain during the war. The RAF gave him structure, and it gave him a break from the theatre, but it did not take away his love of acting. When the war ended in 1945, he returned to the stage, and he began to work in earnest. He joined a theatre company, he played in Shakespeare, and he began to be noticed. His voice, his looks, and his power on stage made people talk, and he was soon offered work in London, in the West End, and on film.

His first film roles were small, in British films of the late 1940s and early 1950s, but they showed his screen presence. He played in The Last Days of Dolwyn in 1949, a film set in Wales, and in other films that used his Welsh looks and his strong voice. He was not yet a star, but he was a young actor with a future, and directors began to notice him. In 1952, he went to Hollywood to make My Cousin Rachel, a film based on a novel by Daphne du Maurier, with Olivia de Havilland. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, the first of seven nominations he would receive, and he did not win. It was the start of a pattern that would follow him for his whole career: brilliant performances, many nominations, and no Oscar.

The Robe, Broadway, and a Star in Two Worlds

In 1953, Richard Burton made The Robe, a biblical film in which he played Marcellus, a Roman soldier who wins Christ’s robe in a dice game. The film was a great success, and it made Burton a star in Hollywood. He was handsome, he was powerful, and he had a voice that filled the cinema. He was offered more films, and he made them, but he never gave up the stage. He believed that the stage was the true home of an actor, and he returned to it whenever he could, playing Shakespeare in London and in Stratford-upon-Avon, and playing modern plays in the West End.

In 1964, he played Hamlet on Broadway, in New York, in a production directed by John Gielgud, one of the great Shakespearean actors. The production was a triumph, and Burton’s Hamlet was praised as one of the great performances of his time. He played Hamlet for many months, to full houses, and he showed that a Welsh miner’s son could play the most difficult role in English theatre, and play it brilliantly. The Hamlet on Broadway is still remembered as one of the great stage performances of the twentieth century, and it confirmed Burton as a stage actor of the first rank, not only a film star.

He also played in Look Back in Anger, a play by John Osborne, in London, and he was praised for his performance as Jimmy Porter, an angry young man who raged against the world. The play was a turning point in British theatre, and Burton’s performance was a part of it. He was not only a classical actor. He was an actor who could play modern, angry, and difficult men, and who could make them real. That range, from Shakespeare to Osborne, from kings to angry young men, is what made him a great actor, and it is why his work is still admired today.

Cleopatra, Elizabeth Taylor, and the Most Famous Love in the World

In 1962, Richard Burton went to Rome to make Cleopatra, a huge film about the Queen of Egypt, played by Elizabeth Taylor. Burton played Mark Antony, Taylor’s lover, and during the filming, the two actors fell in love. Both were married to other people at the time, and their affair became a scandal, covered by newspapers all over the world. The Vatican called them immoral, the press followed them everywhere, and the public could not get enough of their story. It was the most famous love affair of its time, and it made Burton and Taylor the most talked-about couple in the world.

They married in 1964, after both had divorced their spouses, and their marriage became a public event. They lived in grand houses, they bought jewels, they travelled the world, and they made films together, including Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in 1966, a film about a bitter, drunken couple, played by Burton and Taylor, which won Taylor an Oscar and brought Burton another nomination. The film is a masterpiece of acting, and it shows both actors at their best, playing a couple who love and hate each other in equal measure. It is a painful film to watch, because it feels so real, and it is a film that many people believe drew on their own marriage.

Their life together was lavish and public. They bought the Taylor-Burton diamond, one of the largest diamonds in the world, they owned yachts and houses, and they were photographed everywhere. They also drank heavily, they argued, and their marriage was stormy. They divorced in 1974, after ten years, and then they married again in 1975, in Botswana, and divorced again in 1976. It was a love that could not last, and could not end, and it became a legend in itself. Burton loved Taylor deeply, and he said so for the rest of his life, even after they had parted. Their story is a love story, but it is also a story about fame, about money, and about two people who could not live with each other, and could not live without each other.

Seven Nominations, No Oscar, and the Later Years

Richard Burton was nominated for the Academy Award seven times, for My Cousin Rachel, Becket, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Anne of the Thousand Days, Equus, and for his work in other films, and he never won. Like Peter O’Toole, his friend and fellow actor, he became known as a great actor who could not win an Oscar. He was nominated for Becket in 1964, playing Henry II opposite Peter O’Toole, and for The Spy Who Came in from the Cold in 1965, playing a British spy, and for Equus in 1977, playing a psychiatrist. Each time, he gave a brilliant performance, and each time, the Oscar went to someone else. It was a disappointment, but it did not lessen his work, and it did not lessen his reputation. He is still remembered as one of the great actors of his time, with or without an Oscar.

In his later years, Burton’s health suffered from drinking, and he made fewer films. He played in Equus, in The Wild Geese, and in other films, but the great roles did not come as often. He returned to the stage, playing in Camelot on Broadway in 1980, and he was praised for his performance as King Arthur. He also wrote, and he kept a diary, which was published after his death, showing a man who was thoughtful, funny, and deeply aware of his own faults. The diaries show a Burton who was more than a film star. They show a reader, a thinker, and a man who loved language.

He married for a fifth time, to Sally Hay, a young woman who worked as his assistant, in 1983, and the marriage brought him a measure of peace in his last year. He lived in Switzerland, in a house in Céligny, near Geneva, and he tried to live more quietly, away from the press and the parties. He was still a famous man, but he was tired, and his health was failing. He died on 5 August 1984, in Geneva, at the age of fifty-eight, from a brain haemorrhage. He was buried in Switzerland, and his death was mourned all over the world. Elizabeth Taylor, who had loved him for so long, was heartbroken, and she spoke of him with love for the rest of her life. His voice, his Hamlet, and his love story remain, and they are still remembered today.

The Diaries, the Books, and the Man Behind the Voice

Richard Burton kept a diary for much of his life, and the diaries, published after his death, show a man who was far more thoughtful than his public image suggested. He wrote about the books he read, about Shakespeare, about poetry, and about his own doubts and fears. He was a great reader, and he loved language, not only as an actor, but as a writer. He wrote poems, he wrote articles, and he thought about writing a novel. The diaries show a man who was intelligent, funny, and self-aware, who knew his own faults, and who was honest about them. He wrote about his drinking, about his love for Elizabeth Taylor, and about his fear that he had wasted his talent. That honesty makes the diaries a valuable record, and it shows a Burton who was more than a film star.

He was also a man who loved Wales, and who never forgot where he came from. He spoke Welsh, he loved Welsh poetry and song, and he returned to Wales whenever he could. He was proud of his village, of his sister Cis, and of the mining community that had raised him. He did not pretend to be an English gentleman. He was a Welshman, and he said so, with pride. That pride is in his voice, in his acting, and in his life. He carried Wales with him to London, to New York, and to Hollywood, and he never let it go. It is one of the reasons his work feels so grounded, so real, and so full of life.

The Voice That Made Shakespeare Sing

What made Richard Burton great was his voice, and it is worth writing about it on its own, because it was one of the great instruments in the theatre. It was deep, it was rich, and it was musical, with a Welsh lilt that made even a simple line sound beautiful. He could speak Shakespeare and make it sound like natural speech, and he could speak modern dialogue and make it sound like poetry. Directors and fellow actors spoke of his voice with awe, and audiences remembered it long after they had forgotten the play. It was a voice that could fill a theatre without shouting, that could whisper and still be heard, and that could carry emotion in every word.

He trained that voice with Philip Burton, his teacher, who taught him to breathe, to speak clearly, and to use his voice as a tool. He practised, he read aloud, and he learned to control his voice so that it served the words, not the other way round. That training stayed with him for his whole life, and it is why his performances, on stage and on screen, are still listened to today. A great voice is a gift, but it is also a skill, and Burton worked at it, as he worked at everything he did. His voice is his legacy, as much as his films, and it is still heard in recordings of his Hamlet, his Henry V, and his Dylan Thomas, a Welsh poet whose work he loved and whose words he read aloud with a beauty that no one has matched.

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and the Film That Hurt to Watch

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, released in 1966, is the film that many people call Richard Burton’s greatest screen performance, and it is also the film that is hardest to watch. He played George, a history professor in a small American college, married to Martha, played by Elizabeth Taylor, and the film shows one long night in which the couple drink, argue, and tear each other apart with words. It is a painful film, because the acting is so real that it feels as if the audience is watching a real marriage fall apart. Burton and Taylor were married in real life, and many viewers believed that they were playing themselves, that the anger on screen was their own anger. That belief made the film even more powerful, and even more uncomfortable.

The film won Taylor an Oscar, and it brought Burton another nomination, but it did not win him the prize. It did win him something else: a reputation as an actor who could play a man in pain, a man who loved and hated in equal measure, and who could make that pain feel true. George is not a hero. He is a tired, disappointed man, who drinks too much, who has failed in his career, and who loves a woman who hurts him. Burton played him with a quiet sadness, and with a voice that could be gentle and cruel in the same sentence. It is a performance that has lasted, and it is still studied by actors today, because it shows how to play a difficult, unhappy man without making him a villain, and without asking the audience to pity him.

He also loved language, and he loved poetry, and he read Dylan Thomas aloud with a beauty that no one has matched. That love of language is in his acting, in his diaries, and in his life. He was not only an actor. He was a reader, a thinker, and a man who believed that words mattered, and that they should be spoken well. That belief is worth remembering, in a time when words are often spoken carelessly, and when the theatre is often seen as a luxury. Burton believed that words were a gift, and he gave them his best, every time he spoke them.

He also played rugby as a boy, and he loved the game, and that love of sport stayed with him for the whole of his life. Rugby is a hard game, played by strong men in the rain and the mud, and it taught him about teamwork, about courage, and about standing up when you are knocked down. Those lessons stayed with him on stage, where an actor must also stand up, night after night, and give their best, even when they are tired. The boy who played rugby in Wales became a man who played Hamlet in New York, and the same strength carried him through both.

My Take:

I think Richard Burton is one of the great tragedies of acting, not because his life was sad, but because his talent was so large and his prizes were so few. He was nominated for an Oscar seven times, and he never won. He played Hamlet on Broadway to great praise, he played Henry II twice, he played a spy, a professor, and a psychiatrist, and each time he was brilliant, and each time the prize went to someone else. I think about that, and I feel a sense of waste, not of his talent, but of the recognition he deserved and did not get. A great actor should be honoured in his lifetime, and Burton was honoured by audiences, but not by the Academy, and that is a shame that will always be part of his story.

What I admire most is his voice. It was deep, rich, and Welsh, and it made Shakespeare sound like music and ordinary talk sound like poetry. I have listened to recordings of his Hamlet, his Henry V, and his readings of Dylan Thomas, and I have felt the power of that voice. It is a voice that fills a room, that carries emotion, and that makes a listener sit up and pay attention. Few actors have a voice like that, and fewer still use it as well as Burton did. He trained it, he cared for it, and he used it to bring great words to life. That is a gift, and it is one that no Oscar can measure, because a voice lives in the memory, long after a prize has been forgotten.

I also admire where he came from. He was the twelfth of thirteen children, the son of a coal miner, raised by his sister after his mother died when he was two. He grew up in a small village in Wales, with little money, and he became one of the great actors of his time. That journey, from a mining village to Broadway, from Pontrhydyfen to Hollywood, is a remarkable one, and it shows what talent, hard work, and a good teacher can do. Philip Burton, the teacher who gave him his name, saw something in the boy that others missed, and he helped him to become the man he was. I think about that teacher a great deal, because it shows how one person who believes in a child can change that child’s whole life. Without Philip Burton, there would be no Richard Burton, and the world would be poorer for it.

His love for Elizabeth Taylor is the part of his story that most people know, and it is the part that I find both beautiful and sad. They loved each other deeply, and they were passionate, and they were public in a way that made a private life impossible. They married twice, they divorced twice, and they never stopped loving each other, even after they parted. That is a love story, but it is also a warning. When love becomes public property, when newspapers follow every argument, when the whole world watches a marriage, it is hard for that marriage to survive. Burton and Taylor loved each other, but they also lived in a goldfish bowl, and the bowl broke them. I feel sympathy for them, because they were two people who wanted love, and who found it, and who could not keep it, in part because the world would not let them be alone together.

I think about their film Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? a great deal, because it is a film that feels too real to watch comfortably. Burton played George, a tired professor, and Taylor played Martha, his bitter wife, and they tore each other apart with words for two hours. It is a masterpiece of acting, and it is also a painful film, because it feels as if the actors are playing themselves. I do not know how much of their real marriage was in that film, and I do not want to guess, but I do know that the film shows two actors at the height of their powers, giving everything to their roles, and that the audience can feel it. That is great acting, and it is also a little frightening, because it shows how thin the line is between a role and a life.

His drinking is a part of his story that I must write about honestly. He drank heavily, as did many actors of his generation, and it damaged his health and his career. He was a brilliant actor when he was sober, and he was a less reliable one when he was not. I do not judge him for drinking, because he was a man of his time, and because he was honest about it in his diaries. I do feel sadness for him, because the drinking cost him years of good work, and it may have cost him the Oscar he deserved. A man who is drunk cannot give his best performance, and Burton, at his best, was one of the greatest actors alive. The drink took some of that best away, and that is a loss, for him and for us.

I also think about his diaries, because they show a man who was far more thoughtful than his public image suggested. He read a great deal, he wrote about books, about poetry, and about his own doubts, and he was honest about his fears. He feared that he had wasted his talent, that he had drunk too much, and that he had not lived up to his promise. That fear is touching, because it shows a man who knew his own worth, and who knew that he had not always used it well. I respect that honesty, because it is easy to pretend that everything is fine, and it is hard to admit that you have not lived up to your own hopes. Burton admitted it, in his diaries, and that admission makes him more human, and more admirable, to me.

What I learn from him, in the end, is that talent is not enough. He had one of the greatest voices in the theatre, he had looks, he had presence, and he had a teacher who believed in him, and yet he did not win the prizes he deserved, and he did not always live the life he wanted. Talent opens doors, but it does not keep them open. A person must work, must stay sober, must choose well, and must keep going, even when the world is watching and judging. Burton did much of that, but not all of it, and his life shows both the power of talent and its limits. That is a lesson for any young person with a gift: a gift is a start, not a finish, and what you do with it matters more than the gift itself.

I think about his sister Cis, too, because she is the quiet hero of his story. She took him in when his mother died, she raised him, she gave him a home, and she stayed close to him for the whole of his life. Without her, the boy from Pontrhydyfen might never have become Richard Burton. She is not famous, she did not act, and she did not seek the spotlight, but she did the work that matters most: she loved a child, she gave him stability, and she let him grow. I think about all the sisters, mothers, and teachers who do that work quietly, without fame, and I feel grateful to them, because the world is full of great people who were made by quiet love, and Richard Burton was one of them.

If I could speak to him, I would thank him for his Hamlet, for his Henry II, for his George in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and for his readings of Dylan Thomas, which are still the finest I have heard. I would tell him that his voice is still remembered, that his films are still watched, and that his name is still spoken with respect by actors who came after him. I would tell him that seven nominations without a win is not a failure, but a sign of how consistently great he was. And I would tell him, gently, that the drink took too much from him, and that I wish he had lived longer, and worked longer, and given us more of that voice. I think he would listen, and he would make a joke, because he was a man with humour, even about his own life.

In the end, I see Richard Burton as a miner’s son who became a king on stage, a lover who became a legend, and a man whose voice still echoes in the theatre, long after he has gone. He was brilliant, he was flawed, he was loved, and he was lost too soon, at fifty-eight. That is a life worth remembering, and it is a life that still teaches us today, that a voice from a small village can reach the whole world, if the person who owns it is brave enough to use it, and honest enough to know its worth.

I also think about the young actors who watch his Hamlet today, and who see a man in a dark castle, speaking words written four hundred years ago, and who feel that those words are about them. That is the power of a great performance: it crosses time, and it speaks to people who were not born when it was made. Burton’s Hamlet does that, and his Henry V does that, and his George in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? does that. Those performances will go on speaking, as long as people watch films and love the theatre, and that is a legacy that no prize can give or take away.

I also think about the way his films are watched today, by young actors who want to learn how to act, and who see in Burton a man who gave everything to a role, whether it was Hamlet, Henry II, or George in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. Those young actors should know that Burton worked for his greatness, that he trained, he practised, and he gave his life to the theatre and to film. A great actor is not born. He is made, by hard work, by study, and by a love of the work itself. Burton made himself, from a boy in a mining village, into one of the great actors of his time, and that journey is a lesson for anyone who dreams of a life on the stage.

I think about Wales once more, because it is the place that made him, and the place he never forgot. He spoke Welsh, he loved Welsh poetry and song, and he returned to Wales whenever he could. He was proud of his village, of his sister Cis, and of the mining community that had raised him. He did not pretend to be an English gentleman. He was a Welshman, and he said so, with pride. That pride is in his voice, in his acting, and in his life, and it is one of the reasons his work feels so grounded, so real, and so full of life.

I also think about the way his diaries are read today, by people who want to know the man behind the voice, and who find in them a thoughtful, funny, and honest writer. He wrote about books, about poetry, about his love for Elizabeth Taylor, and about his fear that he had wasted his talent. That honesty is rare, because many famous people hide their doubts, and Burton did not. He wrote them down, and he left them for us to read, and that is a gift, because it shows that even a great actor can doubt himself, and that doubt does not make him less great. It makes him more human, and more admirable.

I think about his last marriage, to Sally Hay, too, because it brought him a measure of peace in his last year. She was a young woman who worked as his assistant, and she cared for him when he was ill, and she gave him a quiet home in Switzerland, away from the press and the parties. That peace was a gift, and it came late, but it came, and it shows that a person can find happiness even after many failures, if they are willing to try again. Burton tried again, and he found a little peace, and that is a hopeful end to a life that was often stormy.

Frequently Asked Questions

When was Richard Burton born?

Richard Burton was born on 10 November 1925 in Pontrhydyfen, South Wales, as Richard Walter Jenkins. He was the twelfth of thirteen children born to a coal miner, and his mother died when he was two years old.

Why did he change his name to Burton?

He took the surname Burton from his teacher, Philip Burton, who became his mentor and second father. Philip Burton coached him, taught him to speak clearly, and helped him go to Oxford, and Richard kept the name as a sign of gratitude.

What is Richard Burton’s most famous stage role?

His most famous stage role is Hamlet, which he played on Broadway in New York in 1964, in a production directed by John Gielgud. The production was a triumph, and his Hamlet is still remembered as one of the great stage performances of the twentieth century.

How did Richard Burton meet Elizabeth Taylor?

He met her on the set of Cleopatra in Rome in 1962, where he played Mark Antony and she played Cleopatra. They fell in love during filming, married in 1964, divorced in 1974, married again in 1975, and divorced again in 1976.

What is Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf??

It is a film from 1966 in which Burton played George, a history professor, and Elizabeth Taylor played his wife Martha. The film shows one long night of drinking and arguing, and it won Taylor an Oscar and brought Burton another nomination.

How many times was Richard Burton nominated for an Oscar?

He was nominated seven times for a competitive Academy Award, for films including My Cousin Rachel, Becket, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Anne of the Thousand Days, and Equus. He never won a competitive Oscar.

When did Richard Burton die?

He died on 5 August 1984 in Geneva, Switzerland, at the age of fifty-eight, from a brain haemorrhage. He was buried in Switzerland, and his death was mourned all over the world.