Age, Biography, and Wiki
Richard Burton was born Richard Walter Jenkins Jr. on November 10, 1925, in Pontrhydyfen, Wales. He is best known for his incredible voice and his performances in both Shakespearean roles and Hollywood films. Burton's life was marked by both professional success and personal tumult, including his famous relationship with Elizabeth Taylor. He passed away on August 5, 1984, at the age of 58.
| Occupation | Stage Actor |
|---|---|
| Date of Birth | 10 November 1925 |
| Age | 99 Years |
| Birth Place | Pontrhydyfen, Glamorgan, Wales |
| Horoscope | Scorpio |
| Country | Switzerland |
| Date of death | 5 August, 1984 |
| Died Place | Céligny, Switzerland |
Height, Weight & Measurements
There is limited detailed information available regarding Richard Burton's specific height and weight measurements.
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Dating & Relationship Status
Richard Burton was married five times, most notably to Elizabeth Taylor twice. His relationship with Taylor was widely publicized and they were married from 1964 to 1974 and again from 1975 to 1976.
In the mid-1960s, Burton became a top box-office star. By the late 1960s, he was one of the highest-paid actors in the world, receiving fees of $1 million or more plus a share of the gross receipts. Burton remained closely associated in the public mind with his second wife, Elizabeth Taylor. The couple's turbulent relationship, married twice and divorced twice, was rarely out of the news.
on 10 November 1925 in a house at 2 Dan-y-bont in Pontrhydyfen, Glamorgan, Wales. He was the twelfth of thirteen children born into the Welsh-speaking family of Richard Walter Jenkins Sr. (5 March 1876 – 25 March 1957), and Edith Maude Jenkins (née Thomas; 28 January 1883 – 31 October 1927). Jenkins Sr., called Daddy Ni by the family, was a coal miner, while his mother worked as a barmaid at a pub called the Miners Arms in the village where she met her husband. They married, without approval of her parents, at Neath Register Office on 24 December 1900. According to biographer Melvyn Bragg, Richard is quoted saying that Daddy Ni was a "twelve-pints-a-day man" who sometimes went off on drinking and gambling sprees for weeks, and that "he looked very much like me". Jenkins Sr. was badly burned in a mining explosion and his father Thomas had been confined to a wheelchair after a mining accident.
He remembered his mother to be "a very strong woman" and "a religious soul with fair hair and a beautiful face". Richard was barely two years old when his mother died on 31 October, six days after the birth of Graham, the family's thirteenth child. Edith's death was a result of postpartum infections; Richard believed it occurred because of "hygiene neglect". According to biographer Michael Munn, Edith "was fastidiously clean", but her exposure to the dust from the coal mines resulted in her death. Following Edith's death, Richard's elder sister Cecilia, whom he affectionately addressed as "Cis", and her husband Elfed James, also a miner, took him under their care until the age of seventeen. Richard lived with Cis, Elfed and their two daughters, Marian and Rhianon, in their three-bedroom terraced cottage on 73 Caradoc Street, Taibach, a suburban district in Port Talbot, which Bragg describes as "a tough steel town, English-speaking, grind and grime".
Richard remained grateful and loving to Cis throughout his life, later going on to say: "When my mother died she, my sister, had become my mother, and more mother to me than any mother could ever have been ... I was immensely proud of her ... she felt all tragedies except her own". Daddy Ni would occasionally visit the homes of his grown daughters but was otherwise absent. Another important figure in Richard's early life was Ifor, his brother, 19 years his senior. A miner and rugby union player, Ifor "ruled the household with the proverbial firm hand". He was also responsible for nurturing a passion for rugby in young Richard. Although Richard also played cricket, tennis, and table tennis, biographer Bragg notes rugby union football to be his greatest interest. On rugby, Richard said he "would rather have played for Wales at Cardiff Arms Park than Hamlet at The Old Vic". The Welsh rugby union centre, Bleddyn Williams, believed Richard "had distinct possibilities as a player".
In March 1943 aged seventeen Richard left his sister's home as a result of his brother-in-law's resentment to supporting his resumed education. He sought help of Philip Burton with the latter arranging his transfer to the home of widow Elizabeth 'Ma' Smith where he himself lodged. By the autumn of that year Philip planned to adopt Richard but was not able to do so as he was 20 days too young to be 21 years older than his adoptee, a legal requirement. As a result, with consent of his father, Richard became Philip's legal ward and, just aged eighteen, changed his surname on 26 November 1943 to "Burton", after Philip's own surname, by means of deed poll. It was also in 1943 that Richard qualified for admission into a university after excelling in the School Certificate Examination. Philip requested Richard to study at Exeter College, Oxford, as a part of a six-month scholarship programme offered by the RAF for qualified cadets prior to active service.
Burton went on to feature in two more plays by Fry – The Boy With A Cart and A Phoenix Too Frequent. The former opened at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith in February 1950, while the latter premiered at the Dolphin Theatre, Brighton the following month. Gielgud, who also directed The Boy With A Cart, said that Burton's role in the play "was one of the most beautiful performances" he had ever seen. During its month-long run, Anthony Quayle, who was looking for a young actor to star as Prince Hal in his adaptations of Henry IV, Part I and Henry IV, Part 2 as a part of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre season for the Festival of Britain, came to see the play and as soon as he beheld Burton, he realised he had found his man and got his agreement to play the parts. Both plays opened in 1951 at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon to mixed reviews, but Burton received acclaim for his role as Prince Hal, with many critics dubbing him "the next Laurence Olivier". Theatre critic Kenneth Tynan said of his 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." He was also praised by Humphrey Bogart and his wife Lauren Bacall after both saw the play. Bacall later said of him: "He was just marvellous [...] Bogie loved him. We all did." Burton celebrated his success by buying his first car, a Standard Flying Fourteen, and enjoyed a drink with Bogart at a pub called The Dirty Duck. Philip too was happy with the progress his ward made, and felt "proud, humble, and awed by god's mysterious ways".
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| Husband | Sybil Williams (m. 1949-1963) Elizabeth Taylor (m. 1964-1974) (m. 1975-1976) Suzy Miller (m. 1976-1982) Sally Hay (m. 1983) |
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Net Worth and Salary
At the time of his death in 1984, Richard Burton's net worth was estimated to be approximately $1 million, although some sources suggest it was higher, around $50 million. During his peak, he was one of the highest-paid actors in the world, earning $1 million or more per film plus a share of the gross receipts.
Rye recommended Richard to director Peter Glenville for the part of Hephaestion in Rattigan's play about Alexander the Great, Adventure Story, in 1949. The play was directed by Glenville and starred the then up-and-coming actor Paul Scofield as the titular character. Glenville, however, rejected him as he felt that Burton was too short compared to Scofield. Rye came to the rescue again by sending Burton to audition for a role in The Lady's Not for Burning, a play by Christopher Fry and directed by Gielgud. The lead roles were played by Gielgud himself, and Pamela Brown, while Burton played a supporting role as Richard alongside the then-relatively unknown actress Claire Bloom. Gielgud was initially uncertain about selecting Burton and asked him to come back the following day to repeat his audition. Burton got the part the second time he auditioned for the role. He was paid £15 a week for the part, which was five more than what Beaumont was paying him. After getting the part, he pushed for a raise in his salary from £10 to £30 a week with Williams' assistance, in addition to the £100 Korda paid him; Beaumont accepted it after much persuasion. Bloom was impressed with Burton's natural way of acting, noting that "he just was" and went further by saying "He was recognisably a star, a fact he didn't question." The play opened at the Globe Theatre in May 1949 and had a successful run in London for a year. Writer and journalist Samantha Ellis of The Guardian, in her overview of the play, thought critics found Burton to be "most authentic" for his role. Gielgud took the play to Broadway in the United States, where it opened at the Royale Theatre on 8 November 1950. Theatre critic Brooks Atkinson appreciated the performances and praised the play's "hard glitter of wit and skepticism", while describing Fry as precocious with "a touch of genius". The play ran on Broadway until 17 March 1951, and received the New York Drama Critics' Circle award for the Best Foreign Play of 1951. Burton received the Theatre World Award for his performance, his first major award.
Burton began 1952 by starring alongside Noel Willman in the title role of Emmanuel Roblès adventure Montserrat, which opened on 8 April at the Lyric Hammersmith. The play only ran for six weeks but Burton once again won praise from critics. According to Bragg, some of the critics who watched the performance considered it to be Burton's "most convincing role" till then. Tynan lauded Burton's role of Captain Montserrat, noting that he played it "with a variousness which is amazing when you consider that it is really little more than a protracted exposition of smouldering dismay". Burton successfully made the transition to Hollywood on the recommendation of film director George Cukor when he was given the lead role in the Gothic romance film, My Cousin Rachel (1952) opposite Olivia de Havilland. Darryl F. Zanuck, co-founder of 20th Century Fox, negotiated a deal with Korda to loan Burton to the company for three films as well as pay Burton a total of $150,000 ($50,000 per film). De Havilland did not get along well with Burton during filming, calling him "a coarse-grained man with a coarse-grained charm and a talent not
Career, Business, and Investments
Burton's career spanned film, television, and theater. He was nominated for seven Academy Awards and won numerous other awards, including a BAFTA, a Golden Globe, and a Grammy Award. His performances in films like "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" and "Equus" are particularly notable. Despite his success, his personal struggles with alcohol and financial management impacted his career stability.
Richard was bolstered by winning the Eisteddfod Prize and wanted to repeat his success. He chose to sing Sir Arthur Sullivan's "Orpheus with his Lute" (1866), which biographer Alpert thought "a difficult composition". He requested the help of his schoolmaster, Philip Burton, but his voice cracked during their practice sessions. This incident marked the beginning of his association with Philip. Philip later recalled, "His voice was tough to begin with but with constant practice it became memorably beautiful." Richard made his first foray into theatre with a minor role in his school's production of the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw's The Apple Cart. He decided to leave school by the end of 1941 and work as a miner as Elfed. However he ended up with a job, which he came to dislike intensely, at the local Taibach Co-operative retail store as a draper's assistant in the menswear department, limited at that time by war-time rationing. He also simultaneously considered other professions for his future, including boxing, religious ministry and singing. It was also during this period that Richard took up smoking and drinking despite being underage.
Pleased with the feedback Burton received for his performance in The Last Days of Dolwyn, the film's co-producer Alexander Korda offered him a contract at a stipend of £100 a week, which he signed. The contract allowed Korda to lend Burton to films produced by other companies. Throughout the late 1940s and early 50s, Burton acted in small parts in various British films such as Now Barabbas (1949) with Richard Greene and Kathleen Harrison, The Woman with No Name (1950) opposite Phyllis Calvert, and Waterfront (1950) with Harrison. Burton had a bigger part as Robert Hammond, a spy for a newspaper editor in Green Grow the Rushes (1951) alongside Honor Blackman. His performance in Now Barabbas received positive feedback from critics. C. A. Lejeune of The Observer believed Burton had "all the qualities of a leading man that the British film industry badly needs at this juncture: youth, good looks, a photogenic face, obviously alert intelligence and a trick of getting the maximum effort with the minimum of fuss." For The Woman With No Name, a critic from The New York Times thought Burton "merely adequate" in his role of the Norwegian aviator, Nick Chamerd. Biographer Bragg states the reviews for Burton's performance in Waterfront were "not bad", and that Green Grow the Rushes was a box office bomb.
Social Network
As Richard Burton passed away in 1984, he did not have a presence on modern social networks. However, his legacy continues to inspire discussions and tributes across various platforms.
Whilst an undergraduate at Exeter College, University of Oxford, Burton featured as "the complicated sex-driven puritan" Angelo in the Oxford University Dramatic Society's 1944 production of William Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. The play was directed by Burton's English literature professor, Nevill Coghill, and was performed at the college in the presence of additional contributors to West End theatre including John Gielgud, Terence Rattigan and Binkie Beaumont. On Burton's performance, fellow actor and friend, Robert Hardy recalled, "There were moments when he totally commanded the audience by this stillness. And the voice which would sing like a violin and with a bass that could shake the floor." Gielgud appreciated Burton's performance and Beaumont, who knew about Burton's work in The Druid's Rest, suggested that he "look him up" after completing his service in the RAF if he still wanted to pursue acting as a profession.
Education
Burton attended Port Talbot Secondary School. He later trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London, where he honed his acting skills.
Richard Burton's life was a testament to his incredible talent and the challenges he faced. His legacy continues to captivate audiences and inspire new generations of actors.
From the age of five to eight, Richard was educated at the Eastern Primary School while he attended the Boys' segment of the same school from eight to twelve years old. He took a scholarship exam for admission into Port Talbot Secondary School in March 1937 and passed it. Biographer Hollis Alpert notes that both Daddy Ni and Ifor considered Richard's education to be "of paramount importance" and planned to send him to the University of Oxford. Richard became the first member of his family to go to secondary school. He displayed an excellent speaking and singing voice since childhood, even winning an eisteddfod prize as a boy soprano. Whilst a pupil at Port Talbot Secondary School, Richard also showed immense interest in reading poetry as well as English and Welsh literature. He earned pocket money by running messages, hauling horse manure, and delivering newspapers.
When he joined the Port Talbot Squadron 499 of the Air Training Corps section of the Royal Air Force (RAF) as a cadet, he re-encountered Philip, who was the squadron commander. He also joined the Taibach Youth Centre, a youth drama group founded by Meredith Jones and led by Leo Lloyd, a steel worker and avid amateur thespian, who taught him the fundamentals of acting. Richard played the role of an escaped convict in Lloyd's play, The Bishop's Candlesticks, an adaptation of a section of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables. The play did not have any dialogue, but Alpert noted that Richard "mimed his role". Philip gave him a part in a radio documentary/adaptation of his play for BBC Radio, Youth at the Helm (1942). Seeing the talent Richard possessed, both Jones and Philip re-admitted him to school on 5 October 1942. Philip 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. Richard called the experience "the most hardworking and painful period" in his life. Philip called Richard "my son to all intents and purposes. I was committed to him", while Burton later wrote of Philip, "I owe him everything".
In 1943, Burton played Professor Henry Higgins in a school production of another Shaw play directed by Philip, Pygmalion. The role won him favourable reviews and caught the attention of the dramatist, Emlyn Williams, who offered Burton a small role of the lead character's elder brother, Glan, in his play The Druid's Rest. The play debuted at the Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool on 22 November 1943, and later premiered in St Martin's Theatre, London in January 1944. Burton thought the role was "a nothing part" and that he "hardly spoke at all". He was paid ten pounds a week for playing the role, which was "three times what the miners got". Alpert states that the play garnered mixed critical reviews, but James Redfern of the New Statesman took notice of Burton's performance and wrote: "In a wretched part, Richard Burton showed exceptional ability." Burton noted that single sentence from Redfern changed his life.
In late 1944, Burton successfully completed his six-month scholarship at Exeter College, Oxford, and went to the RAF classification examinations held in Torquay to train as a pilot. He was disqualified for pilot training because his eyesight was below par, and was classified as a navigator trainee. He had a short term posting for training at a temporary RCAF training base in Carberry, Manitoba. He served the RAF for three years, during which time rather than flight crew he was assigned as an Aircraftman 1st Class to perform an administrative role in a Wiltshire-based RAF Hospital.. Burton's habits of drinking and smoking increased during this period; he was involved in a brief casual affair with actress Eleanor Summerfield. Burton was cast in an uncredited and unnamed role of a bombing officer by BBC Third Programme in a 1946 radio adaptation of In Parenthesis, an epic poem of the First World War by David Jones. Burton was discharged from the RAF on 16 December 1947.
While touring with the cast and crew members of Wynyard Browne's Dark Summer, Burton was called by Emlyn Williams for a screen test for his film, The Last Days of Dolwyn (1949). Burton performed the screen test for the role of Gareth, which Williams wrote especially for him, and was subsequently selected when Williams sent him a telegram that quoted a line from The Corn Is Green — "You have won the scholarship." This led to Burton making his mainstream film debut. Filming took place during the summer and early autumn months of 1948. It was on the sets of this film that Burton was introduced by Williams to Sybil Williams, whom he married on 5 February 1949 at a register office in Kensington. The Last Days of Dolwyn opened to generally positive critical reviews. Burton was praised for his "acting fire, manly bearing and good looks" and film critic Philip French of The Guardian called it an "impressive movie debut". After marrying Sybil, Burton moved into a flat at 6 Lyndhurst Road, Hampstead NW3, where he lived from 1949 to 1956.
