Mr. Burton

What a brilliant drama. Also made me think so many of today's actors should watch it and take note. Enunciation!! It's often almost impossible to follow modern films with the mumbling that goes on.

Adding to the praise and enjoyment, a superb watch indeed, a "keeper" for me. However a sad shamefaced admission, Harry Lawtey was possibly told to," jut your chin" to increase his resemblance to RB...sorry just reminded me of Trump!

I enjoyed Erotic Vagrancy, much of his life as a successful actor was a million miles from his impoverished early beginnings. He and Taylor seemed to spend much of their marriage drunk. Elizabeth Taylor's medical history as to procedures and medication was eye watering.

Fantastic!

TerriBull

I enjoyed Erotic Vagrancy, much of his life as a successful actor was a million miles from his impoverished early beginnings. He and Taylor seemed to spend much of their marriage drunk. Elizabeth Taylor's medical history as to procedures and medication was eye watering.

I think she hurt her back when filming National Velvet and, like a lot of people in similar circumstances spent her whole life battling the pain.

We both enjoyed , we are actually from the same town but we were not aware of some things about Richard Burton, we didn't know that he had gone to university or that served in the RAF, there was a lot of the excitement in the area when they were filming. We do remember the excitement when he used to visit with Elizabeth Taylor and it is well known that she had said she wanted to be buried in the village that Richard was born, but it didn't happen for either of them unfortunately. Also this week they unveiled Blue Plaques on the Jenkins family home and on the house he lodged in with Phillip Burton.

I read that RB (buried in Switzerland where he had lived for 28 years) was so against the idea of Liz Taylor being buried alongside him, he paid for the two plots either side of his own to pre-empt such an attempt!

FriedGreenTomatoes2

I loved it! My first tv ‘watch’ in six months (anxiety, resorted to comfort reading and scrolling on here).

It was brilliant. I didn’t realise RB had so many siblings there was no room for him at home so lived with his older sister and her husband.

I googled him today.
He would have been 100 years old on Monday 10th.
He was the 12th child out of 13.
His mother died when he was 2.
He died of a haemorrhaging stroke, alcohol related at the age of 58 in 1984. (That shocked me, I thought he was older upon death).

I was doing an OK Summer school in '84 and I still remember walking into breakfast on Sunday morning seeing the headline on a newspaper that he'd died, I was devastated. Somewhere I still have LPs of him reading Under Milk Wood, I need to find another source! I knew about the Philip Burton connection but not how well known Burton was in his own right.

Interesting 62Granny thank you for sharing.

Really liked it. The young man who played him was a dead ringer I thought.

Really enjoyed it. No idea about Richard Burton's background. Whole thing a really enjoyable couple of hours.

Thank you for the recommendation ferry23. Toby Jones is excellent - and Daniel Evans is in it (he used to run the Crucible)

Great film - definitely worth watching. 👍

As well as the film, a very good biopic of his early life, it's worth watching the documentary about him which goes beyond that time when he'd cracked it and had emerged as a smooth urbane world famous actor and Hollywood star who later married Elizabeth Taylor, although never forgetting his roots, he loved going back home to Wales. Sian Philips is one of the interviewees, in which she said something along the lines of hardly any actors came out of Wales at the time, there have been loads since, both Matthew Rhys and Michael Sheen are featured and of course Wales has given the world another great actor in Anthony Hopkins. Richard was very good looking when he was young and Elizabeth was absolutely beautiful, but so avaricious with it, she seemed addicted to acquiring jewellery. Unfortunately he was also addicted to drink, shocked to find out he downed 4 bottles of vodka a day at one time. God knows what the state of his liver was in, no wonder he poisoned himself. She meanwhile was addicted to pain killers, and although she'd had a back injury from riding during her National Velvet days as pointed out by MayBee above, it went beyond that she had multiple physical ailments, the book suggested some of them were fabricated. Their relationship had its ups and downs and was quite toxic at times, but they were an incredibly glamorous and newsworthy couple, not always in a good way. it was suggested as well as drink, they were addicted to all the publicity that surrounded them. Now of course they'd have social media, although it was almost as if they did back then such was their fame. After reading the book, I wondered, in spite of earning enormous amounts of money, if that was enough to support their extravagant lifestyle, the entourage, the artwork, the jewels, the yacht, the homes all of it. The Pope of the day when they were filming Cleopatra coined the phrase "erotic vagrant" about Elizabeth

Richard Burton will always be remembered for his mesmerising voice, utterly unique.

Looking forward to watching this at some point when the other half is out and I can enjoy in peace! 🤭

We just watched the documentary I mentioned above, Richard Burton: Wild Genius. Very good.

Cleopatra and Marc Antony

Why not Welsh accents

If you watch Mr Burton Annie you will see that back then actors with accents didn't make it. It's different now thankfully.

Richard Burton certainly made it with his Welsh accent

Yes but he had to change it at first according to the film.

Sorry not being argumentative but his accent when still in school before MrBurton and voice coaching, and his brother in law, husband of Cis !

ferry23

Did anyone watch this last night? I thought it was so well done - Toby Jones has such a wide range as an actor, it's a pleasure to watch him in anything. Plus the lovely Lesley Manville.

I had no idea about Richard Burton's beginnings, it was fascinating.

I'm rather embarassed to say though, when I was scrolling through the programme guide, I thought I was going to watch a programme about the Head Teacher in Educating Yorkshire

Don't worry Terry23 - you weren't alone. I recorded this film because I too thought it was about Matthew Burton from Educating Yorkshire - and I have been so impressed by him..!
Sadly, I was so disappointed when it began that I deleted it... Ah well, maybe I'll catch up with it later - in a decade or so 😄

Sorry ferry23 Fat finger syndrome strikes again..!

So pleased to read all these glowing reviews of the programme as I have recorded it.

Saturday evenings are usually dire in my opinion.