1943–1947: Early career and service in the RAF 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 as 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. While 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. 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 in 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,
RAF Wroughton. 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.
1948–1951: Rise through the ranks and film debut In 1948, Burton moved to London to make contact with
H. M. Tennent Ltd., where he again met Beaumont, who put him under a contract of £500 per year (£10 a week).
Daphne Rye, the casting director for H. M. Tennent Ltd., offered Burton rooms on the top floor of her house in
Pelham Crescent, London as a place for him to stay. Rye cast Burton in a minor role as a young officer, Mr. Hicks, in
Castle Anna (1948), a drama set in Ireland. 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. 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 1950s, 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. 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 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". Burton went on to perform in
Henry V as the titular character, and played
Ferdinand in
The Tempest as a part of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre season as well. Neither role was overwhelmingly received by the critics, with a reviewer saying "he lacked inches" as Henry V. Olivier defended Burton by retaliating that he too received the same kind of review by the same critic for the same role. His last play in 1951 was as a musician named Orphée in
Jean Anouilh's
Eurydice opposite
Dorothy McGuire and fellow Welsh actor
Hugh Griffith. The play, retitled as
Legend of Lovers, opened in the
Plymouth Theatre, New York City and ran for only a week, but critics were kind to Burton, with Bob Francis of
Billboard magazine finding him "excellent as the self-tortured young accordionist".
1952–1954: Hollywood and The Old Vic 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 lend 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 completely developed, and a coarse-grained which makes him not like anyone else". One of Burton's friends opined it may have been because of Burton's making remarks to her that she did not find in good taste. Based on the 1951
novel of the same name by
Daphne du Maurier,
My Cousin Rachel is about a man who suspects his rich cousin was murdered by his wife in order to inherit his wealth, but ends up falling in love with her, despite his suspicions. Upon release, the film was successful at the box office, and Burton's performance received mostly excellent reviews. The
Los Angeles Daily News reviewer stated "young Burton registers with an intense performance that stamps him as an actor of great potential". Conversely, a critic from the
Los Angeles Examiner labelled Burton as "terribly, terribly tweedy". While shooting
My Cousin Rachel, Burton was offered the role of
Mark Antony in
Julius Caesar (1953) by the production company,
Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM), but Burton refused it to avoid schedule conflicts. The role subsequently went to
Marlon Brando for which he earned a
BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actor and an
Academy Award nomination for
Best Actor. The year 1953 marked an important turning point in Burton's career. He arrived in Hollywood at a time when the
studio system was struggling. The rise of television was drawing viewers away and the studios looked to new stars and film technologies to tempt viewers back to cinemas. He first appeared in the
war film The Desert Rats with
James Mason, playing an English captain in the North African campaign during World War II who takes charge of a hopelessly outnumbered Australian unit against the indomitable German
field marshal,
Erwin Rommel, who was portrayed by Mason. The film received generally good reviews from critics in London, although they complained the British contribution to the campaign had been underplayed. The critic from
Variety magazine thought Burton was "excellent" while
The New York Times reviewer noted his "electric portrayal of the hero" made the film look "more than a plain, cavalier apology". Burton and Sybil became good friends with Mason and his wife
Pamela Mason, and stayed at their residence until Burton returned home to the UK in June 1953 in order to play
Prince Hamlet as a part of The Old Vic 1953–54 season. This was to be the first time in his career he took up the role. Burton's second and final film of the year was in the
Biblical epic historical drama,
The Robe, notable for being the first-ever motion picture to be made in
CinemaScope. He replaced
Tyrone Power, who was originally cast in the role of Marcellus Gallio, a noble but decadent Roman
military tribune in command of the detachment of Roman soldiers that were involved in crucifying
Jesus Christ. Haunted by nightmares of the crucifixion, he is eventually led to his own conversion. Marcellus' Greek slave Demetrius (played by
Victor Mature) guides him as a spiritual teacher, and his wife Diana (played by
Jean Simmons) follows his lead. The film established a trend for Biblical epics such as
Ben-Hur (1959). Based on
Lloyd C. Douglas' 1942 historical novel
of the same name,
The Robe was well received at the time of its release, but contemporary reviews have been less favourable.
Variety magazine termed the performances of the lead cast "effective" and complemented the fight sequences between Burton and
Jeff Morrow. Crowther believed that Burton was "stalwart, spirited and stern" as Marcellus.
Jonathan Rosenbaum of the
Chicago Reader called
The Robe "pious claptrap". The film was a commercial success, grossing $17 million against a $5 million budget, and Burton received his second Academy Award nomination, his first for Best Actor, for the
26th Academy Awards. The entire cast of the radio adaptation, including Burton, played their roles free of charge. Burton reprised his role in the play's
1972 film adaptation with Taylor.
1955–1959: Setback in films and on-stage fame After The Old Vic season ended, Burton's contract with Fox required him to do three more films. The first was
Prince of Players (1955), where he was cast as the 19th-century Shakespearean actor
Edwin Booth, who was
John Wilkes Booth's brother.
Maggie McNamara played Edwin's wife, Mary Devlin Booth. Philip thought the script was "a disgrace" to Burton's name. The film's director
Philip Dunne observed, "He hadn't mastered yet the tricks of the great movie stars, such as
Gary Cooper, who knew them all. The personal magnetism Richard had on the sound stage didn't come through the camera." This was one aspect that troubled Richard throughout his career on celluloid. The film flopped at the box office and has since been described as "the first flop in CinemaScope". Crowther, however, lauded Burton's scenes where he performed Shakespeare plays such as
Richard III. Shortly after the release of
Prince of Players, Burton met director
Robert Rossen, who was well known at the time for his Academy Award-winning film, ''
All the King's Men (1949). Rossen planned to cast Burton in Alexander the Great'' (1956) as the eponymous character. Burton accepted Rossen's offer after the director reassured him he had been studying the
Macedonian king for two years to make sure the film was historically accurate. Burton was loaned by Fox to the film's production company
United Artists, which paid him a fee of $100,000 ().
Alexander the Great was made mostly in Spain during February 1955 and July 1955 on a budget of $6 million. The film reunited Burton with Bloom and it was also the first film he made with her. Bloom played the role of
Barsine, the daughter of
Artabazos II of Phrygia, and one of Alexander's three wives.
Fredric March,
Danielle Darrieux,
Stanley Baker,
Michael Hordern and
William Squire were respectively cast as
Philip II of Macedon,
Olympias,
Attalus,
Demosthenes and
Aeschines. After the completion of
Alexander the Great, Burton had high hopes for a favourable reception of the "intelligent epic", and went back to complete his next assignment for Fox,
Jean Negulesco's
The Rains of Ranchipur (1955). In this remake of Fox's own 1939 film
The Rains Came, Burton played a
Hindu doctor, Rama Safti, who falls in love with Lady Edwina Esketh (
Lana Turner), an invitee of the Maharani of the fictional town of Ranchipur. Burton faced the same troubles with playing character roles as before with Belch.
The Rains of Ranchipur released on 16 December 1955, three months before
Alexander the Great rolled out on 28 March 1956. Contrary to Burton's expectations, both the films were critical and commercial failures, and he rued his decision to act in them. Burton returned to The Old Vic to perform
Henry V for a second time. The Benthall-directed production opened in December 1955 to glowing reviews and was a much-needed triumph for Burton. Tynan made it official by famously saying Burton was now "the next successor to Olivier". The reviewer from
The Times began by pointing out the deficiencies in Burton's previous rendition of the character in 1951 before stating "Mr. Burton's progress as an actor is such that already he is able to make good all the lacks of a few short years ago ... what was greatly metallic has been transformed into a steely strength which becomes the martial ring and hard brilliance of the patriotic verse. There now appears a romantic sense of a high kingly mission and the clear cognisance of the capacity to fulfil it ... the whole performance — a mostly satisfying one — is firmly under the control of the imagination". In January 1956, the
London Evening Standard honoured Burton by presenting to him its
Theatre Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Henry V. His success in and as Henry V led him to be called the "Welsh Wizard".
Henry V was followed by Benthall's adaptation of
Othello in February 1956, where he alternated on successive openings between the roles of
Othello and
Iago with
John Neville. As Othello, Burton received both praise for his dynamism and criticism with being less poetical with his dialogues, while he was acclaimed as Iago. Burton's stay at The Old Vic was cut short when he was approached by the
Italian neorealist director
Roberto Rossellini for Fox's
Sea Wife (1957), a drama set in
World War II about a nun and three men marooned on an island after the ship they travel on is torpedoed by a
U-boat.
Joan Collins, who played the nun, was his co-star. Burton's role was that of an RAF officer who develops romantic feelings for the nun. Rossellini was informed by Zanuck not to have any kissing scenes between Burton and Collins, which Rossellini found unnatural; this led to him walking out of the film and being replaced by Bob McNaught, one of the executive producers. According to Collins, Burton had a "take-the-money-and-run attitude" toward the film.
Sea Wife was not a successful venture, with biographer Munn observing that his salary was the only positive feature that came from the film. Philip saw it and said he was "ashamed" that it added another insult to injury in Burton's career. After
Sea Wife, Burton next appeared as the British Army Captain Jim Leith in
Nicholas Ray's
Bitter Victory (1957). Burton admired Ray's
Rebel Without A Cause (1955) and was excited about working with him, but unfortunately despite positive feedback,
Bitter Victory tanked as well. By mid-1957, Burton had no further offers in his kitty. He could not return to the UK because of his self-imposed exile from taxation, and his fortunes in film were dwindling. It was then that film producer and screenwriter
Milton Sperling offered Burton to star alongside
Helen Hayes and
Susan Strasberg in
Patricia Moyes' adaptation of Jean Anouilh's play,
Time Remembered (
Léocadia in the original French version). Sensing an opportunity for a career resurgence, Burton readily agreed to do the role of Prince Albert, who falls in love with a
milliner named Amanda (Strasberg). It was on 10 September 1957, a day before he left for New York, that Sybil gave birth to their first child,
Kate Burton.
Time Remembered was well received on its opening nights at Broadway's
Morosco Theatre and also at the
National Theatre in Washington, D.C. The play went on to have a good run of 248 performances for six months. Burton received his first
Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play nomination while Hayes won her second
Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her role as Burton's mother, The Duchess of Pont-Au-Bronc. In 1958, Burton appeared with
Yvonne Furneaux in
DuPont Show of the Month's 90-minute television adaptation of
Emily Brontë's classic novel
Wuthering Heights as
Heathcliff. The film, directed by
Daniel Petrie, aired on 9 May 1958 on
CBS with Burton garnering plaudits from both the critics and Philip, who thought he was "magnificent" in it. Burton next featured as Jimmy Porter, "an angry young man" role, in the film version of
John Osborne's play
Look Back in Anger (1959), a gritty drama about middle-class life in the British Midlands, directed by
Tony Richardson, again with Claire Bloom as co-star. Biographer Bragg observed that
Look Back in Anger "had defined a generation, provided a watershed in Britain's view of itself and brought [Osborne] into the public prints as a controversial, dangerous figure". Burton was able to identify himself with Porter, finding it "fascinating to find a man who came presumably from my sort of class, who actually could talk the way I would like to talk". The film, and Burton's performance, received mixed reviews upon release. Biographer Alpert noted that though reviews in the UK were favourable, those in the United States were more negative. Crowther wrote of Burton: "His tirades are eloquent but tiring, his breast beatings are dramatic but dull and his occasional lapses into sadness are pathetic but endurable."
Geoff Andrew of
Time Out magazine felt Burton was too old for the part, and the
Variety reviewer thought "the role gives him little opportunity for variety". Contemporary reviews of the film have been better and it has a rating of 89% on the review aggregator website
Rotten Tomatoes.
Look Back in Anger is now considered one of the defining films of the
British New Wave cinema, a movement from the late 1950s to the late 1960s in which working-class characters became the focus of the film and conflict of social classes a central theme. Jimmy Porter is also considered one of Burton's best on-screen roles; he was nominated in the Best Actor categories at the
BAFTA and
Golden Globe Awards but lost to
Peter Sellers for ''
I'm All Right Jack (1959) and Anthony Franciosa for Career'' (1959) respectively. Though it didn't do well commercially, Burton was proud of the effort and wrote to Philip, "I promise you that there isn't a shred of self-pity in my performance. I am for the first time ever looking forward to seeing a film in which I play." While filming
Look Back in Anger, Burton did another play for BBC Radio, participating in two versions, one in Welsh and another in English, of Welsh poet
Saunders Lewis'
Brad, which was about the
20 July plot. Burton voiced one of the conspirators,
Caesar von Hofacker.
1960–1969: Broadway, Hamlet and films with Elizabeth Taylor In 1960, Burton appeared in two films for
Warner Bros., neither of which were successful:
The Bramble Bush which reunited him with his
Wuthering Heights director Petrie, and
Vincent Sherman's adaptation of
Edna Ferber's
Ice Palace. Burton called the latter a "piece of shit". He received a fee of $125,000 for both films. Burton's next appearance was as the stammering
secularist,
George Holyoake in BBC's documentary-style television adaptation of John Osborne's
A Subject of Scandal and Concern. According to Osborne's biographer Luc Gilleman, the film garnered little attention. Burton returned to the United States for the filming of
John Frankenheimer's television adaptation of
Ernest Hemingway's
The Fifth Column. He also provided narration for 26 episodes of
The Valiant Years, an
American Broadcasting Company (ABC) series based on Winston Churchill's memoirs. Burton made a triumphant return to the stage with
Moss Hart's 1960 Broadway production of
Camelot as
King Arthur. The play, written by
Alan Jay Lerner and
Frederick Loewe, had
Julie Andrews fresh from her triumph in
My Fair Lady playing
Guinevere, and
Robert Goulet as
Lancelot completing the love triangle.
Roddy McDowall played the villainous
Mordred. Hart first came up with the proposal to Burton after learning from Lerner about his ability to sing. Burton consulted Olivier on whether he should take the role, which came with a stipend of $4,000 a week. Olivier pointed out this salary was good and that he should accept the offer. The production was troubled, with both Loewe and Hart falling ill and the pressure was building, owing to great expectations and huge advance sales. The show's running time was nearly five hours. Burton's intense preparation and competitive desire to succeed served him well. He immediately drafted Philip, who revised the musical's script and cut its running time to three hours while also incorporating three new songs. Burton was generous and supportive to everyone throughout the production and coached the understudies himself. According to Lerner, "he kept the boat from rocking, and
Camelot might never have reached New York if it hadn't been for him". Burton's reviews were excellent, with the critic from
Time magazine observing that Richard "gives Arthur the skillful and vastly appealing performance that might be expected from one of England's finest young actors". Broadway theatre reviewer
Walter Kerr noted Richard's syllables, "sing, the account of his wrestling the stone from the sword becomes a bravura passage of house-hushing brilliance" and complemented his duets with Andrews, finding Burton's rendition to possess "a sly and fretful and mocking accent to take care of the without destroying the man". However, on the whole, the play initially received mixed reviews on its opening at the
Majestic Theatre on Broadway and was slow to earn money. Advance sales managed to keep
Camelot running for three months until a twenty-minute extract was broadcast on
The Ed Sullivan Show which helped
Camelot achieve great success, and an unprecedented three-year run overall from 1960 to 1963. Its success led to Burton being called "The King of Broadway", and he went on to receive the
Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical.
John F. Kennedy, who was then the President of the United States, reportedly enjoyed the play and invited Burton to the
White House for a visit. In 1962, Burton appeared as
Flying Officer David Campbell, an RAF fighter pilot in
The Longest Day, which included a large ensemble cast featuring: McDowall,
George Segal,
Henry Fonda,
John Wayne,
Mel Ferrer,
Robert Mitchum,
Rod Steiger and
Sean Connery. The same year he provided narration for the
Jack Howells documentary
Dylan Thomas. The short won the
Best Documentary Short Subject at the
35th Academy Awards ceremony. After performing
Camelot for six months, in July 1961, Burton met producer
Walter Wanger who asked him to replace
Stephen Boyd as Mark Antony in director
Joseph L. Mankiewicz's
magnum opus Cleopatra. Burton was paid $250,000 for four months work in the film (). The gigantic scale of the film's troubled production, Taylor's bouts of illness and fluctuating weight, Burton's off-screen relationship with the actress, (which he gave the sardonic nickname "Le Scandale") all generated enormous publicity;
Life magazine proclaimed it the "Most Talked About Movie Ever Made". Fox's future appeared to hinge on what became the most expensive movie ever made until then, with costs reaching almost $40 million. During filming, Burton met and fell in love with Elizabeth Taylor, who was then married to
Eddie Fisher. According to Alpert, at their first meeting on the set while posing for their publicity photographs, Burton said, "Has anyone ever told you that you're a very pretty girl?" Taylor later recalled, "I said to myself,
Oy gevalt, here's the great lover, the great wit, the great intellectual of Wales, and he comes out with a line like that." Bragg contradicts Alpert by pointing out that Burton could not stand Taylor at first, calling her "Miss Tits" and opined to Mankiewicz, "I expect she shaves"; he saw her simply as another celebrity with no acting talent. All that changed when, in their first scene together, Burton was shaky and forgot his lines, and she soothed and helped him; it was at this instance, according to Taylor, that she fell for him. Soon the affair began in earnest; both Fisher and Sybil were unable to bear it. While Fisher fled the sets for
Gstaad, Sybil went first to Céligny and then headed off to London. Olivier, shocked by Burton's affair with Taylor,
cabled him: "Make up your mind, dear heart. Do you want to be a great actor or a household word?". Burton replied "Both".
Cleopatra was finally released on 11 June 1963 with a run time of 243 minutes, to polarising reviews.
Richard Brody of
The New Yorker commented positively on the chemistry between Burton and Taylor, describing it as "entrancing in the movie's drama as it was in life".
Cleopatra grossed over $26 million (), becoming one of the highest-grossing films of 1963. The film marked the beginning of a series of collaborations with Taylor, in addition to making Burton one of the Top 10 box office draws until 1967. Burton played her tycoon husband Paul Andros in
Anthony Asquith's
The V.I.P.s (1963), an
ensemble cast film described by Alpert as a "kind of
Grand Hotel story" that was set in the VIP lounge of
London Heathrow Airport; it proved to be a box-office hit despite mixed reviews. It was after
The V.I.P.s that Burton became considerably more selective about his roles; he credited Taylor for this as he simply acted in films "to get rich" and she "made me see what kind of rubbish I was doing". Burton divorced Sybil in April 1963 after completing
The V.I.P.s while Taylor was granted divorce from Fisher on 6 March 1964. Taylor then took a two-year hiatus from films until her next venture with Burton,
The Sandpiper (1965). In 1964, Burton portrayed
Thomas Becket, the
Archbishop of Canterbury who was martyred by
Henry II of England, in the
film adaptation of Jean Anouilh's historical play
Becket. Both Alpert and historian
Alex von Tunzelmann noted Burton gave an effective, restrained performance, contrasting with co-actor and friend
Peter O'Toole's manic portrayal of Henry. Burton asked the film's director, Peter Glenville, not to oust him from the project like he had done for
Adventure Story before accepting the role of Becket.
Kenneth Turan of the
Los Angeles Times appreciated Burton's on-screen chemistry with O'Toole and thought his portrayal of Becket served as "a reminder of how fine an actor Burton was". The film received twelve Oscar nominations, including Best Actor for both Burton and O'Toole; they lost to Harrison for
My Fair Lady (1964). Burton and O'Toole also received nominations for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama at the
22nd Golden Globe Awards, with O'Toole emerging victorious. Burton's triumph at the box office continued with his next appearance as the defrocked clergyman Dr. T. Lawrence Shannon in
Tennessee Williams'
The Night of the Iguana (1964) directed by
John Huston; the film was also critically well received. Alpert believed Burton's success was due to how well he varied his acting with the three female characters, each of whom he tries to seduce differently:
Ava Gardner (the randy hotel owner),
Sue Lyon (the nubile American tourist), and
Deborah Kerr (the poor, repressed artist). The success of
Becket and
The Night of the Iguana led
Time magazine to term him "the new Mr. Box Office". in
Becket (1964) During the production of
Becket, Burton went to watch Gielgud perform in the 1963 stage adaptation of
Thornton Wilder's 1948 novel,
The Ides of March. There he was confronted by Gielgud who asked what Burton planned to do as a part of the celebration of Shakespeare's quatercentenary. Burton told him he was approached by theatrical producer
Alexander H. Cohen to do
Hamlet in New York City. Burton had accepted Cohen's offer under the condition that Gielgud would direct it, which he conveyed to Gielgud. Gielgud agreed and soon production began in January 1964 after Burton had completed his work in
Becket and
The Night of the Iguana. Taking into account Burton's dislike for wearing period clothing, as well as fellow actor
Harley Granville-Barker's notion that the play was best approached as a "permanent rehearsal", Gielgud decided for
Hamlet to be performed in a 'rehearsal' version with an incomplete set with the actors performing wearing their own clothes. Unaccustomed to this freedom, the cast found it hard to select the appropriate clothes and wore different attire day by day. After the first performance in Toronto, Gielgud decreed that the actors must wear capes as he felt it "lacked colour". In addition to being the play's director, Gielgud appeared as the
Ghost of Hamlet's father. According to Gielgud's biographer Jonathan Croall, Burton's basic reading of Hamlet was "a much more vigorous, extrovert" version of Gielgud's own performance in 1936. Burton varied his interpretations of the character in later performances; he even tried a homosexual Hamlet. When the play debuted at the
Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in New York City, Burton garnered good reviews for his portrayal of a "bold and virile" Hamlet.
Howard Taubman of
The New York Times called it "a performance of electrical power and sweeping virility", noting that he had never known or seen "a Hamlet of such tempestuous manliness". A critic from
Time magazine said that Burton "put his passion into Hamlet's language rather than the character. His acting is a technician's marvel. His voice has gem-cutting precision." Walter Kerr felt that though Burton carried "a certain lack of feeling" in his performance, he appreciated Burton's "reverberating" vocal projections. The opening night party was a lavish affair, attended by six hundred celebrities. The play ran for 137 performances, beating the previous record set by Gielgud himself in 1936. The most successful aspect of the production, apart from Burton's performance, was generally considered to be
Hume Cronyn's performance as
Polonius, winning him the only
Tony Award he would ever receive in a competitive category. Burton himself was nominated for his second Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play but lost to
Alec Guinness for his portrayal of the poet Dylan Thomas. The performance was immortalised in a
film that was created by recording three live performances on camera from 30 June 1964 to 1 July 1964 using a process called
Electronovision; it played in US theatres for a week in 1964. The play was also the subject of books written by cast members
William Redfield and Richard L. Sterne. Burton helped Taylor make her stage debut in
A Poetry Reading, a recitation of poems by the couple as well as anecdotes and quotes from the plays Burton had participated in thus far. The idea was conceived by Burton as a benefit performance for his mentor Philip, whose conservatory, the
American Musical and Dramatic Academy, had fallen short of funds.
A Poetry Reading opened at the Lunt-Fontanne on 21 June 1964 to a packed house; the couple received a standing ovation at the end of their performance. Burton remarked on Taylor's performance, "I didn't know she was going to be this good." After
Hamlet came to a close in August 1964, Burton and Taylor continued making films together. The first film after their marriage,
The Sandpiper, was poorly received but still became a commercially successful venture. According to Bragg, the films they made during the mid-1960s contained a lot of innuendos that referred directly to their private lives. Burton went on to star opposite Claire Bloom and
Oskar Werner in
The Spy Who Came In from the Cold (1965), a
Cold War espionage story about a British Intelligence agent, Alec Leamas (Burton), who is sent to East Germany on a mission to find and expose a mole working within his organisation for an East German Intelligence officer, Hans-Dieter Mundt (
Peter van Eyck).
Martin Ritt, the film's director and producer, wanted Burton's character to exhibit more anonymity, which meant no display of eloquent speeches or intense emotional moments. Bragg believed this decision worried Burton, as he had generated his reputation as an actor with those exact traits, and wondered how the film's would turn out. Ritt, a non-drinker, was displeased with Burton's drinking habits as he felt it "lacked a certain discipline" and expected the same level of commitment from him as everyone else during filming. In spite of their differences, Alpert notes that the film transpired well. Based on the 1963 novel
of the same name by
John le Carré,
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold garnered positive reviews,
Dave Kehr of the
Chicago Reader called the film "Grim, monotonous, and rather facile", he found Burton's role had "some honest poignancy".
Variety thought Burton fitted "neatly into the role of the apparently burned out British agent". Burton also made a brief appearance the same year in
Clive Donner's comedy ''
What's New Pussycat?'' as a man who meets the womaniser Michael James (O'Toole) in a bar. In 1966, Burton and Taylor enjoyed their greatest on-screen success in
Mike Nichols's
film version of
Edward Albee's
black comedy play ''
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'', Burton wanted Taylor for the character of Martha "to stop everyone else from playing it". He didn't want anyone else to do it as he thought it could be for Elizabeth what
Hamlet was for him. Burton was not the first choice for the role of George.
Jack Lemmon was offered the role initially, but when he turned it down, Warner Bros. president
Jack L. Warner agreed on Burton and paid him $750,000. Nichols was hired to helm the project at Taylor's request, despite having never directed a film. Albee preferred
Bette Davis and James Mason for Martha and George respectively, fearing that the Burtons' strong screen presence would dominate the film. Instead, it proved to be what Alpert described as "the summit of both Richard's and Elizabeth's careers". The film's script, adapted from Albee's play by
Ernest Lehman, broke new ground for its raw language and harsh depiction of marriage. So immersed had the Burtons become in the roles of George and Martha over the months of shooting that, after it was wrapped up, he and Taylor found it difficult not to be George and Martha, "I feel rather lost." Later the couple would state that the film took its toll on their relationship, and that Taylor was "tired of playing Martha" in real life. ''Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
garnered critical acclaim, with film critic Stanley Kauffmann of The New York Times
calling it "one of the most scathingly honest American films ever made". Kaufman observed Burton to be "utterly convincing as a man with a great lake of nausea in him, on which he sails with regret and compulsive amusement", and Taylor "does the best work of her career, sustained and urgent". In her review for The New York Daily News'', Kate Cameron thought Taylor "nothing less than brilliant as the shrewish, slovenly. blasphemous, frustrated, slightly wacky, alcoholic wife" while noting that the film gave Burton "a chance to display his disciplined art in the role of the victim of a wife's vituperative tongue". However,
Andrew Sarris of
The Village Voice criticised Taylor, believing her performance "lack[ed] genuine warmth" but his review of Burton was more favourable, noting that he gave "a performance of electrifying charm". Although all four actors received Academy Award nominations for their roles in the film, which received a total of thirteen nominations, only Taylor and Dennis went on to win. Both Burton and Taylor won their first
BAFTA Awards for Best British Actor and Best British Actress respectively; the former also for his role in
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. Burton and Taylor next performed a 1966
Oxford Playhouse adaptation of
Christopher Marlowe's
Doctor Faustus; the couple did the play to benefit the Oxford University Dramatic Society and as a token of Burton's gratitude to Nevill Coghill. Burton starred as the titular character, Doctor Faustus while Taylor played her first stage role as
Helen of Troy, a non-speaking part. The play received negative reviews but Burton's and Taylor's performances were reviewed constructively.
Irving Wardle of
The Times called it "University drama at its worst" while the American newspaper columnist
John Crosby, in his review for
The Observer, lauded Burton's speech where he asks God to be merciful, stating that: "It takes a great actor to deliver that speech without wringing a strangled sob of laughter out of one. But Burton did it." The play nevertheless made $22,000, which Coghill was happy with.
Doctor Faustus was
adapted for the screen the following year by both Burton and Coghill, with Burton making his directorial debut. He also co-produced the film with Taylor and Coghill; it was critically panned and was a box office failure. The couple's next collaboration was Franco Zeffirelli's lively version of
Shakespeare's
The Taming of the Shrew (1967). The film was a challenge for Burton, who had to chase Taylor on rooftops, noting that he was "permitted to do extreme physical things that wouldn't have been allowed with any other actress". Zeffirelli recalled that Taylor, who had no prior experience performing in a Shakespeare play, "gave the more interesting performance because she invented the part from scratch". Of Burton, the director felt he was, to an extent, "affected by his knowledge of the classics".
The Taming of the Shrew also became a notable critical and commercial success. He had another quick collaboration with Zeffirelli narrating the documentary,
Florence: Days of Destruction, which was about the
1966 flood of the Arno that devastated the city of
Florence, Italy; the film raised $20 million for the flood relief efforts. By the end of 1967, the combined box office gross of films Burton and Taylor had acted in had reached $200 million. According to biographers John Cottrell and
Fergus Cashin, when Burton and Taylor contemplated taking a three-month break from acting, Hollywood "almost had a nervous breakdown" as nearly half the U.S. cinema industry's income for films in theatrical distribution came from pictures starring one or both of them. Later collaborations from the Burtons like
The Comedians (1967), which was based on
Graham Greene's
1966 novel of the same name, and the Tennessee Williams adaptation
Boom! (1968) were critical and commercial failures. In 1968, Burton enjoyed a commercial blockbuster with
Clint Eastwood in the World War II action film
Where Eagles Dare; Eastwood thought the script "terrible" and was "all exposition and complications". He asked the film's producer
Elliott Kastner and its screenwriter
Alistair MacLean to be given less dialogue, later remarking "I just stood around firing my machine gun while Burton handled the dialogue." Burton enjoyed working with Eastwood and said of the picture that he "did all the talking and [Eastwood] did all the killing". was commercially successful but garnered mixed opinions from reviewers. Noted British film critic
Tom Milne of
Time Out magazine believed that Burton "plays throughout on a monotonous note of bluff ferocity". Conversely,
Vincent Canby of
The New York Times appreciated Burton's portrayal of the English monarch, noting that he "is in excellent form and voice—funny, loutish and sometimes wise".
Anne of the Thousand Days received ten nominations at the
42nd Academy Awards, including one for Burton's performance as
Henry VIII of England, which many thought to be largely the result of an expensive advertising campaign by
Universal Studios. The same year,
Staircase in which he and his
Cleopatra co-star Rex Harrison appeared as a bickering homosexual couple, received negative reviews and was unsuccessful.
1970–1984: Later career and final years '' (1973), his final film with Taylor Appointed
Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the
1970 Birthday Honours, he received the honour at Buckingham Palace on his 45th birthday; Taylor and Cis attended the ceremony. He attributed not being knighted to changing his residence from London to Céligny to escape taxes. From the 1970s, after his completion of
Anne of the Thousand Days, Burton began to work in mediocre films, which hurt his career. winning the
Golden Globe Award as well as garnering an Academy Award nomination. Public sentiment towards his perennial frustration at not winning an Oscar made many pundits consider him the favourite to finally win the award, but he lost to
Richard Dreyfuss in
The Goodbye Girl. In 1976, Burton received a
Grammy Award in the category of
Best Recording for Children for his narration of
The Little Prince by
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. His narration of ''
Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds'' became such a necessary part of the concept album that a hologram of Burton was used to narrate the live stage show (touring in 2006, 2007, 2009 and 2010) of the musical. In 2011, however,
Liam Neeson was cast in the part for a "New Generation" re-recording, and replaced Burton as the hologram character in the stage show. Burton had an international box-office hit with
The Wild Geese (1978), an adventure tale about mercenaries in Africa. The film was a success in Europe but had only limited distribution in the United States owing to the
collapse of the studio that distributed it. He returned to films with
The Medusa Touch (1978),
Circle of Two (1980), and the title role in
Wagner (1983). His last film performance as
O'Brien in
Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) was critically acclaimed though he was not the first choice for the role. According to the film's director,
Michael Radford, Paul Scofield was originally contracted to play the part, but had to withdraw due to a broken leg; Sean Connery, Marlon Brando and Rod Steiger were all approached before Burton was cast. He had "heard stories" about Burton's heavy drinking, which had concerned the producers. Burton's last acting appearance was in the miniseries
Ellis Island, which aired posthumously on CBS in November 1984. At the time of his death, he was preparing to film
Wild Geese II, the sequel to
The Wild Geese, which was eventually released in 1985. Burton was to reprise the role of Colonel Faulkner, while Laurence Olivier was cast as
Rudolf Hess. After his death, Burton was replaced by
Edward Fox, and the character changed to Faulkner's younger brother. == Personal life ==