Richard Burton Net Worth

Richard Burton's Quotes

• When I played drunks I had to remain sober because I didn't know how to play them when I was drunk.
• [replying to a cable from Laurence Olivier at the height of the Cleopatra (1963) scandal: "Make up your mind, dear heart. Do you want to be a great actor or a household word?"] Both.
• I've done the most awful rubbish in order to have somewhere to go in the morning.
• My father considered that anyone who went to chapel and didn't drink alcohol was not to be tolerated. I grew up in that belief.
• [in 1963, about adultery] The minute you start fiddling around outside the idea of monogamy, nothing satisfies anymore.

Interesting Facts about Richard Burton

1. He took his professional name from his schoolmaster and tutor, Philip Burton, who took the 17-year old Richard Jenkins and groomed him for success, both academically and as an actor. The two became so close, Burton attempted to adopt him as his son, but was prevented from doing so as he was too young, under the law. Nevertheless, Jenkins, who became known to the world as Richard Burton, considered Philip Burton his adopted father and honored him by taking on his surname. Years later, when Philip Burton met Elizabeth Taylor and she asked Philip Burton how he came to adopt her soon-to-be fifth (and later sixth) husband, Richard piped up, "He didn't adopt me! I adopted him!".
2. Father of Kate Burton.
3. Interred at Protestant Churchyard, Céligny, Switzerland.
4. He once shared the record with Peter O'Toole for the most Oscar acting nominations (7) without a single win. In 2007, that record was broken, when O'Toole was nominated and lost yet again for the film Venus (2006).
5. Spoke Cymraeg (Welsh-language) as mother tongue.
6. He died on Sunday, August 5, 1984, less than a week before he was due to begin shooting Wild Geese II (1985), a sequel to his successful mercenary thriller De Wilde Ganzen (1978), made in 1978. He was the only actor returning for the film and, as Colonel Allen Faulkner, would have led a team of crack mercenaries to spring aged Nazi Rudolf Hess from Spandau Prison in Berlin. Burton's death caused huge problems for producer Euan Lloyd, the man behind the original De Wilde Ganzen (1978) and its follow-up, Wild Geese II (1985). With the rest of the cast (Scott Glenn, Barbara Carrera and Laurence Olivier (playing Hess)) in place, Euan Lloyd had just a handful of days to find a replacement for Burton. He selected British actor Edward Fox, who joined the cast as Alex Faulkner, Burton's brother. Burton's no-show in the film was explained by one character telling Edward Fox that they'd heard his famous warrior brother had died. The film was dedicated to Burton's memory.
7. He made his stage debut at Maesteg Town Hall in Wales.
8. Suffered from acute insomnia.
9. The twelfth of thirteen children, he insisted that his way out of an impoverished Welsh childhood was due not to acting, but to books.
10. Had two daughters by his first wife, Sybil Williams. Actress Kate Burton (born 1957) and Jessica (born 1961), who was diagnosed as profoundly autistic and would eventually be institutionalized.
11. He was awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1970 Queen's Birthday Honours List for his services to drama. He collected this award on his 45th birthday with his older sister Cis, who raised him as a child, and his wife Elizabeth Taylor.
12. Grandfather of Morgan Ritchie.
13. Burton received the first retrospective of his work since his death during Bradford Film Festival 2002 - almost 18 years after his death on Sunday, August 5, 1984. Twelve films were screened, among them Look Back in Anger (1959), Becket (1964), Equus (1977) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984), his final picture. The festival, which christened its Burton season Lion of the Welsh, also featured a strand on legendary unfinished films that included a clip of Burton in Laughter in the Dark (1969), a movie from which he was allegedly fired by director Tony Richardson. The picture, based on the novel by Vladimir Nabokov, was shut down and eventually made with Nicol Williamson in Burton's role.
14. Was a drinking partner of Richard Harris and Peter O'Toole until O'Toole was forced to give up drinking after surgery in 1976.
15. Died shortly after the filming of Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) was completed. He was in terrible health during filming from years of alcoholism and heavy smoking, and had to wear a neck brace during rehearsals.
16. He taught William Shakespeare to future actress Catherine Oxenberg when she was 13 and 14 years old.
17. He once bought a complete set of "The Everyman Library" for Elizabeth Taylor as a present.
18. He was on a flight to California from Mexico, when he ran into a young man interested in acting. Burton encouraged him to pursue it full time during their conversation. That young man was Kevin Costner, who promptly left his marketing job to pursue an acting career.
19. During World War II, he was admitted to Exeter College, Oxford to take the "University Short Course" for six months as a Royal Air Force cadet. While at Oxford in 1943-1944, he was a member of the Oxford University Dramatic Society. Cadets were promised that they could return to Oxford to complete their education after the war, but he did not, instead becoming a professional actor after being demobilized in 1947. Almost thirty years later, he was invited back to Oxford to teach poetry to undergraduates for a semester.
20. His mother died when he was two-years old. He was taken in and raised by his older sister, Cis, and her husband in the same Port Talbot, Wales, neighborhood where fellow Welshman Anthony Hopkins later lived in as a child. "I shone in the reflection of her green-eyed, black-haired gypsy beauty," Burton said of his sister/surrogate mother.