Man of many parts

My father, a man not given to hero-worship, once told me that the only actor he really admired was Richard Burton. Some years later, I put the question to Peter O’Toole, who had been reading excerpts from his lushly overwritten memoirs at the Oxford Union. ‘Mr O’Toole,’ I said, ‘I was wondering if…’ A shy undergraduate, I may have stammered a little. ‘Which is to say, is there any actor … Or rather, which actor, of those you’ve acted with, or those you haven’t, among the living, or, indeed, the dead, would you say you’ve most admired, or aspired to emulate, in your acting career?’ To which the ageing thespian replied with a single word: ‘Richard.’

For those of a certain generation, this is to say, Burton was the man. And it wasn’t merely his abilities as an actor, though these were impressive enough, with his beaten-up handsomeness, his intensity, the wild look, never far from his eyes, of an alcoholic who has just spotted an abandoned glass of Scotch at the end of the bar, and above all, his deep, smouldering voice, like the purr of glowing coals. It was also the fact that he was married to Elizabeth Taylor and was completely loaded.

Unsurprisingly, he was less impressed by this than everyone else. He didn’t hate himself, or no more than any grown-up, imperfect human being. But he was afflicted by a profound dissatisfaction with his chosen career, a sense that what he should have been was a writer. Which is the second reason for reading these diaries. The first is that, for anyone interested in Burton, they’re a godsend. The meat of the book covers the years 1965 to 1972, when he was married to Taylor (first time round), and together they were probably the most glamorous couple in the world.