Alcohol, diamonds and seduction: Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, the pharaonic couple of Hollywood

It was August 2, 1984. Sitting at his desk, Richard Burton wrote a love letter to the woman with whom he formed one of the most famous Hollywood power couples of the 1970s: Elizabeth Taylor. Three days later, the actor went out drinking with friends and hit his head on the ground during a fight. He died on the operating table from a serious cerebral hemorrhage, at the age of 58. The funeral took place on August 9, in Céligny, Switzerland. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, the actress, who did not attend the funeral of her former lover, is at home in her residence in the famous Bel-Air district of Los Angeles. In her hands, she holds a blackened letter in her ex-husband’s handwriting. Richard Burton had posted it the day before his death. “And in this letter, he told her what he wanted. His home was where Elizabeth was, and he wanted to come home,” the book says. Furious Love: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and the Marriage of the Century, by Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger, as reported byNew York Post.

A declaration of love that Liz Taylor will treasure in her bedside table drawer for the rest of her life. This story, that of one of the most legendary couples in Hollywood, could well find itself on the small screen very soon. After John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette, season 2 of the series Love Story could indeed be interested in Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. In any case, this is what the creator of the show, Connor Hines, recently declared.Vanity Fairaffirming that the lovers have “the right intensity”, without confirming this information. It must be said that the story between the two film stars was not easy and fascinated the crowds at the time.

Skip the ad

Also read

Lazaro Ramos and Tas Araujo, thepower couple» which changes the face of Brazil

«A sombre and unbreakable generosity»

If their affair begins while they are starring in the film Cléopâtre by Joseph Leo Mankiewicz, in 1963, the actor and actress would have actually met 9 years earlier. At the time Richard Burton had been married to Sybil Williams for 5 years, but quickly fell under the spell of Liz Taylor. As for the latter, she had been the wife of actor Michael Wilding since 1952. “When Richard Burton first laid eyes on the ravishing 21-year-old Elizabeth Taylor, clad in a bikini, he was so captivated that he almost burst to laugh,” we can read in the book by Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger, which tells their love story through letters, interviews and the actor’s diary.

“A young girl sitting across the pool lowered her book, took off her sunglasses and looked at me. She was sumptuous. She embodied a dark and unwavering generosity. She was, in a way, way too intense, and not only that, but she ignored me,” Richard Burton, aged 28 at the time, wrote in his diary. Nine years later, the two stars who had flirted for a glance around a swimming pool found themselves on the set of Cléopâtre. Aged 29, Liz Taylor is now married to Eddie Fisher. As for his filming partner, he had two children, Kate and Jessica, with Sybil Williams.

Toxic beginnings

But as soon as they meet on set, the first signs of a toxic relationship fraught with scandal appear. Richard Burton suffers from alcoholism while Liz Taylor is addicted to drugs. “The first day on set, he was hungover, he was very vulnerable and his hands were shaking,” Elizabeth Taylor said of their meeting in an old interview included in the documentary Elizabeth Taylor : Rebel Superstar. “He asked me to bring a cup of coffee to his lips, and I fell in love at first sight.” On the set, the two film stars circle each other, joke together, tease each other. It is ultimately a kiss scene that will change the lives of the artists.

As they kiss in front of the cameras, Joseph Mankiewicz announces the end of filming. But the couple makes their embrace last without taking into account the filmmaker’s instructions. The director then orders his crews to continue filming and a few moments later, speaks again to address the future lovers: “Would you mind if I said ‘cut’?” Liz Taylor and Richard Burton interrupt their kiss before disappearing together into the actor’s dressing room. It’s the beginning of a story of adultery, then of a scandalous romance. “They would sneak away to spend hot weekends,” explains Roger Lewis, author of the book Erotic Vagrancywhich explores the relationship between the two Hollywood stars, à ÂFox News  in March 2024. “They lived in their own world of lust.”

Still married to their respective spouses, Richard Burton and Liz Taylor exchange letters in secret. The rumors begin to emerge, and reach the ears of Sybil Williams and Eddie Fisher. But Richard Burton’s wife is used to this kind of story, having been cheated on several times by her husband. “He always comes back,” she used to say, according to Furious Love: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and the Marriage of the Century. And she was not wrong, because shortly after the start of this romance, the British actor decided to put an end to his affair with the one called the star with the violet eyes. Devastated by this breakup, the actress is however convinced that their story is far from over. She does everything possible to attract the attention of her lover and swallows a bottle of sleeping pills before being rushed to the hospital. When she leaves, she makes another suicide attempt. Worried about the woman he fell in love with, Richard Burton ends up returning to her side. “Every Once Burton said to himself, “I have to go back to Sybil, this is getting ridiculous,†Taylor overdosed, Roger Lewis said. “Meanwhile, Eddie Fisher was trying to control her, and she hated that. total.”

Skip the ad

Scandalously opulent

But the lovers prefer to stay together and let themselves be caught up in this destructive love. On December 5, 1963, Richard Burton finally divorced Sybil Williams. A few months later, on March 5, 1964, Elizabeth Taylor separated from her husband, Eddie Fisher. The two stars waste no time. Ten days later, they flew to Montreal and got married at the Ritz Carlton hotel in the Canadian city. The bride and groom take celebrity status to a level never before seen: an ultra-powerful celebrity couple, who have almost no limits. “It surprised me how lacking in discipline they could be. All of this was made possible by a huge team of lawyers, accountants, secretaries, makeup artists, costume designers, people looking after their children and others looking after their pets,” explains Roger Lewis.

As proof, on each of their trips, Richard Burton and Liz Taylor are accompanied by an assembly worthy of a real royal court. “They had a whole network of bodyguards around them and limousines to transfer them everywhere,” continues the author. “Hotels would clear the lobby for them, just so they could go to their private suite. And they didn’t just have a hotel suite. They took up the entire floor and had armed guards around them. Because of their fame, real life has disappeared. “Everything suddenly became an imaginary existence of money, private yachts, diamonds and massive spending.” Richard Burton and Liz Taylor flaunt this opulence everywhere, traveling with 156 suitcases because the actress never wears the same outfit, and booking 21 rooms for two at the Lancaster Hotel in Paris. Their affair is as sulphurous as it is fascinating. A member of the American Congress even tabled a motion to ban them from entering the United States. As for the Vatican, it also condemns their couple for “erotic vagrancy”. Whatever. And nothing is too expensive for Liz Taylor and Richard Burton who shower each other with gifts. The actress offers her husband an authentic Van Gogh while he showers her with the famous Krupp diamond, weighing 33.19 carats, then renamed the Elizabeth Taylor diamond, reports Fox News. 

A family at the heart of disputes

As soon as they married, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor started a family. While the actress had taken adoption steps when she was married to Eddie Fisher, it was ultimately with her new husband that she became the adoptive mother to young Maria, in 1964. But behind the diamonds, the bodyguards and the family cocoon, the relationship between Liz Taylor and Richard Burton is not easy. The couple argued constantly, most of the time on film sets while under the influence of alcohol or drugs. “It was one argument after another, all the time. I think it’s because they drank a lot at the time. We’re talking about the 60s and 70s: there was tons of vodka on the film sets,” Roger Lewis tells Fox News. Their altercations are so violent that the lovers do not hesitate to come to blows. “They were hitting each other…,” adds the author of the book Erotic Vagrancy. “But all these arguments ended up in the bedroom, which gave them renewed energy. This lasted for years, under the eyes of their servants and servants. It was a very extreme relationship.”

Their addictions to drugs and alcohol don’t help matters. “We quarrel,” Richard Burton wrote in his diary according to the New York Post. “And we’ve been arguing about everything and anything for a year now. I’ve always been a heavy drinker, but in the last 15 months I almost killed myself with alcohol, just like Elizabeth.”

A divorce full of love

Their love story deteriorated more and more and in 1974, the two stars of the big screen decided to divorce. But just as their tender moments are often cut short by conflict, their separation doesn’t last long either. In October 1975, Richard Burton and Liz Taylor met again, and married again in a private ceremony in Botswana. After a honeymoon in South Africa, their marriage was ultimately short-lived. In January 1976, the actor met the model Susan Miller, for whom he permanently divorced the actress. For her part, Liz Taylor married Senator John Warner in December 1976. But even divorced, the former lovers could not counter this force which attracted them to each other. At Elizabeth Taylor’s birthday in 1982, they were seen very complicit, according to Furious Love: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and the Marriage of the Century. They also find themselves on stage for the play Private Lives by Noel Coward the following year. “They made love, drank without moderation and seemed to become young lovers again. Until Burton criticized his playing techniques. In response, she disappeared for a long weekend, leaving him to play with a stunt double,” says the New York Post.

Skip the ad

Despite their separation and the years that pass, this special attraction does not leave them. They have a constant need to come back to each other. “I sincerely believe that there was unconditional love there,” Roger Lewis explains. Fox News. “It was much more than a great love story. There is no doubt that they were each other’s love of their lives. Even when we look at their photos today… They were devouring each other with their gaze. It was a devastating love that… became dangerous. But there is no doubt that this love was there. It never disappeared.”

Elizabeth Taylor once said that she loved Richard Burton madly until the day she died. 57 years after their first meeting, when she took her last breath in one of the beds at Cedars-Sinaï Medical Center in Los Angeles, a sheet of paper still rests in the drawer of her nightstand, in the bedroom of her Beverly Grove home. It is blackened with the writing of the man who was his worst enemy and his greatest love.