'Attracting attention wherever he fixed his blue gaze' - Robert
Hardy's moving tribute to his friend, Richard Burton
At the Royal Gala dinner at Buckingham Palace on April 29th,
Robert Hardy read this tribute to his friend, Richard Burton:
“Rishiart of Pontrhdyfen – a legend? A myth? A Welsh prince of
the time before Owain Glyndwr?
Not to begin with – ‘To begin at the beginning,’ he was little
Richie Jenkins, the tenth surviving child of a miner’s family, of
No. 2 Dan-y-Bont.
There were Twm, Cecilia – but always ‘Cis’, Ifor, William,
David, Verdun (born 1916 you see), Hilda, Catherine, Edith, Rich
and Graham. Soon after that, their mother died. A great part of
life gone, the family circled protectively around the youngest – a
family of much nobility – not the nobility of ermine, but of
dignity and loyalty and pride.
Not yet a prince, but a bright schoolboy who attracted attention
wherever he fixed his blue gaze; mad for rugby football, for music,
for words, for cricket ‘and the run-stealers flitting to and
fro’.
More than one teacher saw in him promise; Philip Burton, Senior
English Master at Port Talbot Secondary, himself a miner’s son, saw
in Richard a glow of genius, which he slowly fanned into a flame.
Later he would adopt him, with the family’s blessing and the relief
of Cis, who had stepped into their mother’s place and was hard put
to it to look after a husband, her own children, and her young
brother.
From now he would be Richard Burton ‘absolutely to renounce his
surname, and bear the surname of his adopter...and be held out to
the world as if he were the child of...Philip Burton.’ Philip
brought him forward, tutored him in literature and drama, teaching
him the language of England and of Shakespeare.
So came the War, and in a crowd of half-soldiers, sailors and
airman, half undergraduates, Richard and I, went up to Oxford, met,
and loathed each other – until one day poring over a map in
Navigation Class, we spotted at the same moment the River Trent:
‘See how this river comes me cranking in...’ said one; the other
followed with, ‘and cuts me from the best of all my land a great
half-moon, a monstrous cantle out...’ Hotspur, Shakespeare and his
Henry VI had formed a bond that lasted all one life (far, far too
short), and still, the other.
The year of the Festival of Britain, when she strove to regain
her spirits after the horrors and the gloom of war, saw Richard as
a medieval prince at last: Hal, of the Shakespeare Histories, Henry
of Agincourt at Stratford-on-Avon. From then there was no stopping
in the eagle-flight, bar the occasional hard landing, and a stoup
or two – (not the falcon’s stoop), and Rich became a great
Shakespearean – I mean truly great, not as the word is misused
now.
There had been a day near a Norfolk airfield, in the war, Easter
Sunday and he and I swam in an icy sea and came back to the sands
with one handkerchief to dry us both. We ran to warm ourselves
shouting bits of Hal, Hamlet, Coriolanus, Lear too probably,
arguing how to play them…I was posted the next day and in saying
goodbye told him, ‘ Whatever you do ,as actor, politician or
anything else, you will do greatly.’ It came true, size of spirit,
breadth of mind – even his mistakes were great, his finest
achievements, unique, his voice unmatched.
My thoughts go back to Hampstead and to Rich with Sybil, all
spirited gaiety, and all-forgiving love, and to Kate, the best of
each of them, until one day Rich become Anthony – with Cleopatra,
and a huge and famous, ferocious passion ensued. Richard and
Elizabeth – Dame Elizabeth – twice married, twice divorced, always
in love and longing for each other, even until death.
Richard’s life is famous, though only a fortunate few know of
his wide generosity, his gentleness in the still centre of the fire
and sometimes fury.
A genius, ‘perhaps a flawed genius, but there has to be a
precious stone to have a flaw’.
At the last peace, perhaps, writing words, reading them in his
library. Now in a sense he is going back to Wales, which, however
he travelled, he never really left, to a theatre for these
students, that will bear his name, and which I fancy he will haunt.
Do ‘Faustus’ for him one day: ‘the only play,’ he said, ’I don’t
have to work on, I AM Faustus!’”