{"id":343156,"date":"2011-03-28T01:11:29","date_gmt":"2011-03-28T01:11:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/2011\/03\/28\/elizabeth-taylor-she-married-eight-times-but-only-her-relationship-with-richard-burton-truly-defined-her\/"},"modified":"2011-03-28T01:11:29","modified_gmt":"2011-03-28T01:11:29","slug":"elizabeth-taylor-she-married-eight-times-but-only-her-relationship-with-richard-burton-truly-defined-her","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/03\/28\/elizabeth-taylor-she-married-eight-times-but-only-her-relationship-with-richard-burton-truly-defined-her\/","title":{"rendered":"Elizabeth Taylor: She married eight times but only her relationship with Richard Burton truly defined her"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n<\/p>\n

\nBy
\nJ. Randy Taraborrelli<\/a>
Last updated at 2:11 AM on 28th March 2011<\/p>\n

Even at his peak, Richard Burton seemed an unlikely object of desire. Despite his musical voice, he was just 5ft 9in, with pock-marked skin and a tendency towards belligerence.
<\/span><\/p>\n

When he was drunk \u2014 which was often \u2014 he was capable of great cruelty even to his closest friends. When he was sober, he was often maudlin.\u00a0
<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet he managed to seduce one actress after another \u2014 from Claire Bloom to Zsa Zsa Gabor. And he made little effort to hide these short\u2011lived and grubby affairs from his wife Sibyl, by whom he had two daughters.
<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\"Besotted:<\/p>\n

Besotted: Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton’s tumultuous romance seemed doomed to failure right from the outset. She said of Burton: ‘I knew what I was doing, loving Richard, was wrong, but I couldn’t help it. It was a fact I couldn’t evade’<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

By contrast, Eddie Fisher, the husband of Elizabeth Taylor \u2014 who died last week \u2014 was a clean-cut pop singer whose foxy features and easy smile had already helped shift eight million records.<\/span><\/p>\n

A man of genuine sweetness, he adored his young wife, spending days and nights at Elizabeth\u2019s side when she was hospitalised with pneumonia.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sadly, his devotion was not reciprocated. Indeed, Elizabeth had known within months that her fourth marriage had been a catastrophic mistake.
<\/span><\/p>\n

Fisher\u2019s great failing? For all his popularity as a teen idol, he lacked the swaggering machismo of her third husband, Mike Todd, who\u2019d died in a plane crash and left her half-crazed with grief.
<\/span><\/p>\n

In public, the couple kept up the pretence that they were happy by putting on passionate displays of affection; but in private, Elizabeth often treated Fisher with withering scorn.\u00a0
<\/span><\/p>\n

As with all her other husbands \u2014 and there were to be seven in total before she gave up on matrimony \u2014 she wanted, above all, to get a rise out of him. It wasn\u2019t enough that he clearly worshipped her; he needed to prove to her satisfaction that he was a \u2018real\u2019 man.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\"Rocks<\/p>\n

Rocks and frocks: Elizabeth Taylor flaunts the gigantic diamonds the utterly besotted Burton lavished on her\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

But instead of engaging in battle, Fisher was unfailingly mild and gentle, which infuriated Elizabeth all the more.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sometimes, when she\u2019d been particularly vicious, the poor man \u2014 who\u2019d left his previous wife, the actress Debbie Reynolds, for her \u2014 would retire to his bed and draw the blankets over his head. \u2018Wimp!\u2019 she\u2019d yell.<\/span><\/p>\n

For all her aggressive displays of anger, though, Elizabeth was in emotional tumult. Her most recent movie, Butterfield 8, had been a stinker \u2014 despite winning her an Oscar \u2014 and she felt adrift without a strong guiding hand.
<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018There was something deeply desperate inside me,\u2019 she revealed later. \u2018My despair became so black that sometimes I just couldn\u2019t face waking up any more.\u2019
<\/span><\/p>\n

Into this cauldron of powerful emotions stepped Burton, then aged 36.<\/span><\/p>\n

When they were both cast in the epic film Cleopatra, Elizabeth was fully aware of the Welsh actor\u2019s reputation and had no intention of becoming, as she put it, \u2018another notch on his belt\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

Burton, for his part, was equally determined that she should. Even before arriving on set in Rome, he\u2019d confirmed his reputation as a cad by boasting to colleagues that he was going to have sex with the 29-year-old English-born star.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018I just need two days with her,\u2019 he said. \u2018It\u2019s guaranteed.\u2019
<\/span><\/p>\n

As it turned out, he was wrong; it took five. Afterwards, Burton announced to everyone in the Cleopatra make-up van: \u2018Gentlemen, last night I screwed Miss Elizabeth Taylor in the back seat of my Cadillac.\u2019
<\/span><\/p>\n

As news of the affair spread around the globe, he turned on Elizabeth\u2019s cuckolded husband with equal crudeness.<\/span><\/p>\n

‘I just need two days with her,’ boasted Burton. <\/span><\/span><\/span>As it turned out, he was wrong; it took five<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

One night, Burton showed up unexpectedly at a dinner party at Elizabeth\u2019s villa. \u2018Why don\u2019t you just go home to your own wife?\u2019 shouted Eddie Fisher. \u2018Elizabeth is mine.\u2019
<\/span><\/p>\n

Burton, who\u2019d been drinking and could barely stand, spouted back: \u2018Oh yeah? Well, guess what? They\u2019re both my women.\u2019
<\/span><\/p>\n

Then he confronted Elizabeth with the words: \u2018Are you my woman? Well, are you? If so, then come over here and stick your tongue down my throat and prove it.\u2019 <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\"Happier<\/p>\n

Happier times: For a couple of years, Elizabeth was blissfully happy. Friends also remarked that the couple shared a ribald sense of humour that was rare in Hollywood circles<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Elizabeth stood motionless for a moment, her eyes locked on Burton. Then she moved slowly towards him, and shocked all the guests by pressing her lips firmly against his.
<\/span><\/p>\n

Feeling utterly humiliated, Fisher stepped outside. \u2018Keep her warm for me, won\u2019t you?\u2019 Burton said to him casually as he left.
<\/span><\/p>\n

To Elizabeth, her lover\u2019s callousness was merely further evidence of his irresistible manliness. Yet, in Rome, people took a dim view of the love affair, yelling out \u2018homewrecker\u2019, \u2018whore\u2019 and \u2018unfit mother\u2019 whenever she appeared in public.
<\/span><\/p>\n

For a star more used to adulation, this was extremely hard to take. Far\u00a0worse, however, was Burton\u2019s sudden decision \u2014 fuelled by self-loathing \u2014 to return to his long-suffering wife.
<\/span><\/p>\n

The next day, Elizabeth dramatically took an overdose of sleeping pills and had to have her stomach pumped. Even her friends were stunned that she\u2019d been prepared to leave her four children \u2014 including a recently adopted little girl \u2014 without a mother for the sake of a man she\u2019d known for only six weeks. <\/span><\/p>\n

‘Good Lord, I left a good woman to be with a lunatic’. <\/span><\/span>As she reached for her bottle of pills, he swatted the container from her hand and then started pummelling her <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\u2018I knew what I was doing, loving Richard, was wrong,\u2019 said Elizabeth. \u2018But I couldn\u2019t help it. It was a fact I couldn\u2019t evade.\u2019
<\/span><\/p>\n

Burton seemed to feel the same: soon enough, they were back together. But, a few months later, during an Easter break at Porto Santo Stefano in 1962, Elizabeth learned about a side of her lover that she hadn\u2019t suspected: like her first husband Nicky Hilton, he, too, could be brutally violent under the influence of alcohol.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Burton, they\u2019d retreated to their rented room to drink and have wild sex. Somehow \u2014 he could not remember exactly how or why \u2014 they began talking about love and death, and Elizabeth announced that she was prepared to kill herself for him.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Here and now,\u2019 she said, slurring her words, \u2018I\u2019ll do it, Richard. That\u2019s how deeply I love you.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\"Together<\/p>\n

Together again? There had been speculation Taylor, pictured in 1983, would be buried with her ex-husband Richard Burton in Switzerland<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Richard laughed. \u2018Good Lord,\u2019 he said, \u2018I left a perfectly good woman to be with a lunatic!\u2019
<\/span><\/p>\n

As she reached for her bottle of pills, he swatted the container from her hand and then started pummelling her. He recalled nothing else.
<\/span><\/p>\n

The next morning, when he came to, he was unable to wake Elizabeth. Once again, she was rushed to hospital to have her stomach pumped. Her face was swollen beyond recognition and it took three weeks for the bruises to fade sufficiently for filming to resume.
<\/span><\/p>\n

The final humiliation was that Cleopatra, which opened 632 days after the first scenes were shot, was a critical dud \u2014 despite being the most expensive movie ever made. Even the scenes between the lovers were strangely lacklustre and flat. When Elizabeth was forced to sit through a screening, she only just made it to a lavatory before vomiting.<\/span><\/p>\n

With filming over, the spell that Burton had cast over her began to weaken. Soon afterwards, following a huge row, she left a note on his pillow telling him that the affair was over because they were \u2018destroying too many lives\u2019.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t argue; he just quietly slipped out of her life.
<\/span><\/p>\n

As the days turned into weeks, Elizabeth \u2014 now holed up at a chalet she owned in Switzerland \u2014 became morbidly sad. \u2018I\u2019d never seen her like that,\u2019 said a woman who knew her very well at this time.
Then, one day, Richard called out of the blue, and they arranged to have lunch. For once, Elizabeth realised when they met, he was stone-cold sober.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018I love you, but what scares me about you is that I think you\u2019re too selfish to be in a real marriage,\u2019 he told her. \u2018I\u2019m a selfish b******. I\u2019ve always been my own greatest concern, and I\u2019ve never been able to abandon that notion, and neither can you, dear.\u2019
<\/span><\/p>\n

Elizabeth was stung. \u2018But I would do it for you, Richard,\u2019 she said. And, almost incredibly, that is exactly what she did.
<\/span><\/p>\n

She vowed to make herself available whenever he wanted, to have sex whenever he chose and not to object if he wanted to be with his wife.
<\/span><\/p>\n

So when the Burton\/Taylor show moved to England, where they were starring together in a film called The V.I.P.s, he spent weekends with his wife Sybil and their daughters, and returned to Elizabeth at the Dorchester Hotel for the weekdays. He even told more than one reporter that he had no intention of leaving his wife.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was a lunatic arrangement, and it couldn\u2019t last. Finally, in the spring of 1963, Burton decided his marriage was over.
<\/span><\/p>\n

Over the next couple of years, Elizabeth was blissfully content. And, according to his brother Graham Jenkins, Burton \u2018began to fall for her in a way that he hadn\u2019t before\u2019. Friends also remarked that the couple shared a ribald sense of humour that was rare in Hollywood circles.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\"Goddess<\/p>\n

Goddess of the silver screen: Taylor playing the title role in one of her most famous films, Cleopatra<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Still, by the time they married on March 15, 1964, most of their friends and family were exhausted by the continual ups and downs of their tempestuous romance.
<\/span><\/p>\n

To begin with, Elizabeth all but gave up her career for Burton, though they went on to make several more films together, including the acclaimed Who\u2019s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, in which they starred as a warring husband and wife. Their roles in this movie, it must be said, were not far removed from reality. \u2018Even our fights are fun \u2014 nothing placidly bovine about us,\u2019 she recalled.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Richard loses his temper with true enjoyment. It\u2019s beautiful to watch. Our fights are delightful screaming matches, and Richard is rather like a small atom bomb going off \u2014 sparks fly, walls shake, floors vibrate.\u2019 <\/span><\/p>\n

At Christmas that year, which they spent
\nin Gstaad, Switzerland, Richard met a willowy blonde English divorcee
\ncalled Suzy Hunt.\u00a0 She was only 27, but he callously informed his wife
\nthat he was going to pursue her<\/span><\/p>\n

Others recall their exchanges as rather more venomous. One woman who witnessed an off-set row saw Elizabeth hurl a vase at Burton in his dressing-room. When he ducked, she grabbed a jug and threw that, too, yelling: \u2018You b******!\u2019
<\/span><\/p>\n

Fifteen minutes later, the Burtons emerged holding hands.
<\/span><\/p>\n

The rocket fuel for those incendiary rows was always alcohol. Burton would have cognac in the morning, vodka in the afternoon and Scotch and vodka at night \u2014 and Elizabeth wasn\u2019t lagging far behind. In addition, she was increasingly dependent on painkillers because of back problems.
<\/span><\/p>\n

As the Sixties flew by, their lifestyle became increasingly extravagant, with butlers, maids and Rolls-Royces \u2014 not to mention the extraordinary jewels, such as the 33.19 carat Krupp diamond, that Burton regularly lavished on his wife.
<\/span><\/p>\n

To pay the bills, they both made a series of mediocre films unworthy of their talent. However, many decades later, Elizabeth Taylor would look back on this time with nostalgia.
<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019m glad that I knew the wildness, glamour and excitement when I was in my prime: the parties, the yachts, and the private jets and the jewellery. It was a great time to be young, alive and attractive and to have all those goodies.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\"Iconic:<\/p>\n

Iconic: Elizabeth Taylor with Richard Burton in Cleoptra. He was the love of her life and she was to marry him twice<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

There were growing problems, nonetheless. Richard clearly hated the Hollywood ethos that Elizabeth represented as one of its biggest stars, yet was growing increasingly depressed at his failure to land an Oscar. He also had problems with fame, feeling that people were staring at them \u2018as if we are prize animals\u2019.
<\/span><\/p>\n

Moreover, the couple\u2019s drinking was now even more seriously out of control, leading to frequent temper tantrums. Typically, one would demand something of the other, not get it and then throw a fit, maybe a fist, and, at the very least, a glass of liquor. Once, Burton even damaged his wife\u2019s eardrum after punching her in the head.
<\/span><\/p>\n

In truth, there were so many levels of psychological chaos at work within Burton that he would have needed to be married to a psychiatrist, not a\u00a0movie star, to have been understood fully.
<\/span><\/p>\n

Finally, on July 4, 1973, Elizabeth announced that they had decided to separate. \u2018Maybe we loved each other too much \u2014 I never believed such a thing was possible,\u2019 she said in an emotional statement that ended: \u2018Pray for us.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

At the same time, Richard held a press conference in New York, while drinking from a bottle of vodka.
\u2018You know,\u2019 he said, \u2018when two very volatile people keep hacking constantly at each other with fierce oratory, and then occasionally engage in a go of it with physical force, well, it\u2019s like I said: it\u2019s bound to happen.\u2019
<\/span><\/p>\n

Elizabeth defiantly found herself a new boyfriend \u2014 a handsome used-car salesman called Henry Wynberg \u2014 and flaunted their affair. Not long after it started, though, she was taken to a Californian hospital with agonising stomach pains and told she might well have cancer.
<\/span><\/p>\n

She immediately called Burton \u2014 then filming in Italy \u2014 to tell him tearfully: \u2018I don\u2019t want to die alone. Please, can I come home?\u2019
<\/span><\/p>\n

Within days, Wynberg had been turfed out,\u00a0 Elizabeth had a new 38-carat heart-shaped diamond necklace and the Burton\/Taylor melodrama was back on with a vengeance. But not for long: they spent their tenth anniversary fighting and drinking, and soon afterwards decided to divorce.
<\/span><\/p>\n

Elizabeth went back to the long-suffering Wynberg, but still continued to talk to Burton on the phone at least two or three times a week. Then, when the ink was barely dry on the divorce papers, she saw him again at a dinner party in Switzerland.
<\/span><\/p>\n

Elizabeth, never one to hide her feelings, rushed straight into Burton\u2019s arms, her face awash with tears. The next day, Wynberg was on a plane back to the United States, clutching a \u2018retirement\u2019 present of $50,000 and a gold watch. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\"Scorching:<\/p>\n

Scorching: Taylor smouldered on screen including in the 1958 classic Cat On A Hot Tin Roof<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Richard would later recall: \u2018Then, for two days, Elizabeth and I circled each other \u2014 very wary, very polite. On the third day, we\u00a0had a fight. Then we knew we were ourselves again.\u2019
Two months later, on October 10, 1975, Elizabeth went through her sixth marriage \u2014 to her fifth husband.
<\/span><\/p>\n

Burton was sober at the time, but his skin had turned a terrible shade of yellow and his health was clearly beginning to fail.
<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018I didn\u2019t think then that their second marriage would last ten minutes,\u2019 recalled their personal bodyguard Brian Haynes. \u2018But I could also see that they seemed to need each other. When he was there, she seemed to hate him. When he was away, she couldn\u2019t bear to be without him.\u2019
<\/span><\/p>\n

At Christmas that year, which they spent in Gstaad, Switzerland, Richard met a willowy blonde English divorcee called Suzy Hunt.\u00a0 She was only 27, but he callously informed his wife that he was going to pursue her.
<\/span><\/p>\n

This decision, while unutterably cruel, may actually have saved his life. Elizabeth was by then drinking enough for the two of them, while Suzy was determined to keep her new\u00a0lover off the booze and nurse him back to\u00a0health.
<\/span><\/p>\n

Coming face-to-face one day with her rival, Elizabeth told her in a world-weary tone: \u2018My dear, you\u2019ll last only six months with Richard. That I can guarantee.\u2019
<\/span><\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t so much a threat as a prediction based on years of experience. She was too exhausted to be mad at a mere girl who didn\u2019t have a clue about what she was getting herself\u00a0into with a man old enough to be her\u00a0father.
<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Well, perhaps you\u2019re right,\u2019 said Suzy. \u2018But, my, what a six months it shall be.\u2019
<\/span><\/p>\n

Elizabeth forced a smile before responding: \u2018Oh, certainly, dear \u2014 for all of us.\u2019 <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\"Screen<\/p>\n

Legends: Taylor with Richard Burton on their first wedding day in 1964. He was to be her fifth and sixth husband<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

When Burton left Switzerland for New York to begin rehearsals for the play Equus, he asked Suzy Hunt to join him. He also told\u00a0friends that now he was sober, he couldn\u2019t\u00a0imagine why he\u2019d decided to remarry\u00a0Elizabeth.<\/span><\/p>\n

His wife, for her part, tried to exact revenge by seducing a 37-year-old advertising man called Peter Darmanin at a Swiss disco called The Cave.
<\/span><\/p>\n

She\u2019d sashayed over to him, swaying to the music, and apparently decided, \u2018This one will do just fine.\u2019 Then, without interrupting her dance of seduction, she\u2019d kissed him, before taking him home to her lair.
<\/span><\/p>\n

She obviously wasn\u2019t over Burton, though, and still spoke to him constantly on the phone. Finally, he summoned her over to see him, and told her bluntly that the marriage was over.
<\/span><\/p>\n

On July 29, 1976, less than ten months after they\u2019d wed for a second time, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton were granted their second divorce.
<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018I love Richard with every fibre of my soul,\u2019 she said, before delivering one of the\u00a0 great understatements of her life. \u2018But we can\u2019t be together. We\u2019re too mutually self-destructive.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

Her obsession with the Welsh actor would continue, however, through two more marriages to other men. It would lead to heartbreak and personal humiliation.
<\/span><\/p>\n

But never once did she waver from the belief that \u2018Dick & Liz\u2019 had\u00a0 been \u2014 in her words \u2014 \u2018the greatest goddamned couple of all time\u2019.\u00a0
<\/span><\/p>\n