Frank McLynn
Who’s Afraid of Elizabeth Taylor?
The Richard Burton Diaries
By Chris Williams (Ed)
Yale University Press 693pp £25 order from our bookshop
The usual perception of Richard Burton is that he wasted his talent. As legend has it, he was a Shakespearean actor who sold out to the movies and was prepared to act in any old rubbish for the money, and a womanising drunk, posturing about his love of Wales and rugby, who gained fame and fortune mainly on Elizabeth Taylor’s back (in more ways than one); he may never have loved her. What he said about Michael Redgrave could apply just as well to him: ‘He is in love with himself but he’s not sure if it’s reciprocated.’ His private diaries, now published with the permission of his last wife, Sally, confirm all this but reveal that it is only one side of the picture.
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Chuffed to be on the Curiosity Pill 2020 round-up for my @Lit_Review piece on swimming, which I cannot wait to get back to after 10+ months away https://literaryreview.co.uk/different-strokes https://twitter.com/RNGCrit/status/1351922254687383553
'The authors do not shrink from spelling out the scale of the killings when the Rhodesians made long-distance raids on guerrilla camps in Mozambique and Zambia.'
Xan Smiley on how Rhodesia became Zimbabwe.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/what-the-secret-agent-saw
'Thirkell was a product of her time and her class. For her there are no sacred cows, barring those that win ribbons at the Barchester Agricultural.'
The novelist Angela Thirkell is due a revival, says Patricia T O'Conner (£).
https://literaryreview.co.uk/good-gad