10/11/2025
Happy 100th birthday to the man, the myth and the legend who was Richard Burton. Born at the bottom of the hill in Pontrhydyfen, you can see his house from the kitchen window of Llareggub Wales. He proudly brought Liz Taylor to visit many times, and they were often found chatting to the locals in the Miner's Arms, opposite Llareggub. Come to Richard Burton's village to feel his presence, and to understand why he loved it there so much.
Born Richard Walter Jenkins on November 10, 1925, in Pontrhydyfen, South Wales, Richard Burton became an acclaimed actor of stage and screen, appearing in over 40 films. He earned seven Oscar nominations for films including Equus, The Robe, Becket and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? He married Elizabeth Taylor in 1964, a stormy relationship that resulted in marriage, remarriage and two divorces. Burton died in Switzerland, on August 5, 1984.
Burton was the son of a coal miner, a twelfth child whose mother died when he was two years old. A local teacher, Philip Burton, became his guardian and encouraged the boy into acting and the theatre. Jenkins adopted Burton as his surname, won an Oxford scholarship and served in the Air Force during WWII. After leaving the forces in 1947, he resumed his stage acting career, appearing in The Lady’s Not for Burning with Sir John Gielgud. Burton made his film debut in 1949 in The Last Days of Dolwyn. He married actress Sybil Williams and had two daughters.
Burton met Elizabeth Taylor on the set of Cleopatra (1963), and although each was married at the time, they began a tempestuous relationship that was to provide ample media interest in the years to come. They made 11 films together, including Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) and The Taming of the Shrew (1967). Burton appeared in Hamlet on Broadway in a 1964 production directed by Gielgud and continued to appear in films.
After a divorce, remarriage and a second divorce from Taylor, Burton married model Suzy Hunt in 1976. During the 1970s, Burton continued to make films, including Brief Encounter (1975) and was nominated for his seventh Oscar for his role in the 1977 drama Equus. In 1983, he and Taylor returned to working together for the Noel Coward theatrical work Private Lives. Burton's last film was an adaptation of George Orwell's 1984. Burton died from a brain haemorrhage in his Swiss home on August 5, 1984, at the age of 58.
