The Richard Burton Diaries (280 page)

96
Shaw is usually credited with labelling Dubrovnik ‘paradise on earth’.

97
Mary Stewart (1916—),
The Gabriel Hounds
(1967). Ira Levin (1929–2007),
Rosemary's Baby
(1967).

98
Anton Chekhov (1860–1904), playwright and short-story writer.

99
The memorial is at Tjentiste, now in Bosnia-Hercegovina.

100
Johnny Green (1908–89), songwriter, composer, conductor, who was Music Director at MGM from 1949 to 1959.

101
Probably Karl E. Voldeng (1905–89) and his wife Mary Frances Voldeng.

102
Jack L. Warner (1892–1978), executive producer at Warner Bros.

103
Alun Lewis (1915–44), poet.

104
Everyone says that the President sometimes stays here.
Jamais
: never.

105
Royal Air Force.

106
Samuel Pepys (1633–1703), diarist, politician and public servant.

107
£1.

108
This may refer to some problems that Baker's company Oakhurst was encountering.

109
The Internationale: the socialist anthem.

110
The city of Niš, now in Serbia, the location of the Yugoslav National Theatre.

111
Cardiff Arms Park: the home of the Welsh rugby team.

112
Tab Hunter (1931—), actor, perhaps renowned more for his looks than his talent.

113
Burton is referring here to one of his childhood homes in Caradoc Street, Taibach.

114
Thursday was 9 September.

115
Friday was 10 September.

116
Milena Dravi
(1940—).

117
Arthur Upfield (1890–1964) wrote 29 novels featuring Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte, set mostly in the Australian outback. Ivo Andri
,
Bridge over the Drina
(1961). Andri
had won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1961.

118
Saturday was 11 September.

119
The ‘bodyline’ controversy (over what some felt was unnecessarily aggressive and intimidatory bowling) erupted during England's tour of Australia in 1932–3.

120
International cricketers. Donald Bradman (1908–2001); Harold Larwood (1904–95); Stan McCabe (1910–68); Bill Voce (1909–84); Bill Ponsford (1900–91); Wally Hammond (1903–65); Gubby Allen (1902–89); Bill Bowes (1908–87); Douglas Jardine (1900–58).

121
A reference to Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1819–61), husband of Queen Victoria and Prince consort.

122
Heavy Luger, meaning Hardy Krüger.

123
A reference to Radie Harris (1904–2001), Louella Parsons (1881–1972) and Hedda Hopper, gossip columnists.

124
Ambassador Hotel, Trg Kralja Milana Bb, Niš.

125
The Gettysburg Address was delivered by President Abraham Lincoln on 19 November 1863 when dedicating the Soldiers’ National Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

126
Emmeline Pankhurst (1858–1928), suffragette. Culver City is in Los Angeles county and was home to the MGM studios.

127
Laurence Olivier was a founder and the first Artistic Director of the National Theatre. In October 1970 he had impetuously suggested that Burton might take over from him, and Burton had been interested in doing so, only to discover that the appointment was not in Olivier's gift. Olivier's letter, dated 16 July 1971, relayed the view of the Chairman of the National Theatre, Sir Max Rayne (1918–2003), that Burton did not have the appropriate experience to be seriously considered for the post. Rayne had in fact already identified Peter Hall (1930—) as his chosen successor to Olivier, this taking place in 1973.

128
Rolf Hochhuth's play
Soldiers, Necrology on Geneva
(1967), was a controversial treatment of the Allied bombing of Hamburg in the Second World War and also of the alleged involvement of Winston Churchill in the death of the Polish leader General Sikorski (1881–1943). The National Theatre production of
Soldiers
in 1967 had been cancelled by the board of the National Theatre, against Olivier's wishes.

129
Guys and Dolls
, a musical by Frank Loesser (1910–69) which had premiered in 1950.

130
A reference to former pupils of the English public school, Eton College.

131
Robert Stephens (1931–95) and his then wife Maggie Smith (1934—).

132
Edith Evans.

133
A reference to the film
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
(1969) which starred Robert Stephens and Maggie Smith. Smith had appeared with Burton and Taylor in
The V.I.P.s.

134
Paul Rogers (1917—); William Squire (1916–89).

135
Johnson is credited with saying ‘when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully’.

136
This is the first half of Lewis's ‘Postscript: for Gweno’, which appeared in
Raiders’ Dawn
(1942).

137
James Joyce, (1882–1941),
Ulysses
(1922), the central character of which is Leopold Bloom.

138
Neil Simon, (1927—), playwright and screenwriter.
The Gingerbread Lady
(1970).

139
Terence Rattigan (1911–77), playwright.

140
The Sunset Tower Hotel, 8358 Sunset Boulevard, West Hollywood.

141
George Bernard Shaw,
Arms and the Man
(1894); Anton Chekhov,
The Seagull
(1896).

142
Rock Hudson (1925–85); James Dean (1931–55); both of whom co-starred with Taylor in
Giant
.

143
King of Kings
(1961).

144
Rebel Without a Cause
(1955).

145
The subject of the play was the socialist, secularist, Owenite and co-operator George Jacob Holyoake (1817–1906).

146
‘The Magic of Meredith Jones’,
Sunday Times
, 17 June 1956.

147
Burton played Prince Albert in
Time Remembered
. Paul Scofield had played the same part at the Lyric Theatre and New Theatre in London in 1954 and 1955.

148
Eleonora Duse (1858–1924), actor.

149
T. H. White,
The Once and Future King
(1958).
The Sword and the Stone
(1938).

150
For his part as Henry Higgins in
My Fair Lady
(1964).

151
RMS
Queen Mary
, which operated between Southampton and New York from 1936 to 1967.

152
Julie Andrews.

153
Burton means Richard Collier,
Duce! A Biography of Benito Mussolini
(1971). Arnold Toynbee (1889–1975),
A Study of History
(1960 abridged edn). Oswald Spengler (1880–1936),
The Decline of the West
(first published in English in the 1920s, with further editions in the 1960s). Erle S. Gardner (1889–1970).

154
Hugh L'Etang (1917–96),
The Pathology of Leadership
(1970).

155
Collier,
Duce!
, p. 135, citing Field Marshal Werner von Blomberg.

156
The Italian invasion of Greece in October 1940 had not gone to plan for Mussolini, and had necessitated, in April 1941, German intervention. This is widely believed to have delayed the onset of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, and thus to have played a critical role in determining that the Germans would not win the campaign on the Eastern Front.

157
Eyties, (often ‘Eyeties’) is a derogatory term for the Italians.

158
Mussolini was executed on 28 April 1945 and his body placed on public show in Milan, where it was subjected to public abuse.

159
Sergio Soldano, furrier, clothes-designer, parfumier.

160
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), philosopher. C. E. M. Joad (1891–1953), philosopher. John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946), economist.

161
A. A. Fair, one of the pseudonyms of the thriller writer, E. S. Gardner (1889–1970).

162
Jasper Ridley (1920–2004),
Lord Palmerston
(1970).

163
President De Gaulle twice vetoed Britain's application to join the European Economic Community, in 1963 and 1967.

164
Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008),
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
(published in English, 1963).

165
Crufts is an annual international dog show which has been held in England since 1886.

166
Burton is referring to Soviet interventions in Hungary (1956) and Czechoslovakia (1968).

167
A reference to
Julius Caesar
, Act III, scene ii.

168
The death of little Paul Dombey is a famous episode in Dickens's novel
Dombey and Son
(1847–8).

169
Mljet, to the west of Dubrovnik.

170
Coleen Gray (1922—), actor.

171
Young Bess
(1953), directed by George Sidney (1916–2002).

172
George Bernard Shaw,
Dramatic Opinions and Essays
(1907), vol. 2, p. 52: ‘With the single exception of Homer, there is no eminent writer, not even Sir Walter Scott, whom I can despise so entirely as I despise Shakespeare when I measure my mind against his.’

173
Lew Schreiber, the casting director of Twentieth Century-Fox. Louis Burt Meyer (1884–1957), film producer with MGM. Jack L. Warner (1892–1978), executive producer, Warner Bros.

174
It is generally believed that no fewer than 50,000 people were killed during the 1948 ‘purge’ of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia.

175
Branko Spoljar (1914–85).

176
A reference to Saint Sava (
c.
1175–1235).

177
Milovan Djilas (1911–95), Yugoslavian partisan and communist, who had fallen out of favour in the 1950s and served a number of prison sentences. He was by 1971 living in Belgrade, a renowned dissident.

178
Burton is referring to E. M. Forster (1879–1970), novelist, biographer, essayist. However the Forster quoted (actually as saying that Dickens was ‘the most popular novelist of the century, and one of the greatest humorists that England has produced’), was John Forster (1812–76), biographer. Alan Pryce- Jones (1908–2000), literary editor, critic and journalist. This is the 1964 edition of
Dombey and Son
, published by Signet.

179
Presumably the
International Herald Tribune
.

180
A reference to George Orwell's dystopian vision in
1984
.

181
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fifth Avenue, New York.

182
Robin Moore (1925–2008),
The French Connection: A True Account of Cops, Narcotics and International Conspiracy
(1969).

183
George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788–1824); Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822).

184
Roget's Thesaurus
. Rex Stout (1886–1975), crime writer, whose novels often featured detective Nero Wolfe. Anthony Powell (1905–2000), novelist.

185
Ngaio Marsh (1899–1982), novelist. Herman Melville (1819–91)
The Confidence Man: His Masquerade
(1857).