Born Richard Jenkins in Wales in 1925, actor Richard Burton's life and career were changed for ever by his tempestuous relationship with Elizabeth Taylor. The first programme in this new eight-part series uses interviews and extracts from Burton's notes and diaries to reveal his private agonies over his relationship with Taylor, his struggles with addiction, and his attempts to fulfil his acting potential.
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The truth behind the actor's public face: page 12
[Photo caption] A documentary on Richard Burton reveals new insights into a man whose personal life overshadowed his career.
Reputations 9.00pm BBC2
When Richard Burton died of a brain haemorrhage, his obituaries were generally agreed on one thing - he had squandered his prodigious talents as a stage actor to become a film star and celebrity husband of Elizabeth Taylor. Such accusations dogged him throughout his life, but as one of the more remarkable sequences from this excellent documentary demonstrates, his greatest champion was Taylor.
Eyes flashing and shoulders bridling with assumed offence, Taylor flies to her husband's defence in the face of an onslaught from a snooty interviewer who accuses him of selling out. She is not a woman you would wish to cross.
The pair's relationship has been well documented, but the programme looks deeper than the diamonds-and-jets lifestyle, thanks to access to Burton's own diaries. These show a frequently troubled, difficult, highly intelligent man who was forced to grapple with the "stupendous publicity" generated by his affair with and marriages to this extraordinary woman, and their implications for his own acting career.
In many ways Burton lived a classic, cliched show-business life - drink, money, enormous fame, affairs, acclaim, early death. But he was a complicated man who, when he set his mind to it, was a powerful and charismatic actor.
The programme includes many thoughtful contributions from family members and from Burton's widow, Sally, who laughs fondly as she says: "I look back on it now and I think, what the hell was I doing?"
Burton in his own words: p12
