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Richard Burton ( November 10 1925 - August 5 1984) was a Welsh actor from the late 1940s through the 1980s.
He was born Richard Walter Jenkins in the village of Pontrhydyfen near Port Talbot. With the assistance of his inspirational schoolmaster, Philip H Burton (who legally adopted him), he excelled in school productions. It was at this time that he began to develop the distinctive speaking voice that became his hallmark, having been encouraged by Philip (who sidelined as a BBC radio producer) to "lose his Welsh accent".
There is a widespread myth (perhaps encouraged or even believed by some members of his stoutly working-class family) that Richard Burton "won a scholarship to Oxford at the age of sixteen" but left after six months. The facts, as recorded by Burton himself in his own autobiography and in Richard and Philip, which he co-wrote, are as follows: At the age of sixteen, he was forced to leave school and find work as a shop assistant. His former teacher, Philip Burton, recognising his talent, adopted him and enabled him to return to school. In 1943, at the age of eighteen, Richard Burton (who had now taken his teacher's surname), was allowed into Exeter College for a term of six months study. This was made possible only because it was wartime and he was an air force cadet.
In 1952, Burton successfully made the transition to Hollywood star, appearing in My Cousin Rachel opposite Olivia de Havilland. In 1954, he took his most famous radio role, as the narrator in the original production of Under Milk Wood, a role he would reprise in the film version twenty years later.
An insomniac and notoriously heavy drinker, Burton was married five times - twice, consecutively, to Elizabeth TaylorThis article is about the actress. There is also an article about the novelist of the same name. Elizabeth Taylor (born February 27, 1932) is an English-born Academy Award winning actress. She was born Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor in Hampstead, London, Engla. Burton and Taylor played opposite each other in Mike NicholsMike Nichols (born Michael Igor Peschkowsky is an Academy Award winning movie director. He was born on November 6, 1931 in Berlin, and left Nazi Germany for the U. with his parents in 1939. While attending the University of Chicago in the 1950s, he began's film of the play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, in which a bitter erudite couple spend the evening trading vicious barbs in front of their horrified and fascinated guests. The film is reputed to have been similar to Burton and Taylor's real-life marriage.
Burton was banned permanently from BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation BBC is primarily a national publicly-funded broadcaster based in the United Kingdom, which also has some international services. Some of the international services (such as BBC cable TV in America, Canada and elsewhere productions in 19741974 is a common year starting on Tuesday (click on link for calendar). Events January-February January 5 Dungeons & Dragons officially released. February 4 Patricia Hearst, the 19 year old granddaughter of publisher William Randolph Hearst, is kidnapped for questioning the sanity of Winston ChurchillChurchill" redirects here. For other meanings, see Churchill (disambiguation). The Right Honourable Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill KG, OM, CH, FRS ( November 30, 1874 January 24, 1965) was a British politician, best known as Prime Minister of the U and others in power during World War IIWorld War II was the most extensive and costly armed conflict in the history of the world, involving the great majority of the world's nations, being fought simultaneously in several major theatres, and costing tens of millions of lives. The war was fough--Burton reported hating them "virulently" for the alleged promise to wipe out all Japanese people on the planet.
Burton died suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhageA cerebral hemorrhage is a condition in the brain where a blood vessel leaks. One famous person who had one of these was U. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. at his home in Switzerland, where he is buried. He was only 58 years old.
Burton appears in the 2002 List of "100 Great Britons" (sponsored by the BBC and voted for by the public).
Burton is sometimes erroneously referred to as "Sir Richard Burton", perhaps due to the similarity of his assumed name to that of Richard Francis Burton, but unlike the 19th century scholar, he never received a knighthood.