Richard Burton

RICHARD BURTON CBE d1984. Outstanding Welsh actor of the 1950-1970s, nominated seven times for an Academy Award (without ever winning). Despite his career beginning in UK theatres and never training as an actor, he was at his peak the highest paid actor in Hollywood after gaining a $1million dollar per year contract in 1953. His most famous films include ; My Cousin Rachel (1952) / The Robe (1953) / Dont Look Back In Anger (1960) / Cleopatra (1962) / Beckett (1964) / The Spy that Came In From The Cold (1965) / Whose Afraid Of Virginia Woolf (1966) / Anne Of A Thousand Days (1969) and Equus (1977). Despite being a star athlete in his youth, he suffered with very poor health throughout his adult life probably caused by his notoriously excessive drinking and 100 per day smoking habit. A famous womaniser, he married five times in his life including twice to actress Elizabeth Taylor in 1964 and 1975. He died from a celebral haemorrhage aged just 58 in 1984.