Rich: The life of Richard Burton (original 1988; edition 1988)

GREAT CONDITION! ( )

One of the reasons I joined Library Thing was to do justice to this excellent biography of one of my favorite actors. If you keep a journal, mind that it might someday be read -- or not. Burton's writing is the star of this biography, and Bragg does well to get out of the way and let Burton speak. When you finish reading A Life, you really do feel you understand who one of the most famous actors of the 20th century really was -- kind, sensitive, profane and above all courageous. ( )

Tynan thought old Burton got by just fine without the supporting cast. I've always felt the same way. You just don't really notice those playing with him. The only time i ever really noticed another was in that strange little movie with Rex Harrison. R.H. could go toe to toe with Burton on most nights.
He reads Dickens, Solzhenitsyn, Anthony Powell - "not a writer for every mood" and puzzles away at the character of . . . and the notebooks record the pills, the insomnia. Burton builds up his paperback library on the Kalizma - buys and "devours" ULYSSES, thereby fulfilling a promise in his journal a fortnight before.
Find a great Burton interview with Kenneth Tynan, enfant terrible of drama critics, on You Tube. One of my childhood heroes, it was old Jenkin's who got me interested in literature, etc. etc. Being a nevous tic-filled type, not as bad as The Great Cham of Literature, I admired immensely the way Burton, Lawrence Harvey, and George Sanders could keep head, shoulders, and arms still. The Jesuits did their best to flog these things out of me, but like merriment they always kept breaking through.
By the way, Bragg's Burton is excellent. ( )