The love that tore Taylor and Burton apart

Nowadays, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's relationship or Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez' affair gets front-page coverage in tabloids and celebrity-obsessed magazines, but these relationships or affairs are not even junior league when compared to the big daddy of all, the original power-couple of Hollywood: Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.

Their epic love story had everything – alcohol, scandals, cheating, fights, glamour, private jets, and diamonds that would make even De Beers blush.

Burton, a Welsh actor, arrived in Los Angeles in early 1950s and quickly established his reputation as an insatiable lover, a great raconteur, an exciting actor and a heavy drinker.

He first laid eyes on Taylor at an LA party in 1952, but things really took off nine years later when they met on the set of Cleopatra.

By this time, Taylor was well aware of Burton's reputation for bedding many of his leading ladies and was ready to ignore him, vowing she would not be "another notch on his gun belt". But Burton's voice, love of poetry and language and Shakespeare and his handsome face and soulful beauty proved too much for her and by the time their eyes met there was, as Taylor later recalled, "a lot of hemming and hawing".

Their affairs, marriages and everything in between caused such furore and public excitement that the press started following them 24 hours a day, giving birth to the movie La Dolce Vita and the word Paparazzo. Even the Vatican and the US House of Representatives stepped in to condemn them for their sexual vagrancy. A just-released book, Furious Love: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and the Marriage of the Century, beautifully and honestly captures the turbulent 20-year odyssey of lust, love and marriage of these two colossal stars.

The 438-page ode to the epic liaison by authors Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger is built around Burton's never-before-read letters to Taylor, and also includes other archival materials such as his poems.

In one of his diary entries, Burton said of Taylor: "She is a wildly exciting love-mistress, she is shy and witty, she is nobody's fool, she is a brilliant actress, and she is beautiful beyond the dreams of pornography. And I'll love her till I die."

He could also be cruel.

Once he called her hands large and ugly and red and masculine.

And then to rectify his mistake, he bought her a $1.1 million (Dh4.03m) diamond ring.

The book not only takes the readers into grand hotels of the world, the jewels, the homes in London, Gstaad, Céligny, and Puerto Vallarta, the hobnobbing with the Rothschilds, Aristotle Onassis, Princess Grace of Monaco, General Tito of Yugoslavia, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, it also shows the legendary couple's insecurities, frailties and their doomed love.

Burton started writing to her in 1970, when he was in the Mexican desert shooting for Raid on Rommel and trying desperately to remain sober, but Taylor kept the letters hidden from the world.

And now for the first time she has shared them with people, and they show Burton as a complex, passionate, brilliant and sometimes tortured soul she knew him to be.

The letters reveal his need for her and how the most notorious romance grew into an enduring love that survived his death in 1984, at the age of 58.

As the book points out, there are Hollywood celebrities. But there is only one Taylor and Burton.

Five Taylor-burton films to watch

Cleopatra (1963)

Starring: Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor and Rex Harrison

Director: Joseph L Mankiewicz

The Plot: The movie chronicles the struggles of Cleopatra VII, the young Queen of Egypt, to resist the imperialist ambitions of Rome. The film is infamous for nearly bankrupting 20th Century Fox. Originally budgeted at $2 million (Dh7.34m), it was made at a cost of $44m. Elizabeth Taylor was awarded a record-setting contract of $1m. This amount eventually swelled to $7m due to the delays of the production, equivalent to more than $47m today.

Her 65 costumes included a dress made from 24-carat gold cloth.

Worth watching? The fact that this movie is one of the last Italian-made "sword and sandal/mythological muscleman" epics that had been all the rage since the late 1950s should be enough to convince you to rent this more than four-hour-long movie.

The VIPs (1963)

Starring: Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor and Lousi Jourdan

Director: Anthony Asquith

The Plot: The film is set at a London airport during a fog. With the fog delaying all the flights, the VIPs play out the drama of their lives in a number of slightly interconnected stories. The central story concerns famed actress Frances Andros (Elizabeth Taylor) trying to leave her husband, millionaire Paul Andros (Richard Burton), and fly away with her lover Marc Champselle (Lousi Jourdan). Because of the fog, Andros has the opportunity to come to the airport to convince his wife not to leave him. Terence Rattigan, who wrote the screenplay, said the film is based on the true story of Vivien Leigh's attempt to leave her husband Laurence Olivier and fly off with her lover Peter Finch, only to be delayed by a fog at Heathrow.

Worth Watching? Yes, it is. Many real-life Hollywood couples have tried to transfer their buzz on to the big screen, but most of them have failed to light up the screen. But not the Burtons. There is an unmistaken chemistry between the two and whatever was going on behind the scenes, shows up on the screen, too, and that makes this movie worth watching.

The Sandpiper (1965)

Starring: Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor and Eva Marie Saint

Director: Vincente Minnelli

The Plot: Laura Reynolds (Elizabeth Taylor), a free-spirited, unwed single mother living with her young son Danny, falls in love with Dr Edward Hewitt (Richard Burton), her son's school headmaster. Hewitt, a straight-laced priest, is initially shocked by Laura's unconventional morals, but then the two start an extramarital affair. The then unknown Raquel Welch doubled for Taylor in some of Taylor's beach scenes in California.

Worth watching? The film was written by two of the most-respected screenwriters: Dalton Trumbo (Spartacus, Lonely are the Brave) and Michael Wilson (The Bridge on the River Kwai, A Place in the Sun), and directed by that genuine artist, Minnelli (An American in Paris, Gigi). But more than that, what makes this movie really worth watching is Burton's display of internal turmoil.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966)

Starring: Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor and George Segal

Director: Mike Nichols

The Plot: Set on the campus of a small college, the film focuses on the violent and volatile relationship of associate history professor George (Richard Burton) and his hard-drinking and crudely boisterous wife Martha (Elizabeth Taylor), the daughter of the college president.

Worth Watching? The film was the only one to be nominated in every eligible category at the Oscars. Taylor won the Best Actress award. The film was considered groundbreaking for having a level of profanity and sexual implication unheard of at that time. If you want to watch just one movie of Burton and Taylor, make sure this is the one you rent.

The Comedians (1967)

Starring: Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor and Alec Guinness

Director: Peter Glenville

The Plot: Based on the novel by Graham Greene, he also wrote the screenplay, the film tells the story of a sardonic white hotel owner and his encroaching fatalism as he watches Haiti sink into barbarism.

Worth Watching? Although the film was poorly received, it is an interesting movie, with Laurence Rosenthal's sensational score creating an ominous atmosphere that creates the near-perfect violent character of Duvalier government. If the plot itself doesn't excite you, then watch it for Greene's screenplay and Glenville's direction. (Faisal Kidwai)

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