Richard Burton was the last to join the cast of Cleopatra. When Elizabeth Taylor left the hospital after having overcome terrible pneumonia that almost killed her, Fox decided to move the shoot from London to Rome and shoot at Cinecitta Studios. The set team worked against the clock and the production team had finished completing the group of protagonists. They had Taylor as the Egyptian queen, Rex Harrison as Julius Caesar and the actor who would give life to Marco Antonio was missing. Richard Burton was the great option, but he hadn't made movies for years, fully involved in the theater. They convinced him and he joined the team, although the one he really joined was Elizabeth Taylor. Legend has it that she appeared on set defiant and arrogant, but also gallant and seductive. The actor had been married to Sibil Williams for 12 years and they had two daughters. The actress was married to Eddie Fisher, her fourth husband, in a scandalous relationship since when they met he was married to Debbie Reynolds, one of Liz's best friends, whom the press dubbed 'her husband stealer'. And they didn't know what was going to happen!
Various versions circulate about how the romance began. Some say that Burton drooled as soon as he saw Liz and others say that it was she who went on the hunt. Be that as it may, the crush turned into a passion, and the passion into love, a love that made rivers of ink flow. Sometimes bordering on stupidity: Juan Tejero recounts in his book 'This Filming is War that a newspaper in Italy published that the true romance was being lived by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Elizabeth Taylor and that Burton was the 'cover'. None of it was true.
Liz and Burton - 11 movies and two marriages
In March 1962, the romance was already in the public domain and the paparazzi were working hard to catch the couple, the most famous of the moment. Even the Vatican intervened in the matter, describing the lovers as "erotic vagabonds." Liz and Richard became inseparable and after divorcing their partners, they got married. The wedding was on March 15, 1964, and was held at the Ritz-Carlton in Montreal. The press called it 'The marriage of the century'. Liz had two sons, Michael and Christopher, from her marriage to her second husband, Michael Wilding, and also a girl, Liza, from her third marriage to Michael Todd. Richard Burton and his wife Sibil were in the process of adopting a German girl, who would be called Maria Burton. Their love was seen in gossip magazines and in the movies since they made 11 movies together.
They loved and hated each other, but they couldn't escape that poisoned magnetism and ended up starring in one of the most turbulent love (or heartbreak) stories in Hollywood. What they felt for each other was wild and angry. With alcohol-fueled fights, ups and downs, and unbearable fights, his attraction was as strong as his toxicity. They started drinking at breakfast and didn't stop until dawn: formidable drunkenness and arguments that they had no qualms about showing loudly and in public. The press rubbed their hands when some detail was leaked or the actress was seen wearing a new jewel. After ten years together they separated, and the divorce came in 1974.
The separation collapsed the actress, that year she only recorded one film, The Masochist, in 1975 she did not touch a single movie set. They seemed to live an eternal, "neither with you nor without you." Elizabeth went to live in New York while he settled in Los Angeles. In a statement, Liz said: "Maybe we loved each other too much." Just 18 months after their divorce, the couple remarried. Liz also resumed her professional career, but as happened with her marriage, that was only a mirage and her bets were a failure. The second wedding took place on October 10, 1975, on the banks of the Chobe River, in Botswana. They say that only the hippos in the area witnessed that union. They tried, without luck, to give up alcohol. The fights were repeated until the divorce came again.
