Films starring Richard Burton

Born in South Wales in 1925, Richard Burton was the twelfth of thirteen children. Educated at Oxford, he made his screen debut in 1949 and quickly established a reputation for brooding intensity that led to such prestigious Hollywood outings as Henry Koster's The Robe (1953), which was the first feature released in CinemaScope.

In many ... show more >

Born in South Wales in 1925, Richard Burton was the twelfth of thirteen children. Educated at Oxford, he made his screen debut in 1949 and quickly established a reputation for brooding intensity that led to such prestigious Hollywood outings as Henry Koster's The Robe (1953), which was the first feature released in CinemaScope.

In many ways, Burton was the antithesis of his contemporary Marlon Brando, as he eschewed Method acting to follow the British classical tradition. Yet while it took Burton a while to learn how to control his theatrical instincts and play to the camera not the gallery, he was always an actor rather than a star. Hence he could shift easily between the working-class rebel in Tony Richardson's Look Back in Anger (1959) and historical figures in Peter Glenville's Becket (1964), Charles Jarrott's Anne of the Thousand Days (1969) and Tony Palmer's Wagner (1984). Indeed, he could be just as persuasive as action heroes in the likes of Robert Wise's The Desert Rats (1953), Nicholas Ray's Bitter Victory (1957), Brian G. Hutton's Where Eagles Dare (1969) and Andrew V. McLaglen's The Wild Geese (1977) and deeply conflicted individuals in such diverse dramas as John Huston's The Night of the Iguana (1964), Martin Ritt's The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965), Michael Tuchner's Villain (1971), Sidney Lumet's Equus (1976) and Michael Radford's 1984 (1984), in which he made his chilling swan song.

At the core of Burton's career, however, are his teamings with Elizabeth Taylor. She may not always have brought the best out of him off screen, but there's genuine passion behind his trademark vocal mellifluence in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's Cleopatra (1963), Mike Nichols's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) and Franco Zeffirelli's The Taming of the Shrew (1967). < show less