You wait years to see a Richard Burton movie and then two (and a TV series) appear at the same time.
I can reveal that the life story of the legendary Welsh actor, who was married to Elizabeth Taylor (twice), will be told in three separate projects.
They should all come to light next year, coinciding with the centenary of his birth in 1925.
One film will star Michael Sheen as Burton; another has cast rising star Harry Lawtey as the Welshman… and the third may go in a completely different direction, with either Leo Woodall or Richard Madden playing the actor, who died in 1984.
The drama series, Elizabeth Taylor vs The World, is being developed by producer Dominic Treadwell-Collins, who was behind A Very English Scandal, which told the story of the Jeremy Thorpe scandal.
I can reveal that Richard Burton’s life story (above) will be told in three separate projects.
A film will feature Michael Sheen as Burton
It is an adaptation of Erotic Vagrancy, the successful book about Burton and Taylor written by Roger Lewis that delves into their excesses: diamonds, private jets, art and drink, fights and bedtime from morning to night.
Times columnist Caitlin Moran is writing the script.
Author Lewis tells me: “There are two people who I think would be brilliant like my Burton: that guy who was in One Day, Leo Woodall; or Richard Madden. The important thing is to be (like Burton was) incredibly sexy.”
Meanwhile, documentary filmmaker Alex Sibley is working on a film about Burton’s life. It will draw on existing images and photographs, but will also include dramatized passages. . . in which Michael Sheen will appear as Burton.
The third project is the most controversial.
Called Mr Burton, it stars Toby Jones as Philip Burton, the Port Talbot Grammar School teacher who spotted the potential and “obvious virility” of Richard Jenkins, played by Harry Lawtey.
The teacher formed a close bond with his pupil and in 1943, after paying £50 to the boy’s father, Dick, a miner, he took custody of the teenager.
Burton, a professor of English and drama, steered his pupil toward an acting career. And Richard took his mentor’s name.
Burton was married to Elizabeth Taylor (twice)
It’s called Mr Burton and stars Harry Lawtey (pictured) as Richard Jenkins and Toby Jones as Philip Burton, the teacher at Port Talbot High School.
But biographers have speculated that the teacher may have groomed and sexually abused his pupil, who later commented that he drank “to overcome shame” and told an interviewer that he had had a homosexual period but that it “hadn’t worked out.”
Filming on the film, funded by BBC Wales and Ffilm Cymru Wales, will begin at the end of July.
