stigmatized eyes and said, “What for?” It’s a good question, I think. Yeah, even you were stuck for an answer to that, I think. Yes, well, I couldn’t explain. I still can’t explain. How can you? I still don’t understand what happened to me. Yeah. It’s a remarkable business.
I mean, I came into it by accident and I still think everybody’s insane when they pay me so much money for for doing what we all do at home. Yeah. The other evening I was sitting alone with a glass of whiskey watching the light disappear over the hills. At my age, you find yourself doing that more often than you’d expect.
Not because you’re lonely, just because silence begins to feel like an old friend. I wasn’t thinking about films or theaters. I certainly wasn’t thinking about awards. Then someone asked me a question I’ve never really tried to answer before. Richard, of all the people you’ve known, who did you love the most? I smiled because that’s a very different question from asking who the greatest actor was.
The greatest actors start arguments. The people you love, well, that’s personal. Over the years, I’ve been fortunate enough to work alongside remarkable men and women. Some were brilliant, some were impossible. Some could make an audience hold its breath with a single line, yet couldn’t manage an ordinary conversation over dinner.
That’s the strange business we chose. Talent and character don’t always arrive together. When I think back now, I don’t remember every premiere. I couldn’t tell you what every critic wrote, and heaven knows I’ve forgotten most of the speeches I was supposed to make, but I remember people. I remember laughter echoing through dressing rooms after exhausting rehearsals.
I remember train journeys that lasted all night because nobody wanted the the to end. I remember sitting in quiet corners with friends talking about everything except acting. Those are the moments that stay with you, not because they were important to the newspapers, but because they were important to me. The funny thing is I didn’t have to think very long.
Five faces came back almost immediately. Not the most famous. Not the most celebrated. Simply the people who left something behind every time they walked out of the room. The first face that came to mind was John Gielgud. That probably wouldn’t surprise anyone who knew the British theater long before I had the privilege of working with him.
I’d heard people speak his name with a kind of respect that couldn’t be taught. It wasn’t the sort of admiration reserved for celebrities. It was quieter than that. Actors spoke about John the way craftsmen speak about someone who has mastered his trade. The first time we shared a stage I was determined not to let him intimidate me.
I was younger then, full of confidence, perhaps a little too much confidence. Before rehearsals began, I found him sitting alone with his script reading as calmly as though he’d never performed the play before. I remember saying, “John, surely you know every line by heart.” He looked up over his glasses, smiled ever so slightly, and replied, “Richard, that’s precisely why I keep reading them.
” That little answer stayed with me. John never believed experience gave him permission to become careless. Every performance mattered because every audience was seeing it for the first time. I admired that more than any review he ever received. What people rarely saw was how generous he was away from the spotlight.
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If a younger actor stumbled through a rehearsal, John never embarrassed him. He’d simply suggest trying the scene again as though nothing had happened. There wasn’t a trace of arrogance in him. For a man so widely admired, he carried himself with remarkable humility. Watching John taught me something I didn’t fully understand until much later.
Great acting isn’t about making people notice you. It’s about making them forget you’re acting at all. He never chased applause. He earned it. And somehow those are two very different things. When I think of John now, I don’t picture opening nights or standing ovations. I remember his kindness, his quiet confidence, and the feeling that every time I walked into a theater and found him there, I was about to learn something new.
Some people leave behind unforgettable performances. John Gielgud left behind something even rarer. He made everyone around him want to become a little better than they were the day before. The next person I thought about couldn’t have been more different. Peter O’Toole was never the quiet one. You usually knew he was nearby long before you actually saw him.
Sometimes it was that unmistakable laugh echoing down a hotel corridor. Other times it was the sound of him telling a story that somehow became more outrageous every time he reached the ending. And the remarkable thing was, even if you’d heard it before, you’d still laugh. People often assumed Peter was simply the life of the party.
They only saw half the man. Behind all that wit was one of the sharpest minds I’d ever known. You couldn’t sit beside him for an hour without the conversation wandering from Shakespeare to Irish history, from poetry to politics, and somehow ending with both of us laughing over something completely ridiculous.
Those evenings meant more to me than people probably realize. Actors spend very little of their lives in front of the camera. Most of our time is spent waiting. Waiting for makeup, waiting for lighting, waiting for another take. It’s during those quiet hours that you discover who people really are. Peter made waiting enjoyable.
I remember one evening after an especially exhausting day on set, everyone looked worn out and the room had fallen strangely silent. Peter looked around the table and said, “Good lord, we all look as though the critics have arrived before dinner.” Within seconds, the entire room was laughing. That was Peter’s gift.
He could feel when people were carrying too much weight and somehow make it lighter without making light of them. Uh as talented as he was, he never acted as though talent made him more important than anyone else. He treated the young assistant fetching coffee with exactly the same warmth he’d show a leading actor.
I’ve always believed you learn more about a person from the way they treat those who can do nothing for them. Peter passed that test every time. When people remember him, they’ll think of the unforgettable performances and those piercing blue eyes. I remember something much simpler. I remember looking forward to seeing my friend at the end of a long day’s work knowing that before the evening was over he’d have everyone at the table smiling again.
And that’s a far rarer talent than acting. The next man I couldn’t leave off this list was Laurence Olivier. I’ll be honest with you. When I was younger, I didn’t always think of Laurence with the calm affection I do now. Like most ambitious actors, I compared myself to him. How could I not? If you worked in British theater during those years, his name was impossible to ignore.
Whether you admitted it or not, every actor measured himself against Laurence Olivier at least once. I certainly did. What impressed me wasn’t simply his talent, the world already knew about that. It was the discipline behind I remember arriving early for rehearsal one morning thinking I’d have the stage to myself.
Instead, there was Laurence already in costume quietly walking through the scene without an audience, without cameras, without anyone to applaud him. He wasn’t performing for anyone. He was preparing. I joked, “Laurence, surely nobody works this hard.” Without looking up, he smiled and said, “The audience has paid to see the finished performance, Richard, not the rehearsal.
” That sentence stayed with me for years. People often think great actors rely on inspiration. Laurence relied on preparation. Every pause had a purpose. Every movement had been considered. Yet when the curtain rose, it all looked effortless. That’s the trick, isn’t it? Making years of discipline look as natural as breathing.
We didn’t always agree about acting. I trusted instinct more than he did. Laurence trusted craftsmanship. We’d argue over scenes, challenge each other’s ideas, and occasionally leave rehearsals convinced neither of us had won. Looking back now, I realize those conversations made me a better actor. Not because he changed my mind, because he forced me to understand my own.
When people speak about Laurence Olivier, they remember the titles, the awards, the extraordinary performances. I remember the man who never stopped working, no matter how accomplished he became. Success never made him complacent. It only made him prepare harder. Very few people change an entire profession. Laurence Olivier did.
And I consider myself fortunate that I wasn’t just able to watch him. I was lucky enough to know him. The next person on my list never stood beside me on a stage. In many ways, he helped build the voice I carried on to one. The next person on my list never stood beside me on a stage. In many ways, he helped build the voice I carried on to one.
Dylan Thomas. I don’t think it’s possible to grow up in Wales without hearing his name sooner or later. Long before I knew anything about theaters or film studios, I knew the sound of his words. There was a rhythm to them that reminded me of of home. They weren’t polished or distant. They they they sounded like the valleys I grew up in, like the voices of ordinary people who’d spent their lives working hard and saying only what needed to be said.
As a young man, I carried one of Dylan’s books with me more often than I carried a script. Whenever I found myself alone in a hotel room or waiting for a train, I’d open it at random and read a few pages. Not because I was studying, because it settled me. It reminded me that before I was Richard Burton, I was simply Richard Jenkins from a little Welsh village dreaming about a life that seemed impossibly far away.
I once told someone that um actors borrow words, poets create them. That’s why I’ve always believed we owe them more than we admit. People often complimented my voice throughout my career, but the truth is the music people heard in it didn’t begin with me. It began with Wales. It began with listening to men tell stories in pubs, with chapel sermons that rolled through the valleys, and with writers like Dylan Thomas who understood that words weren’t just meant to be spoken.
They were meant to be felt. What I loved most about Dylan wasn’t simply his poetry. It was his honesty. He never tried to sound like anyone else. He wrote as though he couldn’t imagine doing anything different, and that kind of authenticity is incredibly rare. Whenever I stepped onto a stage to speak Shakespeare, a small part of me still carried the voice of that Welsh poet who taught me that language has a heartbeat of its own.
For that, I’ll always be grateful. And um finally, there’s only one person who could ever have been at the top of this list. Elizabeth Taylor. I imagine most people expected Elizabeth to be the last name I’d mention. Truth be told, she was the first. I simply wanted to um save her until the end. The world thought it knew our story.
It knew the headlines. It knew about the weddings, the divorces, the arguments, the diamonds, the photographs that seemed to follow us everywhere we went. For years, people treated our lives like another film they could watch from the front row, but they never saw the ordinary moments. Those belonged to us. One evening after a particularly exhausting day of filming, we slipped away from everyone else and sat on the balcony of our hotel.
Neither of us said very much for a while. Um Elizabeth had a book in her hands, I had a glass of whiskey, and uh the city below us was alive with noise. After a few minutes, she looked over at me and said, “Do you know what’s funny, Richard? We’re surrounded by people all day, yet this is the only time we actually get to be ourselves.
” She was right. Those quiet moments were the ones I treasured most. People always spoke about Elizabeth’s beauty, and goodness knows she was beautiful, but beauty was the least interesting thing about her. She was brilliantly funny, endlessly curious, and far kinder than most people ever realized.
If she cared about you, she cared completely. There was nothing halfway about Elizabeth Taylor. Did we argue? Of course we did. Two stubborn people rarely glide through life without raising their voices now and then. But even after the worst disagreements, there was always something that pulled us back together. Perhaps it was love. Perhaps it was friendship.
Perhaps it was simply the fact that no one else quite understood either of us the way we understood each other. When I think of Elizabeth now, I don’t think about the jewels or the glamour. I remember her laughter. I remember reading poetry together long after midnight. I remember the way she’d reach for my hand without saying a word.
People will always remember us for the extraordinary life we lived together. I remember something much simpler. I remember coming home and knowing she was there. And after all these years, that’s the memory I miss the most. Looking back now, I realize my career gave me remarkable roles and more success than a boy from Wales could ever have imagined.
But the greatest gift it gave me wasn’t fame. It was these people. And if I could spend one more evening hearing their voices again, I’d trade every standing ovation I ever received without a second thought. As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to understand something I wish I’d learned much earlier. Success has a funny way of fooling you.
When you’re young, you think it’s measured by applause, by reviews in the morning paper, by your name appearing above the title on a theater poster. You spend years chasing the next role, the next opening night, the next opportunity to prove yourself. Then one day you look back and none of those things are the first memories that come to mind.
I don’t remember every standing ovation. I don’t remember every award ceremony. Um I certainly don’t remember what the critics wrote about half my performances. But I remember people. I remember John Gielgud teaching me that uh greatness never needs to raise his voice. I remember Peter O’Toole making an ordinary evening feel unforgettable with nothing more than his laughter.
I remember Laurence Olivier reminding me that talent means very little without discipline. I remember Dylan Thomas showing a young Welsh boy that words could carry an entire world inside them. And uh I remember Elizabeth not as the woman the newspapers wrote about, but as the woman who could make me feel at home no matter where we were.
Uh those are the memories that have stayed with me. Perhaps that’s the real reward for a life well lived. Not the fame, not the fortune, the people who walked beside you while you were trying to find your way. If I’ve been fortunate in anything, it isn’t because I played kings or emperors or because audiences remembered my voice.
I’ve been fortunate because I shared my life with extraordinary souls who left me better than they found me. And if somewhere beyond this life there’s another stage waiting to be walked upon, I hope John is already rehearsing. I hope Peter is making everyone laugh. I hope Laurence is quietly perfecting his lines.
I hope Dylan has another poem for me to discover. And I hope Elizabeth is waiting with that familiar smile that always made the rest of the world disappear. Because in the end, those are the people I loved the most. And I miss every single one of them.
Disclaimer : This content may be created by AI for entertainment purposes. Any resemblance to real persons, events, or places is coincidental.
