Richard Was Drinking Again: A Book Review

Richard Burton: Prince of Players is an interesting read if you like drinking games, which means I really enjoyed it. You can enjoy it, too.

The trick is, every time the author, Michael Munn, issues the line, “Richard was drinking again,” take a sip of beer. If your tolerance is as high as Mr. Burton’s was, then whenever the author describes Elizabeth Taylor as furious, you should down a shot of whiskey. Needless to say, it took me a while to finish reading this book.

Look, we all know that Richard Burton drank… a lot. We all know that drinking consumed his life, finally culminating in his death from a cerebral hemorrhage in 1984. The book, however, didn’t need to be so consumed with it. The man drank. I get it. We all knew that. You can’t blame every poorly conceived decision the man made on alcohol. Surely, there were other factors involved. Richard Burton admitted having one homosexual experience in his life. The author devotes an entire chapter to bolster this one non-story. I get it. The man wasn't gay. We all knew that as well.

This book suffers somewhat from a lack of insight into Burton's character. Either that or one of the finest actors of the latter half of the twentieth century was fooling everyone into believing that he was deep. The author considers himself a friend of the late Mr. Burton – not a close friend, but a friend. Mr. Munn spent a few days with Mr. Burton over the course of several years. He conducted a formal interview with Mr. Burton only once and over thirty years ago. He uses their limited conversations as the basis for his biography. That would be fine if they spent more time together, but they didn’t.

The author could have taken the standard biographer’s approach by interviewing those closest to Mr. Burton, using the common threads of those stories to give a three-dimensional portrayal. He didn’t. Maybe it wasn’t the author’s fault. After all, the subject died at least 24 years before publication. The closest interview the author got was Claire Bloom, the long-suffering other woman during Mr. Burton’s first marriage. She would have been a great source, had she perhaps been interviewed sometime after his death, and not years before when Mr. Burton was alive and married. She was naturally respectful and tight-lipped. Rod Steiger gave more insight into Burton and Bloom’s relationship than either of them did, and he was barely present for any of it. Ms. Bloom published her tell-all autobiography in 1995. Wouldn’t it have been something if the author interviewed her during the 10+ year gap between Burton’s death and her book?

Therein lies the rub. Most of the author’s substantive interviews with anyone associated with Mr. Burton were before he died. He’s done almost no real research since that period. It’s understandable that the author may not have been able to secure interviews with those who were very close to Burton while he was alive. After all, that would mean compromising their relationships with him. Why not after he died?

Where is the interview with his daughter Kate? What about the often drunk, pill-addicted Taylor? What about the interview with wives Sally, Susan and Sybil? How about Richard Harris or Peter O’Toole? Even if some of these people are not with us anymore, either by death or invalidity, they were for several years after Burton’s demise. What was the author doing with his material for all of these years? Why hasn’t he supplemented this material with developments that may have arisen since then?

It's infuriating that this book was published so long after Mr. Burton’s death and yet has not been updated with new interviews. It’s especially infuriating since the author’s literary gifts are so evident, and his perspective as a fellow actor and sometime friend are so valuable. Say what you want about this book, Mr. Munn can write. The book is worth reading, if only for that. And it makes for an excellent drinking game.