“I loathed her”: the actor Richard Burton called “a monster of staggering charmlessness”
A recurring theme among many of the greatest actors of all time is that they developed a habit of hating at least one core tenet of the profession, a sentiment that neatly applies to Richard Burton.
He’s undoubtedly one of the best to ever grace stage and screen, but that didn’t always mean he was happy with his lot. Burton abhorred the inner workings, machinations, and politics of Hollywood, and revealed that he was “secretly ashamed” of his livelihood after finding himself doing “appalling shit for money.”
The most obvious example was The Robe, which the star called “the bane of my life,” even though it earned him an Academy Award nomination for ‘Best Actor’. Obviously, a top-tier performance doesn’t guarantee a harmonious time on set, but he wasn’t the first, or last, legend to voice their disdain for the industry.
Marlon Brando frequently lashed out at the business of filmmaking, not to mention countless contemporaries and directors, Anthony Hopkins has hated actors since the 1960s, Laurence Olivier laughed in the face of the method, and Burton was never one to hold his tongue, so there’s plenty of history when it comes to inarguable all-timers burning their vocation at the stake.
Of all the things to send him into a fit of rage, though, one of the most popular, beloved, and influential figures in television history wouldn’t be the first to come to mind. And yet, when he and Elizabeth Taylor guest-starred on Lucille Ball’s sitcom, Here’s Lucy, in 1970, the words of warning he’d been issued before meeting the headstrong actor, producer, and game-changer sold him short, if anything.
“Those who had told us that Lucille Ball was ‘very wearing’ were not exaggerating,” he wrote in his diaries. “She is a monster of staggering charmlessness and a monumental lack of humour. She is not ‘wearing’ to us, because I suppose we refuse to be worn. I am coldly sarcastic with her to the point of outright contempt, but she hears only what she wants to hear. She is a tired old woman, and lives entirely on that weekly show which she has been doing, and successfully doing, for 19 years.”
There were a couple of back-handed compliments thrown in, with Burton describing her as “a machine of enormous energy,” albeit one “driven by a stupid driver who has forgotten that a machine runs on oil as well as gasoline.” Needless to say, he didn’t have a whale of a time lending his talents to Ball’s episodic showcase, and he couldn’t have been more blunt when reflecting upon their short collaboration.
“I loathed her the first day,” he declared. “I loathed her the second day, and the third. I loathe her today, but I also pity her.” ‘Lucy Meets the Burtons’ was the highest-rated episode of the season, and the number one most-watched show during the week that it aired, thanks in no small part to Burton and Taylor’s star power. However, that wasn’t enough to make the seven-time Oscar nominee feel anything other for her than pure, unbridled contempt.
