Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor: The true story behind their relationship

Elizabeth and Richard first locked eyes nearly a decade before they worked together on Cleopatra (1962), at a swanky Hollywood party. Richard was captivated by Elizabeth, describing her in his diary – later uncovered in Furious Love (2010) by Nancy Schoenberger and Sam Kashner – as “extraordinarily beautiful…she was, in short, too bloody much, and not only that, she was totally ignoring me”.

While the actress reportedly found Richard, with his reputation for partying and wooing his leading ladies, “swaggering and vulgar”, the pair instantly connected on the Cleopatra set, where Elizabeth played the Egyptian queen opposite Richard as her doomed love Mark Antony. "The first day on the set, he was hungover and very vulnerable and his hands were shaking," Elizabeth recalled in 1963, via footage from the BBC’s documentary Elizabeth Taylor: Rebel Superstar (2024). "He asked me to hold a coffee cup up to his lips, and I was gone.”

Two of the biggest actors in Hollywood, rumours of their alleged affair sent shockwaves through Tinseltown. While filming Cleopatra in Rome, paparazzi published photos of the pair looking particularly cosy on a yacht trip in Ischia, and further rumours swirled of their on-set closeness and electrifying chemistry.

Christopher Wilding, Elizabeth’s son with her second husband Michael Wilding, told the BBC his mum was unhappy in her current marriage with Eddie Fisher, who had left Debbie Reynolds to be with the actress. “It wasn’t a normal situation,” he said of his mother’s affair. “At that time, her attitude was, ‘F*** it. I’m going to do it my way, and if you don’t like it, too bad”. 

The couple’s dalliance gripped the world like a Hollywood epic come to life. Richard’s publicist, Jack Brodsky, later recalled the actor’s bewildered reaction to the frenzy: ‘I’ve had affairs before – how did I know the woman was so f***** famous!’ She knocks Khrushchev off the front page.”

The scandal was so consuming that even the Vatican weighed in, with its newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, denouncing Elizabeth for her "erotic vagrancy". With the world unable to look away, Richard would go on to christen the couple’s affair “Le Scandale”.

Elizabeth and Taylor tied the knot on March 15, 1964 – just nine days after Richard’s divorce from Sybil was finalised. The opulent ceremony, held at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Montreal, was a notoriously private affair, with only nine guests in attendance.

This was the Cat on a Hot Tin Roof star’s fifth marriage, and her new beau’s second, and she opted for a butter yellow babydoll dress, with a cloud of cream-coloured flowers adorning her head. Paparazzi reportedly scaled walls and mobbed the streets outside to try and catch a glimpse of the newlyweds.

While the couple never had any children together, Elizabeth had begun the process of adopting her daughter Maria while still married to Eddie. Richard completed the adoption process, and also became stepfather to Elizabeth's four children from her previous marriages.

The pair’s decade-long marriage was characterised by excess – from luxury cars and jet-setting trips to lavish gifts, including the Taylor-Burton diamond, a 69.42 pear-shaped diamond Richard gifted to Elizabeth in 1969, valued at one million dollars. 

No amount of finery could conceal rumours of the pair’s volatility, however. With both actors being notoriously headstrong – and struggling with alcoholism – headlines told of their many heated arguments, with hotel staff and co-stars describing tears, screaming, and dramatic reconciliations. 

"Elizabeth and I lived on the edge of an exciting volcano,” Richard wrote in his diaries. I'm not easy to be married to or live with. I exploded violently about twice a year with Elizabeth. She would also explode. It was marvellous. But it could be murder."

By the time the couple famously divorced (for the first time) in 1974, they’d starred in 11 films together since embarking on their relationship, from Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) to The Taming of the Shrew (1967). Their demanding filming schedules, as well as other factors, took a huge toll on their relationship, and the pair were said to be emotionally exhausted.

“I love Richard with every fibre of my soul, but we can't be together,” Elizabeth once famously said of the pair’s divorce. The media framed it as the inevitable fate of the "Battling Burtons" – two larger-than-life stars whose passion burned far too bright.

Despite their split, the star-crossed lovers couldn’t stay separated for long. The pair once again tied the knot in a surprise wedding in Kasane, Botswana, just 16 months after their divorce. Held on the banks of the Chobe River, Liz wore a flowing green caftan, and the ceremony only lasted 20 minutes. 

While never confirmed, news reports at the time stated that Elizabeth rushed into the pair’s second marriage after a medical scare from an X-ray, with looming uncertainty prompting her to reunite with her love. 

The couple’s remarriage was once again unable to withstand the stresses of Hollywood, and Elizabeth and Richard ended up divorcing again just under a year after their wedding. Both actors went on to marry other people that same year; Liz with Virginian Senator John W. Warner and Richard to British model and actress Suzy Miller. 

The actress was treated particularly harshly for her sixth marriage, with critics criticising her unsuitability for a life in Washington and labelling her politician husband “Mr. Elizabeth Taylor”. The pair would go on to divorce in 1982, the same year Richard and Suzy split.

On the evening of 4 August 1984, a now-58-year-old Richard Burton went to bed with a headache, and never woke up. The actor passed from a cerebral haemorrhage at his home in Céligny, Switzerland. 

Elizabeth was asked to stay away from the actor’s funeral, due to Richard’s family worried her presence would ignite a media frenzy – yet the actress quietly sent a single red rose, a poignant final gesture of the couple’s fiery romance. 

She penned a heartfelt letter to the actor, three years after his death, writing "Richard, my always, forever love, this is really just for me, maybe you can hear and feel my soul. Right now, I am brimming with you, you so pervade my thoughts and my very inner mood that it’s like you are in me. I have you, but holy God I don’t!"

Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton’s love story remains one of Hollywood’s most legendary, a tempest of passion, glamour, and heartbreak that has captivated generations. Even after Richard’s death, their bond echoed in Elizabeth’s life – at her funeral in 2011, Richard’s favourite poem, Gerard Manley Hopkins’ “The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo” was read aloud, and she was laid to rest alongside the last love letter she had written to him.