The Sandpiper (1965)

Elizabeth agreed to star as bohemian artist Laura Reynolds in The Sandpiper because she didn’t think she was employable. “After we did VIP’s [sic] I didn’t get a film offer for what seemed like ages and ages. Richard and I were both panicky. I think our notoriety was a factor, but not a large one. More important were all the accusations about Cleopatra. The industry was convinced that we had cost Cleopatra extra millions by caprice—all of which we have proven to be false. And I couldn’t get health insurance. So we were risks. I didn’t think I could get a job. So I grabbed Sandpiper and let them pay their million dollars.”

Marlon Brando was considered for the part of Dr. Edward Hewitt. When Richard signed on to play the role, the film was delayed until after he completed The Night of the Iguana, which meant that Wyler, who was now unavailable, would have to be replaced as director. Elizabeth suggested Vincente Minnelli, who had directed her in Father of the Bride (1950) and its follow up, Father’s Little Dividend (1951), as his replacement.

“I think it was one of those things I agreed to do in a moment of weakness,” he admitted. “In fact I rather enjoyed making it, and I think Elizabeth did, too. I love walking the tightrope that exists when you try to make a poor script sound great.”

Elizabeth vetoed Sandpiper producer Martin Ransohoff’s suggestion that her eldest son, Michael, be cast as her son Danny in the film. “I think it’s pretty clear that Michael will eventually become an actor,” Elizabeth said around this time. “He is already memorizing Shakespeare. And you know something? He has talent. He has been offered several chances in films, but we have absolutely refused. An ex-child actress in the family is enough—too much maybe.” Elizabeth and Michael would eventually appear together in the 1989 TV film Sweet Bird of Youth, although their scene was shot separately.

The role of Danny went to Morgan Mason, the son of another famous actor, James Mason.

According to costume designer Irene Sharaff, twenty-four sandpipers were sent from Big Sur to Paris: “MGM and the producer had to sign papers binding them to return the sandpipers to the beach of Big Sur,” she explained. “The birds had two caretakers and special food and water. Nine died in Paris. One, which was in the scene with Elizabeth, was supposed to fly across the room on to her hand. A very fine wire was tied to a leg to guide it gently. It landed on her shoulder, and at that moment a slight pull on the wire jerked it into a fatal heart attack. Happily the rest were returned to and released on their home beach.”

In The Sandpiper, Elizabeth’s character, Laura Reynolds, poses for a nude sculpture by Cos Erickson (Charles Bronson). The actual sculpture seen in the film was by Big Sur artist Edmund Kara. Elizabeth didn’t pose for Kara; he instead relied on Elizabeth’s life mask for the face and jazz singer Stella Brooks for the body.

Once Kara’s statue was complete, it made its way to Paris aboard the Queen Mary. There, in October 1964, the same month the Burtons arrived in France to shoot interiors on The Sandpiper, Richard unveiled the sculpture for the world to see at a photo op at the Galerie Drouant.

Johnny Mandel, the Oscar-winning composer of “The Shadow of Your Smile,” later explained his approach to The Sandpiper’s now classic love theme: “I saw that gorgeous panorama, shooting from Big Sur out on to the ocean. How do you write that? I figured, you write it with a solo voice ... I’d try to translate that into what it looked like.”

The Premiere

The Burtons attended the premiere of The Sandpiper—their third screen pairing and first as a married couple—at the Paramount Theatre in Hollywood on July 8, 1965. It was held as a benefit for the Hemophilia Foundation of Southern California. Richard suffered from a slight form of hemophilia and had announced the formation of the Richard Burton Hemophilia Fund the previous year.