The David Frost Show

Elizabeth and Richard made their first of two appearances on The David Frost Show, an American talk show hosted by the English journalist David Frost. (In 1963, Frost had made a “blink and you’ll miss it” appearance in Elizabeth and Richard’s film The V.I.P.s as a young reporter.) The interview was recorded in Los Angeles, and Elizabeth wasn’t supposed to appear (she wasn’t even made up for the show), but agreed to make, in Frost’s words, a “lightning surprise appearance” towards the end of the program.

On for the lion’s share of the ninety minutes, Richard discusses, among other subjects, his two fathers (his biological father, and his “second father,” his adoptive father, Philip Burton), his greatest acting influences in his early career (among them John Gielgud), and the very good reason he has a clause in his contract stipulating that he doesn’t work on St. David’s Day. He recites, entirely from memory, passages from the Old Testament and Hamlet. Richard shares that, whenever he reunites with his brothers and sisters, they converse in Welsh, his native tongue. Although Elizabeth never learned to speak the language fluently, she did manage to add some Welsh words to her vocabulary.

“I have ten brothers and sisters, all of whom [don’t] speak English to me anyway, so I have to keep it up,” he explains. “It’s rather difficult for Elizabeth sometimes to follow the conversation, but she’s picked up the dirty words already.”

Richard’s performance as Henry VIII in Anne of the Thousand Days had recently earned him a Best Actor Academy Award nomination. (“I want Richard to win the Oscar because, you know, then we could mate ours and have little babies,” Elizabeth jokes later on in the show.) He shares that he doesn’t enjoy watching himself on screen and has actually never seen Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). Richard believed Elizabeth’s role to be the most difficult, and, he says, “quite rightly, she dominated the film.” He adds, to laughter from the audience: “She won an Oscar for it, he said bitterly. And I didn’t, he said equally bitterly.”

Elizabeth graces the stage towards the end. “There are three chairs here now because it’s my privilege to welcome now [...] Mrs. Richard Burton,” Frost says. After sustained applause, Frost asks Elizabeth to name her personal favourite performance (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Taming of the Shrew (1967), she says) and whether it’s easier or more difficult to make a film with one’s husband (“Well, it depends on the day,” she jokes). Richard shares that he’s planning to direct Elizabeth and Gregory Peck in a film they are hoping to start in the autumn, in which he would also appear in “a small but very cunning role.” (Unfortunately, the project never materialized.)

Frost also asks to see the diamond. “Which one?” both Burtons ask. She starts with her newest: the affectionately dubbed Ping-Pong diamond. Richard promised her that he would buy her a perfect diamond if she could take ten points off him or beat him at Ping-Pong. She did (“I got him sloshed,” she says), and he did. The diamond is a mere 0.042 carats and worth 150 francs, about $14. Next, she shows him the 69.42 carat Taylor-Burton diamond. “Do you see how domestic I am?” Elizabeth asks, breathing on the diamond and buffing it on her clothes. The camera pulls in close to the diamond, which Frost describes as “liquid fire”. “It’s not chopped chicken liver,” Elizabeth jokes.

Frost asks whether she feels she’s missed out on anything in life. “I’d like to have another baby,” she admits, adding, “with Richard.” “Who else?” he asks. Her response: “Well, you never know…!” Of their daughter, Maria, Richard says: “She’s an enchanting child, and we’re very proud of her.” Frost also compliments Elizabeth on her quotability, such as “There’s no deodorant like success.” “You’ve said some fantastic quotes in your life, you know.” “I must have been drunk,” she says, laughing.

The interview with the Burtons aired in Britain in June of the same year on BBC-1’s Frost Over America.