Talk:Richard Burton

Adopted and part Jewish?

According to NNDB (http://www.nndb.com/people/260/000032164/) Burton was adopted and his maternal grandfather was Jewish. How reliable is NNDB? 87.194.226.202 (talk) 16:49, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

The adoption question is already covered accurately in the article. Haven't heard the Jewish one before. A lot of Welsh people have Jewish-sounding surnames, eg. Samuel, Isaac, for which the true explanation is religious-minded people taking Biblical surnames. So far I haven't been able to find out Edith's maiden name. Deb (talk) 19:56, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Imdb says he was partly Jewish as well.

Name

Richard Burton was also a nineteenth-century British adventurer and eccentric, who first translated the Kama Sutra and, I believe, The Arabian Nights into English, thereby introducing them to the West. He is one of those obscure historical figures with a tremendous cult following even today. Should this be disambiguated for a potential new page? Danny

Absolutely should be disambiguated. He isn't an obscure figure at all! Total wack job, sure, but he is the true discoverer of the sources of the Nile (Speke was a punk), did much to introduce the cultures of India, Africa, and the Middle East to the West. Disambiguate away and I will work on him. The actor is more obscure than he is at this point. Ortolan88

How should we distinguish them? Richard Burton (actor) and Richard Burton (whack job)? ;-) Danny

Either Richard Burton (author) or Richard Burton (adventurer) ought to do it; I'm leaning toward "author", as he's so well known for Arabian nights. --Ed Poor

I thought first of Richard Burton (explorer), but Richard Burton (orientalist) is best. The latter covers Arabian Nights, sneaking into Mecca, chasing the Nile, all in one. After all, his tomb looks like a desert tent. Ortolan88 16:09 Aug 1, 2002 (PDT)

Voice

I put the sentence It was at this time that he began to develop the distinctive speaking voice that became his hallmark. in this article way back in August and it was meant to be associated with his supposed time at Oxford. It is now in the first paragraph and looks out of place. Mintguy 22:37 Dec 18, 2002 (UTC)

The Internet sources I perused said that too, and that it was why he left after only six months, that the faculty felt he was overshadowing Shakespeare's lines with his unique style, but you can check out Deb's reaction to that scenario at Talk:University of Oxford. -- isis 22:52 Dec 18, 2002 (UTC)

It's true, he may have picked up an "Oxford accent", but he had already had some coaching in "losing his Welsh accent" from Philip Burton, who, as well as a teacher of English, was a BBC radio producer.

Deb

What makes you think Burton 'lost his Welsh accent' -- those beautifully rounded vowels are pure Welsh -- ask Bryn Terfel. Burton's official websites simply states Philip Burton encouraged him to speak more distinctly by walking further away and getting him to project his voice -- nothing about a change of accent for a man who had written into his contracts 'not to work on St David's Day'. Philip Burton is often describes as an English teacher, but was, in fact, a teacher of English. He, himself, the son of a miner, came from the heart of the South Wales vallies and for higher education moved no further than Univesity College, Cardiff.

It's in quotes because it's what Philip Burton said he wanted him to do. But I agree he never quite lost it. Deb 17:06, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Hmm the fags¹ and the booze would have assisted in his voice change and I'm not sure he would have been quite so heavily into either at 16.

I see. I must have misunderstood what you meant about his distinctive way of speaking! (Although I think he was probably already into fags and booze as a teenager.) Deb

Richard began smoking cigarettes when he was only eight years old and for most of his life smoked about sixty a day.

Rugby League

Wasn't he a big rugby league fan? Londo06 18:34, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Close, rugby union. FruitMonkey (talk) 17:56, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Churchill

There is a good clip of Burton being interviewed by Michael Parkinson on the BBC I guess in the early 70s in which as his 'party piece' he gives a reading of Churchill's speech to the House of Commons on taking over as Prime Minister.

The Burton-Taylor Theatre in Oxford is named in his (and Liz's) honour. I think it had something to do with the production there of Faust but any idea if they made a cash contribution or endowment.

Knighthood

Imdb.com bio says he was a CBE. However, this is not a knighthood, is it? Thus he was never "Sir Richard". Incidentally he's not in the WP article with the list of recipients of the Order of the British Empire honours. Can someone who's up on the British honours system clear this up? Ellsworth 23:36, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

You're right, he wasn't a knight. I think we've been here before. It was the other Richard Burton who was a knight. Deb 16:51, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

So the paragraph in the article is correct. I'll put in that he was a CBE as imdb bio information is presumably reliable. Ellsworth 00:54, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Narrative gap

This article jumps from him being an air force cadet in WWII straight to, "In 1952, Burton successfully made the transition to a Hollywood star." I'm guessing he did some other acting in between, like on the stage or in English films. Golfcam 02:09, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

English films...English films????!!!??? I can't believe you said that! Deb 17:19, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Picture

The picture of him is not sastisfactory. It's too small. The last picture was a close-up and even that one was only decent. The picture's been changed twice over the past couple monthes. I reccomend the picture of him found on IMDB and then keep it that way.

A picture of Burton as Marcellus in "The Robe (1953), when he was 27, would be best because that film showed the actor at his most handsome.

I have to agree . It's poor quality. Does anybody have a problem with [http://imdb.com/gallery/mptv/1396/Mptv/1396/0406_0538.jpg?path=pgallery&path_key=Burton,%20Richard%20(I)

Good photo, can we get it uploaded, this article really needs a photo in its infobox Grunners (talk) 13:34, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Source question

I'd like to add a quote about Richard loving Elizabeth up until the day he died despite remarrying other women, but I can't find it online. I do, however, have it in a biography penned by Richard Burton's brother Graham Jenkins. What's the policy for book citations?

Maybe Jenkins made it up. He seemed to ignore every bad thing about his brother.

There's no problem with citing a book, especially when it's a primary source. It doesn't matter whether Graham Jenkins made it up - he's still in a better position to know whether it was said than 99.9% of people are. Deb 11:47, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

This is the same Graham who denied his brother's homosexual affairs, despite not being with him at the time.

Conan 1997?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0545498/ ?

Bisexual?

"Burton admitted to being bisexual in an interview, although his exact words could be viewed as merely an example of his wit."

What were his exact words? Why not let the reader decide how they could be viewed?

He said all actors drink to cover up their homosexuality, and that he was once actively gay as a young man. This was from a 1974 interview with Michael Parkinson. (InLikeErrol 16:56, 15 June 2007 (UTC))

This is an LGBT article. Burton admitted to having been actively bisexual: he didn't 'try it once and didn't like it', he chose to have many homo experiences, at a time when it was illegal. Most people are hetero, but many bisexuals claim that most people are bi. It would be very unlikely that Burton's quote about actors being homosexuals who cover it up with drink would be first said by a heterosexual. The fact he was an acor who was a very heavy drinker makes it virtually certain that he was including himself in the quote in question. Therefore he should be in bisexual and LGBT categories. Werdnawerdna (talk) 23:41, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Picture claimed to be in public domain

http://www.retrosellers.com/images/spywhocamein.jpg http://www.retrosellers.com/features97.htm (see note at bottom of page) Does anyone think this picture could be used for the main article? 81.184.56.76 22:32, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

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BetacommandBot 04:49, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

"Hologram" of Burton

While Burton's voice was used in the stage production of War Of The Worlds, it is inaccurate to state that it was a hologram of him, or indeed a hologram at all. The process used was to film an actor synching his speech in Burton-like make-up, his head restrained to prevent excess movement, and this image projected upon a profiled 'sphere' that was essentially a head-shaped screen, the projection providing the detail of the eye and mouth movement while the screen allowed immobile features such as the nose to 'stand out' into the ostensibly 2D projection of detail. I think one term used was a "soligram" (possibly "solo-"), but it isn't strictly speaking a hologram of any kind.

(Incidentally, the decision was made to to make the image of Burton the younger and more visually iconic version of himself, even though matching against the more mature voice of the narrating Burton.)

Thinking about it, I should have checked that this information is not contained within the WotW stageplay article, but I feel that a correction should be made. Less verbose than the above, perhaps referencing an existing explanation, certainly adding 'quotes' to the term to show the looseness of the term.62.49.25.104 (talk) 15:13, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Latest additions

Some substantial additions were recently made, and some of the new content was very definitely not NPOV, even though it was referenced. I also amended the statement that Burton won first prize as a boy soprano at "the Eisteddfod". The phrase implies that this was the National Eisteddfod which I very much doubt. More probably it was a local eisteddfod or perhaps a local heat of the Urdd Youth Eisteddfod. If it was the National, everyone would have heard about it sooner. Maybe someone knows the facts behind this? Deb (talk) 18:05, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Warren Mitchell

Why is there noting about Warren Mitchell he helped him on his acting carrer.

So did lots of other people. Deb (talk) 19:41, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

No what I mean is in the RAF and Oxford. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.64.127.63 (talk) 18:21, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Burton and Churchill

There appears to be no evidence for the claim that Burton hated Churchill, or that Churchill claimed to wipe out all Japanese people. The only source that makes either claim makes them both together in one paragraph; that would be a book by Howard Zinn. I put a citation needed next to them, but I privately think it's all made up. 67.170.93.244 (talk) 09:17, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Read Burton's own words or Penny Junor's biography - the Communist-leaning Burton absolutely HATED the right-wing Churchill and regarded him as a war criminal. (92.11.132.0 (talk) 17:12, 14 November 2008 (UTC))

DAB page?

When I typed Richard Burton into the search box, I certainly expected to be taken to Richard Francis Burton, not some Hollywood actor. Is the actor really the "well-known primary topic" for the term, as per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC? Otherwise we should move this to Richard Burton (actor) and Richard Burton (disambiguation) to plain Richard Burton (herewith proposed). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:02, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

See discussion at top of this page. You need to post your suggestion on Wikipedia:Requested moves before you think of doing anything. Deb (talk) 12:01, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually, no, I can just move the pages if there is consensus. From the above discussion, there seems to be consensus for at least a DAB page. If Richard Francis Burton should also be moved (to "Richard Burton (something)" is an independent question - I'd suggest to leave it where it is and just create redirects for "explorer" and "orientalist". --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:42, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually, no, you can't just move the page if there's a likelihood of it being controversial. If you investigate further, you'll find that there has been a good deal of disagreement over this already. I'm not saying you're wrong, but I predict that, if you attempt to move it without discussion, you will find it is moved back pretty quickly! Deb (talk) 17:29, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Sure. I see no reason to suspect controversy - the discussion up on this page seems to be supportive, and I found nothing apropos at Talk:Richard Burton (disambiguation) and Talk:Richard Francis Burton. But if you think it might be controversial, we can go the long route. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:25, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Requested move

Richard Burton → Richard Burton (actor) — Per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC - the 20th century actor and the 19th century explorer and author are both of similar notability. Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:35, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

• Richard Burton (disambiguation) → Richard Burton

• Mild Oppose. Richard Burton has 46598 hits this month, and only 10308 went on to hit Richard Francis Burton. This would indicate that the actor is certainly the more searched-for article. The "least-clicks" theory would seem to indicate that a "For the 19th century explorer, see..." at the top of the actor's article would be the most efficient. Black Kite 21:12, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but we have 8 Richard Burtons on the DAB page. Do we really want a double hat note? Hmmm...might work. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:15, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

I've done that. This might be a case of primary use, secondary use, then everybody else. Station1 (talk) 23:58, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose. No evidence that notability is similar - some evidence that actor's notability is significantly higher. Both general and google books searches yield mostly only hits for the actor, at least on the first page of results for each, which is particularly significant for notability. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:04, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose. Yikes, does no one remember The Taming of the Shrew, or Elizabeth Taylor? RB is regarded as one of the best Shakespearean actors ever, and with the best diction of any actor. I would put his popularity up there with Marlon Brando. 199.125.109.88 (talk) 03:51, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
• Support. The explorer lacks the benefit of recentism, and the actor is not more notable than the others collectively. --Una Smith (talk) 04:41, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Google Books:

• "Richard Burton", 2862 hits
• "Richard Burton" actor, 938 hits
• "Richard Burton" explorer, 770 hits; "Richard Francis Burton" explorer, 677 hits
• "Richard Burton" cricket, 527 hits

• That's a common mistake, to go by "collective" views. All you need to do is compare the two most viewed, in this case RB + RB (actor) = 3800 / RB (exp) + RFB = 1447, a ratio of 2.6:1. Plenty to establish primary topic. Except that I don't get any hits for Richard Burton (explorer). I get RB = 47,348,[1] RB (actor) = 1,954,[2] RFB = 14,628[3], a ratio of 3.37:1. 199.125.109.88 (talk) 05:13, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

• It is common, but no mistake. The mistake is to suppose there must always be a primary topic. See WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. --Una Smith (talk) 05:28, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Page view statistics for June 2009 shows a surge in hits on Richard Burton (disambiguation) and on Richard Francis Burton. It appears the majority of readers hitting the dab page are looking for the article about the explorer. --Una Smith (talk) 05:34, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

That should be obvious, because the explorer is clearly the second most commonly searched-for term after the actor, but people looking for the actor don't ever reach the dab page, because they go straight to the article. Hopefully the additional hatnote on the actor's page should reduce those hits to the dab page from now on.

Furthermore, there are only 897 hits to the dab page this month, compared with over 10,000 for the explorer. And to take that surge that you're talking about, on 30 June, there were 1,900 hits to the explorer's article, but only 194 to the dab page. This indicates that 90% of the readers of the explorer's article are typing "Richard Francis Burton" into the searchbox, or they're reaching the article via an internal or external hyperlink - in both cases indicating that the issue of the actor being the primary topic isn't causing a problem. Black Kite 11:42, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Page hits do not necessarily reflect use of the Wikipedia search box; many readers come from outside, or from other articles (eg, articles appearing on the Main page). A "primary topic" has to be "clearly" primary, and primary to all other topics, not just to one of them. --Una Smith (talk) 19:17, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

I think you are once again misinterpreting what primary and "clearly" primary mean. Yes you have to look over all the other topics to see which one is the second most viewed, but once you have identified that article, the only comparison is between the most viewed and the second most viewed. For example, lets take a hypothetical case where there are 10,000 actors named RB, one in the movies, the others who have only played in local stage productions. You might get 3 hits for each of them, and 20,000 hits for the movie actor. Now you seem to be thinking that since there are 50,000 hits and only 20,000 for the movie actor, they are not a primary topic. But that is not what is done. You never add up the page views, you only look at the most popular and the second most popular, in this case take any one of the 10,000, and the ratio is 20,000 to 3. I would clearly call that a primary topic, no? 199.125.109.126 (talk) 21:00, 29 July 2009 (UTC)