Sally Burton
Sally Burton (née Hay), also known as Sally Hay Burton (born 21 January 1948), is an author and theatre producer, and was the fourth and last wife of actor Richard Burton.
Marriage
She was born in Braintree, Essex, the daughter of journalist Jack Hay. Burton worked as a freelance production assistant on the set of the TV mini-series Wagner when Richard Burton met her.[1] During a seven-month tour of the United States with Noël Coward's play Private Lives, in which Elizabeth Taylor was Richard Burton's co-star, Burton and Hay married on 3 July 1983 in Las Vegas; it was Burton's fifth marriage and her first. After the tour, they went to rest in Hawaii for several months before returning to their home in Céligny where Burton died on 5 August 1984; Sally Burton was then 36.[2]
Philanthropy
Burton donated the Richard Burton Collection to Swansea University in 2005[3] and she received an honorary fellowship from that university in 2006.[4]
In 2005, Burton moved to Perth, Western Australia, where her brother and his family had lived for years.[5] In 2009, she launched the Richard Burton Award for New Plays, offering a prize pool of A$30,000 for writers of unproduced scripts; this is Australia's richest prize for playwrights.[5] The 2010 first prize of A$20,000 was awarded to Caleb Lewis; Hellie Turner was awarded the runner-up prize of A$10,000.[6] Burton is patron of the Black Swan State Theatre Company, which will give the winner a public reading.
Burton is also a patron of the West Australian Ballet and a supporter of the West Australian Symphony Orchestra; she is a board member of Agelink, a theatre company for older actors. Each year, Burton presents the Sally Burton Awards, a prize pool of A$4,000, to the two most talented performers of Shakespeare texts at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts.[7]
Production
In 2009 she launched the independent production house Onward Production to create more acting jobs.[8] In October that year she produced the Australian première of the international touring anthology Seven Deadly Sins Four Deadly Sinners at the Playhouse Theatre in Perth[9] and is currently presenting Noël Coward's Private Lives at Perth's Subiaco Arts Centre.
She is also the executive producer of the British documentary series Great West End Theatres.[10]
Bibliography
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Books
- Burton, Sally (1989). The Barren Patch. Penguin. ISBN 978-0-14-010396-0.
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Book reviews
| Date | Review article | Work(s) reviewed |
|---|---|---|
| 2011 | Burton, Sally (September 2011). "When man created film". Australian Book Review. 334: 38–39. | Drazin, Charles (2011). The Faber book of French cinema. Faber. |
Other writings
- Burton, Richard (1989). A Christmas Story. Introduction by Sally Burton. Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 978-0-340-51246-3.
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References
- ^ Richard Burton – Life: 1971–1984 Archived 29 January 2009 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Burton's women; he had four wives. But on the 20th anniversary of his death, whatever happened to them?" by Glenys Roberts, Daily Mail, London, 11 August 2004
- ^ Richard Burton Archives: The New Home of Swansea University's Archives, Swansea University, 30 April 2010
- ^ "Ruth Madoc and Sally Burton awarded university fellowships", Western Mail (18 July 2006)
- ^ a b "Lasting legacy" by Victoria Laurie, The Australian (7 August 2010)
- ^ The Richard Burton Award for New Plays at the Black Swan Theatre
- ^ Sally Burton Awards 2009 at AustralianStage.com
- ^ "Success brings author to WA" by Stephen Bevis, The West Australian (20 August 2009)
- ^ "Theatre Australia". Retrieved 23 October 2009.
- ^ "West End boys – Open access: Documenting London's theatres". London: The Stage. 6 May 2011. Retrieved 6 May 2011.
Further reading
- Melvyn Bragg: Richard Burton: A Life, Hodder & Stoughton, 1988, ISBN 978-0-340-40537-6