Richard Burton: Prince of Players

by Michael Munn (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2009

  $3.57

  'After reading this affectionately candid biography, it is hard not to echo Olivier's response on hearing of Burton's death: He was so young, so young ' Daily Mail A man of contradictions, Richard Burton's life and remarkable career are revealed by a writer who knew him from 1968 up to Burton's last film. Recounting Burton's deepest and often darkest thoughts and secrets, as well as hell-raising stories quashed by the Hollywood system, such as affairs with Monroe and Lana Turner, being caught in a brothel with Errol Flynn and a fist fight with Frank Sinatra, Munn offers a stunning portrait of a great man. From nursing Burton through an epileptic seizure to witnessing Burton's part in East End gang violence, this is an intimate and deeply moving biography. Writer, actor, director and former journalist and Hollywood publicist, Michael Munn, has written twenty-one books, including the best selling John Wayne: The Man Behind the Myth and the acclaimed Jimmy Stewart: The Truth Behind the Legend

• Used

  Hardcover
  2008

  $4.71

  Richard Burton was a man of contradictions. He wanted to escape the mining community of Wales, yet his heart never left it. He wanted to achieve greatness, but he would have been as happy to have achieved it on a rugby pitch as on a stage. He wanted to live life to the full, but he came to know that he was driving himself to an early grave through drink. He was an avid reader and a lover of poetry; a scholar of life and culture. Yet he seemed to squander his talents and find happiness at the bottom of a beer glass, giving up all hopes of becoming a great actor when he sold his soul to Hollywood and his heart to Elizabeth Taylor. But it was never quite that simple. Here is the full story of Richard Burton's life and remarkable career, revealed by a writer who knew him from 1968 up to the time they were together on Burton's last film in 1984. Munn recounts the deepest and often darkest thoughts and secrets that Burton shared with him, revealing hell-raising stories that Hollywood quashed to save Burton's early film career including affairs with Lana Turner and Marilyn Monroe, being caught in a brothel with Errol Flynn, and a fist fight with Frank Sinatra. He also movingly recalls nursing Burton, through an epileptic seizure of a kind that gripped him from his early days, and witnessing a terrifying encounter Burton had with an East End gangster that ended in violence. In writing this definitive biography, Michael Munn has been able to draw on his conversations with Burton over the years and on formal interviews and informal conversations with a great many of the stars who knew and worked with Burton. This definitive biography includes explosive new material confided by Burton. Author has a strong track record for classy, headline-catching, big selling biographies.