The July issue of Vanity Fair featured
a lengthy article on the tumultuous relationship between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. As part of the article Taylor, for the first time ever, allowed letters that Burton had written to her to be published. To say that the letters were heart felt would be an injustice. These are letters that make Shakespeare's sonnets sound a little hollow. (And I've read Shakespeare's sonnets too.) In one letter he tells her that "it's no use to pretend that you are an ordinary woman." In another he tells her that she is the best actress in the world. My favorite moment was in an early letter where he said that the first time he saw her he thought that she was so beautiful that he laughed out loud. And he actually spelled out "laughed out loud," he didn't just write "LOL."
I'm too young to remember them together. Burton died in 1984. So everything in the story was news to me. If you too are not familiar with this tale, you should read up on it just to see what the rest of us have to live up to, or look forward to, or not look forward to, or out do. This couple was on again/off again for literally decades. In the end they were not together, but Taylor is so touched by him that she keeps the last letter that she got from him in her night table and takes it out from time to time. This was the only one that the VF staff were not allowed to print.
