Richard Burton – talent and torment

Richard Burton regarded as one of the finest actors of his generation was born 100 years ago. His memorable performance as Hamlet in 1964  cemented his promise as “the natural successor to Olivier”.  His failure to live up to those expectations disappointed many with his heavy drinking and much-publicised turbulent relationship with Liz Taylor leading to regret about a great performer who had wasted his talent.

 In his middle years he was smoking 100 cigarettes a day and drinking three to four bottles of hard liquor a day as well. He said that he turned to the bottle for solace “to burn up the flatness, the stale, empty, dull deadness that one feels when one goes offstage”. His unhealthy lifestyle led in his forties to cirrhosis of the liver and kidney disease. He died at 58.

 He was born 10 November 1925 3pm Neath, Wales, the twelfth of thirteen children with a coal miner father who was also a heavy drinker and gambler, and a barmaid mother who died when he was two years old. Richard was subsequently brought up by his elder sister.  He was the first member of his family to go to secondary school and had an excellent speaking and singing voice, with an interest in poetry as well as English and Welsh literature. A school master Philip Burton took him under his wing and nurtured his singing and acting talent.

He had a depressive and intense 8^th house exact Sun Saturn conjunction in a creative Water Grand Trine to a 12^th house Uranus in Pisces trine Pluto in Cancer in his 4^th, with his Pluto opposition Jupiter in Capricorn – a mix of emotional overload, self-doubt and supreme confidence. His charming Venus in Capricorn was in his career 10^th trine a Virgo Moon which sat with his Neptune in Leo in his 6^th house of health. A 6^th house Moon can connect emotional state to physical wellbeing – and a 6^th house Neptune needs to treat health with kindness, abuse of any kind has a damaging impact.

 He also had a wide yod of Mars in his 7^th sextile Neptune inconjunct his Uranus.

 A talented and tormented man.

 His relationship with his schoolmaster Philip Burton, 30 November 1904, was the pivotal one in his life with Philip Burton’s Uranus falling on his pupil’s Midheaven and his Pluto square Richard Burton’s Uranus and his Jupiter in RB’s 1^st – a catalyst who bolstered the youngster’s confidence and sent his life on a different track.

   Burton’s relationship with Liz Taylor was hardly well-starred with her Scorpio Moon conjunct his 8^th house Sun Saturn and his Virgo Moon conjunct her Neptune and opposition her Sun, Mercury, Mars in Pisces.

 Their relationship chart had a controlling/possessive composite Sun Mercury opposition Pluto which did not sit well with her need-for-constant-change Venus Uranus conjunction in Aries or his troubled-loner temperament. It also had a cruel-treatment, short-fused Mars Saturn conjunction. Couldn’t live with each other or without. Two marriages, two divorces.

  I’m not altogether convinced about her 2.30am birth time 27 February 1932 London (it is marked as birth certificate except England did not normally record birth times). It explains certain things with a powerfully influential 8^th house Pluto in a disruptive square to Venus Uranus in Aries in her 4^th pointing to a constantly changing domestic life. But it says little about the health problems which plagued her life.  She was a Sun Mars Mercury in Pisces opposition Neptune so well suited to the film business. And her Jupiter in flashy Leo clearly appreciated the high-life.