The young Richard Jenkins attended school in Port Talbot, a town which was later to spawn another great Welsh actor - Anthony Hopkins. At this time, a teacher named Phillip Burton recognised the youth's potential and spent much time coaching his protege outside schooling hours. He taught young Richard Jenkins to act, and crucially how to use and project his voice. Richard Burton's fine Welsh theatrical voice was to become his most celebrated trademark.

Meanwhile, Phillip Burton's tuition work and patronage was rewarded when Richard won a scholarship to Oxford University at just 16; he adopted his teacher's surname and made his first stage performance at Oxford as an extra scrubbing steps. Burton's extraordinary stage presence - another of his famous trademarks - was said to distract the audience from the Shakespearean play! His studies at Oxford lasted only six months, in 1943 Richard made acting a full time repast and made his professional stage debut in "Druid's Rest" in Liverpool. This early career was interrupted by a mandatory conscription to the British Royal Air Force 1944-47, where Burton served as a navigator.

Richard Burton's historic screen debut, the Welsh yarn "The Last Days of Dolwyn" was filmed in 1948. During production, he met his first wife Sybil Williams, who was a co-star in the movie. Together they had two daughters - Jessica and actress Kate Burton, who Richard co-starred with in the television mini series "Ellis Island" (1984), produced shortly before Richard's death of a brain haemorrhage in Geneva, Switzerland.

In his powerful movie debut in "The Last Days of Dolwyn" (1947) Burton speaks his native Welsh language. Written and directed by fellow Welshman Emlyn Hughes, it concerns the defiant action of women folk in a Welsh valley town threatened with artificial flooding. Twenty years later fact mirrored this fiction when the townsfolk of a lost north Wales village experienced the same fate. "Dolwyn" led Richard to his various appearances in a string of respectable British films, notably "Now Barabbas" (1949), "The Woman With No Name" (1950), "Waterfront" (1950) and "Green Grow The Rushes" (1951).

The revival of "The Lady's Not For Burning" had by this time succeeded to London and later to Broadway. One critic described the play as "an exciting night out for the brain"! Burton was singled out for particular praise.The film maker Philip Dunne (who directed the actor in "The Robe") reported that he watched in awe while a 24 year old Richard Burton eclipsed Sir John Gielgud in a 1949 London performance of the play. It later transpired that Gielgud had been instrumental in young Burton's early breaks, and paid him this tribute while directing Burton twenty years later in "Hamlet":

Such was the success of "My Cousin Rachel", 20th Century Fox offered Richard Burton a contract, confident that he would reach his potential as the critics' "new Olivier"; the vehicles he produced as a result were perhaps not appropriate to match this expectation. However, over the successive years of the 1950's, Burton's acting reputation was nevertheless enhanced by a second consecutive Oscar nomination in "The Robe", followed by starring roles in "Prince of Players" (1955) and "Alexander the Great" (1956). In between playing in acclaimed British movies such as "The Desert Rats" (1953), "Look Back In Anger" (1958) and television versions of "Wuthering Heights" (1958)(TV debut) and "The Tempest" (1960), Burton also starred on Broadway in "Time Remembered" (1957) and won the prestigious Tony Award for his role as King Arthur in the Lerner & Loewe musical version of "Camelot" (1960). The actor never made a secret of his preference for playing on stage over the movies - Burton once said, "In a film you're a puppet, on a stage you're the boss". However, another film roles followed in "The Longest Day" (1962) and an opportunity to test his versatility further in the British television production, "Winston Churchill: The Valiant Years" and provided the voice of the war leader.

Richard Burton's fate was sealed when in 1963 he was cast to replace Stephen Boyd in "Cleopatra". At the time it was the most expensive film in movie history, and it got Burton universally recognised if only for his sensationalised affair with co-star Elizabeth Taylor. From then, Richard Burton's career was inextricably linked with Taylor, and in time, the classical roles which were his tour de force began to be superseded by projects which required less acting finesse than he was capable of, their chief attraction for Burton being the large paychecks!

However, there was still time for many notable roles. He won his second Tony Award in 1964 for the Broadway rendition of Hamlet. It was the longest run of the play on stage, a sell-out show for 17 consecutive weeks (136 performances). A film was made of the show, the cameras rolling in the theatre over two nights. This film was screened for only a few days before Burton ordered the reels be destroyed (he didn't want the film of the play to keep the crowds from the show itself). However in 1996 Burton's widow, Sally, found the reels in their Swiss home.

One of his most acclaimed movie roles came in 1966 with the film of the Edward Albee play, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" At first it was thought that Elizabeth Taylor would star but when she watched a rehearsal of Frank Zeffirelli's stage version in Paris, she was uncertain of the effect on her image and career after playing a fat, foul mouthed, middle-aged woman. Richard was confident that a great performance in such an outstanding play, and to act against type, would be good for her. Elizabeth's response was to dare Richard to play George, which had the additional benefit that they did not have to spend months apart on separate projects. George is a tired, defeated teacher, married for twenty years to the daughter of the president of the college. "Martha and I are merely exercising ... that's all, we're merely walking what's left of our wits. Don't pay any attention to it". Graham Jenkins (Richard's brother) notes that playing the warring couple on screen created the illusion that Elizabeth and Richard could argue acrimoniously without getting hurt. Famously, their relationship developed along the same bitter-sweet lines as the character's they portrayed. The rest of the Woolf story is movie making history - five Academy Awards from a nominated thirteen, including Best Actress for Taylor. Although Burton was nominated as Best Actor, he lost out to Paul Scofield for his part in Thomas Moore's "A Man For All Seasons". 

Richard Burton was to be a profound influence on fellow Port Talbot-born Welsh compatriot - Anthony Hopkins.

My Cousin Rachel (1952), The Robe (1953), Becket (1964), The Spy Who Came
In From the Cold (1965), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), Anne of the
Thousand Days (1969), Equus (1977)