The passion and the fury – story of a love that never died

WHILE carefully avoiding any hint of being either official or authorised, Furious Love, by Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger, nevertheless gets the seal of approval from Elizabeth Taylor, the surviving half of the firecracker couple at the heart of the tale.

It was Taylor who gave the authors access to an unpublished cache of letters from Burton spanning 20 years. And it was Taylor who urged them to "honour Richard," adding, "I don't care what you write about me".

It's a hard vow to keep, for Burton spent his entire life with his foot on the accelerator going as fast as he possibly could.

His was a metamorphosis that, in the end, even he couldn't fathom: from peasant miner's son in the Welsh valleys to a millionaire world figure with diamonds, motor yacht, private jet and, the living pice de resistance, the world's most beautiful woman on his arm.

Furious Love, indeed, depicts a couple overwhelmed by a passion whose fury took everyone by surprise, most of all, perhaps, them.

Their meeting on the set of the epic costume drama, Cleopatra, in 1961, led to a cataclysmic affair that engulfed them, their spouses, their children and dragged in friends, family, colleagues and the watching world.

The affair and subsequent marriages – they divorced in 1974 and briefly remarried the following year – lasted a decade during which they became feted as movie superstars who epitomised conspicuous excess. Burton christened it "Le Scandale".

Yet while Burton was covering his wife in diamonds and decorating their boat and homes in Switzerland and Mexico with classic art, he could never quite step away from the shadow of the valleys. Until the end of his life, he was the boy done good.

Taylor, on the other hand, was catapulted to stardom aged 10, and was truly a child of Hollywood. She was used to getting everything she wanted. When she saw Burton and wanted him, she pulled out all the stops to get him. They were each in erotic thrall to the other.

Taylor and Burton transformed one another. Previously considered box office poison in Hollywood, he became a bona fide movie star through his association with her and (some of) the films they made together. She praised him for making her a better actress while calling him "the Frank Sinatra of Shakespeare".

Yet while Taylor lived the only life she had known, Burton frequently slipped into the melancholy the Welsh call "hiraeth".

Why the guilt?

Kashner and Schoenberger suggest it was the early homosexual dalliances with theatre luminaries like Gielgud and Olivier.

Or the schizophrenic switch from working-class lad to globe-trotting celebrity.

Or the shame of being an actor, wearing make-up and playing "let's pretend".

Or the guilt of abandoning his children when he chose Taylor over his first wife.

Or all of it.

Taylor and Burton emerge as two halves of the same human being. In private, they were Elizabeth and Richard. In public, they were Liz 'n' Dick – fodder for gossip columnists, the paparazzi and sundry scandalmongers.

Barely able to enjoy any private life away from their entourage, they were forced to exist in the full, unforgiving glare of celebrity. Taylor could cope with it; Burton, eventually, could not. He called them "professional itinerants", forever on the move.

Eventually, their lives lived them, not the other way around. Perhaps Liz 'n' Dick were their greatest roles. They drank and fought. She mixed her booze with pills. He, in his own words, preferred "drunk" to "alcoholic".

When they split, in 1974, Burton sent Taylor a note in which he laid bare his despair.

"If you leave me, I shall have to kill myself. There is no life without you, I'm afraid. And I am afraid."

Their second marriage was a mistake. Later, they would cautiously stalk one another despite new partners. But the love never dimmed.

And when Burton died, suddenly, on August 5, 1984, he did so after first penning a final letter to Taylor. It arrived after his death.

In it he told her that he was happy with his new wife, Sally Hay, but that home was where Taylor was. And he wanted to come home.

The fury may have diminished but the love never did.

Furious Love, by Sam Kashner & Nancy Schoenberger, is published in hardback by JR Books, priced 20.