Tv movie Burton and Taylor

[stuart.uk]

I just watched an interesting tv movie Burton And Taylor, set at the time when Richard and Elizabeth did their stage producion of Private Lives. It starred Dominic West and Helena Bonham Carter in the featured roles.

Not long after Private Lives, Richard died and Elizabeth went into the Betty Ford clinic, came out looking great and went onto to live a normal life-span. However, the movie shows Richard sober and the stronger of the two with Elizabeth struggling to hold her life together. He's critical of her performances in the show becaus he knows what a great actress she is and feels she's not able to give her best.

I would guess Helena Bonham Carter is as good a casting as you could get as Elizabeth Taylor, given the fact she's British and just about the right age to play the actress in her mature yrs.

In an interview Carter said she thought Richard and Elizabeth would end up marrying again. However, I would find it unlikely, even though I believe Taylor thought it would happen. I think while Elizabeth was the great love of his life, Richard's widow Sally appears to hav been a more stablising influence on his life. (Joan Plowright was probably the same for Laurence Olivier after his marraige break up from Vivien Leigh). Could Richard have walked away from that? If the movie was accurate in the sense Richard had stopped drinking, during his time with Sally, it's really sad that he still died probably of his earlier self destructive life style.