Profile of the Day: Richard Burton

On this day in 1925, Welsh actor Richard Burton was born in Pontrhydyfen, Wales.

Image: Richard Burton / Wikimedia Commons

Born Richard Walter Jenkins, Jr., he was the twelfth child of parents Richard Walter Jenkins, Sr. and Edith Maude Thomas. His father was a coal miner and his mother worked as a bartender. At the age of two, he lost his mother shortly after she gave birth to the family’s thirteenth child. He was then taken in by his sister Cecilia and her husband, who helped raise him.

As a student, he took an interest in theater and found a mentor in his schoolmaster, Philip Burton. He would later take on the Burton surname as his own. Burton found success on the stage and in film and was nominated seven times for an Academy Award, but never won. Despite his own career successes, many remember him best for his turbulent relationship with Elizabeth Taylor, who he married twice. They made 11 films together, including Cleopatra and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

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