Welsh actor of stage and screen, seven-time Academy Award nominee known for Shakespeare, Cleopatra, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.
Background
Born Richard Walter Jenkins Jr. in Pontrhydyfen, Wales, the twelfth of thirteen children of a coal miner, he took his stage name from teacher and mentor Philip Burton and studied at Exeter College, Oxford.
Career
He played the title role in “Hamlet” on Broadway and across multiple stage productions and joined the Old Vic company. Film leads included “The Robe,” “Cleopatra” opposite Elizabeth Taylor (whom he twice married), “Becket,” “The Spy Who Came In from the Cold,” and Mike Nichols’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” He received seven Best Actor nominations without a win.
Style
Burton’s resonant Welsh-inflected voice and classical training made him a leading post-war stage actor and one of the era’s most identifiable international screen leads.
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