Born Richard Walter Jenkins Jr., 12th of 13 children, he took his stage name from his former schoolmaster and mentor, Peter Burton. Obtained a scholarship to Oxford at the age of 16 and served in the Royal Air Force 1944-47. He became a Film star in the 1950s with a terrific voice, commanding stage presence and handsome features, but his marrying and drinking habits made him an international celebrity in the 1960s.

In 1974, Richard Burton was banned from the BBC in response to an article he wrote for the New York Times about his experience playing Churchill in a television drama. He wrote: "In the course of preparing myself .. I realized afresh that I hate Churchill and all of his kind. They have stalked down the corridors of endless power all through history.... What man of sanity would say [on hearing of the atrocities committed by the Japanese against Allied POWs] We shall wipe them out, every one of them, men, women, and children. There shall not be a Japanese left on the face of the earth?

Such simple-minded cravings for revenge leave me with a horrified but reluctant awe for such single-minded and merciless ferocity."

His war/historical action films include: Breakthrough, The Wild Geese, Sutjeska, Massacre in Rome, Raid on Rommel, Where Eagles Dare, The Longest Day, Zulu (narration), Alexander the Great, Cleopatra, DeMetrius and the GIadiators, The Robe, and The Desert Rats.