Why ‘hellraisers’ like Richard Burton, Oliver Reed and Peter O’Toole will always bewitch us

This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.

As Richard Burton appears on screen in kaleidoscopic colour, dressed in full armour and atop a horse, he is applauded by the adoring masses. The narrator proclaims, “In ten short years, he has conquered the world.” As it happens, he’s talking about Burton’s character, Alexander the Great, in the eponymous movie, but the words could apply to the actor himself.

It was 1956, by when the young Welshman had already embarked on an extraordinary ascent, from the mining village of Pontrhydyfen, to Oxford University, to the London stage and Hollywood. Actor Siân Phillips remembers his West End debut – “he walked on and the whole theatre went cold” – while his first Hollywood role brought him an Oscar nomination, the first of seven. His voice, his presence, his love for poetry were all among his many splendid gifts, and he in turn offered them up to us.

Why then, if you say the name “Richard Burton”, does a life of drama and diamonds immediately come to mind, one spent jumping between yachts and private jets in the glare of the paparazzi lens and, of course, a double marriage to Elizabeth Taylor? Because that’s all true, too.

Burton was the primus inter pares of Britain’s still beloved mid-century stars, alongside the likes of Peter O’Toole, Richard Harris, Oliver Reed and co – a group of talented actors for whom the term “hellraiser” became a shorthand, as famous for their reckless real-life behaviour as for their undoubted dramatic talents. What was the unifying element, and why do they still bewitch us?

For a start, they were all preternaturally gifted. Peter O’Toole “appeared on stage like an electric light,” is how he’s remembered by Anthony Hopkins, while Richard Harris brought us the tenderest of Camelots and even MacArthur Park (a 60s anthem I didn’t even realise for years was the same Richard Harris!).

And they all arrived in London during an era of still unresolved postwar trauma, class collision and hedonistic freedom, when their acting skills meant they were each given the keys to a sweetshop beyond their wildest dreams.

Michael Sheen sympathetically describes the pull between Burton’s loves – stage versus screen, devoted first wife Sybil versus passionate lover Elizabeth, Wales versus the universe – asking if drink was the escape. Whatever, it must have turned all of these world-class performers into crashing bores and hell to live with. Siân Phillips remembers one drunken rage culminating in her husband O’Toole demanding she be packed and gone from the house in two hours.

The saddest contributor in the new BBC2 Burton doc is the friend who first saw him on stage in 1952 and then again in the last chapter of his life – “he was performing, but he was lost”. Laurence Olivier’s tipped successor had become the man who screamed through a full glass at a late-era director, “I could have been Lear!”

Burton was always fascinated by Faustus, the man who traded his soul for power, riches and the most beautiful woman in the world, but the fate of Icarus would seem just as pertinent. The ones who flew not quite as high – Albert Finney, Michael Caine – went on to enduring greatness and happy, long lives. Anthony Hopkins, now sober for 50 years, has twice played the Lear that Burton never did.

Certainly, nobody, at least that we know about, behaves like this in 2025, which is no doubt a relief for all studio executives, pub landlords and stars’ loved ones. But it means, as Kenneth Branagh says, almost wistfully, “No one is going to tell stories about us in 50 years’ time.” Was it all worth it? Harris would say so: “At least you knew I was here.”

The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here.

Richard Burton: Wild Genius airs at 9pm on Wednesday 12th November on BBC Two and iPlayer.

Check out more of our Documentaries coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.