Burton Buried - The Washington Post

July 16, 2024

CELIGNY, Switzerland, Aug. 9, 1984 -- Richard Burton was buried in this peaceful Lake Geneva village today with a sealed envelope and a rose from his wife.

Family and friends of the 58-year-old actor, who died Sunday of a brain hemorrhage, gathered to pay their final respects with the hymns and prayers of Burton's native Wales and the poetry of Welshman Dylan Thomas.

After the private funeral service in a 400-year-old Protestant church, he was buried a few hundred yards away in Celigny's old cemetery.

"The play is over, the curtain shut, but it is not the end," the Rev. Arnold Mobbs told the mourners inside the old stone church, which seats 100 people on simple wooden benches. Outside, about 400 people listened as the service was transmitted over loudspeakers.

At the gravesite, Sally Hay, Burton's 36-year-old wife of 13 months, stood grim-faced but dry-eyed for the final prayers. She placed a sealed gray envelope and a rose on her husband's coffin before it was lowered into the ground. The contents of the envelope were not made public.

The casket was adorned with red and white flowers in the shape of a dragon, the national symbol of Wales. Burton's godson Brook Williams, son of Welsh playwright Emlyn Williams, recited poems by Thomas and placed a book of the poet's works on the casket.

Hay was accompanied at the funeral service and burial by three brothers and three sisters of Burton, as well as two of his daughters -- Kate and Maria -- and Liza Todd, the daughter of Elizabeth Taylor and producer Mike Todd.

Taylor, who was twice married to Burton, did not attend.

Graham Jenkins, 56, one of Burton's brothers, said Taylor stayed away from the funeral to spare his widow any possible embarrassment, and because of the heavy news media presence. He said Taylor plans to attend a memorial service for Burton on Saturday in his hometown of Pontrhydfen, South Wales.

"My heart goes out to her. You cannot go through what they have been through and not feel some love somewhere," Jenkins said.

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"There were only six of us singing at the graveside, but we made it sound like a Welsh choir," said Jenkins, referring to the six brothers and sisters who attended the funeral.

In the church, Burton's daughter, Kate, read "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night," Dylan Thomas' eulogy to his father. She told the mourners, "This is from me, Liza, Maria, Michael, Christopher and Jessica," referring to Burton's children and the children of Taylor.

Jenkins read in Welsh a chapter of the First Book of Corinthians. He recalled that Burton had known it by heart, having learned it from their oldest sister, Cecilia, who brought up the family after their mother died.

"It is all about love and Richard gave us plenty of love, did he not?" Jenkins said.

Burton, nominated seven times for Oscars he never won, had owned a home in Celigny, a village of 600 people about 10 miles east of Geneva, since 1957. He bought a cemetery plot and stipulated he should be buried here, far from his native Wales or the bright lights of London or Hollywood.

"Just after this service, the body of your beloved Richard Burton will lie in the peaceful old cemetery of the village where he wished to be buried without any pomp," Mobbs said during the church service.

The village pastor recalled that when Burton arrived in Celigny, the actor was preparing for a journey. " 'Padre,' " Mobbs said Burton told him, " 'You know the first thing I put into my luggage is my Shakespeare and my New Testament.' "

Burton, the 12th of 13 children, was born Richard Walter Jenkins and took his stage name from a schoolmaster with whom he lived in his youth.

The actor was married five times. His 1949 marriage to Sybil Williams, the mother of his daughters Kate and Jessica, was dissolved 14 years later when he met Taylor while filming "Cleopatra."

They married in 1964, were divorced 10 years later, remarried in 1975 and divorced again in 1976. Maria Burton is their adopted daughter.

Burton was married to former model Susan Hunt before marrying Hay. They lived in a villa called Pays de Galles, the French name for Wales, just outside Celigny.

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