Unseen archive footage of Richard Burton’s family uncovered

In the week celebrating Richard Burton’s centenary birthday, archive footage unseen since the early 90s has been found of his family.

Richard’s brother Graham Jenkins, and his sister Hilda Owen were both guests on S4C’s magazine show Heno.

What makes these interviews with Graham all the more illuminating is that he was on Heno discussing Philip Burton’s new biography of his life with the young Richard, and again on the day that Philip Burton died. And since the cinema release of the film Mr Burton and its TV premiere on BBC1 on Monday night, the story of Philip Burton and how he transformed the young Richard Jenkins into a global superstar after adopting him, now makes the Heno interviews all the more poignant to watch, as we hear what the family really thought of him.

The interviews in three parts are now available on Heno’s YouTube channel. Angharad Mair, Heno’s editor, says that “finding these interviews was like finding a long lost sentimental piece of jewellery. I’m so glad not only to have recovered them from our extensive archive, but also able now to share them”.

Graham Jenkins was the youngest of the 13 children born to Burton’s mother, and she died soon after he was born. He was 15 when Richard took on his adopted father’s name of Burton and in these interviews he recalls being upset at the time, but recognised that Burton was a more ‘swank’ name, and Jenkins so ordinary.

However, he says that the family became forever grateful to Philip for being Richard’s mentor. Philip too became incredibly fond of the whole family, and learnt Welsh fluently, a fact not shown in the film.

Graham describes Richards’ relationship with Philip as a two-way partnership, and that Philip would often say “I didn’t adopt him (Richard), he adopted me”.

Graham tells the story depicted so clearly in the film that Philip would take the young Richard up Aberavon mountain to drum his Pontrhydyfen accent out of him, and in time, the Burton family all thought of Philip as a giant of a man, and an incredible teacher.

We learn that Philip refused to speak with Richard for two years after he left his wife Sybil, whom Philip was very fond of, for Elizabeth Taylor. But one night he had a call from Elizabeth begging him to come to help Richard who was in rehearsals to star as Hamlet in the most famous Broadway production of all directed by John Gielgud. He agreed to go and their friendship was rekindled.

Hilda Owen, Richard’s sister, was interviewed in the Heno studio seven years after Richard had passed away and recalls the night she and the family had been invited to Claridge’s hotel in London to meet Elizabeth Taylor’s eighth husband Larry Fortensky, who she thought was a lovely boy but wouldn’t replace Richard in Elizabeth’s heart.

On that evening, Elizabeth was wearing the famous Prince of Wales diamond brooch, she had bought for over half a million pounds from the estate of the Duchess of Windsor. A controversial brooch as many thought it should never have been taken from the Royal collection, but Elizabeth loved the brooch because of its association with Wales and Richard Burton.

Visit the Heno YouTube channel HERE