Showing posts with label Retribution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Retribution. Show all posts

Thursday, 14 February 2013

Love...The Second Time Around - Celebrate Love Renewed - Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor - NON FICTION.

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!


Joy says:

Help me celebrate the release of Retribution by submitting your most interesting stories of people taking another shot at a relationship. 
 .
·         There is no restriction as it pertains to form or genre. Stories can be fact or fiction. Use your imagination, make your stories attention-grabbing.
·       . 
          Somewhere in there, you must tell the reader why the couple broke up and why they feel compelled to get back together. This can be done from any of your characters’ point-of-view.  
       .
·         The word cap is 500
       .
·         Indicate on your blog post, by the relevant badge, whether you’re in the fact or fiction category.  

Here is my entry for Joy's bloghop:

Puerto Vallarta, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and Night of the Iguana…a famous love (renewed) story.


Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in Puerto Vallarta


On the Mexican Pacific coast, surrounded by green mountains, the emerald waters of the Banderas Bay, lying beside the beach, is a beautiful and magical place, Puerto Vallarta, the scene and set for a famous love story/scandal between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, an event that pushed this bucolic village along  the road to become a world class tourist destination.

Elizabeth Taylor (1932-2011), was on the top of her long career, the highest paid actress at the time for her lead in Cleopatra, where she met and started an affair with Richard Burton (1925-1984), the Welsh actor who played Mark Anthony. Both were married at the time and their scandalous romance, which the Vatican condemned as “erotic vagrancy”, received an incredible amount of attention from the tabloid press. Both Dick and Liz were unable to travel anywhere without being hounded and virtually attacked by mobs of fans, press and others. They were the ones that inaugurated the Beatle-like adoration and stalking fans and paparazzi (from the Italian for annoying insects).


Richard Burton & Elizabeth Taylor during the filming of the Iguana

While Huston dedicated his time to the scouting and the photographic archive of the area, Elizabeth and Richard enjoyed their romance and time in Vallarta. 

Mismaloya today, arches of the set can be seen on the hill

Houston finally decided to film “The Night of the Iguana”, on a set that he built on the southern side of Mismaloya Beach on a hill with a spectacular view of the bay, the beach, the Pacific Ocean and Los Arcos.

The movie set at Mismaloya

The Night of the Iguana sign by the highway
During the filming of the movie, Richard Burton purchased Casa Kimberley on Zaragoza Street for Elizabeth Taylor, as her 32nd birthday's present. The house can be easily spotted it by its "pink" bridge communicating both sides of the street and a crumbling plaque with the house’s name.


Liz Taylor lived in Casa Kimberley with her personal rooms on the top floor; Richard Burton lived in the house across the street and built the bridge (Lover’s Arch) linking over to his lover’s home, so he wouldn’t have to cross the street to get there. It was based on The Bridge of Sighs in the Italian city of Venice. Considering their fights, which they very much enjoyed , the bridge was also called the Reconciliation Bridge.

Lovers' Arch
Their love ended in marriage. Richard and Elizabeth got married in Montreal, Canada on March 15, 1964. They divorced after 10 years of very turbulent “wedded bliss”, replete with fights and alcohol abuse. They remarried on October 10, 1975, but divorced a little under a year later.

Tying the knot again - 10 October, 1975
Richard’s diary entries reveal why they got back together—they loved each other terribly— but his drinking is what led to a very short remarriage. 

Friday 10th [the day they remarried], Richard wrote:

We are as happy as children. We catch our breaths every so often and say with a kind of smiling wonder and delight: ‘Hey! Do you realise we are actually married?’ We must have said it scores of times. I’ve never been so happy in my life. E(lizabeth) cured me with loving, even lavish, attention. This is a far better marriage than the first.

Got shamefully sloshed.

WORD COUNT: 506

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REFERENCES:

Some information gleaned from an article by Mogens Gallarado


I hope you enjoyed this little story of one of the great, relatively recent, love affairs. Burton and Taylor couldn't live with each other or without each other. 

If you want to read more stories of Love...Renewed and help Joy Campbell celebrate the publication of Retribution, go here...



To continue the love, RomanticFridayWriters have a love fest of a different style - fan fiction - story/poem of 1,000 words to be published between February 21 - 24.  Go here to sign up, or click on Submit in my top right-hand sidebar.