Why did Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor divorce?

Answer 1

Their entire relationship was based on passion, not mutual commitment, respect, and support. A real marriage can exist for a while on that basis, but eventually the passion (without the other parts) becomes too draining on one or the other person.

Passion alone can sustain an affair. It cannot sustain a marriage.

Answer 2

The short answer would be: Richard Burton.

In actuality, as Dame Elizabeth expressed, their marriage was a mistake. Two people who loved the same man - she as her husband and Eddie as his best friend, came together out of love for her deceased third husband Michael Todd. From Eddie's books, she was the love of his life. Elizabeth summed up their time together by saying at the time, she "was a very sick girl." She often said that their marriage was an attempt to keep Mike alive. Biographers generally agree on this point. Though as a 26 year old widow, considered to be the most beautiful woman in the world falling for a handsome, at the time, charming man with whom she was well acquainted and who was reputed to be very skilled at lovemaking, who happened to be in a bad marriage (to Debbie Reynolyds) would really shock no one today, at the time it was a national scandal. They both probably felt compelled by the mores of the time to marry, sex and Eddie constantly failing to live up to Mike Todd's ghost did not inspire Elizabeth to stay in a marriage that should have been an affair. When she and Richard Burton came together on the set of Cleopatra, she found a man who equaled Todd's strengths, and as she put it, "taught her how to love again," Eddie had to go.

And the most probable explanation as to why she seemed to loathe Eddie was that she realized how sick the relationship was and that he had the effrontery to ask her for money during the divorce.

Answer 3

There are various accounts including notations by Richard Burton in his diaries and numerous articles and interviews with Dame Elizabeth Taylor concerning their second marriage. Reading them all has taken me over 30 years. What I learned about the second marriage ending can basically be seen in its beginning. Both were in unsatisfactory relationships and within a year of their first divorce, began seeing each other again. On an extended trip to Africa, after much discussion, they decided on October 10, 1975 to remarry. They seemed quite happy with each other while secluded in the African wild. But they also discovered that eternal truth we all must face: you really cannot change another person. Burton began drinking heavily and steadily again, Taylor had never stopped. He tried to please her by buying a 23.6 carat cognac diamond surrounded by diamonds, as well as paying over a million dollars for a 10 carat pink diamond with blue diamonds as side mounts. She insisted they both be returned and the money donated to build clinics in their favorite wild spots in Bostwana. She wrote in 2002 that "the jungles soon reclaimed them." Their time in Johannesburg seemed to be the beginning of the end of marriage #2. Once they were back in public, not only did their private disagreements with each other increase, but being "public" people too, their public personas came out and they found that they really hadn't changed much in the year they were separated. By the time they arrived in London in late November, they both knew it was over. At Burton's 50th birthday party at the Dorchester Hotel, he looked close to death, although was reportedly not drinking, and Elizabeth, ill with back issues looked pained in both senses of the word. They flew to Elizabeth's home Chalet Ariel in Gstaad, Switzerland taking separate bedrooms. Richard's health recovered in Switzerland and he began going out, eventually meeting Suzy Hunt. Elizabeth was apparently staying home and alternately shouting and bawling at and about Richard, while he was out on the slopes with the 27 year old Hunt. Richard even (perversely in my opinion) brought Hunt to Chalet Ariel numerous times. At this part of the story, I believe they were both trying to figure out what to do and how to do it. One notorious evening Suzy came by to collect Richard to find Elizabeth on the terrace as she approached the door. Elizabeth said nothing, so Hunt attempted to apologize. Taylor stopped her with a dismissive wave, looked her up and down and said, " I always loved that dress, I'm so glad to see that it has found a home." Hunt taken aback, replied that she never meant to hurt Elizabeth. Taylor replied, "You'll only last six months with him." Hunt: "Perhaps, but what a six months they shall be." Taylor: "Yes, dear I'm sure, for all of us."
In early February Burton left for New York and rehearsals for Equus, his first play apart from a week of a student production of Doctor Faustus in 1966, since his history making Broadway run with Hamlet in 1964. Hunt followed soon after.

Burton needed Suzy Hunt to revive him as a man, and a performer. Richard's career had dried up prior to his remarriage to Elizabeth. When he found that she was no longer his muse as it were, he what he thought was one in Hunt.

Elizabeth was unconcerned with her career, she only wanted to recreate the passion of their first marriage, but only the good years.

It took them both several months to figure it all out, but Richard called Elizabeth to New York to see the play and ask her for a divorce. She thought he was fantastic (as did the majority of those who saw the Equus.) They entertained people with their antics, but once Richard said the words, she left him with two things. A slap on the face and a note, written in eyebrow pencil, on his dressing room mirror "You are fantastic, Luv!" He left the note up, much to Hunt's irritation, for the run of the play.

The Burtons were divorced for the final time in Haiti July 29, 1976.

That however does not end their story. Hunt lasted 5 years with Burton, and again, his career was in a shambles after he endured a cervical laminectomy that was possibly faulty, and from which he never fully recovered. Hunt, as had Elizabeth, took most everything acquired during their marriage, virtually wiping Burton out.

Elizabeth married John Warner in 1976 as well. He became a Senator in 1978, and Elizabeth was left basically to her own devices, whether it was partying at Studio 54 or laying in bed at home in Virginia, she ballooned up to 180 pounds out of boredom and misery and finally divorced Warner in 1982 after she had laid claim to fame in Burton's arena, the stage, in a revival of The Little Foxes.

It seems that Richard and Elizabeth worked out most of their issues by telephone and letter, and became friends, perhaps what they should have been before remarrying. They appeared together in 1982 at her 50th birthday party during the London run of The Little Foxes. Elizabeth surprised him while he was giving a reading of Under Milk Wood, giving him a kiss and saying "I love you" in Welsh to the delight of the audience. In 1983 they toured the US in a revival of Private Lives. Richard married his lady friend, who had stayed (with permission) at Elizabeth's home in Bel Air at least once. After the tour ended Elizabeth checked in to the Betty Ford Center and afterward, seemed reborn, her beauty restored even more so than by the fat farms she used before The Little Foxes. Burton was declining in health, but staying mostly sober making a brilliant appearance in film 1984. Elizabeth and Richard met for the last time in June of 1984 and by all accounts it was a friendly meeting. Burton died August 5, 1984 of a massive stroke. The day before he died he had written a letter to Taylor asking if he could come home. And I think that the third time would have been the charm. They had discussed him going into The Betty Ford Center, and sober and with no career problems, they could have made a go of it. Sadly we will never know. She reportedly kept the letter in her bedside table until the day she died.