Furious Love: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and the Marriage of the Century
Furious Love: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and the Marriage of the Century book cover

Furious Love: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and the Marriage of the Century

Paperback – April 19, 2011

Price
$11.99
Format
Paperback
Pages
544
Publisher
Harper Perennial
Publication Date
ISBN-13
978-0061562853
Dimensions
6 x 0.87 x 9 inches
Weight
1.4 pounds

Description

“Long before there was Brangelina, the high-wire romance between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton rocked the world. In Furious Love, Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger provide dramatic historical insights into Hollywood’s stormiest, up-and-down relationship. Every page is riveting. A hit book for sure!” — Douglas Brinkley “Exciting and well-written, fast-paced yet containing a wealth of information, Furious Love is a fine read.” — Patricia Bosworth, author of Marlon Brando: A Biography “[An] entertaining, blow-by-blow account of the life and times of an epic Hollywood couple... There is no shortage of saucy anecdotes in Furious Love...” — Wall Street Journal “[An] unfailingly respectful and journalistically honest chronicle. . . . Where this book breaks ground is in its ability to humanize these colossal celebs. . . . Reads like a Shakespearean drama.” — USA Today “I fell for Furious Love, hook, line and sinker... Ultimately Furious Love is utterly persuasive on the ineffable force of ‘the most notorious, publicized, celebrated, and vilified love affair of its day,’ offering a powerful portrait of the ecstasies and travails of overreaching passion and crippled psyches...” — Boston Globe “[A] five-alarm blaze of a biography that enthralls like an Olympian epic. . . . The authors make an excellent case that each deepened the other’s craft. . . . A vivid portrait of this...two-career marriage on steroids.” — Philadelphia Inquirer “An indulgent, plenty-of-fun book...the authors make shrewd observations...juicy…a good beach book.” — New York Times Book Review “[Furious Love] is fascinating, heartbreaking, and romantic.” — Kate Walsh He was a tough-guy Welshman softened by the affections of a breathtakingly beautiful woman. She was a modern-day Cleopatra madly in love with her own Mark Antony. For nearly a quarter of a century, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton were Hollywood royalty, and their fiery romance—often called "the marriage of the century"—was the most notorious, publicized, and celebrated love affair of its day. Shocking and unsparing in its honesty, Furious Love explores the very public marriage of "Liz and Dick" as well as the private struggles of Elizabeth and Richard. But it is much more than a celebrity biography; it's an honest yet sympathetic portrait of a man, a woman, and a passion that shocked and mesmerized the world. Sam Kashner is the author of four nonfiction books, including the memoir When I Was Cool: My Life at the Jack Kerouac School , and one novel, Sinatraland . He has written extensively for Vanity Fair as a contributing editor. Nancy Schoenberger is the author of Dangerous Muse: the Life of Lady Caroline Blackwood ; Wayne and Ford: the Films , The Friendship , and the Forging of an American Hero ; and three prize-winning books of poetry.xa0 She teaches at The College of William and Mary where she directs the Creative Writing Program. Poet and biographer Nancy Schoenberger is the author of Dangerous Muse: The Life of Lady Caroline Blackwood . Schoenberger taught for many yearsxa0at the College of William &Mary, where she directed the Creative Writing Program Read more

Features & Highlights

  • From veteran entertainment reporter Sam Kashner and biographer Nancy Schoenberger comes the definitive account of the greatest Hollywood love story ever told—the romance of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Kashner has interviewed Elizabeth Taylor numerous times and is the only journalist given access to her extensive collection of personal letters and journals, and he and Schoenberger have also interviewed the Burton family at length, including Burton’s actress daughter Kate. This is truly an authorized and singularly informed biography of these two larger-than-life stars, and of their glamorous, volatile, and audacious relationship.

Customer Reviews

Rating Breakdown

★★★★★
30%
(301)
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(251)
★★★
15%
(150)
★★
7%
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23%
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Most Helpful Reviews

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Larger than Life Stars' Great Love

I knew a little bit about Taylor and Burton's marriages, but not that much. After watching the BBC production of "Burton and Taylor", I decided to order the book to learn more. It was a fascinating book to me. It was amazing, first how much they, especially Burton, drank. It was also mind boggling the amount of money they spent on each other and others, in addition to the houses, boats, diamonds, etc. They had such an unusual, but deep love for each other, yet couldn't always beat their demons or make each other happy. I couldn't put the book down once I started reading, or wait to get back to it when I had to do something other than read. The author was incredibly thorough in his telling of their love story and it's demise, with the use of excerpts from Richard Burton's Diaries, and Taylor's assistance.
I would recommend this to anyone who likes biographies about Hollywood stars, and even those who want a background story of the way film making changed over the years from the time the Burtons met on the set of Cleopatra, until his death.
8 people found this helpful
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Great Valentine's Day Gift

Got these for my other half for Valentine's Day. He loved it, and I love him, so all is right with the world. The letters RB wrote to ET are to die for. You'll want to climb into a pint of chocolate ice cream and devour this in a night. Just lovely.
2 people found this helpful
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Loved this book!!!

Absolutely loved this book! It was so hard to put down at times. So beautifully written, it really does read like a Shakespeare love story. My favorite was the intimate diary entries from Richard Burton, it makes you see what their lives were really like behind the glitz and the glamour.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Richard & Elizabeth's love story. Or if you're interested in celebrity life at all. A story of fame, love, money and tragedy. I was so sad when I finished reading it, I wanted it to go on forever.
2 people found this helpful
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Great story, just a bit scattered

First and foremost let me say that the stories within this book make it much more worthy than most of the stuff out there. I've recently grown a sort of fascination with the two of them (me moreso from the Richard point of view). The stories contained are very entertaining.

My only knock on the book is the way the information is presented. It seems a bit disorganized. Chronologically would have been the way for me to go, but this one instead kind of jumps around (although the overall theme is slightly chronological). There are points brought up that you must remember when placed alongside something else that happened during the same time, but over 100 pages later. Perhaps we are all supposed to feel the chaos....(doubt it)

But I hardly ever read, and this one held my attention. It tends to read more as something that you follow for a small period of time, put down, then pick back up again. (One of the reviews said it was great beach reading, and to this I must agree.)

But if you want to learn some insight about the two of them, this is a great place to start.
2 people found this helpful
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Furious Love tells the jet set story of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton's ten year marriage

Furious Love coauthored by Sam Kashner and Nancy Kroenberger tells the story of the love affair between actors Elizabeth Taylor (1932-2011) and Richard Burton. (1925-1984) The two were twice wed; drank, fought, made love and movies on a grand scale. The star crossed lovers have earned the title of the greatest showbiz lovers of the twentieth century.
Elizabeth Taylor was born to American parents in London; grew up in an upper middle class home and had a pony as a child. Her father was an art-antique dealer. She won fame early as a child star in such films as "Lassie Come Home" and "National Velvet.
Taylor netted two Oscars for best actress for her work in "Butterfield 8" and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf." She was one of the most beautiful seductive divas in all of film history. Elizabeth loved Burton but due to his carousing, infidelity and drinking divorced him.
Richard Burton was born as the 12th of 13th children to a poor Welsh mining family. He became an actor starring in Old Vics productions during the late 1940s. He came to Hollywood in the 1950s. Burton was groomed to stardom by mentor Phillip Burton (The actor's real name was Richard Jenkins). Burton was a great Shakespearean actor winning plaudits for his "Hamlet" on Broadway in 1964. The randy Welshman was a working class intellectual gifted by the gods with an amazing memory for verse. His voice was a beautiful sound! He died young of a cerebral hemmorhage. He married twice following his divorce from Elzabeth Taylor.
The two stars first met on the set of Cleopatra in Rome in 1962. They made 11 films together most notably "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"; "The Taming of the Shrew" and "The Sandpiper." Their marriage began to fizzle as Hollywood moved in a new direction of trendier films and younger stars in the late 1960s.
The authors have done a fine job of telling the tale of Burton and Liz. They were both indulged hedonists who spent millions of dollars on lavish jewels, palatial homes, oceans of booze and worldwide travel. They hobnobbed with such jet setters as he Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Princess Grace of Monaco and other crowned heads of Europe. Burton worked hard to support a legion of his poor relatives in Wales. They loved their brood of children the progency of their former marrages.
The book is well illustrated and written. Movie star biographies are not everyone's cup of tea! Furious Love is better than most!
2 people found this helpful
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Great Book!!

I got for my mom who loves Taylor and Burton, she could not put it down. She just loved . I am waiting to read myself.
She said it was fulled with so much information she never knew. Also has pictures.
1 people found this helpful
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Liz $ Dick's love-hate-back to love (story).

Wonderful book by Sam Kashner. Anyone who is fascinated by the Taylor-Burton love story will thoroughly enjoy reading it!
1 people found this helpful
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Riddled with inaccuracies, but still a good read

The book is bursting with bad info - things like falsely stating that Marilyn Monroe died in 1963 (she died in 1962), inaccurately attributing the famous reply of “Arthur” when asked “What would you call that haircut?” in A Hard Day’s Night to Ringo (it was George who said that), etc… so much so as to be rather distracting. Was there no editor or fact checker on this thing? Seemed like three pages couldn’t go without a mistake being made by the author, which only makes you wonder what else they are getting wrong that you might not know about.
Nonetheless, there were some fascinating excerpts from personal letters and diaries of Elizabeth’s and Richard’s, and great quotes from interviews by people of interest who were close to the Taylor/Burton hurricane. These things made the book worth my time. But it’s going in the little free library one of my neighbors down the street has in front of his house now that I’m finished reading it. The blatantly false info contained throughout the book renders it unqualified to sit on my shelves.
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A love story

The life that Richard and Elizabeth lived was like a movie .They loved each other, they loved their children and they were always drinking. I loved this book. It was the sixties and they were truly movie stars.
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Twin Snobberies of Stage and Film

An insightful, compassionate
summary of Elizabeth Taylor's and Richard Burton's doomed love. One of them (the less intellectual one) rose "above" and instinctively adapted "to" Hollywood's and Pinewood's Aristocracy of "Envious Poofs and Devious Poohbahs"; the other wanted to rise above the Gonad-driven Milieu but couldn't.
The tragedy of two sensitive moral compasses (seeking family and loyalty) that were exploited and ultimately crushed.
(By the way, cystic acne, rosacea, and Harold Pinter-like skin eruptions may be indicative of parasitic demodex infestations -- which, in turn, fuel alcoholism.)