1460300 1978 Shakespeare. Richard Burton. Signed Contract to Play "King Lear".

 

RICHARD BURTON - CONTRACT SIGNED 02/23/1978 CO-SIGNED BY: ROY A. SOMLYO.  Richard Burton signs a contract to appear in King Lear which he never does. Typed Contract signed: "Richard Burton", 8p, 8½x11. New York, 1978 February 23. Alexander H. Cohen hires Burton "to perform the title role in the play, 'King Lear'". His salary will be 10% of the gross weekly box office receipts until production costs have been recouped, then it will go to 12½%, "but in no event shall Actor receive less than the sum of $7,500 per week based on a six performance week…." Burton approves Elia Kazan as the director. Many other interesting details. Six weeks after he signed this contract, seven-time Oscar nominee Richard Burton lost for the seventh time (for Equus). This contract was never fulfilled. Burton never appeared in Cohen's production of King Lear. Neither did anyone else. Richard Burton (1925-1984), a Welsh stage and screen actor with a magnificent voice, received seven Oscar nominations for My Cousin Rachel in 1952, The Robe in 1953, Becket in 1964, The Spy Who Came In From the Cold in 1965, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf in 1966, Anne of the Thousand Days in 1969 and Equus in 1977, with all but the first for Best Actor. Burton may be best remembered, however, for his tempestuous romances, movie pairings with Elizabeth Taylor, whom he met on the set of Cleopatra (1963), and four failed marriages, two of them to Taylor. He was born Richard Walter Jenkins, Jr., the 12th of a Welsh coal miner's 13 children, but changed his last name to that of Phillip Burton, who helped him get a scholarship to Oxford. He got his start on the stage in 1943, but had his career put on hold when he was drafted into the Royal Air Force in 1944. After his discharge, he had his first hit in 1949's The Lady's Not For Burning. He began making movies in Britain in 1949, with My Cousin Rachel as his first Hollywood role. Staple holes and light paper clip impression at upper left blank corners. Fine condition.