‘A Medieval Bandit King’ When Richard Burton Disparaged Winston Churchill All in the Name of Promotion

Burton’s Article on Churchill Sent his Producers Into a Panic and the UK’s Politicians into a Flap

In 1974 Richard Burton took the unusual step of promoting his forthcoming television film portrayal of Winston Churchill by deriding him and all he stood for.

‘In the course of preparing myself to act the part of Winston Churchill in the television drama based on the first volume of his war memoirs, The Gathering Storm, I realised afresh that I hate Churchill and all his kind. I hate them virulently.’ The article ‘To Play Churchill Is to Hate Him’ by Richard Burton ran in the New York Times on 24th November 1974. In it, Burton went through the many reasons why he hated Churchill and his actions.

Burton wrote scathingly of a number of statements and wartime decisions made or alleged to have been made by Churchill.

‘Churchill wielded the most absolute power ever held by an Englishman since Cromwell (a man he admired greatly) and for a time — only a short time, thank the gods — he was able to exercise the total power of a medieval bandit king.’

‘The other surprising thing I have found out about Sir Winston was that he was an innately timid man. He fought, to be fair to him, like a bulldog against his own cowardice. In World War I, after he was dismissed from his Admiralty post, his absurd eagerness to go to the front lines in France and fight the eagerness face to face didn’t last very long. He was back in England as fast as he could get there. Seemingly reluctant to allow the Cabinet to recall him, he returned to a nothing post as Minister of Munitions; quite clearly, he didn’t fancy the mud and the slime and the rats and the rotting bodies of men drowned in their own vomit and choked on their own entrails. Much nicer to ride in a clean car through Whitehall and bore the bejesus out of everybody in sight with his views on the conduct of the war.’

‘I am convinced that the line between genius and madness is very fine. Whether Sir Winston Churchill was a genius, I don’t know, but certainly, he was one of the few people — two others were Picasso and Camus — who have frightened me almost to silence when we came face to face, a difficult task in my case. He was an immensely impressive man to meet. have had to re‐examine my memory of Churchill. Was apprehensive because he was such a towering world figure…