It seems to have been written high up in the cosmos that our TCM Star of the Month for March, Richard Burton (who died in 1984 at age 58), was destined to be one of the true legends among all the actors of his time. Burton had it all--a vibrant voice, a ruggedly distinctive and handsome face, fire in his veins, great acting chops in his bones, and endless energy and ambition.

When British theatre audiences got their first look at the Welsh-born Burton on stage in the 1940s, he immediately loomed as England's answer to America's Marlon Brando and the impact Brando was making in the New York theater. Like Brando, Burton soon went off to Hollywood and the assessment of his potential only grew stronger. For his first American movie role in My Cousin Rachel (1952), Burton received an Oscar® nomination; the following year came nomination number two for his performance in one of the most highly publicized of all screen epics, 1953's The Robe. During the following charmed years came nominations number three, four, five, six and seven--but unlike the way the scenario played out for Brando, no Oscar® ever ended up in Burton's arms. Someone else very beautiful did: Elizabeth Taylor.

The minute Burton met Elizabeth everything changed. Interestingly, he wasn't originally scheduled to play Mark Antony to Elizabeth's Cleopatra in the Twentieth-Century Fox epic Cleopatra (1963). British-born Stephen Boyd was playing the role when filming started in England in 1960; that production had to soon shut down when Elizabeth fell ill with pneumonia during an unusually cold British winter. When shooting resumed in 1961, Boyd was busy elsewhere, but Burton was available and willing to sign on. After that, Richard B.'s life, career and potential was never the same again. Dozens of books and countless newspaper headlines have been written about what happened to Taylor and Burton, the star-crossed lovers, including their volatile public courtship despite the fact that both were married to other people.

Then came more headlines about their eventual marriage, divorce, remarriage and re-divorce, and continuing marital quarrels that eventually tagged them "the Battling Burtons." Much newspaper space was also devoted to Elizabeth's love of diamonds and Richard's signing up for less and less sterling movie roles to allow him the ability to buy bigger and bigger jewels for his wife (including an elephantine 69.42 carat diamond he bought for her in 1969 at Cartier's). His fellow actor and close friend Laurence Olivier, well aware that Burton and his career were both spiraling out of control, eventually sent Richard B. a one-line telegram that said, in essence, "Do you want to be remembered as a great actor or household name?" Burton sent a one word reply: "Both."

This month we have a fascinating lineup of 21 films starring Richard B., all of them showing in a single week, March 6-10, including two of which are TCM premieres, but most importantly, all of them displaying Burton in his heyday and at his best, the way we think he'd want to be remembered. And would be if the winds of fate hadn't decided otherwise.

by Robert Osborne