RICHARD BURTON & JULIE ANDREWS "Camelot" on The Ed Sullivan Show

[JerryJimmson]

Burton was the best stage actor of all time.

[Emmytaytay1]

@RichardElden Peter O'Toole is just about the greatest actor in the world, so naturally he stole the movie from him. He does that in every movie, that can't be helped. So I agree with you.

[tammymc65]

That might have been the movie that I read about where he needed much instruction bc he was having a hard time playing the innocent guy. He did play a couple priests, so , don't know which argument side that goes on. LOL

[Emmytaytay1]

@RichardElden Yes, that would've been much less tragic...

[Emmytaytay1]

@RichardElden Sorry, that is not true. He was one of the best actors. One does not have to be a great person to be a great actor.

[ashcarl116]

@RichardElden yes I agree, cerebral haemorrage can be tragic.

[tammymc65]

Well, I didn't know him personally, but if he backed the Black Panthers like has been recorded, maybe he was, but I still love him!

[tammymc65]

I think that I remembered reading that although he was certainly considered one of the best stage actors of his time,and maybe of all time, that he did have a flaw. He could not act well in a role that called for him to be innocent. Guess it was too much a stretch. Like many actors (including Liz), their best works were often the more autobiographical ones.

[Emmytaytay1]

@tammymc65 In Becket he played a saint, and was fabulous at it...kinda ironic...

[Emmytaytay1]

I don't like Burton unless he's with Peter O'Toole (O'Toole always seemed to bring out the best in him), but I will admit he's very attractive.  This is proof...

[tammymc65]

I can check,but I think it was both..

[tammymc65]

Richard Burton couldn't sing? He won awards as a singer before he ever received his first acting role!

[EquineDreams]

@RichardElden Yes I do know he was an alcoholic & I remember that he smoked, but i didn't know how much. I remember my sister having to stop smoking one summer because it was ruining her voice. Her voice is very similar to what Joni Mitchel's was when Mitchel was young. I looked up Joni Mitchel & tried to listen to what she sounds like now. It almost made me cry. My sister now sounds way better then Joni - How sad! Maybe if Burton hadn't smoked he could have had a voice - maybe

[EquineDreams]

@RichardElden LOL He can sing better than me (at least according to my sister who has a perfect ear and a 3 octave range) I inherited my voice and ear from the wrong side of the family ;) Still it would be interesting to hear the whole song from him.

[EquineDreams]

awe I wanted to hear the whole thing! :( I didn't know Burton could sing & now I want to hear more. I HATE teases!

[theinric]

This is so stupid. 30 seconds and gone.

[Xenophile665]

Too short.

[JudgeJulieLit]

@RichardElden In the early 1960s the Hollywood film actor Montgomery Clift once complained to Elizabeth Taylor that as an actor, Richard Burton didn't act (certainly not in the let it all hang out, sporadically explosive Method fad of acting of which MC was an acolyte) ... that RB just "recited."Having now just come from some YT clips of RB reciting (as a voice actor) poems of Donne and Frost with (as Hamlet prescribed) "a smoothness [put] on all" (affecting emotional distance) I agreed.(Cont.)

[JudgeJulieLit]

@RichardElden (cont.) ... [I agreed] (that Burton seems just to recite, howsoever brilliantly), as my only other exposure to his acting was from my countless savorings of his vocal acting on my cd soundtrack of that omnibus fabulous-sounding Broadway Camelot. But here--first seeing his visual acting as complement, I am beyond delighted to see his inventive playful gesturing, one thousand percent perfect in every great and subtle way, so this byte proof confutes Clift's condemn. A tragedy no dvd!

[JudgeJulieLit]

@RichardElden My last word on RB's (more) emotionally distant acting is that here certainly, it fits his role as King Arthur, where as king he must maintain a becoming and judicious aloofness and reticence.Too, he is older and sager and more experience-wise than virginal if impish young Jenny. And in point of the drama's structure of characters, Arthur as such must be a foil to set off the "naive and dumb" braggadocio ebullience of Jenny's age peer Sir Lancelot. So from any view, RB is perfect.

[JudgeJulieLit]

@JudgeJulieLit P.S. to my "last word" on Burton's performance here--he DOES "sing" (not just talk) ... replay this clip and better hear his intrinsically especially sonorous voice gush with euphonious melody as he SINGS "A law was made a distant moon ago, here ... " [d.c. al fine]. A rare, HUGE talent! And an interesting spin on characterization here is that RB shows King Arthur (inspired by beauteous and chaste young Jenny) to be himself still a lady charmer ... why J will be torn between the 2

[themredweirdoshow]

@JudgeJulieLit No DVD? On the contrary, I thought I recently saw a glimmer of hope in some article about an original broadcast tape being unearthed somewhere. I'd have to assume (and hope) that it would have been worked on to the point of being "restored" enough for release, at least on a no frills DVD somehow. The main "problem" with Blu-ray regarding old material is that, like a stone crystal, it "magnifies" all qualities of the subject, including any negative artifacts, both video and audio.

[themredweirdoshow]

Be all that as it may, we Julie Andrews fans will still never forgive Disney for not buying My Fair Lady for the screen and starring Julie in it. Julie created the part in the original stage version, but was slapped in the face by Hollywood when it came to the film. Instead they cast that non-singer Aud Hepburn - might as well have been Kate Hepburn.

[JudgeJulieLit]

@themredweirdoshow Julie Andrews may have the last, longest echoing diva's laugh, in that today it is the cd soundtrack of her great emote-singing in the Broadway My Fair Lady that is today most popular and cherished (as by yours truly her namesake) and immortal. Just you wite, Walt Disney, so there ! ;)

[Loubrockdorff]

wow.. he can sing!

[disneyfan81]

@RichardElden Yes, but according to Alan Jay Lerner's memoirs, Lerner was convinced to cast Burton when he and his then-wife Sybil sang a robust Welsh song at a Hollywood party. Granted, it was said in "The Lerner and Loewe Songbook" that Lerner and Loewe did have to tailor the songs to fit his singing style like they did with Rex Harrison (not to mention Louis Jourdan in "Gigi").

[lisakudrow1963]

When Julie Andrews went on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1961 it was basically her audition for Mary Poppins, because Don DaGradi and The Sherman Brothers saw her performance and immediately informed Walt Disney about Julie, and Walt went to go watch her performing in Camelot and then asked her to be Mary Poppins, she said no because of pregnancy and Disney told her that they would wait (how very sweet of him).

Julie looks so beautiful in this she is pure inside and out, I will always love Julie. x

[nyteschade]

thanks so much for posting this

[krofan]

@RichardElden Maybe, but it's hard to compete with Julie Andrews.

[arrettakeefer]

@krofan 

[krofan]

@RichardElden He really isn't bad at all, even if he smoked that much he sings pretty well.

[krofan]

I really like Richard singing. I didn't know he could sing.

My father said that Richard Burton was a great actor because I am too young for knowing him as an actor. So I was searcheing on youtube and I found this.

And it is really good, Julie Andrews is also a great singer

[ProudMetFan]

So wish I could find a copy of the televised version of the play with Andrews and Burton I saw as a child in the seventies. It's what made me fall in love with musicals. sigh.

[MsRoswin]

Quite impressed with richard burton singing! Ros bisset

[Juliaflo]

Happy 50th anniversary to an immortal musical.

[RosesNightengales]

Wow! Julie Andrews looks beautiful here.

[GTP1940]

MDDPPRJ Do you, perchance, remember On a CLEAR day?

MYWTLYYG

[jundiwa]

Julie Andrew is so regal in her costume and the way she handles herself...

[AtLastOnTheGround]

I love Richard Burton. So classy in this role.

[JuanMacready]

It's a shame he didn't die of lung cancer like Sir Stanley Baker.

[miladyfencer]

@JuanMacready; what an awful thing to say.

[madamerotten]

@JuanMacready It's a shame people learn to type before they learn to think.

[edyeno]

@JuanMacready Man, what an awful thing to post. You ought to be ashamed of yourself! Now, get out of mommy and dady's cellar and play nice with the other kids!