Elizabeth Taylor, deceased at 79, may be buried in her late ex-husband’s family grave, despite their separation decades earlier.
The family of her two-time ex-husband, Richard Burton, said they would be happy to honour the arrangement Taylor had with Burton while they were married, which included a spot in the family plot in Pontrhydyfen, South Wales.
Burton, who died 26 years earlier, is buried with his last wife Sally in Switzerland. But Burton’s niece Sian Owen said the family has agreed Dame Taylor is still welcome in their family grave.
“If she has stipulated in her will that that’s what she wants then, of course, we will be 100% behind her,” Owen said.
The British American actress, hailed as a legend of Hollywood’s Golden Age, has always remained civil with the Burton family, despite her and Richard’s “explosive” relationship.
When Burton, a Welsh actor nominated for seven Academy Awards, passed in 1984, an inconsolable Taylor visited the family in Pontrhydyfen but was asked to stay away from the funeral in Switzerland to avoid turning the funeral into a media frenzy. Taylor respectively obliged.
Taylor met Burton in 1962 on the set of the film Cleopatra and the two began their tumultuous love affair.
In 1963, Burton left his first wife Sybil Williams after becoming romantically involved with Taylor, who was already four times divorced. The two married in 1964 and stayed together until ’74, when they divorced and remarried for five months only to be divorced once again.
Their sporadic relationship was often exploited by the media and carefully monitored by the public’s eye.
Said Guy Masterson, the great nephew of Richard Burton, “In the public imagination Elizabeth and Richard are forever together and I guess they are together now.”
