Richard Burton (10 November 1925-5 August 1984) was a Welsh actor. Born in Pontrhydyfen, Glamorgan, Wales in 1925, he served as a Royal Air Force navigator from 1944 to 1947 during World War II. He began his acting career in 1943, and he befriended Stanley Baker; both of them became Shakespearean actors during the 1950s, and Burton became known as one of the greatest theatrical actors of all time. However, his career and his highly-publicized marriage to Elizabeth Taylor suffered due to his alcoholism, which ultimately led to his death in 1984 at the age of 58.
Burton was a lifelong socialist who despised Winston Churchill for his promise to wipe out Japanese people across the world, admired Robert F. Kennedy, and identified as a communist while filming a biography of Josip Broz Tito in Yugoslavia. He was also an atheist.