Camilla Baier

Behind the booming voice and tabloid scandals, the most enduring performances by Burton – born 100 years ago – were studies in vulnerability. 1 December 2025 When Richard Burton died in 1984 at the age of 58, after decades of excessive drinking had decimated his health, the headline in The Times – “Career madly thrown away” – summed up the widespread perception of lost potential. Without the drink, he could have had decades longer.

While Gainsborough dominated the British melodrama scene during the mid-1940s with its hugely successful period romps, other producers soon attempted to cash in on the ‘weepstakes’. One such was John Corfield, who was canny enough to realise that the vital ingredient for a successful women’s picture was Margaret Lockwood, raven-haired bad girl of the costume film and voted by the fans as Britain’s favourite star of 1946.

In 2013, writer-director Ryan Coogler came out the gate swinging with Fruitvale Station, the powerful true story of Oscar Grant III, the 22-year Black man who was killed on New Year’s Day 2009 by a transit police officer at Fruitvale BART (Bay Area Rapid Transport) station in Oakland.