
Erotic Vagrancy
Everything About Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor
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Narrated by:
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Justin Avoth
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By:
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Roger Lewis
About this listen
The comic genius of English writing takes on Hollywood, delusion, celebrity and last century's ultimate glamour couple: Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.
Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor were a Sixties supercharged couple in an era of supercharged couples. As a pairing they were fantasy figures, impossibly desirable. Liz supple and soft, in perfumes and furs - yet with something demonic and lethal about her. Dick, in turn, with his ravaged, handsome face, looked as though lit by silver moonlight - poised to turn into a wolf.
Roger Lewis uses this glamorous and damaged pair as the starting point to tell the story of an age of excess: the freaks and groupies, the private jets and jewels and the yachts sailing in an azure sea; the magnificent bad taste and greed. It is about the clash of worlds: the filth and decay of South Wales and the grandeur and elegance of Old Hollywood; the fantasies we have about film stars and the fantasies the Burtons had about each other.
©2023 Roger Lewis (P)2023 Quercus Editions LimitedListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"Brilliantly funny...the book of the year." (Sunday Times)
"By turns, funny, tragic, tender and vicious...a word-of-mouth sensation." (Guardian)
The human side!
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Masterpiece
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This was great!
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Irreverent and entertaining.
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a very smart observation
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Self important and condescending
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