Burton drank, and drank hard. The New York Times reports that he could put away “half a gallon of cognac or 100 proof vodka during stage performances.” (Alcohol slows reaction times, which sounds like bad news for anyone performing “The Tempest” in front of a crowded theater. But moderate alcohol use seems to improve verbal creativity as well.) Interviewed on the BBC’s “Parkinson” talk show in 1974, Burton claimed to have gone through periods in which he drank two or three bottles of hard liquor a day, enough to end a normal human life. These periods were marked by suicidal depression. (The interview is available on YouTube.) He might well have quoted (per Sparknotes) one of Shakespeare’s characters: “All my fame for a cup of ale….”
Burton’s battle with alcohol was never over. In 1981 he quit drinking altogether, calling it “worse than cancer.” But within a few years he had picked it up again. The robust former rugby player began to appear in public looking frail, with a slack, haggard face. The fact that he smoked upwards of five packs of cigarettes a day probably didn’t help, either (per the Buffalo News).
On August 5, 1984, Burton died of a cerebral hemorrhage in his adopted country of Switzerland, a sudden ailment caused indirectly by his years of abusive drinking. He was 58 years old.
