Where does time fly? A decade ago, I was on the other side of the world in Los Angeles, California at the culmination of a campaign which led to one of Wales’s greatest ever actors finally being given his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
On March 1 st 2013, fellow Port Talbot film star Michael Sheen gave a rousing speech as he unveiled the tribute to Richard Burton which had been placed next to Elizabeth Taylor’s star, finally reuniting Hollywood’s most famous acting couple.
Many seemed totally surprised that Burton had never been nominated for this honour and discovering that very fact is how I ended up starting the campaign to get a star for a Welsh acting legend of both stage and screen.
As with all good ideas, it began in a pub and symbolically, that pub was New York’s White Horse Tavern, Dylan Thomas’ favourite drinking haunt in Greenwich Village.
Dylan was, of course, Burton’s literary hero and the actor was involved in four of the seven productions of Under Milk Wood, the poet’s most famous play.
At the time, I was visiting my friend Geraint Jones - who was heading up the Welsh Government’s office in the USA - and as is inevitable when Welshman meet thousands of miles from home, we ended up having a few beers and talking about everything that made our homeland so special.
Eventually, our conversation ended up debating how many Welsh actors and actresses were to be found with stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the first name we both mentioned was Richard Burton.
But on checking this later, we were both surprised to find that whilst fellow Welshmen Ray Milland and Anthony Hopkins had been honoured, the man from Pontrhydyfen had not been awarded this accolade.
Of course, this could never stand and so I promised myself as a proud Welshman that once I was back home in Wales, I would do everything I could to correct this.
I naively assumed at the time that all I needed to do was to put the great man’s name forward and a star would be handed out immediately to such an iconic Hollywood star.
As I was to find out, it was not as simple as that.
Any potential recipient must be formally nominated to the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce which administers the award. Once this is done, each recipient must then be considered by a committee that can reject any application. Finally, a total of £25,000 is needed to pay for the star and its future upkeep if the nomination is successful.
Fortunately, the Western Mail agreed to back a “Star for Burton” campaign and in March 2011, a formal nomination was sent to the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce which was supported by a letter from the Burton family.
This was not only important given the posthumous nature of the star, but to confirm that the family was happy for Burton’s star to be placed next to Elizabeth Taylor’s, honouring one of the most famous acting relationships and greatest love stories in history.
A few months later, I received an email from the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce with the simple message: “Congratulations to you and the people of Wales” which meant that the nomination had been accepted.
And in one of those fortuitous coincidences that makes you know the stars are aligning, 20th Century Fox were about to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the release of “Cleopatra”, the historical 1963 epic that brought Burton and Taylor together for the first time.
After a few transatlantic phone calls, I persuaded the studio’s marketing team that financially supporting the Burton star would be the perfect vehicle to support the promotion of Cleopatra, enabling the ceremony to go ahead as planned.
It was also agreed that St David’s Day would be the most appropriate date on which to unveil the star as help to raise the profile of Wales in Hollywood. This was especially apt because, as a proud Welshman, Burton is said to have had a clause in his film contracts excusing him from working on our national day.
When the Burton star was announced, the news was on media channels around the World and the star ceremony itself generated considerable publicity for Wales and its creative sector.
In fact, various meetings were held by the Welsh Government during the visit to Hollywood which planted the seed that Wales had enormous potential in film and television, and it is of no surprise that we now have a creative industries sector that is flourishing and a key part of our economy.
Therefore, one of our greatest actors had finally received the recognition he deserved in Hollywood, and it was one of the proudest moments of my life to be involved in making this happen.
And despite suggestions that Richard Burton would never have asked for such an honour in his lifetime, I am sure he would have been delighted to not only receive the accolade on St David's Day, but that it all began with a conversation between two Welshmen in his own hero’s favourite pub.
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