Meet Grey’s Anatomy star Kate Burton’s famous actor parents

Richard was born in Glamorgan, Wales on November 10, 1925. Four years later, in 1929, Sybil was born on March 27.

While not much is known about Sybil, Richard came from a big family. He was the twelfth of thirteen children and was raised speaking Welsh. Richard’s dad was a coal minder and was badly injured during an explosion when he was a child.

While both Sybil and Richard were born and raised in Wales, they met in London while filming the drama The Last Days of Dolwyn in 1949. While the film was Richard’s debut and launched his illustrious career, it was Sybil’s only film credit.

The couple married the same year they met, 1949, and stayed together for 14 years. In 1954, Sybil and Richard appeared in Under Milk Wood on the West End.

During their marriage, Sybil gave birth to two daughters, Kate in 1957 and Jessica in 1959. Soon after tying the knot, Sybil gave up her career to support Richard. The family moved to Switzerland and then the United States shortly after.

Of giving up her career for Richard, Sybil told The New York Times in 1994: “I loved theater and what I was doing, but I certainly wanted to go as a wife to America when Richard was offered a job there. I knew that Richard would have an exciting career and that it would be fun, two Welsh kids on the Queen Mary, traveling first-class.”

In 1963, after Richard’s public affair with actress Elizabeth Taylor, he and Sybil divorced. It’s reported that Sybil received a $1 million settlement and custody of Kate and Jessica.

The actor’s first marriage crumbled after he met Elizabeth on the set of Cleopatra in Rome in 1963. Elizabeth, who was also married when they first met, recalled their first day on set in the three-part documentary Elizabeth Taylor: Rebel Superstar.

“He was hungover and very vulnerable and his hands were shaking,” she said. “He asked me to hold a coffee cup up to his lips, and I was gone.”

The couple launched into a whirlwind of a relationship, marrying in 1964 and divorcing ten years later. But their divorce didn’t last. In 1975, Richard and Elizabeth remarried, divorcing again in 1976.

During their tumultuous relationship, Richard adopted Taylor’s daughter, Maria McKeown. Of their love, Elizabeth told Vanity Fair in 2010: “Attentive, loving — that was Richard, from those first moments in Rome [filming Cleopatra], we were always madly and powerfully in love. We had more time but not enough.”

After divorcing Elizabeth for the second and last time, Richard went on to marry twice more. In 1976, he tied the knot with British model Suzy Hunt, who was just 26. Richard described the moment he laid eyes on Suzy to The Daily Mail: “I turned around and there was this gorgeous creature, about nine feet tall. She could stop a stampede.”

The couple split in 1981 after five years of marriage. Two years later, in 1983, Richard married for the last time. He met his fourth wife, Sally Hay, while filming the TV miniseries Wager in Vienna. 

They wed in a small wedding in the presidential suite of a Las Vegas hotel, during Richard’s one-week break from the New York stage show, Private Lives, with his ex-wife Elizabeth.

Throughout his life, Richard was a heavy smoker and drinker. When he was just 41, he suffered from bursitis, arthritis, and liver and kidney disease. On August 5, 1984, Richard died from a stroke when he was just 58.

While Richard died tragically young, Sybil lived until her 80s. After she and Richard divorced, she moved to New York and married the musician Jordan Christopher. The couple welcomed a daughter together. Sybil passed away when she was 83 on March 7, 2013.