Elizabeth Taylor has taken the final letter that Richard Burton wrote to her shortly before his death, to her grave.
The actors, whose romance is a legend in Hollywood, were married twice but their tempestuous nature ensured that they could never stay together but as Taylor was to confess later Burton was the love of her life.
After their second marriage ended in divorce, Burton married Susan Hunt but he never got over Taylor and wrote a passionate letter to her expressing his wish to come home to her shortly before his unexpected death aged 58 in 1984. The actress kept the letter safely stored next to her bed for the past 27 years but it went with her when she was laid to rest at the Forest Lawn cemetery in Los Angeles. Taylor, who was 79 when she died from congestive heart failure last Wednesday, had refused to reveal exactly what her fifth husband wrote to her, the Daily Mail reported.
However, she did reveal a small part of the letter to her biographers Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger.
She told them, “In it he told (me) what he wanted. Home was where Elizabeth was, and he wanted to come home.” Burton and Taylor were married between 1964 and 1974 and then again in 1975 for another year.
She received his final love letter, which he sent on August 2 1984, three days before his death, as she returned to her home in Bel Air, Los Angeles, from his memorial service and promptly burst into tears after she recognised his handwriting.