| Description | The majority of entries are written while the Burtons are residing in Rome. Some are written from Positano, Italy.
Discusses day-to-day events relating to the filming of The Taming of the Shrew, including his experiences of working with Franco Zeffirelli, tensions between the director and cast/crew, particularly regarding costume design, Burton's anxieties about the film project and rehearsals with fellow actors Cyril Cusack, Victor Spinetti, Michael Hordern, Michael York and Alan Webb. Entries from August onwards relate to the filming of Dr Faustus. References include Burton's anxieties about the film's execution and his need to fight off occasional feelings of boredom and of frustration with acting.
Other projects mentioned include: Burton's discussion with David Frost regarding a film of the life of Winston Churchill; giving a poetry reading with ET at the Acropolis in Athens; narrating (in Italian) a documentary about the recent severe floods in Florence; taking part in a charity concert held in London for the victims of the Aberfan mining disaster and an abandoned project to record Dylan Thomas' The Beach of Falesa (based on a story by R.L. Stevenson). Also details his reading which includes W.H. Auden's poetry, Randolph Churchill's biography of Winston Churchill, Robert Blake's biography of Disraeli, Edmund Wilson's Europe Without Baedeker, Anita Loos's A Girl Like I and Malcolm Muggeridge's articles.
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