Guess who can be "as exciting as a flounder?"

Actor Richard Burton   was  a life-long   diarist   though    he  probably  never set  out to have his  diaries published as they  have been as ‘The Richard Burton Diaries,’ Edited by Chris Williams.


While Burton loved being famous but loathed acting  he  was a passionate reader  and  himself  an entertaining  writer.   Far from being just  gossipy  references to  famous people  his   diary entries  about them    bubdled   with apt descripons.   Not surpisingly, that includes  similes--  for example:

 Mia Farrow   is said to have“eyes as round as her fist” and   “a laugh as false as a dentist’s assurance.”    Maureen Stapleton  according  to  Burton " photographed  like a sack of potato.”

Burton's  metaphoric  description of  himself    includes this  tidbit:  “My eyes are slits that only a locksmith could open”    Famous  actors generally  he  saw as :   “gods in their own mirrors. Distorted mirrors”   

Even Elizabeth  who he loved passionately  didn't keep him during rehearsals of their unsuccessful  rehearsal for a Broadway revival of Private  Lives  as  "Exciting as a flounder."