Elizabeth Taylor married Richard Burton on March 15, 1964. The couple filed for divorce ten years later. They married for the second time in 1975. They were the world’s most famous and talked-about pair for well over a decade.

They were madly in love, but they were also destructive as a couple, engaging in wild shopping sprees, extended drinking binges, and huge fights, all of which were followed by raucous public making up.

Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor collaborated on 11 great films, including The Taming of the Shrew and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? But, more importantly, they caused a stir wherever they went.

They were two of the biggest performers to emerge from Hollywood’s Golden Age, so it was only natural that they married, but their larger-than-life personalities made it impossible for their marriage to endure.

Taylor and Burton met on the set of Cleopatra in 1963. Taylor was married to Eddie Fisher, her fourth husband, at the time.

It was a love story that could only be imagined. Taylor and Burton, Heathcliff and Cathy, Romeo and Juliet.

He was the finest Shakespearian actor of his generation, and she was the quintessential Hollywood celebrity.

Furious Love: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and the Marriage of the Century, written by Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger, chronicles the couple’s turbulent origins and lavish life as “doomed nomads.”

In 1973, Taylor would explain, “When you’re in love and lust like that, you just grab it with both hands and ride out the storm.” They rode it out for years, through excess, upheaval, controversy, and bottles upon bottles of liquor.

Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. I Image: Getty Images.

As a couple, they had a highly public connection. It didn’t take long for the paparazzi to learn about Taylor and Burton’s romance when they were filming “Cleopatra,” and despite their best efforts to keep their relationship hidden from the press, they were quickly making headlines.

The Vatican denounced Taylor and Burton’s affair, which generated an international scandal. Their union, on the other hand, was unstoppable. Taylor donned a waterfall of flower-entwined braids and a short, ’60s-style dress on the day of her wedding to Burton. Taylor’s ring was eventually eclipsed by the Taylor-Burton diamond, which Burton gave her in 1969. The stone, which was cut by Harry Winston himself, was rumored to be worth a million dollars. A gem that went on to illustrate that diamonds, like marriage, stay forever.

The enthralling affair with Elizabeth Taylor was so all-consuming that it nearly destroyed them financially and physically. Long years of loving, arguing, drinking, and partying took their toll, demonstrating beyond a shadow of a doubt that, despite the depth of their feelings, this was a relationship that, despite their best efforts, never functioned as a marriage. Each time, it sank in domesticity, maybe unable to withstand the inevitable grind of housekeeping, even when the extravaganza included luxury suites, boats, ancient masters, and couture. Despite Burton’s fourth wife, Sally Hay, recently claiming that he never sent the famous farewell letter to Liz, that love affair was the real deal, the type of thing that every young girl fantasizes about.

Burton termed the couple’s obsessive romance “le scandale,” and it quickly devoured their individual marriages, the Roman set of Cleopatra, and the globe. Taylor’s fourth husband, musician Eddie Fisher, phoned his house at one time. “What are you doing in my house?” he asked. “What do you think I’m doing?” Burton answered. “I’m fucking your wife.”

Fisher died of an overdose, and Burton’s wife, Sybil, was suspected of attempting suicide.

Burton and Taylor’s scandalous affair had no negative impact on their careers, contrary to popular belief. In fact, it piqued the public’s interest so much that the studios jumped at the chance to cash in, casting the two together on many occasions.