Richard comes to the party

Press, 1 March 1982, Page 8

Richard comes to the party

NZPA-Reuter London Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton were back together hand-in-hand at the week-end, reunited for the first time in five years to celebrate her. fiftieth birthday. Miss Taylor and Mr Burton, who was groom at the fifth and sixth of her seven marriages, arrived holding hands, smiling and laughing, at the star-studded birthday party at Legends, an elegant London nightclub. “It’s great, I promise you. I want to be 50 all my life,” ■Miss Taylor told the guests as she cut into her birthday cake. : “Richard even has a tie on, and that’s wonderful too,”

she joked, sticking her tongue out at him, Mr Burton had been left off the 120-member guest list. AU that changed with a phone call — the first time they had talked for five years, said Zev Bufman, producer of Miss Taylor’s Broadway hit, “The Little Foxes.” Mr Bufman said Mr Burton called Miss Taylor from Italy to ask if he could come to the party, and again after his arrival in London to ask if he could serve as her escort. Both times she said yes. The reunion prompted speculation that they might try for a third round of

S matrimony, | Mr Burton recently separ- | ated from his third wife, I Susan Hunt. I He was not the only esI tranged or former husband to say “Happy Birthday” to Miss Taylor. According to Mr Bufman, Senator John Warner — with whom Miss Taylor is ending j marriage No. 7 — called > earlier in the day. ' Last week the violet-eyed star gave her advice to women turning 50: “Enjoy." Donald Zee, showbiz coi lumnist in the mass circulation “Daily Mirror,” said in a birthday tribute to her: “If life is a cabaret, hers has stopped the show. But what, Elizabeth, will you do for an

encore?” •-■■’ Zee discounted a recent i, - Taylor pronouncement that she was all through with >• marriage. d “The lady is fuelled by o love. Somewhere out there must be a strong, kindly, i,. earthy, shock-proof, childh cat-and-dog-lover, who can g recognise a great 50-year-old d when he sees one,” he said. The “Sun” newspaper had d a dating agency, Dating o International, feed details of Miss Taylor and Mr Burton i- into its computer, without - identifying them, a - It decided that they were f two perfectly matched s people, looking for special people and long-lasting relaJ tionships.