Jane Portal Archives - Richard M. Langworth

The Burton-Churchill Eruption: Coming Soon in Your Neighborhood

19 July 2020 Comments 1 Comment

Excerpted from “Back in the News: Richard Burton’s Fraught Relationship with Winston Churchill,” for the Hillsdale College Churchill Project, June 2020. For the complete text, please click here.

The Burton – Churchill Kerfuffle

The airwaves and Twitterverse are full of Churchill bile following recent sad events that have nothing to do with him. Surfacing again are attacks half a century old by the famed actor Richard Burton. Film critic John Beaufort first reported these in the Christian Science Monitor in 1972:

December 9th, 1972— Richard Burton has just given two of the oddest and most contradictory performances of his career.…

Origins: “I’ll kiss him on all four cheeks”

24 January 2019 Comments 1 Comment

Q: Churchill’s Kiss: A Cheeky Affair

I found myself using an alleged Churchill witticism I have long known, but could not find in your book, Churchill’s Wit: The Definitive Collection (2009). As I have it, Churchill was preparing to meet Marshal Stalin, and a diplomatic advisor said, “He will probably expect to kiss you on both cheeks.” “Oh, that’s all right,” said Churchill, “as long as he doesn’t want to be kissed on all four.” Can you verify this one?

My own main area of scholarly research is Samuel Johnson, another subject often misattributed. Good quote collections more than just the quotation and its source.…