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Richard Burton in The Gathering Storm (film, 1974)

There was no attempt here to make svelte Burton resemble round-cheeked Churchill: instead, the performance was carried entirely by his voice, in an uncanny imitation he had been honing for several years, having previously recorded his speeches for an American TV documentary. Behind the scenes, Burton had mixed feelings about the role. "In the course of preparing myself to act the part," he wrote in a New York Times article, "I realised afresh that I hate Churchill and all his kind."

After hearing second-hand about an incendiary remark Churchill was said to have made about the Japanese ("“We shall wipe them out, everyone of them, men, women and children. There shall not be a Japanese left on the face of the earth"), Burton wrote: "Such simpleminded cravings for revenge leave me with a horrified but reluctant awe."

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