It turns out that in 1953, Burton and Granger had a rival duel over Jane Simmons, and both pistols and grenades were used.
Burton had just arrived in Hollywood in 1952 and was staying at his friend Stuart Granger's house. Granger was bigger than him at the time. He had just married Jane Simmons for a year, and the couple had a luxurious villa on a seaside hill in Los Angeles. Burton hooked up with Simmons while Granger was out on set.
When he came back, the two did not interrupt, but continued the affair in the same way as the secret work of spies.
There are too many servants in his house, and Burton cannot enter through the doors and windows, but can only use the woodshed. The firewood house is a wooden shed, which is connected to the kitchen and communicated internally. There is a door for the servants to come in and out to carry firewood, and it will be locked from the inside at night.
At the appointed time, he quietly slipped away from his sleeping wife and walked into the woodshed in the dark and windy night. Move the firewood piled up in the woodshed one by one to open a passage.
Simmons, who was waiting behind that door, opened it for him, leading him to sneak into the main house from the kitchen.
Granger and Simmons have separate bedrooms, and the couple is not in the same room, but Granger slept next door. The two dared not turn on the lights, and they made love silently on the large cream sheepskin rug on the floor in front of the fireplace, illuminated by the fire in the fireplace.
After finishing and tidying up, Burton will go back the same way. After drilling out of the hole, he must restore all the firewood to its original state, without revealing any flaws.
The story was told by Burton himself in an interview years later, so it's so detailed. He said, "When you go to the trouble of removing all the wood, your determination is stronger, you have to achieve your purpose, and with this mindset you can do anything." Unconsciously, but Burton and Simmons' flirting outside is too much, and has been noticed by many people. When Granger returned home from the set again, a friend reminded him to pay attention to Burton and Simmons.
He didn't believe it, although Burton once hugged and kissed in the middle of the dance floor in the middle of the dance floor when the bell struck zero o'clock on New Year's Eve, in the eyes of hundreds of Hollywood guests, leaving him and Sybil to the side. ——But he thought it was just ambiguous and smiled.
The next day, the Burtons hurriedly bid farewell to him after a night of arguing and moved away from his house, so he was no longer alert.
Now, he called his wife over to ask, she didn't hide anything, she simply admitted it, and now he had to believe it.
The next thing, there are three narrative versions, respectively from his and Burton's memories, very different. Burton's version reads: "He invited me to his study for a drink. When we were alone, he said there was something important to talk to me. He went behind the desk, opened the drawer and took out a gun and placed it on the desk. Then he threatened me with a grenade. He started asking for guilt, accusing me of seducing her, and even forcing her. He asked me to swear to the Bible that I would never see her again.”
Burton admitted that he did swear by placing his hand on a Bible that Granger had placed on the table.
But when he recalled this incident, he said that the oath was not voluntary and was forced, "Is the oath to the Bible also sincere when threatened by a grenade? It is not a promise at all. However, I was more careful because I didn't want my head to blow up." Granger's version was, "I called Burton when I found out about it, and he was in the corporate dining room at 20th Century Fox. At lunch, I said to him, come to my house tonight, I know all about you and Joan.
I was going to kill that bastard, but I knew he was a Welsh guy, a tough guy who could fight, and I had to protect myself. So I opened the drawer, took out two grenades and held them in my fists, ready to wait for him to come to me.
After he came, he knelt down and begged, 'Forgive me, forgive me', and hugged my knee, 'Please, I promise, I promise you, I will leave your wife, don't kill me. ' I kicked him away and told him, 'Get out of my house! '" But Burton told Taylor another version, years after he made it public.
"When I was eating in the company cafeteria, he called me and told me to go to his study at night and I said, 'Of course'.
But when I put the phone down, I thought about the shotguns in his house, the daggers, and the trophies he had hunted. I thought to myself, 'Oh my God, he's going to kill me! 'But I don't have a weapon, I need something to defend myself.
I saw Fox's store with open drawers with grenades in them, and I said to the cashier, 'I want two,' and went to meet him in my pocket.
When I walked into the study, Jimmy got down on his knees and crawled towards me, 'Give her back to me, give her back to me, I can give you anything! ' I said to him, 'You can have her, you weak bastard' and I kicked him and walked out. "Which of the three versions is true, or are they all whitewashing their rivals, but there is always a slightly more credible one?
Burton suffered from intermittent amnesia after his memory loss in 1974. But since the third version is what he and Taylor said, it is obviously 75 years ago. It was impossible for him to remember it wrong back then.
In version one, the beginning is obviously a lie, because in version three, Burton admitted that Granger had made a clear appointment, rather than deceived him when he entered the study and attacked suddenly.
Granger's version 2 doesn't mention that he is holding a pistol, only that he has a grenade in his hand. Nor did he mention that he forced Burton to swear to the Bible.
Version 3, can it be understood that Burton is lying, so that he can honor himself in front of his wife? After all, Granger said he was on his knees begging for mercy, and he was embarrassed. But if Granger lied, he could have fought with Granger in front of the media, instead of telling Taylor another version in private.
But Granger's version is also strange. Since Burton is also carrying a grenade, the two sides are evenly matched. Why does Burton kneel down when he sees him and beg for mercy?
I feel like I need to revisit the scene in The Wild Goose where Colonel Faulkner and the villain Banker confront each other, and the hatred between the two is clearly real. The picture shows Burton and Jane Simmons filming "The Holy Robe" after the incident, with Granger watching them on set.
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