HOW HE ATTENDED SUPERSTARS’ WEDDING
On one occasion, Stafford was dispatched to Puerto Vallarta in Mexico, where Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton had retreated to escape the world’s media while they waited to become free to marry.
Stafford located them and with photographer Bill Lovelace struck up a friendship, assuring them they had no intention of telling the rest of the world where they were: they were interested only in the wedding.
Stafford spent many an evening drinking with Burton, but found it impossible to match the Welshman glass for glass.
Eventually there was such trust Stafford helped them plan their flight to Montreal where they were married on March 15, 1964, with Stafford and Lovelace the only press present.
Stafford endeared himself to them even more on the “dry” Air Canada flight to Montreal when he persuaded the cabin staff to serve them whisky in tea cups.
In The Richard Burton Diaries, Burton wrote: “Robin Stafford of the Express came to visit us at the same time as Peter Sellers. He was the only journalist allowed at our wedding, not because he was a particular friend but because he was so quietly and charmingly persistent. It wasn’t until we had chatted for a long time I thought to ask him if he were on a job or purely a social visit.”