ALISON BOSHOFF: Bring on the Richard Burtons! Three screen versions of the legendary Welsh actor’s life set to come out next year

You wait years for a Richard Burton movie – and then two come at once (and a TV series).

I can reveal that the life story of the legendary Welsh actor, who was married twice to Elizabeth Taylor, will be told in three separate projects.

The whole thing is scheduled to be published next year, on the occasion of his 100th birthday in 1925.

One film will star Michael Sheen as Burton; another has set rising star Harry Lawtey to play the Welshman… and a third may go in a completely different direction, with Leo Woodall or Richard Madden playing the actor, who died in 1984.

The drama series Elizabeth Taylor vs The World is being developed by producer Dominic Treadwell-Collins, who was also responsible for A Very English Scandal, which focuses on the story of the Jeremy Thorpe scandal.

In one film, Michael Sheen will play the role of Burton

It is an adaptation of Erotic Vagrancy, the blockbuster book about Burton and Taylor by Roger Lewis, which explored their excesses: the diamonds, the private jets, the art and drinking, the fights and the morning-to-night bedding.

Times columnist Caitlin Moran is writing the script.

Author Lewis tells me: ‘There are two people who I think would be brilliant as my Burton: that boy from One Day, Leo Woodall; or Richard Madden. The most important thing is to be [as Burton was] incredibly sexy.’

Meanwhile, documentary maker Alex Sibley is working on a film about Burton’s life. The film will be based on existing images and photos, but will also contain dramatized passages. . . in which Michael Sheen will appear as Burton.

The third project is the most controversial.

It’s called Mr Burton and stars Toby Jones as Philip Burton, the teacher at Port Talbot Secondary School who noticed the potential and ‘obvious masculinity’ of Richard Jenkins, played by Harry Lawtey.

The teacher developed a close bond with his student and in 1943, after paying £50 to the boy’s father, Dick, a miner, took custody of the teenager.

Mr. Burton, an English and Drama teacher, steered his ward toward acting careers, and Richard took his mentor’s name.

Burton was married to Elizabeth Taylor (twice)

The film is called Mr Burton and stars Harry Lawtey (pictured) as Richard Jenkins and Toby Jones as Philip Burton, the teacher at Port Talbot Secondary School.

But biographers have speculated that the teacher may have groomed and sexually abused his student, who later noted that he drank “to overcome the shame” and told an interviewer that he had had a homosexual period but that it “hadn’t worked.”

Filming for the film, which is funded by BBC Wales and Ffilm Cymru Wales, is set to begin in late July.