Introduction
Sally Burton (née Hay), also known as Sally Hay Burton (born 21 January 1948), is an author and theatre producer, and was the fourth and last wife of actor Richard Burton.
Marriage
She was born in Braintree, Essex, the daughter of journalist Jack Hay. Burton worked as a freelance production assistant on the set of the TV mini-series Wagner when Richard Burton met her. During a seven-month tour of the United States with Noël Coward's play Private Lives, in which Elizabeth Taylor was Richard Burton's co-star, Burton and Hay married on 3 July 1983 in Las Vegas; it was Burton's fifth marriage and her first. After the tour, they went to rest in Hawaii for several months before returning to their home in Céligny where Burton died on 5 August 1984; Sally Burton was then 36.
Philanthropy
Burton donated the Richard Burton Collection to Swansea University in 2005 and she received an honorary fellowship from that university in 2006.
In 2005, Burton moved to Perth, Western Australia, where her brother and his family had lived for years. In 2009, she launched the Richard Burton Award for New Plays, in conjuntion with Black Swan State Theatre Company offering a prize pool of A$30,000 for writers of unproduced scripts; this is Australia's richest prize for playwrights. The 2010 first prize of A$20,000 was awarded to Caleb Lewis; Hellie Turner was awarded the runner-up prize of A$10,000. The prize was not awarded in 2011 and new guidelines were drawn for 2012. The award was shared in 2012 by Ingle Knight and Tommy Murphy who would each receive a commission of $15,000 at the completion of a new play. No further awards have been announced.
Burton was patron of the Black Swan State Theatre Company, 2009-2012
Burton is a supporter of the West Australian Symphony Orchestra; she was a board member of Agelink, a theatre company for older actors. Established in 2007 Burton presents the Sally Burton Awards, a prize pool of A$4,000, to the two most talented performers of Shakespeare texts at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts.
Production
In 2009 she launched the independent production house Onward Production whose productions ran from 2009 - 2011. In October that year she produced the Australian première of the international touring anthology Seven Deadly Sins Four Deadly Sinners at the Playhouse Theatre in Perth and Noël Coward's Private Lives at Perth's Subiaco Arts Centre.
She is also the executive producer of the British documentary series Great West End Theatres.