"Richard Burton rang me up once and said, Do you know you're my only leading lady I've never slept with? I said, Well, please don't tell everybody, it's the worst image"
About this Quote
“Please don’t tell everybody” is the sly pivot. She pretends his boast is her embarrassment, then detonates it with “it’s the worst image.” The subtext is sharp: in this industry, reputations are props, and hers is a particularly profitable one. The humor isn’t prudishness; it’s strategy. She’s acknowledging that her public persona has been marketed as pristine for so long that even a rumor of not sleeping with Burton could sound like failure, a weird inversion of the era’s sexual brag economy.
The line also winks at the audience’s knowledge of Burton’s legend - heavy-drinking, heavy-loving, a man whose affairs were practically a press release. By treating access to him as something you might be ashamed to have missed, Andrews exposes how absurd that status game is, while staying charmingly inside the rules. It’s a masterclass in deflection: she protects her boundaries, keeps the mood light, and subtly reminds everyone that “image” is both cage and currency. In 20 seconds of banter, she shows how a woman survives Hollywood by turning the gaze back on itself.
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Andrews, Julie. (2026, January 18). Richard Burton rang me up once and said, Do you know you're my only leading lady I've never slept with? I said, Well, please don't tell everybody, it's the worst image. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/richard-burton-rang-me-up-once-and-said-do-you-23411/
Chicago Style
Andrews, Julie. "Richard Burton rang me up once and said, Do you know you're my only leading lady I've never slept with? I said, Well, please don't tell everybody, it's the worst image." FixQuotes. January 18, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/richard-burton-rang-me-up-once-and-said-do-you-23411/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Richard Burton rang me up once and said, Do you know you're my only leading lady I've never slept with? I said, Well, please don't tell everybody, it's the worst image." FixQuotes, 18 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/richard-burton-rang-me-up-once-and-said-do-you-23411/. Accessed 9 Feb. 2026.






