RICHARD BURTON - BURTON'S EPILEPSY 'TERROR'

Late Hollywood star RICHARD BURTON spent years of his life crippled by epilepsy - and used alcohol as a release from his condition. The actor, who was known to be a heavy drinker up until his death in 1984, refused to seek medical treatment for the brain disorder and never had the illness properly diagnosed because he distrusted doctors. And author Michael Munn, who was a friend of the Welsh film icon, has revealed all about the major effects the illness had on the star in a new biography. Munn claims Burton insisted on keeping his alcohol levels up in a bid to block seizures, which lead to a downward spiral of manic depression. He writes, "He was terrified that he might be diagnosed with some kind of mental illness. Few things, it seems, scared him more than epilepsy. "As the fear of mental illness and epilepsy and guilt and depression gathered momentum into a vicious circle that couldn't be broken, his life became one huge Catch 22."