It was one of the best love affairs of the past century, a tumultuous 20-year tale of lust, love and matrimony (twice), all in the limelight of Hollywood fame.

Now, Elizabeth Taylor is providing peeks into her fervent, most often agonizing life with Richard Burton by means of his love letters to her.

In the letters, quoted in the July edition of Vanity Fair, Burton, who succumbed to death in 1984 at the age of 58, teases and sweet-talks, warns and declares, and struggles to tackle head on his fascination, love and need for Taylor.

The actress, now 78, tells the magazine, "Richard was magnificent in every sense of the word. From those first moments in Rome [on the set of Cleopatra] we were always madly and powerfully in love".

She said that he was a wonderful father. All her children respected him.

She said that he believed that acting was 'faintly ridiculous' and longed to become a writer.

After meeting Taylor while acting as Mark Antony in Cleopatra in 1962, they were both wedded at the time, but fell in love and started their unpredictable affair.

She said that in a touching letter penned just hours prior to his death, but which she got a few days later, he said that he was most happy with her and asked for one more chance.