Background

She was born in Braintree, Essex, the daughter of journalist Jack Hay.

Career

Burton donated the Richard Burton Collection to Swansea University in 2005 and she received an honorary fellowship from that university in 2006. In 2009, she launched the Richard Burton Award for New Plays, offering a prize pool of A$30,000 for writers of unproduced scripts. This is Australia"s richest prize for playwrights.

Each year, 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.

In 2009 she launched the independent production house Onward to create more acting jobs. 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 is currently presenting 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.

Achievements

• 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. Burton is patron of the Black Swan State Theatre Company, which will give the winner a public reading.

Membership

Burton is also a patron of the West Australian Ballet and a supporter of the West Australian Symphony Orchestra. She is a board member of Agelink, a theatre company for older actors.