And what is a 'proper' Welsh accent as opposed to an 'improper' one?
I have written "south welsh accent". Both gentelmen comes from Port Talbot. What I mean is that they don't speak like people there were in their youth, anymore.
How are you 'aware' that it is not a 'proper' Welsh accent?
Richard Burton was practising a lot to get rid of his Welsh accent however you can hear him speaking Welsh accent in the first movie he made "The last days of Dolwyn". Compare how he spoke in that movie, and how in others:
youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GqoBpr4c81I
youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NjlYvI7Q-bA
Also comparing how his sibilings talk... it's worlds apart!
As for Anthony Hopkins there's something peculiar about the way he speaks. He also used to work on his accent in his conservatory years but obviously couldn't lose it completely. There's some give-away, but I like the way he speaks. It's not so snooty, posh but still intelligent, elaborated. Actually at fisrt I thought that's the proper Welsh accent and couldn't understand why British people supposedly don't like it. Then I check on the internet how other Welsh people speak and it's totaly differently.
Funny thing I've noticed about RB is that he obviously tried to sound posh when he was giving interviews to British audience, while when interviewed by Americans he sounded more natural. I liked more the natural version of RB.