Oliver Reed
Oliver Reed (
February 13,
1938 –
May 2,
1999) was an
English actor known for his macho image on and off screen. His major films include
Oliver!,
Women In Love,
The Assassination Bureau,
The Devils,
I'll Never Forget What's 'Isname,
Tommy,
The Three Musketeers,
Burnt Offerings,
The Brood,
Castaway,
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen,
Lion of the Desert, and
Gladiator.
Born in
Wimbledon, London as
Robert Oliver Reed, the son of sports journalist Peter Reed and his wife Marcia, he was the
nephew of
film director Sir
Carol Reed, and grandson of the
actor-
manager Sir
Herbert Beerbohm Tree by his mistress May Pinney Reed.
Dyslexic, Reed was
expelled from many different
private schools.
Starting off as an extra in films in the late 1950s (Reed had no acting training or
theatrical experience), Reed got his first notable roles in
Hammer films
Sword of Sherwood Forest,
The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (both 1960),
The Curse of the Werewolf (1961),
Paranoiac, and
The Damned (not the Visconti film, but an earlier English movie) (both 1963). In 1964 he starred in the first of six films directed by
Michael Winner,
The System, known as
The Girl-Getters in the U.S. He first collabarated with director
Ken Russell in a biographic of
Claude Debussy in 1965, which would later be followed with his famous role in
Women In Love (1969) in which he wrestled naked with
Alan Bates in front of a log fire, followed by
Hannibal Brooks in the same year, then the controversial 1971 film
The Devils, and the 1975 musical film
Tommy based on
The Who's 1969 concept album
Tommy and starring its lead singer
Roger Daltrey. In 1968 Reed played his memorable role of
Bill Sikes in his uncle
Carol Reed's screen version of the hit musical
Oliver!.
Reed starred as Athos in three films based on
Alexandre Dumas's novels , firstly in the 1973
The Three Musketeers, followed by
The Four Musketeers in 1974, and fifteen years later with
The Return of the Musketeers. He starred in a similarly historical themed film
Crossed Swords aka
The Prince and the Pauper as Miles Hendon alongside
Raquel Welch in 1977, and returned to horror as Dr. Hal Raglan in
David Cronenberg's 1979 film
The Brood. From the 80s onwards Reed's films garnered less success, his more notable roles being as Gen. Rodolfo Graziani in the 1981 film chronicling the Libyan resistance to Italian occupation in the
Lion of the Desert alongside
Anthony Quinn and as the middle aged Gerald Kingsland trapped for a year on a desert island with (a mostly naked)
Amanda Donohoe in
Castaway (1986). His last major successes were
Terry Gilliam's
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988), as Captain Billy Bones alongside
Charlton Heston,
Christian Bale and
Christopher Lee in
Treasure Island (1990), the 1995 comedy
Funny Bones, and his final role as Proximo in
Gladiator released after his death in 2000 (some footage depicting Reed's character was filmed after his death with a double digitally mixed with outtake footage taken before Reed's death).
Some of his contemporaries have ascribed his frequent appearances in films which wasted his talent to his desire for financial security: when the UK government raised taxes on personal income, Reed initially declined to join the exodus of major British film stars to
Hollywood and other more tax-friendly locales. During this time he began proclaiming himself as "Mr England", and turned down major roles in two hugely successful Hollywood movies,
The Sting (1973) and
Jaws (1975). His
Daily Telegraph obituary noted that in the late 1970s Reed was finally obliged to relocate to the Channel Islands as a tax exile. An anecdote holds that Reed could have been chosen to play
James Bond. In
1969, Bond franchise producers
Cubby Broccoli and
Harry Saltzman were looking for a replacement for
Sean Connery. Reed, 31 at the time, was a prime candidate but ultimately not selected because the producers felt his rowdy demeanour was too much of a liability. In a posthumous biography, the
Guardian Unlimited called passing over Reed "one of the great missed opportunities of post-war British movie history ... He would also have spared us
George Lazenby, and perhaps
Roger Moore as well."
In
1959 Reed wed Kate Byrne. They had one son, Mark, before their divorce in
1969. He then lived with the dancer Jackie Daryl from 1969, but they later parted, after having a daughter, Sarah. His widow was his second wife Josephine Burge, whom he married in
1985.
He was famous for his excessive drinking, and was once forced to leave the set of a television discussion programme
After Dark after arriving drunk and attempting to kiss
feminist writer
Kate Millett. On another occasion he removed his trousers during an interview.
Reed's drinking bouts fitted in with the "social" attitude of many
rugby teams in the 1960s and '70s, and there are numerous anecdotes such as Reed and 36 friends drinking, in an evening, 60 gallons of beer, 32 bottles of Scotch, 17 bottles of gin, four crates of wine and one bottle of
Babycham. He minimised the story that he drank 106 pints of beer on a 2-day binge before marrying Josephine; "The event that was reported actually took place during an arm-wrestling competition in
Guernsey about 15 years ago, it was highly exaggerated."
Steve McQueen told the story that in
1973 he had flown to the UK to discuss a film project with Reed and suggested the pair go to a nightclub in London. This led to a marathon pub crawl during which Reed threw up on McQueen. Reed was often irritated that his appearances on TV chat shows concentrated on his drinking feats, rather than his latest film.
He died suddenly from a
heart attack during a break from filming
Gladiator on
May 2,
1999 in
Valletta,
Malta reportedly after drinking three bottles of
rum and beating five sailors at arm wrestling at a bar called simply, "The Pub." (The owners have since added "Ollies Last Pub" to the sign.
*OliverReed.net
*Interview from Playmen, by Michael Pergolani, August 8, 2000
*Oliver Reed Discussion Forum
