Books

This is Susan's reply...

My writing partner Tom Johnson and I have been movie fans for ever (me from 16 when I was first allowed to see Hammer Films and Tom from 9 when he saw Frankenstein at the movies - apparently the US didn't think it would warp a child's imagination the way the UK authorities did!) ; we're now 64 and both retired from teaching. In the interim we have been involved in fan clubs and societies like the Christopher Lee International Fan Club in the 70s and the Barbican Hammer retrospective in the 90s. Tom and his friend Debbie del Vecchio looked for a book about Peter Cushing and couldn't find one so they asked him if they could write one - their book 'Peter Cushing: The Gentle Man of Horror' is still one of the best ever written. I helped run The Horror Elite with my friend Pauline and progressed to Hammer International with Keith Dudley in the late 70s and 80s where we had film weekends and conventions attended by lots of names from Hammer who were happy to come in those days for a good dinner and never asked for fees for autographs. My husband Colin helped all the while - I met him at the first English C Lee convention in 1972. We were blessed to be friends with Terry Fisher, Jimmy Sangster, Jimmy Bernard, Ingrid Pitt and many others.

We retired from active participation when Colin became dangerously ill, from which he recovered, but we became attendees at other peoples' functions like Don Fearney's fabulous Bray Studios open days and his book launch days at Cine Lumiere, where we meet old friends and reminisce (god we sound old!!) Tom and we became friends when he was 'gifted' to us by Richard Klemensen, the editor and publisher of Little Shoppe Of Horrors - a fabulous US fanzine - for whom Colin and I had conducted interviews; Tom came to England to finish a book and we took him to Whitstable to meet Mr Cushing again.He said he liked England but hadn't had the time to see much so we invited him back for Christmas and he's been twice a year ever since. During a long lunch on one of those visits he asked me to join him in writing a book about my favourite subject - egyptian mummies- and we finished 'The Mummy, in Fact, Fiction and Film' in 2000.

Ollie had died the previous summer, and Tom expected a serious book about him to follow shortly after, as did I. Nothing happened. Several books with large doses of his drinking exploits and very little about his movies emerged over the successive years, but nothing to document his amazing career. After seven odd years we decided to attempt to do that career justice ourselves, and our publisher, McFarland, decided they liked the proposal. The 'mission statement' if there is one is to stop the following short conversations that we have had sooo many times since we started. "What are you writing about this time?" "Oliver Reed" "Oh, he was drunk all the time wasn't he?" We'd be rich if we had a pound for every time we heard that.

Yes, he like a drink. But which other actor was so brilliant that he could star in virtually every film genre you could think of? Horror, thrillers, spy movies, romances, literary adaptations, costume dramas, sword and sorcery movies,historical dramas,science fiction and musicals. And which actor (apart from Sir Christopher possibly) could convincingly wear any costume you could think of with authority and realism.

We wrote to Michael Winner, telling him what we were planning, and enclosing a sample chapter and asked if he would consider writing a small piece for us. He replied almost immediately and sent an Afterword about his friendship with Ollie that brought tears to my eyes when I read it. Tom asked Sir Christopher Lee , with whom he had collaborated on several books, if he would write a Foreword, and he did. A long conversation with Ron Moody provided the other Foreword. A vast number of 'will you?' letters went out; those who replied were very kind to us in sharing their thoughts and feelings. Only one actor refused point blank - he shall be nameless - getting revenge, I think, from Ollie outshining him in a film where Ollie was not the main lead!

We bought, begged and borrowed all the films we could find from a filmography gleaned from several sources; I think there were only five or six that we couldt find - and we watched every single one. There were some brilliant ones, some wonderfully surprising ones and some absolute stinkers, but we watched them all. We then set a format; full cast and credits, synopsis and author comment with contemporary reviews from movie journals and newspapers and quotes from other sources. We acquired armfuls of photos - and Tom gave me an Oliver Reed portrait with autograph for a birthday and chose which to offer McFarland.

We hope we did Ollie proud. It's our tribute to a great guy and a formidably talented, underrated actor. No-one 'in the business' who spoke about him ever said he was not fully prepared and sober when he was working.They all admired his skill and talent and professionalism. Sadly, the lady from the Green Room at one of his supposedly debauched TV appearances wouldn't be quoted in print when she said, "He had a big jug of orange and was sober as a judge.Then the cue came - he grinned at me, winked and said,'Let's give 'em what they want'.

Hope this is useful to you; please use anything you wish.

Kindest regards

Sue and Tom J