Articles/Interviews

"He's going to be the biggest star in the country," says Michael Winner

He is built like a barn and his face has the rugged, rough look of a Canadian backwoodsman. He used to appear in horror films but then he made a picture called The System and soon show business insiders were predicting he would graduate to better things. He did. Quickly.

He is Oliver Reed, star of Michael Winner's searing and savage production, I'll Never Forget What's 'Isname.

Ollie (as his friends call him) gives a remarkable performance in the film. It follows hard on the heels of equally good portrayals in Debussy (on TV), The Trap (with Rita Tushingham) and The Jokers (with Michael Crawford). Now Ollie has just completed playing Bill Sikes in the film version of Lionel Bart's stage hit, Oliver, which is directed by his uncle, Sir Carol Reed.

"I was determined not to work for my uncle until I'd got somewhere in the business," says Ollie. "I didn't want people to say I'd got my break because of him."

Ollie's success is due entirely to his own hard work. He has tackled his roles with imagination and intelligence. Which other British actor could have brought to life so brilliantly the complex character of La Bete in The Trap?

In What's 'Isname Ollie once again demonstrates his power as an actor. The role of Andrew Quint was a challenge even for an actor of Reed's range.

"Andrew Quint makes a gesture most people dream of," says Winner, talking about the role. "He quits the rat race. But he finds the old pressures remain; new pressures arrive. His story is true of a society where physical riches, cars refrigerators, three-piece suites are commonplace. But people are finding these riches less satisfying than they imagined. The increasing modernisation and standardisation of society produces its drop-outs. People turn to psychiatry, drugs, become hippies. They want to get out. But can they?"

Ollie didn't need to read the What's 'Isname script a second time.

"I can understand how Quint feels," he says. "He is a man who can see his life trapping him, his ideals sold out to a commercial society. It can happen to anyone. But I would certainly like to think it could never happen to me."