Articles/Interviews

Oliver Reed freely admits that he was never nervous in front of the camera - except when he had a very bad hangover!

Such a remark is typical of one of the most colourful actors in movies today - a man who lives life to the full, and who once described his sex appeal in a few well chosen words; "I may look like a Bedford truck but somehow I unconsciously give the promise of having a V8 engine - uncomfortable perhaps - but fast."

The son of a sports writer, Oliver attended thirteen schools, and then worked variously as a Soho strip-club bouncer, fairground boxer ("I won my first fight, lost my second and then decided I didn't like getting hit"), clerk at a seed factory, and hospital theatre orderly. His National Service convinced him that the army was no place for him, although he stored up valuable background for roles like the sergeant in The Triple Echo later on.

The idea of acting returned on his demob, but he rejected the advice of his uncle, director Carol Reed, to go into repertory theatre or RADA. Oliver was going to carve a path his own way and he plunged straight in as a film extra... and spent quite a bit of time on the breadline.

His tough physique inevitably landed him the role of the "heavy", despite a cultured voice reminiscent of a university don. Hammer Films spotted him doing his leather-jacketed teddy-boy bit and put him under contract. Then they promptly submerged him in make-up and false teeth and starred him in Curse Of The Werewolf. "I now regard Hammer films as my apprenticeship", Oliver says. "For the first time I learned the techniques of filming and to sustain a performance shot out of sequence".

Oliver never doubted that one day he would be a success, and claims that without belief he would not have survived that period as an extra. It is partly due to the influence of two directors - Michael Winner and Ken Russell - and partly due to that inner determination that Oliver is today, at thirty-seven, one of the few British actors who is internationally recognised. Oliver himself says that it was Winner who influenced his bank balance, while Russell influenced the way the public viewed him.

Winner starred Oliver in The System as an amoral photographer in an English coastal resort. Just as the movie opened, Oliver was making the television biography of Debussy with Ken Russell. The marked contrast between the two roles, and his skills and handling both, pointed up Oliver's range as an actor and the doors began to open. Is also firmly buried his image as "the ageing Ted who usually walked around in a werewolf costume."

Oliver's career began to pick up speed. He went to Canada to make The Trap with Rita Tushingham; he made two more movies with Winner: The Jokers and I'll Never Forget What's 'is Name; the musical Oliver!; The Assassination Bureau; Hannibal Brooks (again with Winner); and Ken Russell's Women In Love. This movie teamed Oliver with Glenda Jackson (she won the best actress Oscar) and Alan Bates.

The next landmark in his career was also the role which Oliver considers his best piece of acting: as the priest Grandier in Russell's film of The Devils."It was certainly the most difficult and the most strenuous part I have ever played," he says, "and I think, quite important." He also reckons it took four years of his natural life! As the movie concentrated strongly on the visual extremes of plague-torn 17th-century France, the hysteria and fantasies of nuns claiming to be possessed by the devil, graphic exorcisms and torture, Oliver's own performance was severely underrated.

Oliver has since been making movies almost continuously: in England, Sitting Target and The Triple Echo; travelling to Italy for Fury and Dirty Weekend; to Spain for The Three Musketeers; to Persia for Death In Persepolis.

One of the reasons for this hive of activity is the upkeep of Broome Hall, a forty-seven-bedroomed former monastery set in 50 acres of rolling Surrey countryside. In this magnificent setting, Oliver lives out the role of "country squire", with his girlfriend, South-African born ex-ballet dancer Jackie Daryl, and their five-year-old daughter, Sarah. Oliver is deeply involved with breeding horses, growing roses and restoring and renovating the house. He can frequently be found in the local pub talking about local matters, while at home he plays snooker or chess - and watches racing on the television.

As an actor, he says he's not as intense as he used to be, and the great advantage of getting older is that parts become progressively more interesting. "When I see my old films," he says, "I cringe. Acting styles change, and what was flip and clever in those days in now really laughable. If ever I'm in doubt that in ten years' time someone is going to laugh at what I'm saying now, I tell the director that I think it is going to sound stilted, and we can change it."

The one part Oliver very badly wanted to play was Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, "but I think perhaps I'm a bit too old now. Besides," he adds, "I saw Laurence Olivier in the movie on TV and I realise I was probably doing a foolish thing in wanting to play it because he was so great in it."

Yet another landmark in Oliver's career was forged in the movie of Pete Townsend and The Who's rock opera, Tommy. Again with Russell at the helm, Oliver plays Tommy's stepfather and sings on screen for the first time. "I bluster my way through," he says modestly, "and I sing rather like a rugby forward. Tommy is an amazing visual film and the music is astonishing. I think for anyone to translate The Who's music in terms of images, it must be somebody like Russell - or a lunatic!"

Another of his recent movie roles is that of Bismarck in Royal Flash. Future plans include playing Casanova and a Russian spy which clearly indicates that there is no slacking off in range of roles on offer to him. Nowadays he says he very rarely reads scripts and that "most of my friends in the industry wouldn't offer me work that they didn't think was right and they know what I like or don't like."

Oliver has still never made a movie in America, though he's quick to point out that he earns American dollars. And while many of his friends have gone to live there for tax reasons, it seems unlikely that Oliver will follow their example. His roots are in England and although he enjoys filming abroad he is always glad to come home.

"I live each day as it comes, but each year I suppose I plan for," he says thoughtfully. "I can't think of not being involved in the movie industry in some capacity, whether as an actor, producer, director, or maybe one day, writing.

"I said once that I'd retire at thirty-five. Then suddenly I fall in love with a house like this which has to be maintained and kept up and staffed. I happen to think that's worth fighting for."