Articles/Interviews

by Brian O'Hanlon with photographs by Kim Sayer

To ask a world star about his drinking habits could court disaster. But, especially for this issue, we received an exuberant welcome from the big, burly actor you hate to love and love to hate.

IT WASN'T AN interview, it was a performance, when Men Only went to the Gresham Hotel in Dublin to speak to Oliver Reed; actor-philosopher, brawler, hard-drinking womaniser; the public school educated hoodlum with the road-map eyes, who can drop his aitches with the best of them when it comes to playing cockney roles, or contort his face in homicidal anger, emitting a bona fide Glaswegian accent. The mercury is on a permanent roller-coaster in Suite 601 as Mr. Reed kisses and clouts, insults and cajoles, in trilby hat and bath towel, armed only with his not inconsiderable talent, and a bottle of Chablis. He bounds around the Edwardian breakfast service, infrequently pausing long enough to allow himself to be interrupted. I arrive at 10.30 and leave at 7.50. In the interim Mr. Reed has frightened the living daylights out of me and our photographer; has had us gagging into our booze with laughter; danced an impromptu Irish jig with Bridie, the chambermaid - "God, you're not bad -for an Englishman!" - stood on his head in the downstairs bar during the 'holy hour' and gravely assured us that there is more bullshit in Father Christmas than his reindeer.

The Irish and Oliver Reed are well met. For this is the home of Shaw, Yeats and O'Casey; of Beckett and Behan, McLiammoir and Oliver St. John Gogarty, where, in the world of words, the average is mundane, and you never put off today what you can still put off tomorrow.

For public consumption Oliver Reed is the Muhammad Ali of stage and screen. The John L. Sullivan braying: "I can lick any sonofabitch in the world." Yet the truth is the opposite. He is, in private life and to his intimates, desperately shy and totally vulnerable; a people-collector who conscripts friends as an insurance that his inner-citadel will not be breeched. Success hasn't made him a gentleman. He was born one. Meanwhile, on with the motley.

Let us play the fool, with mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come . . .

 

Act I

(Men Only knocks at the door.)

Girl: Are you from the dirty-magazine?

Men Only (amiably): And who the fucking hell are you?

Girl: Er. . . his secretary. Um . . . won't you come in?

Man (on sofa, in jockey-pants, rises): See this, mate! See this? (He points to a thumping great bruise under one eye.)

Voice (offstage): Cut! Oh! I say! Fuck it! Hopeless, the pair of you.

Oliver Reed (enters downstage): She was supposed to lift up her sweater and flash her tits as she said: "Are you the man from the dirty magazine?" He was supposed to threaten you by asking if you were the bucko who hit him last night... (He turns to the girl.) It was a perfectly simple walk-on part, darling. Now run along and fuck off ... (A second girl appears from the direction of the bedrooms. She doesn't speak, smiles bravely, and walks through.)

Oliver Reed: Halt! Who are you ? Ah, I remember. Something else to do with him - (pointing towards the man in the jockey-shorts.) Now look here. I do not care whether you have attended me, or anyone else under my roof, but when you leave you do not slink out of my presence like some village trollop, carrying your knickers in your handbag. You, madam, are courteous, even ethereal. You wish us all a 'good morning', bow and depart.

2nd Girl: Christ; what's he on about?

Oliver Reed (majestically rising): Out, damned spot. OUT, I say! Don't give me any of that love or gratitude shit. Fuck off! (Turning to Men Only.) You see the power of acting, and its effect. Have I made you uncomfortable by my appalling language and manners?

Men Only: Yes.

Oliver Reed: Well, then I have succeeded!

Men Only: The Class of Miss MacMichael, the film you did with Glenda Jackson, is now on general release, and we see plenty of other Oliver Reed pictures re-released, but what are you doing at the moment - here in Dublin?

Oliver Reed: The week before last I was on my back in the desert; the Libyan one and in the literal sense of the phrase, surrounded by 4,000 of Colonel Gaddafi's soldiers with about that amount of bluebottles crawling around my mouth. Filming - playing the part of an Italian General, when my heart said to my body: "Where, more than any other place on earth, would you like to be at the moment?" And my body replied to my heart: "In Ireland. In Dublin. In the Gresham Hotel, high above O'Connell Street." And here I am ...

Here, have this Winnie-the-Pooh badge, with Piglet. . .

Men Only: But there's no Piglet. There's only Pooh and Christopher Robin.

Oliver Reed: Damn and blast! I know my Milne; I know there's no Piglet on it. But you must imagine he's there. The little chap who wrapped himself around a tree . . .

Men Only: Um . . . well I, actually, preferred Eeyore.

Oliver Reed: What! That absent-minded sod? Would you leave your tail behind?

Men Only (glancing at the bedrooms) : Well, no.

Oliver Reed: Here, come and look at my pigeon. No, do please first come and look at this painting, here, in the corner. He (jockey-pants, on the sofa) bought it for me from the hotel as a present. I am absolutely entranced. Look, it shows two buckos about to have a set-to, two restraining them and a lady cooling things down. They're obviously in jar and having a bloody good time. Don't you see the value to posterity of that scene is that it's a cameo, a vignette? Scenes like this take place downstairs in O'Connell Street, all over Dublin, and the rest of the world every hour of every day . . .

Men Only: You have a fearsome reputation for fighting yourself.

Oliver Reed: No, no, dear boy, I have never fought myself. I am not Irish, unfortunately. Not like Brian Boru who could, 'tis said, pick himself up at arm's length with one hand, and hold himself out by the other. In fact, I don't think gentlemen should talk about their fights, any more than their women. I detest the physical grandee with an inferiority that makes him have to prove himself all the time. Words last much longer than the effects of a punch and are twice as deadly.

Men Only: But didn't you get into a . . . that is, have an altercation, upon some licensed premises as long ago as last night?

Oliver Reed: To the best of my recollection an animated discussion took place in the pisshole of a public house just down the road.

Men Only: You were rather tired at the time, perhaps?

Oliver Reed: Tired, but not at that point emotional. Some bucko, to coin a local metaphor, was thirsting for a fight, and I therefore acceded to his request that we repair to the bog to discuss terms. Well, to hell with it, I thought. What's the point? He hadn't done anything which called for a thumping. At least, not to me. So, I fixed him with an icy stare and said: "If you so much as raise either your voice or your fist to me again I will make you part of the urinal stalls for ever.'' He looked, wavered, his eyes left mine, and at that moment I knew I had won. I smiled, stuck out my hand, and I believe he was as relieved as I when we rejoined the company.

Men Only: But it doesn't always end like that, does it? You have that scar on your face from a previous punch-up, don't you?

Oliver Reed: Yes, but the times I walk away from trouble are those which don't get written up in the media. Oh! I'm not complaining. I know what makes news. You see I believe in the male orientated society - what I would term the natural order of things. Every man has his dignity, and that is the most important thing, to himself, about him. You destroy that at your peril. You see, you have it, for example. It has taken you half-an-hour to relax and stop pretending to write in your notebook. You will remember what I say because I know that you find me interesting as a person, not foremost a personality, and therefore I am no longer intimidating you. You have also stopped putting your glasses on and off. I do that, too, as a first line of defence sometimes. I suppose men and their dignity are the main reasons I became an actor. I like getting under someone's skin, playing roles. And I like people entertaining me, instead of my having to do it.

Men Only: That's all right up to a point. You are, on your own admission, a very intimidating person, in that sort of business. Can you blame people, when they first meet you, for letting you make all the running, and would you say your reputation as a hell-raiser and womaniser is totally undeserved?

Oliver Reed: Of course not! I wouldn't insult your intelligence by saying that. However, in fairness to myself, I think some qualification is necessary. Hellraiser is a pseudo term. I know what is meant by it and dislike that sort of person. I am articulate, I have a presence. I have very few friends and very many acquaintances. Look at it this way. Mr. Raymond and Men Only have shot you over here to interview me, with a photographer, because I am who they suppose I am, and for my part I mustn't disappoint them. Supposing I said: "Mr. O'Hanlon, shall we fuck off downstairs to the Palm Court and discuss the price of fish and cucumber sandwiches?" and I evaded all your questioning about women, booze and living it up. Well, what then? No story. On the other hand, I am not going to lie. I don't give many interviews these days. I no longer employ a press cuttings service. I am, and I don't care how gratuitous it sounds, in the happy position where I don't need publicity per se. However, I am very happy to be interviewed for Men Only because I read the piece on Garett Edwards, and like the format I am also, and please put this down, honoured that the publication should have sent a team over to see me.

Let us take the word 'womaniser'. What is meant by it? Does it involve carnal knowledge - what the physical classes call 'fucking'? Is it merely being in their company, smiling at them, taking them out and home, but not to bed? You tell me!

Men Only: I think to bed.

Oliver Reed: Okay. Then it may or may not please you to know that since I have been here in Dublin I have never gone to bed with another woman. I happen to be in love with my mistress.

Men Only: Can we come back to your fights?

Oliver Reed: If we must, but I want you to come and see my pigeon. Look, let me show you first how an Eskimo pisses. (From the appropriate cleave in his bath towel chunks of ice plop out on the carpet. Mr. Reed giggles and pours a fresh bottle of Chablis.) You see, appropos fighting, it is when people are stretched that it happens. When they no longer have the verbal answers. I have often been guilty of thinking I know someone better than he is beginning to know me, and that is when arguments and fights happen.

Men Only: Generally, when you're drinking?

Oliver Reed: Yes. Isn't what is left in the bottle when the liquid has left mostly nonsense? Now, through here, on to the balcony. Look, there he goes, free as the air. Pigeons have such majesty. Look, he lives just down there at the bottom of that stack. He knows that is his territory, and defends it. I hope they are still looking after my pigeon at the Banff Springs Hotel in the Canadian Rockies. You know, I did leave the buggers explicit instructions about putting out wood-nuts, that sort of thing. Perhaps, if you're passing you might check?

Men Only: I promise.

Oliver Reed: Now look there; On that platform over to your right, under the green dome of the Pro Cathedral. Those workmen. I would love to hear their conversation as they paint away. It would be classic, so natural, so funny. (Mr. Reed pirouettes as his bath towel threatens to disengage, waving the nigh empty Chablis bottle aloft. The workmen ceremoniously put down their pots, about turn and solemnly bow.)

Oliver Reed: There they are . . . cunts! They don't realise how much they are to me. You know, men come out of them and spend the rest of their lives trying to crawl back inside

Men Only: You play all sorts of roles, but somehow the overall image is still that of a squire - which, in fact, you are, owning Broome Hall at Dorking.

Oliver Reed: That's up for sale, you know. I picked up Country Life and it's advertised in it, across two pages.

Men Only: Why sell it?

Oliver Reed: It's an expense, especially when I am hardly there. Of course, there is the question of staff. Mine are very loyal, but it'll work out whereby nobody suffers. I couldn't face it if they did.

Men Only: You love antiques, old masters, and the whole gamut of what have been termed 'establishment nursery-bricks'?

Oliver Reed: Yes! I think the pity is that we in England have to involve too many things within the so-called class factor. You see they don't, for instance, here in Ireland. You can be uneducated, out-of-work, yet still allowed by those more fortunate to venerate a Constable, Turner painting, or Sheraton writing-desk.

Men Only: Tell me about a typical day at Broome Hall.

Oliver Reed: The staff meet in the kitchen, around the two Agas. Not the grooms or stable girls. They have their own domain. They're all born actors and actresses, domestic staff, you know. They love nothing better than playing a part. When I give a dinner party, or reception for a hundred people, they can't wait to bow, touch their forelocks, and relive the country house style of the 19th century for a few hours. But I'm not getting rid of my horses. I 'm breeding a new, or new to Britain, type of hunter. But don't let's become side-tracked into jargon.

Men Only: Your hat. It doesn't fit. Where did you get it?

Oliver Reed: See those initials around the inside rim? 'MR'? My son is Mark Reed. I gather he's not speaking to me at the moment, so I shall leave it for him at our dental surgeon's when next I am in London. He's 18, taller and stronger now than his father. When he was 11 I remember getting him in a Japanese Snake Bum on the lawn. I said: ' 'I won't break your neck now, if you promise not to break mine when you're 18!"

Men Only: Is it much of a row?

Oliver Reed: I hope to God not. I have a boat in the South of France. Mark came down to spend some time with me. I didn't much like his friends. Not my business in a way but I am his father. Anyhow, I bollocked him for going around in shit-order and for not cleaning his half of the boat-deck. "Lazy little bastard!" I shouted. And he's bigger than me now. Well, he went. Left me a note, and that was it. But, back to the hat. It was in a shop here in Dublin, in a back street, surrounded by shawls, priced £2. There was an old woman in the shop, dressed in black. She didn't say much when I asked for it. She knew, you see, to whom it had previously belonged. And look . . . the initials . . . MR.

Men Only: How long have you had it?

Oliver Reed: Ah . . . Let me see. (He picks up an Allied Irish Banks Credit Card.) Probably a couple of drinking nights ago. There was this absolutely amazing solicitor who gave me his name by leaving me his credit card. They are really fucking mad here.

Men Only: Do you have a drink problem?

Oliver Reed: None at all, dear boy. I'll fall over. No problem! I suppose the best thing is a hair of the dog . . . but if you want, for any peculiar reason, to become absolutely sober then it's bed and the sweats. What was it Sir Winston Churchill said? That he felt sorry for the teetotaller because when he got up he knew that was the best he was going to feel all day? I drink Chablis in the mornings and afternoons. I never touch anything else until the evenings . . .

Men Only: What about tea, milk, coffee?

Oliver Reed: They are poison, dear boy. Poison. Get them into your blood stream and it's the funny farm and Donald Duck.

Men Only: Not even water?

Oliver Reed: Only with whisky. It improves the taste.

Men Only: There are a few loose ends I would like to get back to. I was going to ask you more about Mark (he went to Millfield, didn't he?), the night you apparently undressed on Irish Television's Late Late Show and simulated love to Susan George, and your ability at arm-wrestling and friendship with the boxing fraternity.

Oliver Reed: I used to arrive at Millfield by helicopter and land on the rose bed. 'Boss' Meyer, its founder and head, was a marvellous man. He saw at our first interview that I was Mark's biggest problem. He asked him if he played golf. Before Mark could reply I jumped in and told him that I did and would he like a game. 'Boss' Meyer said he'd be delighted, so we went out and he gave me the thrashing of my life, on the links, in front of my son. He didn't have to say any more. He had made his point. We became great friends and Mark overcame his shyness - his 'living in the shadow' feeling. I played a lot of golf with 'Boss' - I'm damn sure he'd let me win, now and again - and I became quite good at landing the bloody helicopter to the side of the rose lawns.

Arm wrestling? I had a go with Rod Taylor, on television, here in Dublin. I hadn't lost for years until then. But what the hell. "Okay, it's yours," I whispered to Rod after we'd tested each other for a couple of minutes. The next day at Phoenix Park (races) I met the buckos. "Didja really lose dat? Or were you fecking about, Oliver?" they said. You see, Rod would have gone down with them a 100 per cent better if he hadn't wanted to win so much. That's the Irish character. And you note how they say 'feck' and not 'fuck'. It's charming . . . feckless. Fits perfectly.

Men Only: I heard about this business on TV with Gay Byrne (Ireland's Michael Parkinson) and Susan George, the day after it happened in Bahrain of all places. It seems to have made the world's press.

Oliver Reed: Well, I've been on a couple of times. It's the first time you're talking about. I was in jar but knew what I was doing. They wanted to be entertained, so I entertained them. All right, I took over the show, took my shirt off, stood on my head, grabbed Susan George and swung my leg over. But I didn't swear. You see - something we were saying earlier on - one has to know how to misbehave. To use language in public and to put people, en masse, ill at ease and embarrass them, is not on. It's only privately, when you are face to face, that you can ever really get to know someone and have fun finding out about them, and dropping your own guard.

Men Only: That reminds me. Henry Cooper, Dave Boy Green - they are friends of yours?

Oliver Reed: Oh, yes! I've sparred with Henry. He let go of his 'ammer, by mistake, and I was paralysed. "Sorry, Olly," he said, very concerned, "but I could feel that one dig in meself.'' I took Dave the Loon, who works for me at Dorking, to meet his hero. I introduced him to Henry and he just stood there with his mouth open wide, completely unable to say a thing. He'd actually met his hero. It was marvellous to be there.

Men Only: Who are your heroes?

Oliver Reed: Marlon Brando and Willie John McBride. They are Men! A friend here in Dublin is arranging a meeting with Willie John and I shall be quiet for once.

Men Only: So will he. We have had the pleasure of interviewing him in these pages a few years ago. He's not much of a talker.

Oliver Reed: That's what I like about him. His actions. When he took the British Lions to South Africa and won out there, in face of all the opposition from the British Government and the physical confrontment of the Springboks.

Men Only: I take it you were no supporter of the last government, and approve of playing rugby against South Africa.

Oliver Reed: Right. I think our views would be the same. So just quote me as saying what you like, and I'll go along with it.

Men Only: Why are you a Conservative?

Oliver Reed: Because I believe in myself as an individual. I dislike being told what to do and what to think. I like Margaret Thatcher because she's got guts, has that gut feeling about her country, and detests the ordinary.

Men Only: Would you, do you think, still be a Tory if you were born in less exalted circumstances?

Oliver Reed: I wasn't born with the arse hanging through my trousers, but they weren't issuing silver spoons on the National Health either, 41 years ago. My father was a journalist, my uncle, Sir Carol Reed, and on my mother's side we are Trees. Look at this picture of Beerbohm Tree. Those eyes! Don't you see a similarity?

Men Only: Yes.

Oliver Reed: I'll tell you a story. I was making a film for Uncle Carol, playing a cockney. I had a line: '. . . out of the house', which I pronounced as a cockney would - 'out of the aahss'. "You can't say 'out of the arse'," Uncle Carol told me. "The Americans won't understand what you're talking about." There were two cockneys on the set, working the lights. I said to them: "Well; you heard. Now, how is it said?" "Aht of the aaahsss, Olly, course,'' they both replied at once. Christ! That's it, I was Bill Sykes.

 

Act II

(It is the Holy Hour, That period of time in Ireland when Mass is being read to the more devout, when all places of drink are shut to the general public, Oliver Reed, as a resident, is exempt and leads the procession to the Gresham's long bar below, clad in T-shirt with a 'W, an anchor and an 'S', as a breast motif.)

Oliver Reed: (to barman, in his best Dublin accent): Now, what the fhock is dat? (Points to the motif.)

Barman: Ah! Sure, it's the mark of the hand shandy mob; like me mate here.

Mate: Fhock yez!

Oliver Reed: May we have some drinks?

Barman: Some of what kind?

Oliver Reed: (to Men Only); You deal with them, I'm not up to an Irish conversation at present. (Goes to the centre of the bar area and stands on his head.)

Barman: (bending): Would you like to pay me now or sign? (Oliver Reed obligingly lifts two fingers.)

American Girl: Gee, you're awfully rude!

Oliver Reed: And you, madam, are awfully boring. Either cease interrupting me in my devotions or go upstairs to my room and take your knickers off. (Girl is shocked and rises.) Madam, pray be seated. Let there be no indecent haste, especially at your age.

(Dubliners come up to Mr. Reed with their autograph books - all ages, sexes and sizes. He signs every one, thanking them.)

Oliver Reed: You see, most women don't know their place. Especially Americans. Have we covered everytihng? That's your sixth pint. I must say you can handle it well. Look, I'll pay and you put it down to Mr. Raymond.

I believe in reincarnation - are you listening? All right, I'll wait 'til you've finished singing.

I must tell you, I cannot stand the quack-quacks - the St. George's Hill people at Weybridge. They go: quack-quack, quack-quack, quack-quack, and talk a load of absolute fucking nonsense. Some of them came to my place and one man - a bank manager ("I'm in banking ..." a bank manager, I ask you. That sort of bullshit) began asking me about myself. Well, I can't spell. There's a difficult word for those of us who can't, but I can sometimes pronounce it. Anyway, I told him I suffer from whatever-it-is. "My dear chap," he said, "tell me, how do you spell it?" Walked away with the Cunt of the Year Award, on the spot.

Men Only: Reincarnation?

Oliver Reed: No, let me tell you first. I am writing a book - a friend is ghosting it. He approached me to write it and I told him: "If you're going to write about me you will have to come and live with me for two years.'' He took me at my word and has the cottage over by the stables. He thinks it might take him a long time. All I say to him is that my name's Reed, not fucking Beethoven, and I don't want an unfinished concerto when I croak, or he does first. Perhaps one day, I'll actually write a book myself. Just chapter headings of people and places, and then when I'm in my bath-chair, being pushed by a nigger, I will say: "Stop! Let us go to The Laburnam.''

Yes, I do believe that the dead live again through the living. I am an ideal subject for the dead because they are dancing in my head. When I eventually croak I shall insist on coming back into somebody's head like mine. Meanwhile, all the heavenly tarts are up there, dancing round the bloody maypole with their skirts above their heads. Waiter! Wouldja ever get us another drink?

Men Only: You are very much a man's man/male chauvinist - whichever view is taken. I know you admire Glenda Jackson. What other actresses with whom you have appeared do you rate?

Oliver Reed: I won't tell you because if I do then when I meet a girl playing opposite me who has just started her career it might intimidate her, thinking she's now in the shoes of Glenda and the others. But Glenda is magnificent. She'll steal any scene from anyone, and you don't realise it until you see the takes.

Men Only: Well, it's time to go. I can't thank you enough for giving me your time and your company. Who was that chap in jockey-shorts, by the way? Is he really your bodyguard?

Oliver Reed: No, he's a friend. I get awfully lonely and I just rang him up in London and asked him to come over, and he did. My phone bills are enormous. I spend two hours a day talking to my brother, David, who manages me, as you know. When you're lonely pigeons are friends. They rise majestically like doves from the Ark. I'm not complaining about being lonely. It is, after all, self-inflicted, but the best thing is meeting new people every day and living out their fantasies for them. Won't you stay to dinner? There will be only about a dozen of us this evening.

Men Only: Not this time. Tell you what, read what I've written after it is published, and if you still want me to dine with you I'll bring my old bat over to Broome Hall.

Oliver Reed: Excellent. Watch that cabbie there. I can tell he's half-pissed already. That's the bloody man who never stops at traffic lights because he's colour blind. . .