Articles/Interviews

He's off the bottle, off the birds, and tame as a kitten, or so the story goes... forget it! Still boozing and brawling, Oliver Reed is the greatest hell-raiser ever and as tame as an angry, hungry lion. Simon Kinnersley reports.

Oliver Reed stood up, calmly unzipped this trousers and relieved himself into a half-empty champagne bottle. When he'd finished he zipped up, plunged the bottle back into an ice bucket and grinned: "That'll give someone a shock when they pour out a glass of champagne".

Welcome to the New Ollie Reed, ladies and gentlemen - in other words, exactly the same old Ollie Reed, who seems to have devoted most of his waking hours to boozing, with the odd fight fitted in between rounds.

Forget all the stories you've heard about the Reformed Reed. How he's given up the bottle for life, stopped eyeing up the birds, kept out of trouble, is on the straight and narrow, and going to live a quiet life from now on. it's all nonsense. "Once a pirate, always a pirate. I'm a buccaneer - a bucco - through and through. I'm the same old Ollie I was years ago. Ollie Reed doesn't change," he told me.

Having spent a day with him, much of it peering into a glass of whatever kind of alcohol came to hand, I can assure you it's true. He's unchanged.

He's the same old boozing, brawling, bruising, rough, tough Ollie who's been making the headlines for the last 20 years or more. Never mind the rumour, that he's been tamed by 19 year-old Josephine Burge - remember the relationship that caused such a stir three-and-a-half years ago when he took her off to the Caribbean while she was still a schoolgirl? Again it's not true.

In his time he has been banned from every bar in the American state of Vermont, arrested in Hungary for brawling, banned from his local for climbing up the chimney one Christmas, coming down and planting a sooty kiss on the barmaid, and he has been known to sink 104 pints on a non-stop three-day binge. But still he soldiers on - one fist clenched, the other clutching a bottle.

When I met him it was just after 10am and he was already into the "sherbie". Since he'd only finished the previous session four hours earlier, it seemed impossible that anyone could carry on, but he did - and how. "Let's get down to business" with him doesn't mean let's work. It means, let's cut the nonsense and get down to some proper drinking.

While many celebrities often try to cover up their off-screen activities, not Ollie. He loves the image and notoriety. "I've always liked being called a hell raiser," he admits. "I'm proud of that label. The sad thing is that I'm the last of them. There was Peter O'Toole, Richard Harris, and I was the baby. Now I'm the only one carrying the baton. And who's going to take it up... Michael York?"

Looking back over a trail of wrecked bars, cuts, bruises, hangovers and hefty bills for the damage - not to mention the battle scars on his face and body - a little surprising perhaps. Reed says with obvious relish that he has no regrets.

"I love to court violence. I love the sense of violence in the air that runs through a room when you know there's going to be trouble. I love, love, love it. I love a good bout of fisticuffs. That's why I'm a bucco."

"If I hear someone saying something rude or something I don't like, then I'll do something about it. I'm not interested in hearing their apologies, I'll hit them. If I come out on the wrong side and end up in hospital, that doesn't bother me. that's part of it."

Life for 46-year-old Ollie Reed is a series of confrontations. Spending time with him is both a nerve-jangling and exciting experience - rather like sticking your head in a lion's mouth or going on an SAS survival course. You are never truly sure whether he's going to embrace you or thump you.

Some of the time it's like a boyish game. When I first met him, he glowered and glared, then pushed me hard in the chest sending me reeling into an armchair. Then, laughing merrily, he pulled me back up and pumped my hand enthusiastically.

He's such a perverse mixture of gentleman and thug, bully and friend, articulate and crude, funny and sad, warm and cold. Yet - whatever the contrasts, whatever the moods - there are two things that always run through him. First, his generosity of spirit and deed. Second, he's one of the few true showbusiness characters. A man who is larger than life.

Ironically, this legend - which rather than following, goes before him - actually causes him a great deal of trouble. "It's impossible for me to go into a bar or a pub without having a few problems - it's a bit like the Gun-fight At The OK Corral every time. There's always someone who wants to take me on, someone who wants to prove themselves."

"However quiet a pub might seem, I've always got to keep one eye out just in case. People seem to think that just because I play tough parts I must spend the whole time wanting to fight and prove how tough I am. They also know that I won't walk away, I can't do that."

With Reed it's impossible to tell just how much of what he says is bravado and how much is real. Certainly there's an element of bluff and bravura about him - he knows what people expect and he never likes to disappoint them. But, at the same time, there undoubtedly is a very hard streak to him.

He is very much a man's man, he's always looked for trouble, right from the days when he was thrown out of 13 different schools. Similarly, the love with which he discusses his two year's National Service in the 50s - he still remembers his number - demonstrates that it was an extremely happy time for him. All buccos together.

But he has a hard look to him. Especially when he appears to glare at you through only one eye, the other casting off in a different direction. It would send a chill through the toughest of men. It's a look - mean and fearsome - that's made him his fortune as an actor as well as sending reverberations through many a public bar.

To see him tear off his belt and hold it poised and ready to swing like a bull whip, buckle at the striking end, is a fearsome sight. "I use it like this when I think I might be attacked by two or three men," he tells me as I cower in the corner.

He's a big, broad-chested man, his arms are muscular and powerful, even if his tummy gives away his passion for drink. His face, as he admits, tells you he has lived. There are a few scars, a layer of stubble and the legacy of a late-night session in the eyes. Yet for all that there is a twinkle and a spirit - the lust to live life to the full goes on.

It's that curious chemistry which makes him so attractive to women. He says, without obvious boastfulness, that he can have pretty much any women he wants. And there's little reason not to believe him. At least not until he starts talking about them. He's the man who put S-E-X into sexism.

"Women have three basic roles in life: to be cooks, scrub floors and be receivers of men's sex. Most people try and pretend it's not like that, but we all know it's true."

"Most women - underneath all the political beliefs and talk of equality - really want to be at home scrubbing floors and with the pots and pans in the kitchen. That's where they feel most comfortable. Women are only satisfied if a man dominates them. That's what makes them feel confident. And there's no woman in the world who doesn't want to feel that."

Whether or not Josephine feels like that. I was unable to find out. Reed has now decided to try to protect her from the limelight as much as possible, following the criticism that has surrounded their relationship.

But then, maybe she doesn't have much choice in the matter. Just like he says, he doesn't change - "except that I'm getting older and fatter" - so she has to like it or lump it.

Certainly, she doesn't join in his all-night drinking sessions, now that he's back on the "sherbie" after six months on the wagon following a wager. "My life against 12¹/₂p were the stakes." And, while we sat in the hotel room slugging down the champagne before adjourning to the bar, Josephine was out playing tennis with Reed's 15-year-old daughter, Sarah.

Yet even though he has insisted that she has changed his life - he admitted that he was terribly lonely before meeting her following the break-up of his 12-year affair with ballet dancer Jacqie Daryl - he still has an eye that's drawn towards every attractive woman in the room.

"I don't think women mind men being unfaithful, they don't mind where you go as long as when you come back you give them some good sex. If you aren't giving them that, then they start thinking you're a non-goer, a puppet, and they become dissatisfied."

"If a woman is asking for it, then give it to her... wallop. Don't be frightened to dominate them, tell them to shut up and get on the bed... they love it. Don't mess about. Women are like a ripe cherry waiting to be picked. If you're going to do it then get on with it, don't muck about."

"If a relationship goes wrong, there's only one reason. It's the man's, he hasn't been giving her enough sex. That's what they want, and that's what they understand."

But, in spite of all the chat, even Reed admits that, though, in theory it sounds absolutely fine, it doesn't always necessarily work in practice. His marriage to model Kate Byrne ended for just that reason. "I think that a woman should forgive a man, understand his feelings and why he behaves that way. But Kate wouldn't put up with me going off with lots of women."

Yet, in spite of what seems like callous and uncaring talk, he remains steadfastly loyal to his family. He's immensely proud of his brothers David and Simon, as well as his son Mark, 22. His daughter, he admits, he finds rather more difficult to cope with as she goes through puberty, but he obviously loves her dearly.

Yet ask him who was the biggest influence on his life, who made the greatest impact? His mother, his father, his grandparents or possibly an aunt or uncle? The answer is none of them. It's Marlon Brando. Not Brando the person, but Brando on screen. "It was seeing him in The Wild Ones, on the big bikes. He was tough, he looked like a real pirate, a true bucco."

Reed would love to have been a swashbuckling hero in the 16th century. But now all that's left is to talk about going off in search of Spanish plate with a crew of buccos. "I don't want to be the captain any more," he says, "but I'll be the bugle caller and encourage them on their quest."

"Then when we get back with our plunder, we'll go home to our women, throw them on the bed and have sex with them, before going off again in seach of more Spanish gold. That's the role of women in life, to wait for their men to come home."

With no Spanish plate to be found, the best quest Ollie can find these days is to go down to the local pub - it used to be The Cricketers in Ockley, Surrey, but now he's moved on to The Punch Bowl a few miles along the road.

At one time he was the local squire living in a �¹/₂ million, 79-room mansion set in 60 acres of grounds. But the staggering running costs forced him to sell and he now lives in a slightly more modest home with 11 acres, six beehives and an assortment of dogs, that he talks about with deep love.

As he talks about them and the other things he cares about, it's a completely different Reed that you hear. A man of wit and charm who is so often lost in the desire to be outrageous and cause all kinds of scenes.

When he actually gets down to really personal matters, he is surprisingly coy for someone renowned for his outrageous remarks. "When I joined the army I was the typical Virgin Soldier," he admits. "To pull at a girl's knicker elastic was the peak of my excitement. But never you mind how I lost my virginity, that's no one's business except mine."

Even more surprising, for a man who has made so many films, he has virtually no interest in discussing his work. When I ask him what he's been up to recently, he waves the question away with the shake of one hand. "I'm finished as an actor now, I'm on the way out, I have to accept that. I'm getting older, my hair is going grey and' there's nothing I can do about it. Now it's time for the next generation to come along and take over."

"Of course, I don't like the idea of that happening, it's taken me two years to learn to get used lo it and accept it. It's just something that's inevitable, and something that every actor has to learn to accept one day."

"I don't enjoy acting any more. If you're an actor, then that's what you do. It's my living, but it's not something that I've enjoyed since I was 29 - just before I made Oliver - then I thought it was all great fun."

However much Reed plays down his talent, it seems certain that there will always be a demand for his services. At least either as a swash-buckling hero or a Mr Nasty with the chilling eyes and icy stare. Even if, as he says, his bill-topping days are over he's still had leading roles in recent films like Black Arrow and Christopher Columbus. But they may not bring him the notoriety of The Devils, Women In Love and Triple Echo.

His scene in the 1969 film Women In Love - when he wrestled naked with Alan Bates, and which caused an incredible outcry at the time - will ensure that he's not remembered just for his booze and birds but also for his acting. "The film gave me the distinction, along with Alan Bates, of being the first actor to take off my underpants and flourish my full frontal in a high street film. I was scared - and Alan and I polished off a bottle of vodka each before staggering on to the film set."

For someone who is seen almost entirely as a roustabout, Reed holds some surprisingly strong social and political opinions. "It's very difficult to be a working class pig, who's a royalist and votes Conservative, but that's what I am."

He is highly critical of Michael Caine, and the way he makes judgements about the British now he lives in Los Angeles. And in particular the way that Caine leapt to support Prince Andrew's paint-spraying incident when he was in California.

"If Michael Caine wants to start sounding off, then he should get back here. But if he wants to stay out there, he should bloody well shut up and not start making judgements about how the British should be."

"What's he doing in California anyway? He and a lot of other stars said they were quitting the country because there was a Socialist government in power. Well haven't they heard that there's a Conservative government in the House and it's time to get back?"

Reed's six months away from the "sherbie" was not a lot of fun, nor is it something he's in a hurry to repeat. He proved his point and that's it. "I spent six months seeing through the mirror, seeing what a lot of people were like. For the first time I saw people cold, with a clear view and I didn't like what I saw."

"When you're sober you find yourself putting up with bores - people who you would normally have nothing to do with - and having to listen to them, I didn't like that. I like the friendship of drinking and the honesty that people give under the influence of drink. They're real and true."

"A friend said to me 'how nice' I was when I wasn't drinking. I told him that jelly and ice cream were nice, but I'm not. Not me, I have never been a nice person and I have no wish to be."

It's true. Reed is far too extreme to ever be nice. Nice is bland. Reed may be a lot of things, but he is never bland. He's far too uncompromising for that.

When he gets married again, and maybe he will and maybe it will be to Josephine - "But don't put words into my mouth, and say things I haven't said" - then it will be one of the most spectacular weddings of all time. Everyone will be invited. And everyone will get absolutely smashed.

And when he dies, he hopes it's where all good pirates meet their Maker - at sea. At sea, so that the sardines can feed off him, before they wind up on a piece of toast on someone's plate. He bursts into fits of laughter at the very thought.

With that he left. He didn't shake hands or say goodbye. He just turned round and walked off. Off to the nearest bar and the bottle without a bottom. Off to more escapades, more melodramas and maybe another round of fisticuffs.

Yes, Oliver Reed is very much an untamed and unchanged man. I just hope that no one tried his special blend of champagne!