Trivia/Anecdotes

When asked whether Oliver Reed was fun, actress Jane Merrow (co-star of the film The System) replied:

Hmm..... I wouldn't say he was FUN. Interesting - yes. And sometimes a real gentleman and sometimes a real pig, I have to say. But I enjoyed it. I was, you know, this was, you must remember, at the beginning of my career rather than where I had got to with The Prisoner. And so I was very nervous and TERRIBLY naive. But he was extremely, very professional. Consummately professional.

Richard Harris and his drinking buddies put modern stars to shame

COLIN FARRELL's reputation as a big drinker has been ripped to shreds by the legendary alcohol consumption of past movie stars OLIVER REED, Harry Potter's original Professor Dumbledore RICHARD HARRIS and RICHARD BURTON.

The PHONE BOOTH hunk has been labelled a party animal for his hedonistic lifestyle, but a new survey has found Reed, Harris and Burton's penchant remains unrivalled.

First placed Reed - who died in a Maltese pub in 1999 while shooting GLADIATOR - once claimed to have downed 106 pints of beer in a single session.

Farrell, 27, only managed to land fourth place - behind late stars Harris and Burton - beating out contemporary drinkers ROBERT DOWNEY JR and RUSSELL CROWE. OASIS singer LIAM GALLAGHER, NICOLAS CAGE and BOY GEORGE also feature in the top ten.

The poll of 2,500 Brits was conducted by Oriental food specialist BLUE DRAGON to celebrate the Chinese Year of the Monkey.

Farewell, Oliver Reed

Dreams was very saddened to hear of the death of Oliver Reed at the start of May. He gave one of the best performances in any Gilliam film, that of Vulcan in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.

According to Reed, "Munchausen was about the only time I've been allowed to do what I want with a part. You can be over-directed by people, but Terry let me have my own way. There was a scene we rehearsed on Saturday where we really hit our stride. When we resumed, Terry said on the Sunday, 'You seemed to be having much more fun with the character yesterday. Could you take it a bit further?' I didn't need to be told twice! Once I realised I could get away with it, off I went!"

From the autobiography of Michael Crawford

I first met him [Michael Winner] in 1966 during the run of The Anniversary. We had a meeting to discuss a film he had written with Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais called The Jokers. We met at Michael Winner's London office, a beautifully appointed room filled with handsome antiques and a huge desk.

When he rises to speak, he stands quite round-shouldered, in the shape of a comma, - a comma holding a big cigar. He puffs furiously, rocking back and forth on his heels while his hands constantly jingle whatever he happens to find in his pockets. When he's excited about something, he paces the room like a well-tailored wading bird - head pulled into hunched shoulders, his free hand placed palm-up and neatly folded behind him while a lead toe tentatively steps forward, daubing the carpet as if to test some sandy shoreline before his trailing leg and upper torso can be pulled forward to join the rest of him. He was pacing in this way as he told me about The Jokers. 'It's a maaahvellous story, my dear...' (Everyone is always his 'dear'.) 'All about two brothers who set about stealing the crown jewels from the Tower of London...' I had read the script and loved it, so of course I asked him the obvious question: 'Who's going to play my brother?"' 'Oliver Reed,' he said.

OLIVER REED?! (Enter here my second nomination for that list of unforgettable larger-than-life characters.)

Now, I have never been quite sure if Ollie was discovered by Michael Winner or if it was the other way round, but by the time I met them they had already done a film together called The System (which also starred Barbara Ferris, and my old friend David Hemmings), and each claimed credit for discovering the other.

A reporter once described Oliver Reed as being somewhere between 'a Hippie and a Minotaur'. Well maybe, but, with his heavy black brows lending a certain menacing quality to his looks, he was what the romance novels call 'broodingly handsome'. There was a tension about Oliver Reed, a certain aura of danger. On the one hand he'd come from one of the grandest and most established of theatrical families - his grandmother was an opera singer, his grandfather an actor, and his uncle the eminent film director Sir Carol Reed - and Ollie always retained something of the presence and the air of authority of the Victorian actor-manager.

On the other hand there was something inside him that rebelled against his background and all authority, and also against his natural advantages in life, including his talent. Part of him wanted to tear it all down, and perhaps this is what gave him the air of danger that made him stand out among English actors of his generation. Ollie once told a reporter that for him, going into the acting profession was 'an involuntary muscular action like going to the bathroom'. That's a fairly typical Reed response, designed to shock the listener - but I came to know first-hand how very seriously he took his work.

But Oliver Reed was my brother!. I really dug my heels in on that one. There was absolutely no way I thought an audience would ever accept Oliver Reed and me as being even remotely related. Because of this I kept finding excuses not to do the film, questioning absolutely everything in the script. During a meeting with Ian La Frenais and Dick Clement in Winner's office, the writers irritably asked, who in hell does Michael Crawford think he is, asking all these questions - Jesus Christ? Michael Winner, with a beat replied, 'He might be, my dears, he might well be; keep writing just in case.' It was finally fixed that I should meet Ollie - and his brother was to be present as well. I'll never forget the shock when he turned up; his brother was fair and skinny; he could have been my double. There were no more arguments; I agreed to play the part, and I must say we had a ball doing the film.

For all his reputation as a night owl, Ollie was a thorough professional, and as good as gold to work with. However, depending upon how he was cast at the time, I think it is fair to say there was always a certain amount of physical risk present when you worked with Oliver Reed. The problem was that he tended to live the part he was playing. I'm thankful he played my brother in The Jokers. I think it gave us a real bond. Whenever we walked about the set together, he always kept a fraternal arm me and every now and again, he'd give me a brotherly squeeze, the kind of squeeze a fruit-extracting machine would give a ripe orange.

The only sticky moment between us came during the filming of a scene where the script called for Ollie to half-strangle me. (In the story, his brother had supposedly betrayed him.) I was really dreading it, quite rightly, because as we shot the scene Oliver took my 'betrayal' as something entirely real and completely personal and suddenly my life wasn't worth tuppence. His ham-like hands were fastened so tightly round my neck, I felt the end of my life was imminent. It took four people to get him off me - and only two of them were scripted.

I was very saddened to hear of Oliver's death while filming in Malta in April of 1999, at the age of sixty-one, far too young.

.............................

Michael Linnit called shortly after we returned to London so say that the Walt Disney company had sent a script for me to read, a comedy-thriller called Condor Man, a spoof of the James Bond films. I was excited by the prospect of working with the Disney studio, and especially with Charles Jarrott, the accomplished British director of Anne of the Thousand Days and Mary, Queen of Scots and that beautiful film The Dove. I was called back to Los Angeles by Charles a few weeks later to test for Condor Man. Against all the odds he chose me for the part.

Well, our European locations were sublime - Paris, Zermatt, Monte Carlo - and the film also meant a reunion after fifteen years with Oliver Reed.

I'm convinced that playing Ollie's brother in The Jokers was the only thing that saved me when the two of us filmed Condor Man. Even when the script was a little thin, Ollie was bound to give it his all. In this one he played the enemy, a murderous Russian agent, and remembering his penchant for living roles, I feared for my life.

For the first few weeks of production he remembered the good old days when we were 'brothers' and every now and then, for old times' sake, he'd give me one of his crushing bear hugs on set.

Ollie had a few late evenings on location with Condor Man. I recall the night he threw his tuxedo into the sea from the window of his Monte Carlo hotel room. (Our cost-conscious company manager rowed out at dawn in a little boat to catch it before it floated away and disappeared entirely into the Mediterranean.) That same night Ollie wandered into my room while I slept and, without a word and for no readily apparent reason, he turned all the beds except down. Then he turned around and left. 'Thank you, Ollie,' I said, as he went out the door. He always left me alone just as long as I said thank you.

Our leading lady had a slightly rougher time of it, and Ollie clearly felt her talents were unfortunately (for her) far below Ollie's high standards. I recall they had a scene together in a helicopter where she was supposed to be terrorised by him, but in take after take, she was entirely unable to project enough fear for Ollie's taste. So while they were in flight for a final shot, Ollie actually opened the 'copter door and threatened to throw her out. She had no doubt that he meant every word, and the glance of fear that crossed her face at that moment was very real.

As time went by Ollie grew ever deeper into his character. He always spoke with a Russian accent now. One night, on location in Switzerland, I sat by myself in our local hangout and saw a grim-looking Ollie sitting alone in a corner of the bar. He looked up and saw me, 'Come here and haffff a dreeenk!' he said.
'It's okay, Ollie,' I said, 'I'm meeting someone...'
Again, he growled, 'Come here and haff a dreeenk!'
'No, Ollie, really...'

He rose majestically from his seat and squeezed me flat as easily as if I'd been a cheap accordion. 'Cummmmm here into Russian Embassy and haff a dreeenk, you little feathered fart!'

I'm not a complete fool; without another word I went 'into Russian Embassy' and had a drink with Ollie. Of course, from that moment on and throughout the rest of the film production, I was known as 'Condorman, the Feathered Fart'. Thank God it didn't make the billboards.

Michael Parkinson interviewed Irish comedian and presenter Patrick Kielty on his Parkinson chat show. The conversation turned to Kielty's own chat show and the occasion when he interviewed Oliver Reed...

Parkinson: Oh... Oliver Reed. He wrecked many a good chat show. I think that all the people who ever interviewed Oliver Reed should sit down and talk the experience through. But anyway, tell me...
Kielty:No, well what happened was that he turned up in Belfast at like one o'clock in the afternoon... pie-eyed... and proceeded to stand in the Green Room with another man who looked a bit like the dishwasher from Robin's Nest only with the arms. And urm....and they duelled [laughs]... they duelled Shakespeare at each other. And it's [does impression of Oliver Reed] "My good man I'm the finest actor" and [does impression of other man] "I'll think you'll find Ollie that I am the finest act-tor". And... and so by the time this show was going live at half nine... urm, he could barely say three words. And so we're running around saying "Who can we get? You're in Belfast! This is what you've got!". So urm... so we walked out and we brought him out to "Wild Thing". And of course he was playing up to this...
Parkinson: Oh God.
Kielty: ... and he sat down in his seat. And I said... he'd just moved to Ireland, he'd bought a castle down in Cork... and I said "Well Oliver, how long have you been in Ireland?". He went [does impression of Oliver Reed] "Young man... how long...is your dick?"
[audience laughs]
And urm... what can you do? So urm... so I said "you haven't been here that long then"
[audience laughs]
It was... it was just a nightmare. We ended up drinking till three in the morning. And... oh, just bizarre.
Parkinson: I actually saw Oliver Reed's dick.
[audience laughs]
Kielty: Really?!
Parkinson: Yeah. I did...I did a radio show with Elaine Stritch and he was late arriving.
Kielty: Yeah.
Parkinson: And I was talking to Elaine when the door burst open and there he stood, Oliver Reed, absolutely drunk, naked except for a pair of green wellies.
[audience laughs]
And Elaine Stritch looked at him and mid-sentence said, "My dear Oliver, I've seen bigger and better quite frankly"
Kielty:[laughs]
Parkinson: [laughing] Ah, they don't them like that anymore. Thank God.

Probably one of Oliver Reed's most infamous television appearances was on the Michael Aspel chat show. The following is from the spin-off book of the series, "Michael Apsel In Good Company"

Magic Moments
We had problems with spirits of a different nature the night Oliver Reed joined us. I heard some uncertain footsteps and he lurched on, waving a jug of orange juice, which was not the drink he had obviously been consuming in huge quantities. He was so rip-roaring drunk, that he made the newspaper headlines the next day. The front page of The Sun carried a picture of him, mouth wide open, eyes rolling. Apparently a lot of people were outraged, and the switchboard jammed, but as one critic pointed out, it would have been more extraordinary if he behaved like a bank manager. I was aware during the encounter that it was very compelling viewing. All I didn't want to happen was for him to become violent, which I didn't think was ever on the cards. I was more worried that he might fall over and hurt himself....

Getting Started
OLIVER REED I was a mini cab driver once - when it was very unpopular. We'd drop off old ladies at Victoria Station and the black cab drivers used to be very grumpy with us - in fact they used to punch you very hard in the mouth. So when I used to drop the old ladies off, I'd always give them a kiss goodbye - then the other drivers would think they were my granny!...

The above represents the entire account of perhaps what was Michael Aspel's most (in)famous guest appearance on his chat show. But perhaps in acknowledgement to this fact, the final untitled page contains only the following:

Aspel: I've read that you once drank 104 pints in 24 hours - is it true?

Oliver Reed: No, it was 48 hours.

Aspel: Oh well, that's all right then.