Oliver Reed was a big guy. I think he was big enough to be a professional wrestler. He was also a hell-raiser and one of the greatest drunks of all time. With his lively personality, I think it would have been a wonderful “fit.”
I recently caused controversy here noting how I wasn’t “fit” for something which might pose a difficult challenge. Yes, I’m not “fit” for a bar fight with Oliver Reed (were he still alive and the two of us drinking in the same bar). I’d more likely play the role of David Letterman (make sure you watch for the handshake incident).
But there was one person who could get away with, metaphorically speaking, slapping his face with a white glove. And her name was Shelly Winters (check the third YouTube clip and wait till the end).
I don’t think I ever knew anything about Reed’s off-camera life.
I find it somehow gratifying that his off-screen persona appears to be quite similar to my favorite of his on-screen personas: Porthos.Report
Athos.
Not that the movies got Porthos exactly right; they made him a silly dandy instead of a lovably dim, unshakably loyal, well-nigh unstoppable force of nature. But they did make him comic relief, where Athos is a brooding, wounded, tragic figure.Report
Except in the “(Three and Four) Musketeers” movies, he played Athos.* Frank Findlay portrayed Porthos.
* And did it with great sensitivity as the thoughtful, broken senior member of the group. He was a good actor.Report
Also in The Return of the Musketeers, which was loosely based on Twenty Years After, and was pretty awful.Report
I’d have begged borrowed and stole any amount necessary to sneak on the set of Women in Love the day the wrestling scene between Reed and Alan Bates was filmed, had I been old enough at the time to have any sense.Report
Brilliant actor. He is also the nephew of Carrol Reed who directed the Third ManReport
I’d never thought of it this way, but I wonder how much of the character of Alan Swann in “My Favorite Year” was actually Peter O’Toole stealing from not just his own experiences but his relationships with contemporaries like Reed.Report
That might be.
I had always heard that Alan Swann was modeled — both and script and by O’Toole — after Errol Flynn, and that for those who are insiders the movie is full of tiny jokes an anecdotes you wouldn’t get if you didn’t know Flynn (or his biography) really well.
This might well be apocryphal, for all I know.Report
Old theatre joke:
Rex Harrison is doing a matinee performance. The woman calls out “Rex Harrison, you’re drunk.” Harrison replies “Madame, wait until you see Peter O’Toole”Report
“I am not an actor, I’m a movie star!!!”Report
Exactly what I had been thinking – the character was based on Errol Flynn, but I can’t help but thinking that O’Toole brought into it a lot of personal history. Kind of like how basically every early heavy metal band thought that “This Is Spinal Tap” was about them because the creators had tapped into the zeitgeist.Report
The story that makes me laugh and shake my head is the story of his last bar tab.
From the article: Witnesses said Reed, 61, knocked them back at a bar in Valletta, the Maltese capital, for three hours during a break in filming.
As his wife, Josephine, and friends watched in amusement, Reed – as well-known for his tippling exploits as for his 53 movie roles – bought drinks for everyone at the bar.
Then he arm-wrestled sailors from the Royal Navy frigate HMS Cumberland and shared two bottles of rum with them.
“The sailors could not take the pace and left,” one bar employee told London’s Sun newspaper.
“When they’d gone, Oliver drank a couple of glasses of whiskey before his collapse.”
Awesome.Report
What a way to go out. He was the second best drunk of all time. Second to only Andre the Giant.Report