Barry Norman recalls the broody, unfulfilled genius of Oliver Reed:
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When Oliver Reed died his friend Michael Winner, who directed him in several films, described him as a superbly accomplished actor. He also said Reed could have had a greater career, but chose to enjoy his life instead. I think the latter comment is nearer the truth. I believe he probably had everything it takes to be a superbly accomplished actor except the desire.
Reed was the Errol Flynn of his day, a womaniser and fearsome boozer whose exploits aroused contempt and derision in the strait-laced, and something close to admiration in those - many of us, I suspect - who occasionaly yearn to go wildly off the rails but wouldn't dare. Like Flynn he probably hurt a few people along the way, but also like Flynn he did most damage to himself.
In his best roles he showed the kind of magnetism that the movie camera loves, along with a brooding power that revealed tantalising glimpses of the considerable actor he might have been had he set his mind to it. But, alas, the best roles came early in his career and because of his erratic behaviour dried up too soon. In the sixties and early seventies he was, by British standards, quite a star. But though he continued working to the end, his stardom had pretty well vanished by the time he was 40. Directors would still cast him in supporting roles but were too scared to offer him the lead. I mean, what if he didn't turn up? Or - just as bad - what if he did turn up but was drunk all the time?
There's sad irony in such thinking because, outrageous though Reed could be, he was well behaved and reliable on set. Glenda Jackson, his co-star in Ken Russell's Women in Love, admittedly didn't like him much but said: "What I admire in Oliver is his consummate professionalism. It doesn't matter what state he might be in physically, when they say 'Action!', he's ready." Unfortunately, most directors with limited time and money at their disposal didn't know that. What they knew was the man who dropped his trousers in public, leapt into a boxing ring and did a striptease and made a famously drunken exit from a live TV show by tripping over a sofa and saying: "Right. I'm off for a slash."
What demon drove him to do such things only he knew but it certainly ruined his career, for a few of his 60 films stand out in the memory. And yet those that do owe an enormous amount to him. Think, for example, of his unpredictable Gerald Crich in Women in Love, his deeply menacing Bill Sikes in Oliver! and his darkly pensive, scene-stealing Athos in Richard Lester's two lusty adaptations of Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers.
The ability was there all right and so was the intelligence. This was no drunken fool but an amusing, witty and surprisingly shy man who drank, he said, because he enjoyed it, because "I like the effect alcohol has on me."
Onlookers and those inadvertently involved in his boozy antics might not have liked it much but that, he felt, was their problem.
Whether he regretted the effect his lifestyle had had on his greatly promising but mostly unfulfilled career I really don't know, though I cannot remember him ever saying so. Maybe, as Michael Winner observed, he simply decided to enjoy life rather than worship the shabby modern gods of success and fame.
Moralists, reflecting on the idiosyncratic and self-destructive way in which he chose to enjoy his life, may at this point nod sagely and ask: "Ah, but was he happy?".
As to that I have no idea. Couldn't even hazard a guess. But I hope he was.
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Last Updated On
11/07/07
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