What Fresh Lunacy is This?

by Robert Sellers

  The Debussy Film was broadcast in May 1965 by the BBC and remains an impressive piece of work with plenty of typical Russell embellishments. In a complex role Oliver triumphs, more than justifying Russell’s faith in him. He positively smoulders as Debussy, capturing the brooding sensuality and threatening calm that were so characteristic of the man and his music. ‘The camera certainly loved him,’ says Mark. ‘He was a good-looking fella, but he was even better-looking in black and white, with that moody soft lighting.’ Ann Leslie in the Daily Express began to predict great things for him. ‘For a start he has one of the most extraordinary and mesmerizing faces ever seen.’

  It was without doubt Oliver’s most mature performance yet and justly received critical plaudits. The marked contrast he achieved between his sex-obsessed seaside photographer in The System (not long gone from cinemas) and his Debussy, and the skill with which he handled both, was clear evidence of his burgeoning range and versatility as an actor. And those reviews did more for Oliver than merely buff his ego. ‘They gave me a feeling of immense relief tinged with grateful satisfaction that the grievous bodily harm inflicted on me in the Crazy Elephant had done no more than delay my journey.’

  In later years Oliver was to refer to the success of Debussy as ‘my intellectual breakthrough’. It was when critics and the business realized there was a genuine ability there and began to take him seriously as an actor. ‘For the first time people realized that I was capable of playing something other than a pirate or a werewolf.’ Within the space of six months his career trajectory had shifted dramatically, something he was fully aware of and determined to exploit. ‘Hammer had given me my start and Michael Winner my bread, then Ken Russell came on the scene and gave me my art.’

  It was now that he made a bad misjudgement, accepting the offer to appear in one more Hammer and so landing himself in the worst film he ever made for the company. The Brigand of Kandahar is a historical drama set during the British Raj in India, with Ollie playing Ali Khan, leader of a gang of rebel bandits. It’s a right royal pantomime of a performance, lots of leering and diabolical guffawing for no apparent reason. And it’s no surprise to learn from Josephine that this was the one film from his back catalogue that he never allowed her to see. Even reuniting with Yvonne Romain, playing a sultry princess, failed to lift his spirits. ‘We were both moaning and groaning on that one. He was not in the best of moods on it and I don’t blame him.’

  One morning Ollie was involved in a minor road accident that broke his shoulder. As usual, hoping to avoid a fuss, he arrived on set without telling anyone what had happened. During a fight scene an actor made a grab for Ollie’s arm and he let out a huge scream. That’s when the director John Gilling found out he had fractured his shoulder. He was turning white with the pain. Asked if he wanted to take a break, Ollie insisted on carrying on, and only when filming wrapped at the end of the day was he taken to hospital.

  Turning up the next day with his arm in a sling, he told Yvonne that he’d been driving his car with it hanging out of the window and bashed it against the side of something. ‘What were you doing that for, you silly bugger?’ she said. ‘Were you pissed?’

  Ollie looked at her. ‘What do you think? I was legless.’

  ‘Well, you shouldn’t have been in the car then.’

  ‘Stop moaning at me,’ screeched Ollie and walked away.

  Yvonne remembers being slightly perturbed by the incident. ‘I admired him so much as an actor, but you could just see him going into that brick wall. There was a demon in him, there really was.’ And Yvonne wasn’t the only one who was becoming concerned about the amount of drink Ollie was consuming and the reasons behind it. The biggest of which was that Ollie drank because of an almost crippling shyness. ‘Oliver was deeply insecure, he was deeply sensitive, and he was immensely shy,’ says Winner. ‘He needed to be pushed to feel in any way at ease with other people. His was social drinking, taken to extremes.’

  A lot of people become actors to conceal their shyness; it’s a mask they can hide behind. Ollie also used alcohol. ‘All through his life he was terrified of being sober and having to act properly,’ reveals David. ‘He felt he was boring sober. But when he was sober he could argue a point and could be very erudite, but he always feared and fought shy of being challenged intellectually. There was always this thing in his life, and he would never admit it, but he felt he was intellectually inferior because of his dysfunctional education. So he’d get people drunk to bring them down to his level, subconsciously that’s what it was about, and he would do that every time.’ Is this why perhaps he chose most of his friends from among labourers and workmen, people he felt were on a level that he could accommodate and feel comfortable with? ‘Ollie was shy with people of his own class,’ says Muriel. ‘But not at all shy with road diggers.’

  The Brigand of Kandahar was Oliver’s last film for Hammer, and although he never went back, neither did he forget the enormous debt of gratitude he owed them, claiming those movies had been ‘the best training I could have had’. At Hammer, under the tutelage of fine directors and efficient technicians, he learned the craft of film acting, how the camera works, hitting marks, and how to sustain a performance shot out of sequence: all great preparation for what was to come. Oliver was certainly missed by Hammer. Anthony Hinds, the company’s most eminent producer, later reminisced: ‘It’s a pity what happened to Oliver, but we certainly had no problems with him – a charming, eager young man who wanted to please. We – Hammer – made his career, and Oliver always gave us credit.’

  Leaving Hammer had been a momentous decision but already it was paying dividends. Veteran producer George H. Brown had approached Oliver to play the rugged, brawling French-Canadian fur trapper Jean La Bête in The Trap, to be directed by Sidney Hayers on location in the mountains and forests of British Columbia. It was Oliver’s biggest film to date and its importance to his career was not lost on him. Mick Fryer remembers Ollie calling at his house pissed, clutching a bottle of whisky. ‘I’ve come round to celebrate,’ he said. ‘I’ve just got this part, it’s going to be the making of me, this is the one I’ve been waiting for.’

  The Trap is set in the mid-nineteenth century. Oliver’s La Bête arrives at a settlement to buy himself companionship in the form of a bride, ending up with a young orphaned mute girl called Eve, played by Rita Tushingham. The film follows a rather predictable, if entertaining, course, as Eve must come to terms with both her new life out in the wilderness and La Bête’s almost animal-like nature. It’s basically a man-against-nature picture and there’s a startling sequence where La Bête is struggling to make it back to his cabin at night with an injured leg as a pack of wolves closes in and attacks. Wolves being rather unpredictable animals, the filmmakers made do with German shepherds, though pretty savage-looking ones, and before the scene Ollie took Rita aside, saying, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll look after you,’ unaware the actress had already struck up a rapport with them. When the director yelled action and Ollie had to forcibly grab hold of Rita, the dogs thought she was being attacked and pounced, biting Oliver full on the arse.

  In another scene Oliver comes face to face with a mountain lion. To get the shot they shoved him into a big bullring surrounded by a high wall overlooked by three Mounties armed with high-powered rifles. The mountain lion was placed on a tree above him and on ‘Action’ was pushed into the ring. ‘The owner told me not to worry because if the lion sprang on me, by the time it actually made contact the Mounties would have shot it. In fact it only missed me by inches.’

  Working on the film as a background player was Warren Raines, who hasn’t forgotten Oliver, his personable demeanour, and the fact that he treated everyone on the film, from the director right down to the office runner, as absolute equals. He also took his responsibilities as the star seriously. ‘I recall Rita Tushingham was getting homesick and wanted to go back to England, but Oliver helped keep the production going by supporting her totally.’

  What came as a
surprise to many on the crew was Oliver’s playful nature, and Raines fell prey to a particularly noteworthy effort. Falling asleep one afternoon on the set, he was scooped up by Ollie and deposited on to the sound stage next door, where a completely different film was being made. ‘I awoke inside a church where soft music was playing in the background and I thought, I’ve died and gone to heaven. After shaking the cobwebs out of my head I realized I had been moved to sound stage B. I went back to sound stage A and demanded to know who the ass was who did this. I noticed Oliver a few feet away and he was breaking up with laughter. Yes, he was a practical joker.’ Oliver also spiked Rita Tushingham’s husband’s drink at a party, ‘which rendered him helpless for a couple of days,’ said the actress. ‘But that was just Oliver’s way of having fun!’

  For Oliver one of the more fascinating aspects of making The Trap was the chance to meet and interact with real native Indians, hired to loiter in and out of the frame to add a sheen of realism. One in particular was the hereditary chief of the Squamish Band in British Columbia, and his name was Chief Dan George. Years later Clint Eastwood would turn him into an unlikely star in his classic western The Outlaw Josey Wales. On the negative side, Ollie felt aggrieved by some of the crew’s prejudiced notions about Indian culture. Laying a trap, Ollie told one of the crew that he could get a very beautiful squaw for a packet of salt and some beads. Sure enough, this guy got hold of said goods and Ollie drove him to the trading post before then buggering off and leaving him stranded. ‘It was a long walk back to the hotel and it was snowing, but he turned up several hours later minus a squaw, with a rather damp packet of salt.’

  Ollie drank on the film, of course he did, and Raines often saw him in various states of incapacity brought on by what the Indians call firewater. ‘One could not help hearing his husky voice unless the batteries in one’s hearing aid had failed. Oliver was a hell-raiser with firewater in his belly, but a perfect gentleman and friend to many when on the set. Good actors of star status come and go, but Oliver in my book was one of the best.’

  Back in the familiar confines of Wimbledon, Ollie continued to live it large with his mates. One Sunday afternoon he managed to tag along with Mick Monks and his girlfriend to a party in Esher, even though he wasn’t invited. Following them in his new E-type Jag, Ollie overtook Monks and pulled into a pub. ‘He didn’t know where he was going, so we pulled in with him and had a drink. Then we passed another pub and Ollie pulled into the car park; here we go, we had another pint. So from Wimbledon to Esher I don’t know how many pubs there are, but we certainly had a look at most of them.’

  They arrived at a grand house and it was obvious this was a very posh do, as fairy lights twinkled in the trees and a small orchestra played in the garden. Monks and his girlfriend, suited and booted, were shown to their designated table, while Ollie stood around waiting for a drink, dressed in his gardening togs. The hostess arrived, looked at Ollie, and said, ‘Have you got a place, dear?’

  ‘Well, no, actually.’

  ‘Just a moment,’ she said and returned with a mat which she placed on the floor next to a large dining table. ‘Don’t worry, it’s quite clean. My dog uses it.’

  Without a murmur Ollie sat down. ‘And he had a smile on his face that went from ear to ear,’ recalls Monks. Then the girl whose party it was suddenly clocked what was going on – ‘Christ, it’s Oliver Reed’ – and got hold of her mother in the kitchen. She returned and dug an even deeper hole by saying, ‘I’m terribly sorry, I believe you’re something on television.’ Ollie finally got a seat.

  One winter’s night after closing time at the Dog and Fox, Ollie and Mick Fryer decided they quite fancied a swim and took a moonlight stroll over to Queen’s Mere on Wimbledon Common, the deepest lake there. ‘It was that cold the grass was crunching under our feet with the frost,’ remembers Fryer. ‘But we weren’t freezing, we were pissed.’ Neither bothered to undress, they dived in fully clothed. Halfway across, Mick looked over at Ollie. ‘You OK? You can handle this all right?’ ‘Don’t worry about me,’ said Ollie. When they got out at the other side they were utterly drenched and began walking home, their clothes like sheets of ice against their skin. They could have died of pneumonia, but then such things never entered their head. Back at Ollie’s pad they hung their wet clothes in the kitchen and crashed out. ‘I woke up about half past seven,’ says Fryer. ‘I heard this screaming. It was Kate, she’d come downstairs and gone into the kitchen, which was several inches under water with the clothes that had been dripping all night. She was effing and blinding.’

  Drinking with his mates, Oliver rarely if ever talked shop. ‘Once he walked off the set, that was it,’ says Monks. ‘He was back to being Ollie Reed again.’ He’d never say, for instance, ‘I’m doing this Debussy film with that Ken Russell’; they’d all have to find out for themselves. ‘He didn’t make a thing about bragging that he’d got a really good job,’ says Monks. ‘If he did start we’d soon kick him into touch. Oh yes, you’re getting like Old Cocky Bollocks.’

  Over the course of his career Oliver was never to treat acting as an art form, something that had a grand mystique about it: he simply saw it as a job of work. ‘Point the camera at me and pay me,’ he used to say. ‘I don’t think he was in love with acting,’ admits Simon. ‘Yes, he wanted to be a star, yes, he loved the money, and he also loved the professionalism of it, and the work, he was very committed to it, but he wasn’t in love with acting.’ He never, for example, went to rushes. Because he lacked formal training he perhaps had no academic interest in his profession. ‘It was instinctive,’ says David. ‘Born of an acknowledgement of the heritage that there was acting in the family.’

  While the Wimbledon clique remained small there was always room for more members. A new boy was Michael Christensen, born in Denmark, so Ollie immediately christened him Norse. Christensen sank pints with the boys around Wimbledon and also at Woodland Wines, where they still played silly tricks and games. Christensen recalls one in particular. ‘I was between jobs at the time, so I was pretty skint, so they thought it might be a good wheeze to bet me £5, a lot of money in those days, that I couldn’t drink a pint of milk which had been on the doorstep for about three months. The fat had pushed the top out, it was all congealed and yellow. I had to hit it out like yoghurt. I managed to keep it down and made my fiver.’

  Things could also get a little out of hand in the place. Mick Fryer recalls on more than one occasion everyone chucking wine bottles at each other. ‘There would be these bottles of wine sailing through the air and smashing on the walls. It was lunacy in there.’

  There was also a bit-part actor called Peter who occasionally drank with the group. Out of work most of the time, he had a reputation for being, in one of Ollie’s expressions, ‘a bit lazy with the shilling’. One day in the Dog and Fox, Ollie took him to one side – ‘Right ho, Pete, you’re going to be fucking Ollie Reed for an hour’ – and they swapped jackets. Peter opened Ollie’s wallet and got the drinks in, with some people asking for singles. Going up to the bar, Ollie grabbed him. ‘You’re supposed to be fucking me. They’re doubles or triples, you mean cunt. And it’s not even your fucking money!’

  It’s a story that’s indicative of how very often it wasn’t solely about getting hammered, but about the fun and games one had in one’s local. And what a very special brand of humour Ollie enjoyed employing. ‘He was very mischievous,’ says Christensen. ‘And he made use of the fact he was well known to get away with things. In posh restaurants he’d go up to an attractive woman on the way back from the gents’, saying, “Madam, you are stunningly beautiful, would you allow me to buy you a glass of champagne?” It was just to see the reaction of the guy she was with, who’s half-flattered, slightly jealous, and a bit pissed off about what’s going to happen next, but this was how he liked to play with people’s minds.’

  A Winning Run

  So successful was their first collaboration on the Debussy film that Ken Russell and Oliver were kee
n to work together again, and for a while it seemed likely this would be a British-made horror picture called The Shuttered Room, based on a short story by H. P. Lovecraft and co-starring American actress Carol Lynley and Dame Flora Robson. Only Russell was a no-show. ‘Everyone arrived on location and we were going to start the movie the next day but Ken just didn’t turn up,’ remembers Carol. ‘Why, I never found out. So we had a crew, money, the actors, everything in place, but no director.’

  Panic broke out. The next morning one of the producers called everyone in for a meeting. ‘I’m getting a guy called David Greene, a very good director, he’s coming in on a plane right now, as we speak.’ There was a lot of mumbling and anxious faces. Carol took a walk with Ollie, not sure what to do. ‘Do we trust this guy and go with it? Or do we get out of the movie, too?’ Ollie was for staying put and seeing it out. This was in spite of the fact that his role, as leader of a gang who terrorize a young woman, played by Carol, harked back to the thug persona he’d already exploited in films like The Damned. Because of his scar Ollie remained fearful that producers would feel inclined to cast him only as villains, although assistant director Stuart Freeman didn’t sense this on The Shuttered Room, believing Ollie ‘played to his looks’. Certainly he is a brooding presence throughout the film, dripping sexual malevolence and adding to the general creepy unease.

  Anyway David Greene eventually showed up. ‘He had been living in Rome for several years dropping acid,’ says Carol. ‘And on the first day he threw out the script. He literally threw the script out and said, “Now, Carol, you’re gonna make up your part. And Oliver’s going to make up his part,” and so on. So every morning when we got up, we’d figure out the story and the scene and then shoot it. Considering the mess we were in, it’s actually a pretty good movie.’

  Shot on location in Norfolk, standing in for New England, the film shows Ollie doing a decent job of an American accent and, according to Stuart Freeman, he was popular with everyone on the set. ‘He let his ability as an actor do all his talking. He was one of the most talented actors I have worked with. He was full of life and always challenging the crew. They loved him. In a pub one night, he filled a bowl with every make of alcohol and then passed it around to see who was the last man standing.’