What Fresh Lunacy is This?

by Robert Sellers

  One of the reasons Wendy accepted the film in the first place was the chance to work with Oliver. ‘I was mad about him as an actor, I thought he was very good and had the potential to be a huge star. And he was so easy to work with, he had terrific technique and taught me quite a lot just by watching him. It was a real pleasure.’ There was also the obligatory love scene, during which Wendy remembers Ollie behaving as nothing less than an absolute gentleman. ‘We had to spend a day in bed and he was so polite, bless him, and so concerned that I was comfortable with what we were doing. And I really liked him for that.’

  As usual, Ollie liked to have fun on set and played his practical jokes, again mostly directed at Winner. One took place during a lunch break on location when a bag lady walked by and asked what was going on. ‘We’re making a film, love,’ said one of the crew. ‘How about giving me some money then?’ she replied. Oliver took her to one side and whispered, ‘You see that man sitting over there. He’s our director and he’s a millionaire. He’ll give you some money.’ Winner was sitting alone under strict instructions not to be disturbed. ‘So we all watched with glee as she went over,’ remembers Eden. ‘But Michael realized immediately what had happened and asked her to sit down and they chatted amiably for a few minutes until Michael, who never carried money, got one of his assistants to give her some cash. Then before she left he made sure that the location caterers put some food in plastic containers for her to take away. And as she walked off Michael gave us all a little smile.’

  Other tricks played by Ollie on Winner, such as replacing his beloved cigar with an exploding one, didn’t seem to adversely effect their relationship, as Wendy Craig observed. ‘They got on tremendously well. It was obvious that Winner held him in very high regard. They were good buddies. They seemed to understand each other very well, and understand the mode of working together.’ Yvonne Romain, a close friend of the director for years, says the secret of their success was simple: Winner gave Ollie his freedom. ‘Oliver didn’t like being told things by directors, because he really did know how to handle himself on the set. That’s why he loved Winner so much, because Winner usually just put the camera on him and let him do his thing, which is what you did with Oliver because he was going to get it right anyway.’

  I’ll Never Forget What’s’isname should have blasted Oliver to the forefront of stardom. That it failed to do so did not invalidate Winner’s assertion that he was ‘going to be the biggest star in the country’. Several controversies surrounding the film may have harmed its box-office potential, notably in America, where the Catholic Church had kittens over an implied scene of oral sex between Oliver and Carol White, slapping a ‘Condemned’ rating on the film, while the Motion Picture Association of America refused it its seal of approval. As a result, despite good reviews, What’s’isname was not widely seen Stateside. That wasn’t all: it became the first mainstream movie to use the word ‘fuck’. Spurned lover number two Marianne Faithfull screams it at Oliver as he leaves her apartment: ‘You fucking bastard!’ The British censor at first wanted it removed completely but in the end a compromise was reached by partly obscuring the profanity with a car horn. Yet cinema history was made.

  By the close of filming Oliver had begun yet another affair, this time with Carol White, the daughter of a scrap metal merchant who caused a sensation in Ken Loach’s 1966 television film Cathy Come Home. Their affair may have been brief but it was passionate and certainly, as far as Oliver was concerned, serious. Already, though, Carol had problems with hard drugs, something that Ollie had no interest in at all. He’d never touched the stuff, nor expressed a desire to do so, and Carol had to coerce him into trying his first joint. ‘But he was so drunk I don’t think he even noticed it.’ As for the harder stuff, like LSD, which Carol was using, Ollie refused to take part. In the end she spiked his drink with it. ‘The effect was awesome,’ she told a journalist. ‘You could see the trip bubbling behind Ollie’s eyes, but nothing surfaced. He was floating, dancing, flying, all in his head; externally he was the same drunken Ollie.’ In the morning he felt rougher than he’d ever felt before and learning what had happened renewed his determination never to touch the drug again. One presumes it did little for the relationship either, which eventually petered out and died.

  While it’s true to say that Ollie quite liked the idea of having Kate but keeping a mistress or two, like good old Herbert had done, he also indulged heavily in casual sex and one-night stands. Joyce Coleman, former landlady of the Dog and Fox, recalls Ollie coming in early one Saturday evening asking if she had such a thing as a weekend case and could she loan it to him till Monday? Yes, she did, and brought it down. Out in the hall there was a telephone with a large stack of directories. ‘I’m going to take about three of these as well,’ said Ollie. when Joyce asked him why in the world he needed three telephone directories, Ollie replied, ‘Because I’m going to a hotel with a beautiful young lady and unless it looks like you’ve got some luggage, they won’t let you in for the weekend.’

  The Ferry to County Clare

  The sound of hard knocking on his front door woke David up. It was midnight. There was only one person he knew likely to be disturbing him at this ungodly hour and that was Oliver. Sure enough, when David opened the door there he was, accompanied by a hefty-looking bloke you wouldn’t want to mess with at a Palais de Dance on a Saturday night.

  ‘Got a map?’ asked Ollie.

  ‘I think so,’ said David, not bothering to question his brother’s motives.

  ‘I want to buy a house,’ Ollie announced, as he laid the map out on the floor of the kitchen. ‘I promised Pat here years ago that I would buy him a farm.’

  The promise had been made, where else but in a pub in Wimbledon, in the days when Ollie was an unknown struggling young actor and Pat Clancy had just left the Black Watch regiment. ‘Bastards, that’s what they are,’ Pat had been muttering to himself while nursing a pint of stout at the bar. ‘All bastards.’

  Ollie watched this performance for about twenty minutes before curiosity got the better of him and he introduced himself. ‘Excuse me, I don’t wish to be nosy, but who are all bastards?’

  ‘The army.’ The word was spat out with as much Glaswegian venom as could be mustered. ‘Bastards, that’s what they are.’

  When Ollie mentioned his own army background the veteran seemed to welcome him as an old friend and comrade and out came his whole life story, the twenty-five years of service – Second World War, Korea, Malaysia – and how he’d been pensioned off with a large lump sum that he’d blown on tarts and whisky during a nine-month debauched stay in Dublin.

  ‘That was fairly spectacular,’ said Ollie, no doubt impressed. ‘Tell me, what would you have done with the money if you hadn’t blown it all?’

  The ex-soldier looked forlornly into the far distance. ‘A little cottage,’ he said, his eyes flickering as if it was there now in his mind’s eye. ‘I’d have kept chickens and maybe a few ducks.’

  ‘Tell you what,’ said Ollie. ‘When I become a rich movie star, I’ll buy you that little cottage and let you live in it as long as you like. Is that fair?’

  ‘Bastards,’ said the veteran, going back to nursing his pint. ‘They’re all bastards.’

  And that’s how Ollie left him, muttering those same words over and over again. By chance six years later Ollie heard that Pat was back in Wimbledon, drinking in the same pub, the Swan. And, sure enough, there he was, propping up the bar on the same stool, muttering ‘bastards’ to himself over his beer. Now a successful actor, Ollie bought the bloke another drink and asked if he remembered their conversation from years before.

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Well, when do you want to start looking for that cottage?’

  Hence, after several more drinks, one suspects, the midnight visit to David, who asked, ‘And where exactly do you want to buy this farm?’

  ‘How about Scotland?’ said Ollie. Though born in Ireland, Pat was raised in Scotland and spoke like it,
a voice of thistles, porridge and bagpipes. Ollie scanned the map. ‘OK, Pat, you can drive, can’t you?’ Pat nodded. ‘David, buy him a car and send him off to Scotland to find a place.’

  Pat came back having found a charming house and David remembers how he was dispatched to buy it. ‘This house was attached to a church. It was the vicar’s house and it was absolutely idyllic, miles from anywhere. They didn’t have estate agents there, it was all done by auction, so I worked with a lawyer and told them we’d beat any other bid. He said, “Och, Mr Reed, we don’t do things like that here.” So we lost that one.’

  In the end Pat switched his search to Ireland and found his dream cottage in County Clare, on the west coast between Kilrush and Kilkee, an area Oliver was to call magical and enchanting, full of real characters, a place where locals poached salmon in exchange for beer. So that’s how Ollie came to buy Ferry House for Pat Clancy, becoming a frequent visitor there himself. It was a retreat far away from the hustle and bustle of London and film studios. He’d relax by fishing or duck shooting with some of the locals, always making sure to miss because he hated killing any kind of animal.

  During one visit Ollie, David and a reprobate friend of Pat’s known as the Dog Soldier drove out to Kilrush. It was a particularly stormy day as they drove along a cliff-top road; below them was an incredible explosion of water as the Atlantic pounded the rocky coastline. ‘Come on, let’s go down and get a bit closer,’ roared Oliver, exhilarated by nature’s display. Wearily David followed his brother and the Dog Soldier as they wandered ever closer to the cliff edge. Once there the two men laughed and jumped around like children in and out of the spray, but David was already sensing danger. ‘This water was just going straight up past us in the air about fifty feet. So I said, “Come on, guys, you’re getting too near,” and stepped back. Just as I retreated, this one wave came in and took the two of them and they went down about twenty feet into white, boiling water. Ollie was in a big parka jacket and when he came up struggling I indicated to him to take it off because by that time it was full of water and dragging him down. He did that but I could see he was still fighting for his life out there. Then suddenly this huge wave came in and hurled him into the rock face. When the swell subsided he was clinging on like a stranded starfish.’

  Terrified that another mighty wave would pulverize his body and take him back into the seething tempest, this time for good, Ollie began feverishly climbing up the cliff. Reassured that his brother was now safe, David diverted his attention to the Dog Soldier, who was floating out to sea, past the headland. ‘I ran over the rocks, he was face down in the water, and I managed to pull him out and push the water out of him. Recovered, we all got into the car and I said, “For God’s sake, we’ve got to go and have a drink.” It had been a narrow escape.’

  Years later, when Ollie heard that Pat Clancy had died, he and David went over to Ireland to sell Ferry House but were surprised to find Pat had installed a homeless young couple and their two young children there. Ollie was not about to throw them out, so forwent the sale and allowed the family to remain in the house for as long as they wished. It was another example of Oliver’s largesse. ‘His generosity was so huge,’ says his daughter Sarah. ‘That’s probably why he didn’t die a wealthy man, because he played it and he spent it. His philosophy was, I’ve got it so I’m going to share it; which is lovely.’

  Jacquie

  When Lionel Bart’s landmark stage musical Oliver! triumphed on both the London and Broadway stages in the early sixties it seemed only a matter of time before it attracted the heavyweights of the film world. Along with his brother James, Sir John Woolf ran a successful independent production company called Romulus Films and had been in love with the Dickens novel since childhood, and he was fascinated when he saw the stage show. ‘I imagined it would make a great film for children and indeed that it would appeal to all ages.’ After buying the rights, the brothers next hired Lewis Gilbert, then the hottest director in the country thanks to the runaway success of the original Alfie of 1966. It was agreed that James would accompany Gilbert on a casting trip to LA, but late one night James suffered a heart attack and died. ‘Lewis rang me up in the morning to say that my brother was found dead,’ recalled Sir John. ‘He was young, just forty-six. It was a great blow and I nearly cancelled Oliver! But then I decided that I had to go on with Oliver! on my own.’

  Woolf had already moved into offices at Pinewood in preparation for a start date of June 1967 when news reached him that Gilbert had been forced to withdraw. For the next couple of weeks he repeatedly strolled into the office he shared with art director John Box, offering up names for possible replacements. If Box didn’t approve he simply kept silent. One morning Woolf hollered, ‘Before you spit in the corner – Carol Reed.’ Box looked up. ‘I’m not spitting, he’s your man.’ It was an inspired choice, as Box had worked with Carol Reed before and knew he was quite brilliant with children. There’s no better illustration of this in the film than the moment Fagin opens his box of treasures for little Oliver to gaze inside. After several takes Carol couldn’t get the required look of wanderlust from nine-year-old Mark Lester, chosen from 2,000 children to play the coveted role. The next day Carol positioned himself behind the camera and said, ‘Mark, I’ve got something that might amuse you,’ and produced a white rabbit from his overcoat. Lester’s face lit up and that’s the shot in the movie.

  With Carol installed as director it made things very interesting when Oliver became the front runner to play Fagin’s partner in crime, Bill Sikes. For years Ollie had clearly stated in interviews his determination to make the grade as an actor on his own, without assistance from his famous uncle. ‘I always said that I would only act in one of his films when I felt I was in the cast because of my ability and not just because I was his nephew.’ That time had now come. Simon for one can’t recall any doubts or concerns on his brother’s behalf about possible accusations of nepotism. ‘He was just worried about doing the film well. The nepotism may have been a slight side issue but really he was anxious to just do his best.’ In the end it was Woolf who settled the matter: ‘Oliver was quite clearly the best actor for the part of Bill Sikes, so I took the decision and the responsibility.’

  It wasn’t so much nepotism that worried Ollie, but the difficulty of stepping into the unforgettable shoes of Robert Newton, who’d played Sikes in David Lean’s 1948 straight version of Dickens’s tale. ‘I had to watch that I didn’t turn out to be Sikes and Long John Silver rolled into one,’ he said, referring to Newton’s other memorable performance. One night, Mick Monks recalls, Ollie invited a bunch of lads back to his flat, including two huge geezers who worked locally as bouncers. Midway through the festivities Ollie produced a children’s Ladybird book and asked the bouncers to take it in turn to read from it. As they struggled with such complex sentences as ‘The little duck goes quack, quack, quack,’ Ollie turned on a tape recorder. It was only years later that Monks realized his friend was collecting the type of voice he was going to use for Bill Sikes.

  Ollie added other little bits of characterization, including one priceless piece of dialogue. He claimed to have heard, while walking along a busy London high street, a couple outside a shop arguing over a pair of shoes. When the man refused to fork out what he thought an inflated price, the girl demanded to know if he truly loved her. ‘Loves yer,’ he answered. ‘Course I loves yer. Fucks yer, don’t I?’ This tickled Ollie so much that he approached Carol the next day on set suggesting he use the line in a scene where his girlfriend Nancy asks the same question. After momentarily forgetting this was supposed to be a children’s film, Ollie altered it to ‘Love yer? Course I love yer. I live with yer, don’t I?’

  Over the years Carol had closely followed the career of his nephew, from his first tentative steps as a walk-on artist to his Hammer roles and his recent successes, often telephoning him to offer his opinion. It wasn’t always positive but it was always encouraging and constructive. Ollie also enjoyed visiting
Carol at his home to talk over any problems he might be having, ‘because he was such a good listener’. Uncle Carol, though, suspected Ollie of arriving most days pissed, as he would stop off en route at various pubs along the King’s Road.

  But on the set of Oliver! Ollie was nothing less than his usual professional self, as witnessed by the film’s renowned cameraman, Oswald Morris. ‘Oliver was as good as gold. Really the only problem we had was that Oliver wanted to play Bill Sikes with a loud, strong voice and Carol wanted quite the opposite. He felt Sikes was much more powerful if he spoke quietly. And there was a certain amount of friction between the two of them about the way the part should be played, but it was Carol who got his way. And if you run the film you’ll see that all the powerful lines are said very, very quietly. Oliver wanted to scream certain lines but Carol said, no, keep it quiet.’

  The respect and love Oliver had for his uncle bordered on adoration. While he was making a movie in the early seventies with Geraldine Chaplin, some of their conversations naturally drifted towards famous relatives. ‘Your father was great, Geraldine,’ he’d say. ‘But my uncle was really great.’ It’s one of the reasons Geraldine gives for why she enjoyed such a close working relationship with Oliver, that they had this thing in common, coming from a famous film family. ‘And he’d speak with such respect in his voice about Sir Carol. He absolutely adored him.’

  Ollie and his uncle remained very close right up until Carol’s death in 1976. As a tribute the National Film Theatre on London’s South Bank ran a season of his films and Ollie was invited to attend the opening-night celebration. A prearranged meeting with a film producer took him first to the Dorchester Hotel, where he liberally partook of the bar, so by the time he arrived at the ceremony he was quite unprepared when the organizers asked if he would say a few words. Bounding on to the stage, there he stood in front of a packed audience of relatives and friends of his uncle. Suddenly he dried. Managing finally to garble some words about feeling humble to be there, he turned to leave and fell clean off the stage. Getting up, he was deeply upset at the thought of having ruined the evening and disgracing Carol’s name, but everyone was most sympathetic. David took him to one side and said, ‘Don’t worry, Oliver, they all loved it because that’s what they expected you to do.’