What Fresh Lunacy is This?

by Robert Sellers

  One night Ball’s girlfriend arrived from London and they were part of Ollie’s table, cracking jokes and having a laugh. Six bottles of Domecq, please. Then suddenly Ollie turned to Ball and said, ‘Goodnight, Dave.’

  ‘Oh, goodnight, Ol. You going? See you tomorrow.’

  ‘No, I meant you. Off you go.’

  Ball grew anxious. ‘Listen, Ol, we’re all having a drink here, we’re all getting a bit lathered. If I’ve said something that may have upset you, it was certainly not intentional, so please forgive me.’

  ‘Oh no, no, no, no, you’re all right, mate. The thing is this, I’m going to smash this fucking place up in ten minutes and I wouldn’t like your good lady to get hurt. So better go.’

  ‘Good night, Ol,’ said Ball, and he and his partner left. ‘And he did: he fucking threw a table through a plate-glass window. And they had to board it up.’

  The following evening Ball was sitting there with his girlfriend and in walked Oliver. Pleasantries were exchanged. And then this little waiter came up to him. His hands were shaking and he was holding a small piece of paper. ‘What’s this?’ asked Ollie. ‘It’s probably the invoice for the damage, Ollie, you did last night,’ said Ball. Ollie looked at the bill – it was something like a couple of hundred dollars – pulled out some money, gave the waiter an extra $50, and ordered six bottles of Domecq. ‘That was class,’ says Ball. ‘Pure class.’

  Ball first met Ollie at Los Angeles airport, but it was Reg he got to know first, both being cockneys. Ball saw first-hand exactly how Reg operated in the evenings with Ollie, how he kept him out of trouble and also indulged his excesses. If Ollie wanted to smash a place up, Reg wouldn’t stop him. ‘If that’s what you want to do, you want to let off steam, fine,’ he’d say. And then when Ollie was done, Reg was on hand if there were any repercussions. ‘Reg knew that Ollie was a leery git sometimes when he went out on the booze. Reg was the safety barrier.’ It was needed sometimes, because in bars or clubs there would be a bit of a fracas to start with but then things quietened down and they’d be left pretty much alone. ‘The word went out very quickly,’ says Ball. ‘Ollie and Reg roll into town, they put their stamp down and that’s it, you don’t fuck with them, you really don’t fuck with them. I mean, Ollie was strong, but Reg was something else. But you’d always find that, if they did cause a bit of damage, there would be a couple of hundred bucks over the bar to sort it before they left.’

  Ball was also privy to the playfulness that existed between the two men. One day on the set Reg bought Ollie a piglet and left it in the bathroom of his location trailer with a pink bow tied around its neck. Ollie kept it as a pet in his rented house, even teaching it how to play hide and seek. ‘At three o’clock in the morning you could hear Ollie and this little piglet running all around the house together,’ remembers Ball.

  One afternoon news reached the crew of a terrible accident. A production driver had to collect someone at the airport and, passing through a village, inadvertently ran over a little boy and killed him. Ball was asked to get a thousand dollars in an envelope, which he did, and give it to the associate producer. ‘What’s it for?’

  ‘This has got to go to the chief of police to hush it up.’

  ‘But it was an accident,’ said Ball.

  ‘Yeah, but this is how it works down here.’

  The next day at lunch Ollie announced they were holding a collection for the dead boy and threw a couple of hundred bucks on the table. ‘Right, Lee,’ he said. ‘You give me two hundred, come on you’ve got it, give me the fucking money. Come on you, Strother, give me two hundred. Robert, come on, come on, everybody.’ By the end Ollie had a bundle of cash and as a result the Americans on the crew, instead of giving a dollar or two dollars, were handing over tens and twenties. Ball reckons the dead boy’s family received something like the equivalent of twice their annual income. ‘And Ollie was the one who kicked it off. He was the one that forced people to dig deep into their pockets. That’s how big-hearted he was. Because if you animated Ollie to do something for you he would do it 101 per cent. That’s what he was, Mr 101 Per Cent.’

  Amid all this a film did actually get made and the chemistry between Ollie and Marvin is terrific, even if Lee was pretty much pickled most of the time, according to Ball. ‘His wife Pamela had to physically restrict the amount he could drink because he only needed to sniff the bottle and he was gone, more or less.’ This isn’t to imply that Marvin had reached a point in his life and career where he was a walking coma patient, but Ball does remember Ollie sometimes goading the veteran star to get a performance out of him. ‘He’d push him, he’d say, “Come on, Marvin for fuck’s sake, can’t you do better than that!” Those were great days. You looked forward to going on the set because you didn’t know what Ollie was going to do. He did something new every day. Wonderful, wonderful man. And probably the most professional actor I’ve worked with in forty years in the business and I’m putting him up against people like Burt Lancaster and Rod Steiger. He would always, always get blind drunk with Reg but in the morning would be on the set at six and do the scene in take one while Marvin was still learning his words. They don’t make ’em like that any more.’

  Mayhem at the Beverly Wilshire

  During the winter at Broome Hall nothing very much went on in the garden, especially in the market garden. ‘It’s freezing, the ground’s solid, so nothing’s growing,’ Christensen told Ollie when he enquired one morning on the state of play. ‘Fancy a bit of heat then?’ Ollie said. ‘Wanna come out to Barbados?’ Christensen grabbed his passport and off they went. As they arrived at the hotel Ollie took Christensen to one side. ‘The barman at the restaurant knows who you are, you’re staying with me, you pay nothing here.’ And the holiday lasted three weeks. ‘I went out to Barbados with £45 spending money and came back with £55,’ says Christensen.

  Paul Friday came along too, and Ollie boasted one night to the locals that he and Friday were top-notch darts players, foolishly as it turned out, because somebody set up a darts match with the island’s champions. Thinking it would be a few drinks and a bit of a laugh, they got a shock to see three hundred people and a local TV crew waiting for them. By a complete fluke they won, ‘Only because they were more pissed than us,’ said Ollie. The next day Christensen and Friday were told to be ‘on their best fucking behaviour’ because they’d all been invited to a barbecue. Ivan, Ollie’s driver on the island, took them to a beautiful villa that was discreetly tucked away and had a guard on the gate who was quite obviously wearing a piece. Christensen started to get a bit worried. ‘Anyway, we were let in and introduced to this middle-aged man, who was very pleasant. We had traditional food, it was a very nice evening. I was on my best behaviour obviously. And driving back with Ivan I asked, “What’s all the big deal about being on your best behaviour?” and Ivan replied, “I wouldn’t want you to insult the Prime Minister.”’

  Another day Ollie took the group for a treat to Greensleeves, a very upmarket private estate fronting the beach. Almost immediately Oliver started to misbehave, climbing on to the flat roof of an outbuilding that overlooked the pool, while waiters tried to pull him down by one of his legs. Finally he got on to the diving board and, fully clothed, pretended he was going to jump in. Sitting nearby eyeing him up was an immaculately dressed woman, probably in her late fifties. When he saw her she said, ‘I will if you will.’ That was a red rag to a bull and Oliver leaped into the water. With that the woman stood up and executed a perfect swallow dive. ‘Give that woman a bottle of Dom Pérignon,’ Ollie announced. But the fun and games weren’t over. ‘Because then everyone else started to dive in too,’ remembers Paul Friday. ‘They were jumping off the diving boards. Nearly everyone in the restaurant ended up in the water. One broke his leg, a girl broke her ankle, another broke his arm. It was complete mayhem.’

  During their stay HMS Fearless came into port and here Ollie executed one of his great wind-ups. The victim was Paul Friday, who always told Olive
r that he could see his wind-ups coming a mile off. With the ship sitting in Coconut Creek, all the officers frequented the local bar and immediately recognized Ollie. Asked if he was on holiday, he replied that he and his men were diving for Sam Lord’s treasure. Now, Sam Lord was the island’s most infamous buccaneer in the early 1800s and lured ships laden with gold on to a reef where he and his men slit their throats and stole their booty, much of which, legend has it, still lies on the seabed. Without any prior warning Ollie introduced Paul Friday to the officers as one of the best divers in the Royal Navy, presently AWOL because Ollie was paying him so much. Invited aboard HMS Fearless and into the officers’ mess, Friday grew ever more anxious putting on the old naval act as he was subjected to numerous questions about this fictitious dive. ‘Then suddenly I’ve got this bloody diving officer coming on to my shoulder asking what sort of gases I’d be using to go down to this depth. And I’m thinking, what have I got myself into? Ollie’s going, “Oh, it’s top-secret, experimental stuff.” The evening went by, we had quite a bit to drink. The next thing, these two heavies come in and I’m grabbed hold of, taken out, and locked up. I’m in this cell all night thinking, I’ve talked myself into this. The next morning the door opens and there’s Ollie and Norse and Ollie says, “Gotcha!” The whole bloody lot of them on that boat knew what was going on apart from me!’

  After Barbados Ollie flew alone to Los Angeles, where he booked in at the Beverly Wilshire. There he awaited David, who was flying over to negotiate some business; it also happened to be David’s fortieth birthday. Driven from the airport, David arrived at the Beverly Wilshire, where grand steps led up to the entrance, but there was no front door, nothing at all. ‘I thought, well, obviously the weather’s so good here you don’t need front doors. Only to find out later that Keith Moon had come visiting and driven up the steps and through the doors, smashed them, and his car ended up in the foyer of the hotel.’

  On the morning of David’s birthday the two brothers met in the hotel bar. ‘What do you want to do then?’ asked Ollie.

  ‘I really don’t mind.’

  ‘I’ll tell you what, we’ll go out for a meal tonight.’

  ‘That sounds good.’

  For the rest of the day they stayed in the bar, slowly making their way through several bottles of liquor, chatting, laughing and telling jokes. At one point David just happened to glance down at the end of the bar and thought he saw Keith Moon walk past an open door. He turned to Ollie. ‘Keith’s just come in.’

  Ollie looked blankly at David. ‘No, no, Keith left days ago, he wouldn’t be here.’

  Evening descended and remarkably both brothers were still standing, quite compos mentis actually. ‘OK, let’s go out,’ suggested Ollie. ‘I know somewhere to go. Let’s both have showers and meet down here in twenty minutes.’ David was in his room when the phone rang. It was Ollie. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Ollie, it’s only been ten minutes. I’m in the middle of having a shower.’

  ‘For God’s sake, hurry up.’

  At the allotted time David showed, only to see a huge banner spread across the bar: ‘Welcome to David’s 40th Birthday Party.’ Ollie had organized a huge surprise party in the main dining room, an opulently furnished space with flock wallpaper, chandeliers, the works. And there was Moonie, grinning from ear to ear. Ringo Starr was another guest. ‘I sat down at a table,’ recalls David, ‘and a very pretty girl was put beside me, so I started talking to her. She was at some university. About halfway through the meal she disappeared. Never mind, I thought. Then suddenly there was a fanfare and these huge doors opened and six chefs pull in this cake, which is almost up to the ceiling, about nine foot tall with layers going up and candles all round it. I was given a sword to cut it but as I approached the lid of the cake exploded and the girl who had been sitting beside me came out stark naked.’ It was Ollie’s idea to have the girl in the cake. He’d always heard about these girls jumping out of cakes, but never seen one.

  Moonie, one surmises, had probably seen plenty of naked girls jumping out of cakes, jumping out of all sorts of things probably. But the sight of this particular girl set him off. What happened next David has never forgotten. ‘Keith leaped up the layers of the cake and tried to grab the girl, who made a run for it. At that point Keith started going mad: he got the sword and slashed at one of the chandeliers, which came crashing to the floor. Women were screaming, running out of the room, and goodness knows what. Then Keith got hold of this enormous great tablecloth and pulled the whole thing off and the crockery and soup tureens and everything were smashing on the floor. In doing this he’d cut his hand rather badly and blood was pouring out. The next minute he’s gone, with Ollie chasing after him. So I ended up talking to Ringo and he was telling me about how your nose gets delicate after you’ve been snorting for so long, when suddenly the doors opened and the police came in with truncheons and Ringo went, “Oh dear, here comes trouble.”’

  It was at this point that David decided he’d better find Ollie. He was in the kitchen attending to Moonie, who was lying stretched out on the floor, blood everywhere. Ollie was holding his arm up, trying to stem the flow of blood, while balancing a whisky and soda. Then the paramedics arrived and got down on the floor by Keith’s head to ask, ‘Where does it hurt?’ And there’s Ollie spilling his Scotch over Keith, who’s going, ‘Aarrgghh!’ And the paramedics go, ‘Where’s the pain?’ After about ten minutes they realized this was a total fiasco and left. David ended up outside helping put Keith in his car and then watched it drive off. Meanwhile the kitchen door had slammed shut behind him, so he had to walk back in through the foyer. ‘By that time hotel security were in great evidence. I went back into the dining hall and there was Ollie sitting round a mountain of broken chairs, tablecloths covered in red wine, and shattered chandeliers. “That was quite a party, wasn’t it, David?” he said.’ Quite a bill too: Ollie had to pay £10,000 for the damage.

  But Ollie and Moonie weren’t finished yet. Their next stunt was kidnapping David Puttnam. The British film producer had just arrived in LA and was stepping out of the Beverly Wilshire on his way to a business meeting when Keith’s Rolls-Royce slammed on its brakes in front of him, a door burst open, and he was grabbed and thrown into the back. The next thing Puttnam knew he was being driven fast along the Pacific Coast Highway. ‘It was mad,’ he later recalled. ‘They were laughing, it was stupid and it was edgy. I knew I could handle Keith [Puttnam had recently worked with Moon], but the two of them together I certainly couldn’t handle.’

  In comparison with their antics on Tommy, Ollie and Moonie’s escapades in Los Angeles seemed to have a much darker tone to them, a result no doubt of Keith’s mental state at the time. Not only was he fighting alcoholism, but he was increasingly withdrawing into himself. Ollie was one of only a select few Keith allowed to visit him at his LA pad. They’d spend hours in the evening just sitting and listening to music, often in silence, not talking. Ollie was only too painfully aware of the change in his friend, that things were flat-lining, the clown’s make-up had smeared.

  Sometimes the old Keith would resurface. One evening Oliver was attending a film premiere downtown, something he despised, but he had two lovely ladies accompanying him, so things weren’t all that bad. Resplendent in a dinner jacket, he walked out of his hotel to get into a limo, a multitude of flashbulbs exploding around him, when – thwack – something hit him in the face. It was moist and tasted of lemon: it was a custard pie. After removing the mess from his eyes and noticing that his lovely lady friends had suffered collateral damage, he then had a card pressed into his hand by a man. It read: ‘Pie In The Face International – you have been selected by Mr Keith Moon to become a member. Here is your certificate.’ Ollie burst out laughing.

  Film director Peter Medak recalls standing outside the Beverly Wilshire when a limousine pulled up, the door opened and somebody on all fours backed out on to the pavement on his hands and knees. ‘And it was Oliver. He’d arrived at the ai
rport at four o’clock that afternoon and he’d stopped at every bar, and now he was checking into the hotel. We fell into each other’s arms and he said, “Come on, let’s go to the bar, they’ll take the luggage upstairs.” We go into the bar and within two seconds he had the bartender by his neck. They threw him out of the hotel before he could even check in. Oliver was the darkest of those hell-raisers. Oliver for no reason would start a fight. If he didn’t like someone’s face or someone said the wrong thing – boom.’

  Ollie also bumped into Yvonne Romain and her husband Leslie Bricusse, who had a house in LA and often hosted Sunday lunch parties for Brits working in Hollywood. Ollie, who hadn’t seen Yvonne since their Hammer days, was invited and found himself among a who’s who of British film stars. ‘It was amazing,’ remembers Bricusse. ‘There was Ollie, Roger Moore, Mike Caine, Sean Connery, you name it. Sadly no one took a photograph.’

  Bricusse recalls another memorable Sunday. He was just on his way to have lunch with Timothy Dalton at a famous pub on Sunset Boulevard called the Cock and Bull, when Ollie called and asked if he could tag along. Bricusse was only too happy, so called the Cock and Bull and the manageress told him, ‘I’m sorry, Mr Bricusse, but Mr Reed is barred. The last time he was here he threw the barman through the back of the bar and destroyed it. So he’s not allowed in here. I’m sorry.’ Bricusse reassured the manageress that both he and Timothy Dalton would be responsible for Oliver and she finally relented. ‘So we had lunch, it was very nice, and Oliver was very well behaved. I had a four o’clock business meeting, so I left Tim to look after Ollie. When I got home later that day the phone rang, it was the manageress of the Cock and Bull. He did it again, three minutes after I left, knowing the circumstances – and it was the same barman!’