With the success of The System Oliver Reed’s career seemed to be finally moving in the right direction but then it was almost tragically snuffed out after a West End brawl. In a nightclub Reed passed a table occupied by a group of rowdy young men and heard one of them shout, ‘Look out, here comes Dracula,’ a reference to his Hammer Horror roles. ‘Watch it,’ Reed said, ‘or I’ll bite your jugular vein out.’
Forgetting the incident Reed sat down with his drink. Half an hour later the same man approached him: ‘Did you mean what you said?’ Reed told him to fuck off and go play with himself. The next thing he knew a broken glass was in his face, followed by the rest of the gang jumping on top of him, punching and kicking. Reed stood no chance. Somehow he managed to get outside, blood spurting from his face, and hail a cab. Almost immediately one pulled up. ‘St George’s Hospital.’ As Reed spoke he could feel shards of broken glass in his mouth. The driver took one look at his pummelled face and said, ‘All that blood’s going to fuck up my cab.’ ‘Fuck your cab,’ snapped Reed, ‘get me to hospital.’
During the journey Reed fainted twice and the driver had to stop in order to prop him up and stem the bleeding using a handkerchief. The glass had gone right through the side of Reed’s cheek and shredded part of his tongue and he’d already lost several pints of blood by the time they reached casualty. Reed knew it was bad when a nurse caught sight of him and fainted.
Once he was back home Katie took one look at her husband’s heavily bandaged face and hollered, ‘You stupid bastard.’ In the morning Reed looked at his appalling reflection in the mirror. ‘Christ. That’s it, there goes my career.’ Except perhaps for more horror films, this time without the make-up. To drown his sorrows he went out and bought a bottle of whisky and drank half of it, through a straw because he could hardly move his mouth. But thanks to a young casualty doctor his face did heal except for a few scars that he carried for the rest of his life.
Fights in clubs, bars and restaurants unfortunately were to become a feature of Reed’s life. After becoming famous he made much play in the press of the fact that he still drank in his local pub, despite the fact that people invariably wanted to pick a fight with him to see how tough he really was. ‘It’s impossible for me to go into a pub without having a few problems,’ he’d complain. ‘It’s a bit like the gunfight at the OK Corral every time. There’s always someone who wants to take me on.’ And Reed was only too happy to oblige, unable to walk away because of his own fear of violence; he had to face it down. ‘I’m a pacifist,’ he once said, ‘but I’m the most scarred, kicked and beat-up person I know.’ Later in life Reed loved to show off the knuckles of his right hand, every one broken in fights.
Director John Hough, who worked with Reed three times in the 1980s, witnessed some of this first hand during a trip they undertook together to South Africa. ‘When you met Ollie he was different to what one had imagined, he was quite a gentle person in real life. But he was a tough guy, no question about that. We were sitting at this bar in Johannesburg enjoying a drink when in walked this rugby team, 15 really big guys. One of them recognised Oliver and he came over and said, “You’re Oliver Reed, aren’t you?” Oliver, the perfect gentleman said, yes. And the guy then sat down and started to have a conversation and Oliver said, “Did I ask you to sit down?” And the guy was perplexed. He said, “Well, no.’ Oliver said, “Fuck off then.” And the guy stood there with all his mates waiting in the background to see what was going to happen, it was just like a western. I thought, oh no there’s going to be chairs flying everywhere. There was a long silence and then the guy sort of shrugged his shoulders and went back to his rugby team. But Oliver was prepared to go the distance, he would never back down, he would have stood there fighting to the very end. He was a genuine tough guy.’
When they finally married in 1964 Richard Burton and Liz Taylor’s fame grew even larger, if that were possible. When the couple flew into Boston after their honeymoon 500 fanatical fans broke through the barriers and surrounded the plane, peering in the windows and screaming. The aircraft was towed into a hangar and the Burtons finally escaped by sending their staff ahead in a decoy car. It was worse at the hotel where more than a thousand people crammed in the lobby, some tearing at Liz’s hair, slamming her against a wall and clutching at her jewellery. Burton used his fists to fight his way through to his new bride. When they finally got into the lift Burton was bleeding from a cut face while Liz was crying hysterically. In such circumstances Burton usually resorted to using violence, shouting at fans to piss off and lashing out at intrusive photographers. Arriving at Los Angeles airport once Burton went to punch a man thrusting a microphone into his face, only to miss and instead knock out a very surprised policeman.
The couple were now the icons of their age; as Burton put it, ‘We live in a blaze of floodlights all day long.’ When Burton opened as Hamlet on Broadway the police had to block off the street after each performance so the couple could walk in safety to their limo. Fans would then swarm around them, some risking their lives by climbing on the roof. Inside Burton was agitated but Liz, ever the professional, sat there serenely smiling and waving like royalty while silently mouthing, ‘Fuck you, and you, and you over there, and you too, dear.’
Soon they had to hire bodyguards and security men to ward off kidnap threats. They also began to build up an entourage of secretaries, dressers, nannies, tutors and hairdressers. ‘Why do the Burtons have to be so filthily ostentatious?’ asked Rex Harrison. Filming The Taming of the Shrew with the couple in Rome, Michael York recalls, ‘They were Gods, Richard and Elizabeth; I think we’ve forgotten just what a big deal they were. Their dressing rooms, I’ve never seen anything like it, luxurious white carpets, butlers, maids, the lot.’
Siân Phillips knew that as a showbiz couple O’Toole and herself were no match for the Burton/Taylor roadshow, recalling one trip together to a film festival in Sicily where they drank champagne en route in first class. She later noted that it was impossible not to behave excessively in Burton and Liz’s company. The benefits of such an existence were obvious and colossal, but such a lifestyle only served to close Burton off from reality as he bounced round the world with 93 suitcases, planes held up waiting for the couple and security guards for Liz’s jewels.
Of course Burton revelled in this VIP treatment, travelling first class, getting the best table in the world’s finest restaurants, or having home-grown food flown across the world to wherever he was filming. But he just as much enjoyed mixing it with his mates in a good old fashioned British boozer or stopping off at a fish and chip shop and eating it out of newspaper on the back seat of his Rolls-Royce. Occasionally the couple would also turn up unannounced at Burton’s home town in a limo and go to the pub where he led the locals in song and drinks, but mostly it was the jet set life, swanning around Monte Carlo, shopping in Paris or New York.
The Burton/Taylor travelling circus next moved to Mexico City where Burton was due to start filming The Night of the Iguana (1964) for John Huston, playing a disbarred clergyman sexually desired by a teenage nympho maniac. Hitting the tarmac they daren’t even get off the plane due to the size of the crowds waiting for them. When they finally made a dash for it the mob turned into a riot. Liz was again manhandled while Burton punched anything that moved. At a press conference later that day he said, with utter sincerity, ‘This is my first visit to Mexico. I trust it shall be my last.’ It wasn’t, they fell in love with the country and even purchased a home there. But it was a hellish location inhabited by scorpions, snakes, giant land crabs, poisonous lizards and mosquitoes.
Liz remained on location throughout filming, much to Burton’s annoyance at times. One day she was fussing so much with his hair before a take that he grabbed a bottle of beer and poured it over his head. ‘How do I bloody look now?’ he roared. More than ever their passion could spill over into violent rows. Both were drinking heavily at this time and most nights propped up the local bar. Some snipers began joking that the recipe fo
r a Burton cocktail began: ‘First take 21 tequilas.’ This apparently derived from the day he drank 21 straight tequilas and then dived fully clothed into the sea after a friend swore he’d spotted a shark.
Tom Shaw, Huston’s assistant director, recalled Burton on the Iguana set. ‘It used to amaze me seeing Burton at seven in the morning drinking beer, he’d drink beer all morning long. By the time we finished he would have had a case of beer. Then he’d shift into high gear! He started into that tequila and man you’d never have known he’d had a drink. He was a big league drinker. There was nobody in that league.’
On the odd evening when he didn’t drink Liz was usually on the piss and egging him on to join her. One night she was on her fifth measure when she yelled, ‘Richard, for Christ’s sake have a drink. You’re so dull when you don’t have a glass in your hand.’ Never needing much persuasion Burton obliged and after a dozen shots of tequila stood up and began reciting Hamlet, without slurring a single word. By the end of the evening he’d drunk 23 shots of tequila and five beer chasers. The next morning he arrived on set on time and word perfect.
In order to diffuse the tension prior to shooting (due mainly to the isolated location the stars would be working in together), John Huston made each lead actor a gold encrusted pistol with bullets – one with each actor’s name on it. It was Huston’s way of saying, if you want to kill each other, use the designated bullet. Bonkers, but the ploy worked, there were no problems between the cast and when Iguana wrapped Huston organized a party that few would ever forget – Ava Gardner water skiing in the dark with a glass of tequila in one hand and happy Mexicans shooting at everything in sight.
After his collapse on Major Dundee Richard Harris made a serious attempt to control his boozing. On doctor’s orders he cut out spirits and confined himself to beer and champagne. He was ready to reform and to enjoy the taste of alcohol sensibly, without constantly pushing himself over the edge and getting in trouble. ‘I don’t drink for kicks,’ he said. ‘I drink when I’m happy, when I’m with friends. It’s boredom and frustration, not drink, that makes me aggressive. But I do enjoy letting myself go once in a while and waking up in someone else’s garden or in a police station.’
Next for Harris was the war film Heroes of Telemark (1965), shot in Norway with Kirk Douglas. Harris knew of Douglas’s tough guy reputation and at first refused the offer. ‘I kept turning down the film until the money got so high it seemed immoral to say no.’ From the start both stars didn’t hit it off. It was a clash of egos, of hard-nosed men who didn’t compromise. Things got off to a bad start when Harris visited Douglas at his Hollywood home and saw that he’d hung all his film awards up in his hallway. ‘Do you have to remind yourself how great you are?’ Harris asked. ‘Are you that sad?’
Inevitably there were rows on the set and fellow actors usually found themselves in the crossfire. ‘It was a battle from beginning to end,’ recalled co-star Ulla Jacobsson. ‘They were both fighting for camera position and neither was prepared to give way to the other. I have never known anything quite like it before. Even when this battle for supremacy did not result in an explosion the tension remained.’ One day on set Harris taunted Douglas that he was too old to start anything. ‘Twenty years ago you could have handled me – maybe – but not now. So don’t press your luck.’ Douglas’s constant bragging about his latest girlfriend also annoyed him. Upon the revelation that she’d once been Miss Norway Harris chided, ‘Oh yeah, what year?’ Director Anthony Mann later termed the eight weeks of shooting akin to ‘working on the slopes of an angry volcano’.
As for Harris’s own domestic situation, his marriage was still hanging together. He told reporters how lucky he was to have such an understanding partner in Elizabeth. Although in 1965 he summed up the perfect wife as ‘a beautiful mute nymphomaniac who owns the local boozer’. Elizabeth certainly had the patience of a saint. For example, one Saturday lunchtime Harris went out with a pal to a football match. ‘When will I see you?’ Elizabeth asked. ‘Tuesday,’ Harris replied. ‘And it might be in the police courts.’ Another time he announced he was popping out for a drink. Only he forgot to say that the drink was in Dublin and he was gone for ten days. When things like that happened Liz would be anxious and start phoning hospitals and the police. ‘But after a while I got used to it.’
It was really the kind of behaviour that no sane wife should have had to endure. One night Harris was thrown out of a pub at closing time, but still in need of a drink boarded a train just to make use of its open bar. With no idea where the train was headed he arrived in Leeds completely legless at one in the morning. With nowhere to go he walked down a nearby street and seeing a light on in a house chucked a stone at the window. The owner came storming out but upon recognizing Harris invited the star inside. Harris stayed there for four whole days and wasn’t sober once. Eventually the man’s wife phoned Elizabeth: ‘I’ve got your husband.’ She was shocked when Elizabeth replied, ‘Good, keep him.’
Harris was now at the peak of his hellraising and enjoying his fame immensely. He was friends with Princess Margaret, even buying her old Rolls-Royce Phantom. Living in Kensington Harris’s appearances at the local police station became so commonplace that on one occasion after a night on the town he dropped in at 4 am, demanding tea and toast. ‘Oh, it’s you again,’ said the desk sergeant, ordering the kettle to be put on.
Not surprisingly his larger than life personality and domineering presence meant that he was easily hunted down by the fans and the paparazzi. He used to call himself ‘the showcase fugitive’. He revelled in it and his notoriety. He was fully aware of his weaknesses, but the risk-taking buzz was too much to refuse. He couldn’t say no to the forbidden fruit. ‘I loved its taste. The illegal item was the best item. The wrong woman in my bed was the best woman. The rude comment far funnier than the nice remark.’
At the time Harris was a near neighbour and friend of film director Peter Medak. They’d often socialize together. Sammy Davis Jnr had just landed in town and was appearing at a top venue near Piccadilly. ‘Richard called me and said, “I’ll pick you up, we’ll go and see Sammy Davis.” He had an open top American car at the time and we drove down Piccadilly and it was getting late. Back in the 60s the Eros statue was in the middle of Piccadilly, not to the side as it is now, so it was a complete roundabout. We drove round in a circle looking for a parking space, then Richard suddenly pulled up in front of this big department store on the corner of Lower Regent Street and said. “Fuck it, let’s just leave the car here.” I said. “Richard you’re insane, you can’t leave the car here.” Anyway we went to see Sammy Davis who Richard knew and we met the singer backstage. We returned and of course the car was gone. “Doesn’t matter,” he said. Richard was an amazing guy. He was one of the greats. But the drink affected him. He really was a bad drunk. He could turn really nasty and then not remember any of it the next day.’
On the closing night of Hamlet Peter O’Toole stayed up drinking until dawn and then raced out to the airport. Aching from 18 inoculations against tropical diseases, he caught the plane to Hong Kong, where he was to start shooting Lord Jim (1964). ‘The next bloody day, I’m in a blazing small boat, wearing a funny hat and paddling like a man possessed.’ In his six weeks there, O’Toole acquired an intense hatred for Hong Kong, which he called ‘Manchester with slanted eyes’, and proceeded to make his displeasure known. Staying in a sedate hotel, O’Toole horrified the management by personally pulling a rickshaw and its coolie driver into the elegant main lobby at 2 am and buying the fellow a drink.
Based on a Joseph Conrad novel, Lord Jim was another mammoth Lawrence-like epic and after Hong Kong the company moved on to Cambodia where the bulk of shooting was to take place. Producer-director Richard Brooks had managed to get permission to shoot location scenes in the jungle and around the ancient temple ruins of Angkor Wat. To accommodate his large cast and crew, Brooks had had to spend $600,000 to add a 47-room wing onto a little hotel near the location. ‘That h
otel!’ raged O’Toole. ‘More expensive than Claridges; ten flaming quid a night and a poxy room at that. Nicest thing you could say about the food was that it was grotesque.’ Soon everyone was suffering from dysentery, set upon by giant stinging insects, and had contracted prickly heat rash that made clothing unbearable.
Then the snakes arrived. Walking down the middle of a jungle road, O’Toole came face to face with a huge black cobra. ‘They say no snake can travel faster than a scared human,’ he recalled, ‘but I ain’t so sure. The snake went like hell, but luckily away from me.’ One dinner, O’Toole found a live snake in his soup. Another time a cobra slithered onto the set and dropped to the floor of the makeshift ladies’ toilet. Of particular dread was a snake called the Two-Step. ‘It bites you, you take two steps,’ explained O’Toole, ‘and then you die.’
What bothered O’Toole the most were the shipboard scenes. He had warned the director, ‘I was in the Royal Navy two years and I was seasick every day we were at sea.’ For the eight days the film crew shot on the ocean O’Toole was seasick every day. ‘He’d rush to the side of the ship and heave, and then go before the camera as if nothing had happened,’ said Brooks. ‘In eight days he must have tried every known medical and non-medical remedy. Nothing worked.’
During filming there was a pulse of political violence beating just below the surface in the country. One day a mysterious Frenchman appeared on the location and darkly advised Brooks to get his company out of Cambodia by March 12th. With O’Toole’s concurrence, the work schedule was doubled and the daily shooting went on from noon until nearly dawn. The scheduled 12 weeks was cut to nine and the company left the country on March 3rd. One week later the US and British embassies were attacked by mobs. O’Toole was convinced that some of the trouble-makers had worked on the film as extras. The country’s ruler took to the national radio to denounce the movie company as ‘Western imperialist invaders’.
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