Hellraisers

by Robert Sellers

  The years of boozing, the enemies and grudges left in his hellraising wake had all come back to haunt Harris. The casting opportunities had dried up. Unlike his contemporaries, Caine and Connery, Harris had fundamentally failed to make the critical metamorphosis into late middle-age film roles. By 1989 he was fast approaching his sixties, and Christ did he look it. ‘A critic once described my face as five miles of bad Irish country road,’ Harris said, almost with pride. ‘Every wrinkle tells a tale.’ For the rest of his life Harris enjoyed shambling around looking like an unmade bed, sleeping in his clothes and then not changing them the next day. Indeed he’d wear the same outfit for days on end; he didn’t give a shit, proudly boasting of the fact that he’d never owned a hairbrush in his life.

  At least he wasn’t drinking, and for the first time in his life he was rather glad of the fact. ‘I’ve woken up with women whose names I don’t remember. I’ve punched coppers. It all used to be so smashing. The wonderful sensation of a fist going into somebody’s face. But now my body just hurts. If one of my three sons so much as grips my arm I say, “Ouch”. I live in constant agony, drinking Perrier water while the guys are knocking back the vodkas. But if I touch the stuff my day isn’t worth living. Oh yes, it’s been a great 30 years, but we’ve all paid the price in our different ways.’

  Peter O’Toole had done many things in his life; child snatching certainly wasn’t one of them. But that’s exactly what he was accused of doing in 1984. When O’Toole met Karen Somerville, an American model, in 1981 she was 15 years his junior. It was his first meaningful relationship since his divorce from Siân and in 1983 at the age of 50 he became a father again, of a long wished for son, aptly named Lorcan, Gaelic for Lawrence. But when Lorcan was just ten months old the couple split and a bitter tug of love over the child ensued. Karen was awarded custody and moved back to the States with Lorcan; O’Toole was given visiting rights only. On one of these trips over to see his son O’Toole, who had vowed never to let Lorcan go, bolted with the child, turning up in Bermuda of all places, en route to London. During the eight hour stopover Karen phoned friends to organize a lawyer to prevent O’Toole taking the child off the island. Police and officials arrived at O’Toole’s hotel just as he was preparing to leave for the airport and he was forced to hand Lorcan over to the authorities.

  O’Toole always denied that he was attempting to snatch his son and take him back to England. All Karen said on the subject and of her former partner was, ‘Let’s just say that he is not a predictable man.’ With that in mind, perhaps, Karen employed security guards to watch over her son should there be another ‘kidnap’ attempt. Back in England O’Toole was heartbroken; the son he had always craved was thousands of miles away, more out of reach than ever. Now living a solitary existence in his cottage in Connemara and in his London home, O’Toole told reporters that any woman contemplating marrying him ought to be led gently to a place of safety. But he fully intended to carry on fighting for custody of his son; and the big show down was yet to come.

  As for Harris, the mid-to late-80s was a barren period for O’Toole, with cameo appearances in stupefyingly awful blockbusters like Supergirl (1984) or sterile comedies nobody wanted to see such as Club Paradise (1986) and High Spirits (1988). There was one notable exception, The Last Emperor (1987), a magisterial film about Pu Yi, China’s final ruler. O’Toole’s role, as the young man’s English tutor, was relatively small but made a huge impact. The film itself was history making, being the first feature granted permission by the Chinese government to shoot inside the fabled Forbidden City. Security was so tight that when O’Toole forgot his pass one day he was denied entrance to the set.

  But the real drama for O’Toole was happening in real life. For almost four years he and Karen Somerville had been locked in an increasingly hostile legal battle over the custody of Lorcan. After the Bermuda incident O’Toole must have thought he’d blown any chance of ever being granted custody but in 1985 he was once again allowed access to his child and the boy was routinely shuttled back and forth across the Atlantic. But the utter desperation O’Toole felt to keep hold of the son he had always yearned for clouded his judgement once again and he refused to release Lorcan after bringing him to London for a holiday. Karen immediately pro claimed that Lorcan had been stolen from her and got the courts to order O’Toole to return the boy. He refused. Tough New York lawyers threatened O’Toole with a daily fine of $1,000 from his earnings on The Last Emperor if he failed to hand over Lorcan to his mother. Karen then upped the stakes, getting her lawyers to ask a US federal judge to issue an arrest warrant and a ruling that O’Toole was in contempt of court, which meant he could be arrested the moment he entered the United States.

  In May 1988 O’Toole and Karen faced each other in London’s High Court; the two former lovers were unable even to look each other in the eye. It was an appearance before the world’s press that O’Toole could well have lived without, he looked frail and nervous, a man on the brink of being torn in half. The judgement, when it came, hit O’Toole in the pit of his stomach like poison; the son he adored had to return with his mother to America. Visibly shaken and in tears O’Toole’s all or nothing gamble in refusing to hand over Lorcan after the allotted 16-day custody period had failed. He returned with the boy to his Hampstead home and together they packed Lorcan’s small suitcase and for a while played in the garden, father and son together perhaps for the last time.

  Facing the possibility of never seeing his son again O’Toole appealed the decision to return him to his mother. In August in an American court O’Toole dramatically won back joint custody of Lorcan. The judge ordered that the boy stay with his father and carry out his schooling in London and live with his mother during the holidays. O’Toole had won his greatest battle. For this most private of men, who only consented to interviews out of necessity and had always shunned the glitzy media spotlight, to have to live out this personal trauma in the glare of publicity was an agonizing ordeal. But the reward was sweet and the years of Lorcan’s childhood that O’Toole was now able to share brought out the very best in him.

  Oliver Reed had been settling in very nicely thank you in Guernsey. As a moving in gift he’d bought Josephine a beautiful antique gold necklace but one boozy evening she’d tied it round their pet dog’s neck as a joke. Incensed, Reed took the necklace and buried it in the garden to teach her a lesson. Trouble was that when after a few days he came back to retrieve it he couldn’t for the life of him remember exactly which bit of the garden he’d buried it in. The gardener was ordered to dig up most of the lawn and flowerbeds and metal detectors were employed in the hunt. But it was never found.

  At his new home Reed converted the large loft into a replica pub. Friends would join him there and they’d drink often till three or four in the morning. Ollie would then sometimes stagger into his study to write poetry, phoning his poor put upon brother Simon to regale him with his latest offering down the phone line. When these recitals became too much for any human being to bear Simon took to leaving his answer phone switched on all night. Asked later for his verdict on brother Ollie’s poetry Simon said, ‘It was like someone who had taken LSD every night of their lives.’

  Reed very quickly established his drinking credentials in the many pubs on the island. ‘He is usually OK until about 2 o’clock,’ said one landlady, ‘but then things tend to get out of hand. His drinking reputation is legendary on this island.’ He also enjoyed welcoming visiting journalists to his new world, taking them on tours of the island, usually starting and finishing in a pub. On one occasion Reed was driving a reporter along the coastal road when he suddenly stopped the car and asked his passenger to step out and just smell the beautiful clean fresh air. The journalist did so and in mid-sniff heard the door slam behind him, the car engine rev up. Reed sped off. The poor man was in the middle of nowhere, no house and no person within four miles. When the weary reporter got back to his hotel hours later Reed was waiting for him in the lobby, drink in hand.
/>
  After years of nothing parts and being famous only for periodically appearing in the tabloids in various stages of being pissed, Oliver Reed returned to the big time again with Castaway (1986), a film based on the real-life story of a business man who places an ad in a paper for a girl to come and live with him on a tropical island. True to form, though, at the glitzy opening night of the film a sozzled Reed shouted out in dismay during the performance when he realized that some of his favourite scenes had been cut out of the movie.

  Cast as the girl, and spending the majority of the movie completely starkers, was Amanda Donohoe. In her first real movie role, she was to some extent thrown in at the deep end, having to handle Ollie. ‘I don’t think that anybody understood the state that Oliver was in when he came to do Castaway. Although everybody understood that he drank, nobody knew quite how much. There was this dichotomy; there was this incredibly sweet, charming, sensitive man…and the next minute he’d be calling you a bitch. You really didn’t know where you were with him. This was at a point in his career where he had been unemployable. I think he really tried to be very good…he tried and tried and tried…but I just don’t think he could resist somehow.’

  To promote Castaway Reed did more press than he’d managed in years. A reporter was invited to meet him one morning at a genteel hotel in Dorking. Waiting in reception the journalist saw Reed arrive, recovering from a massive bender the night before. ‘That’s why I’m drinking champagne,’ he announced. ‘It’s a good pick me up. But I think now,’ consulting his watch which read 10.45 am, ‘I’ll switch to gin and tonic.’ The interview began with the reporter wondering why Dorking, not exactly the kind of place frequented by film stars or hellraisers. ‘I am Dorking,’ Reed explained, pounding the table with his fists, rattling the coffee cups. ‘And Dorking is me.’

  By far Reed’s most notorious public appearance at this time, perhaps of his career, occurred when he agreed to do Michael Aspel’s TV chat show. Aspel knew Reed was always a good booking, but on this particular occasion he’d had word from the researcher travelling with him: ‘We’ve stopped again!’ and that the star was drinking large quantities of booze. Still, nothing quite prepared Aspel for the apparition that lurched onto the set. He came on looking like the uncle from hell at a boozy Christmas party with his shirt half hanging off and clutching a jug of what one hoped was just orange juice. He then proceeded to forget the plot of the film he was meant to be promoting and hijacked the band to play the 60s hit ‘Wild One’, belting out the lyrics like a Neanderthal Elvis. It was a performance that few who watched it would ever forget. ‘I was delighted,’ Aspel later confessed. ‘People said “Aspel was furious” – I was thrilled! You don’t expect Reed to come on and behave like a bank manager; if he did it would be disappointing. But we knew he was sloshed because he’d taken 15 stops…and a couple of pints of gin and tonic. So when he lurched on I thought “This is great!”’

  Was Reed out of his head or was it another case of giving the punters what they wanted? ‘I don’t think it will take that long to rebuild the studio,’ said Aspel. It certainly left an impression on fellow guest, writer Clive James – ‘It was one of the most exciting evenings since World War II, when I was much further from the front line’ – and on the viewers, 600 of whom jammed the station’s switchboard to complain, The Sun newspaper called them all spoilsports. ‘In our view,’ they said, ‘Ollie Reed drunk is better than Wogan sober any day.’ That didn’t stop TV bosses announcing their intention to ban Reed, who’d left for home after the Aspel show perfectly delighted with his performance, from ever appearing on their chat shows again. ‘On television Oliver was a menace,’ says Michael Winner. ‘They once said to me, “We’re going to do Oliver Reed’s This is Your Life live.” I said, “Obviously you have a better job to go to and wish to leave Granada television in a hail of ignominy.” They said, “No, no, all his family say that Michael, you are the only person he respects, so we’re going to tell him that he’s coming as a guest on your This is Your Life.” Sadly this never worked out because there was an electricians’ strike and the thing was cancelled. On television Oliver was quite difficult. They often called me to sit next to him, because they thought if I was there he would be sober and well behaved, which was only marginally true.’

  After other public misdemeanours – on the Des O’Connor chat show Ollie was only just restrained from producing his cock live on camera – his brother and two sons wrote jointly to inform him how unacceptable and embarrassing his behaviour had become. Reed never replied. To him he was merely giving the public what they wanted. ‘Sometimes I go over the top,’ he said, stating the obvious, ‘but I don’t punch people any more. I’m too old for that now.’

  But deep inside Reed must have known that he was cutting his own throat with such antics, however glorious they were. After Castaway, a critical and financial success, in which he’d given his best performance for years, producers should have been banging on his door with scripts, but his antics scared them all off; people were just afraid to employ him and what should have been a revival ended up another barren wasteland.

  In 1987 doctors warned Reed to give up the booze or he’d be dead within two years. His alcoholic intake and rich food diet were leading to possible kidney damage, coronary disease and ultimately heart failure. But did he care? – not really, announcing that he’d rather die than stop boozing. ‘Richard Burton was hitting the bottle with John Hurt the night before his death. He knew it was going to kill him, but he did not stop.’ Reed didn’t like what giving up booze had done to his other surviving acting chums. ‘Now Richard Harris and Peter O’Toole have stopped drinking they don’t look nearly as robust as they used to. I certainly prefer them in their stamping days.’

  Reed hated the thought of a long, lingering death, of vital organs slowly popping off. Thoughts of suicide came into his mind. Drinking himself to death was the preferable option, though it would take far too long. There had to be a quicker solution. In the end Reed made his son Mark swear to perform ‘his sacred duty and put a shot gun in my mouth and pull the trigger’.

  Who knows just how seriously Ollie contemplated suicide; in any case he had no intention of heeding the health warnings and carried on boozing. By now a life on the piss had taken its toll on his appearance: he was potbellied, grey-haired, lined and stooping like an old man; at times he looked like Father Christmas leaving an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. It was a long way away from the brooding sex symbol of the early 70s. His face was now ‘a sad reflection of a dissolute life’, as one journalist put it. ‘A Hogarthian example of debauchery’s perils.’ When in 1989 he played Athos once again, in The Return of the Musketeers, Reed looked positively prehistoric compared with his co-stars from the original movie. But the hellraiser was still there. Filming in Aylesbury, Reed went to a local pub and after numerous pints boasted to the locals of the tattoo on his cock. He was finally persuaded to place his manhood on a barstool for public examination.

  For Reed, however, the onset of old age presented no great fears. ‘I’m looking forward actually to getting old and playing the sage. I want to be wheeled around in a wheelchair, carrying a whip, pushed around by a Negro in a white uniform, whipping people if they get in my way.’

  That same year Reed was thrown out of a celebrity bash for attacking fellow hard man Patrick Mower. Trouble flared when Ollie stood up and yelled interruptions during some of the speeches. When Mower intervened to calm him down Reed tried to head butt the TV star. Reed later denied head butting Mower, insisting he had ‘leant across the table to give him a kiss’. Seated close by watching all this were ex-boxer and stunt man Nosher Powell and wrestler Jackie Pallo who got up and forced Reed back into his chair. Things were quiet for a while until Reed began goading Mower about his young blonde companion. Again Nosher Powell was on hand. Grabbed from behind Reed was manhandled to the door and thrown out into the street. As one guest told the papers, ‘Oliver was smashed out of his brains tonight.’

&n
bsp; The Pickled Nineties

  Richard Harris was pretty much washed up as the 90s began, totally non-existent as a film force having done nothing of note for over ten years. Critics were now placing Harris in the same bracket as Burton, as a man who had wasted his talents on Hollywood pap after his blistering breakthrough in This Sporting Life. ‘Balls to that,’ was his not altogether surprising response. ‘I’ve lived the life I wanted to live. Why should I live up to some critic’s expectations?’

  Indicative of the lack of opportunities coming his way was Jim Sheridan’s offer for Harris to play just a cameo role as a village priest in The Field (1990). Years before he’d have been up for the lead, but that vacancy was filled by Ray McAnally, whom Sheridan was eager to work with again after their joint success with My Left Foot. Harris told the producers he could do it better than McAnally, but they just laughed at him.

  Unexpectedly McAnally, at 63, died from a heart attack and the project was thrown into disarray. Harris seized the opportunity and pitched his name forward, only for the producers to inform him that the backers wanted someone with ‘marquee’ value, a Brando or a Connery, certainly not Harris. Brando’s agent actually rang Harris to ask who these Irish people were that wanted to hire his client. Harris told them they were a bunch of layabouts and couldn’t be trusted. ‘I was galvanized. I did everything in my power to stop them getting someone else.’ Finally after eight weeks of discussion Harris was cast as a farmer who will stop at nothing in order to keep a rented field which his family has tilled for generations and which an American wants to buy. The role rejuvenated him as never before. The Field would be his King Lear.