Hellraisers

by Robert Sellers

  The Bible’s impressive cast also included George C. Scott who had the hots for co-star Ava Gardner. Their affair was dominated by heated rows that usually ended in violence. One day on the set a pissed Scott went to hit Ava and it took Huston and six other crew members to hold him back. When O’Toole heard about the incident it was only Huston’s intervention that prevented the Irishman and his bodyguard from beating the crap out of the Hollywood actor. Ava later said it was impossible to keep Scott sober during this period and to get him off the booze he had to be sedated and then locked up in, as she described it, ‘a nuthouse with bars on the windows’. When the film wrapped Scott followed Ava to London and the Savoy hotel, breaking down a door to get at her only to be arrested and banged up overnight in the cells. When Scott later went out of control in the Beverly Hills Hotel Ava left him for good and sought the protection of her previous lover, Frank Sinatra.

  While staying in Rome O’Toole hit the bars with Albert Finney and horror actress Barbara Steele, despite being warned about the paparazzi. The next day O’Toole was resting in his hotel suite when the door suddenly flew open and a gorgeous blonde fell at his feet. Quick as a flash he darted into the next room before two photographers entered. As he came out of a café later in the afternoon the paparazzi descended once again and during a scuffle a photographer was smashed in the face. O’Toole and Steele were taken to the police station and questioned for two hours. The next day the police arrived at O’Toole’s hotel informing him that they were going to press charges of assault and that he wasn’t to leave before the trial. When the police returned to confiscate his passport and luggage O’Toole got his stunt double to wear his cap and spectacles as a decoy while he smuggled himself out of the back door wearing the beard he used to play God. ‘And nobody spotted me.’ Vowing never to work in Rome again O’Toole recruited other stars who had also suffered at the hands of the paparazzi, the likes of Burton, Liz Taylor and Sinatra, to follow suit until the problem had been eradicated.

  After the success of What’s New Pussycat? Peter O’Toole looked for another frothy 60s caper movie and found it in How To Steal a Million (1966), a romantic/heist comedy again set in Paris and starring Audrey Hepburn. With Siân in London and Hepburn’s husband Mel Ferrer at home in Switzerland, inevitable rumours surfaced of an affair between the two stars. In truth nothing went on, though the two became fast friends. Audrey loved O’Toole’s zany antics, which included the Irishman getting the actress plastered on set for the first and only time in her career. It was a cold morning and the scene required Audrey to drive down a street in a car. O’Toole suggested a shot of brandy to stave off the chill, but one glass became two glasses which became three until finally when she was required on set Audrey bounded out of her trailer, tottered towards the car, got in and drove straight into five huge arc lights, totally demolishing them.

  Playing Audrey’s father in the film was notorious boozer and general mad old bastard, Hugh Griffith. During production he was actually fired for persistent bad behaviour, culminating in a naked stroll down the corridors of the ultra posh George V hotel holding a ‘Do not disturb’ sign over his privates, which he’d altered to read ‘Do disturb’. Years later when Griffith was nominated for a Tony award on Broadway he was asked by a reporter if he was a method actor. ‘No, no. But I am a Methodist.’

  Perhaps best known for his role in Ben Hur, in which he won an Oscar as the mock-sinister Sheik Ilderim, whose fine white horses won the chariot race, Hugh Griffith was a close drinking friend of Dylan Thomas and thought nothing of boozing away on film sets. He was reportedly drunk through much of the production of Tom Jones. The scene in which his horse falls on him was not planned and many believe he was saved by virtue of his inebriated condition. The film incorporated every frame of the footage before rescuers rushed in to save him.

  For lunch he downed double brandies and when asked to perform drunken scenes invariably warmed up with bolt after bolt of black velvet (champagne and stout). ‘Do they think I can fake it with bloody tea?’ he asked.

  But perhaps the most bizarre tale involving Griffith was a 1962 London stage production of Brecht’s Caucasian Chalk Circle, during which the world was nearly deprived of his future services when, during the hanging scene, he slipped off the box he was standing on and hanged himself in full view of the audience. After gurgling and turning black, he passed out. The curtain fell and he was cut down by his fellow actors. Coming to, Griffith took a shot of brandy and got on with the show.

  After Paris, O’Toole’s next port of call was Warsaw to play a nasty SS general and serial killer in a film that reunited him with Omar Sharif, Night of the Generals (1967). En route he visited Siân in London who was appearing in a play, only to pass out drunk backstage. For the entire performance the cast were forced to step over him in order to make their entrances.

  After years of false dawns and crushing disappointments, what Oliver Reed termed as the turning point of his career arrived when he made the acquaintance of a director later christened the enfant terrible of British film and dubbed ‘an appalling talent’, Ken Russell. For years Reed had been battling against his villainous looks to escape typecasting as teddy boys, thugs and Hammer monsters. ‘I had the misfortune to look like a prizefighter and speak like a public schoolboy. When I started, the only jobs I got were as teddy boys in leather jackets who whipped old ladies around the head with a bicycle chain and stole their handbags.’ Ken Russell changed all that and proved Reed’s artistic saviour when he cast the actor in his television film about Debussy.

  The pair immediately took to each other while filming in France, going out to restaurants and getting pissed on the local plonk. In one fish speciality restaurant Russell took pity on the intended dinner, displayed live in a tank, and handed them through a window to Reed who then released them in a local stream. Alas they were discovered and made to pay for the lot.

  Another evening, this time back in England, Russell walked into a pub and ordered a bottle of wine and a plate of whelks. ‘I’m sorry sir,’ said the landlord, motioning his head across the saloon bar. ‘We’ve just sold the last whelks to Mr Reed.’ Ollie raised his glass, a big soppy grin on his face. Annoyed Russell left and got back into his car. As he made to drive off an object hurled itself on the bonnet – it was Ollie. Undeterred Russell revved up the engine and manoeuvred his way onto the main road, Ollie still lying spread-eagled on the bonnet, his feet braced on the wing mirrors and his hands clamped on the windscreen wipers. ‘Since when do you refuse to take a drink with me?’ Reed screamed through the glass. ‘Since you ate all the whelks,’ Russell shouted back, nursing the car up to 70mph. ‘You want whelks.’ Ollie roared, ‘I’ll give you whelks. Turn back.’

  Russell was approaching a roundabout, swung the car round and headed back to the pub. In the car park Russell hit the brakes and watched as Ollie shot off the bonnet, flew through the air and landed in a heap on the gravel. ‘You want whelks,’ said Ollie, dusting himself down and marching to an estuary that adjoined the pub. Open-mouthed Russell watched as his leading man dived into the water, fully clothed, emerging seconds later with a fistful of seaweed and undetermined gunk. ‘Here’s your fucking whelks,’ Reed said, throwing what he’d found onto the car bonnet. ‘Thank you Oliver,’ said Russell as he examined the rather unappetizing shellfish. ‘Now, what’ll you have?’ asked Reed. ‘Half a shandy,’ said Russell. Inside the bar Russell borrowed a knife and prised open the shellfish. ‘It was worse than swallowing two globs of phlegm soaked in sump oil,’ he recalled.

  Reed was growing increasingly eccentric in his behaviour. At home he had amassed an impressive collection of antique weapons and one night after the pubs had closed equipped seven of his drinking pals with various swords, blunderbusses and pikes, forming them all up in the garden. ‘Right lads,’ he said, sergeant-major style. ‘We’re going to take over the police station.’ Out of his front gate the gang marched and down Wimbledon High Road towards their local Cop shop. Once there th
ey all lined up in front of the building and Ollie marched inside, only to emerge a few seconds later with a stern-faced police officer. ‘Attention!’ Reed commanded his troops. ‘Left turn, quick march.’ In the police station yard a constable was holding open the doors of a van and herded Ollie and his mates inside. They were then driven back home like a bunch of naughty schoolboys. ‘If I see you lot out again with those weapons,’ said an officer, ‘I’ll have them confiscated.’

  Reed continued to showcase his weapons at home, pride of place going to a pair of broad swords and when he’d had a few drinks, out they’d come. After dinner with Ken Russell one evening Reed lifted the swords off the wall and proposed they have a duel. ‘I had this six foot sword,’ Russell recalled years later. ‘And he said, “Now you’ve got to try and kill me.” I said, “Fine.” I raised it up and I knew I had to try and kill him. As he came up I pulled the sword down, it ripped his shirt open, blood poured out and he stood there and said, “Great!”’

  Despite the overblown rubbish of The Sandpiper, Richard Burton and Liz Taylor continued to look for suitable projects to make together, finding their best ever vehicle in the film version of Edward Albee’s disturbing play, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). It focused on a married couple who delight in destroying one another in a hail of insults and invective. Liz as Martha, a fat, vicious, domineering bitch, gave her greatest screen performance, though Burton is equally outstanding as the put upon husband. According to some, though, Liz is masterful as the wife only because she was that person in real life. ‘That role was more or less her, really,’ confirms Waris Hussein, who directed the husband and wife team in the 70s. ‘It is one of her best performances because she was actually playing herself. That was absolutely their relationship.’

  Friends warned the couple that it was a mistake to appear in the film together, that no marriage, however feisty, could withstand the sheer hatred of Albee’s dialogue. Sure enough after a few months the play was beginning to spill over into their private lives. Having spent the day fighting viciously with each other in character in the studio, they’d return home, share a bottle of vodka and fight all over again.

  The fighting continued on their next film, when Franco Zeffirelli invited them to appear in Shakespeare’s battle of the sexes, The Taming of the Shrew (1967). It was to be filmed in Rome, the city where Burton had seduced Taylor and where their lives were so horrendously intruded upon by the paparazzi, to such an extent that both had sworn they would never go back to the city. However here they were and when asked what had happened to his resolve, Burton answered, ‘We got plastered and middle-aged, I suppose, and forgot.’

  One evening senator Robert Kennedy, who’d befriended Burton during the Broadway run of Camelot after discovering their mutual love of poetry, visited the set. Well oiled, both men began to compete over recitals of the Shakespeare sonnets. Burton eventually won by employing his old party trick of reciting the 15th sonnet word for word, backwards.

  For the film’s Royal London opening Burton invited all his Welsh relations up to London for the weekend to see it, taking over 14 double rooms at the Dorchester hotel. Not surprisingly there was a massive party held for everyone the night before the premiere that went on until dawn. Then after the premiere Burton held another one. The Dorchester complained that the Burton family had drained every bottle of booze in the hotel.

  The star couple continued to make movies together with such alarming regularity that one day Burton grumbled to Liz that, ‘We’ll soon end up like Laurel and Hardy.’ Next up was The Comedians (1967), based on Graham Greene’s controversial novel about political dictatorship in Haiti. Amongst the cast was Alec Guinness, who’d first made Burton’s acquaintance in the late 40s. Since then he’d been an occasional guest at Burton’s home, but hadn’t seen him for a while and now saw in his appearance a marked change. ‘I hardly find him the same person,’ he wrote in his diary. ‘Drink has taken a bit of a toll, I fear.’

  This was followed by a real curate’s egg of a movie, Boom (1968), directed by Joseph Losey and co-starring Noel Coward. In it Liz played a dying millionairess who as her last lover takes a wandering poet who happens to be the angel of death. Losey was hardly enamoured of the Burtons at their first meeting. ‘They arrived both screaming, drunk and abusive, it was unimaginably awful.’ At breakfast the next morning Burton turned to Losey. ‘I understand that I behaved rather badly last night.’ Losey looked up from his coffee and said, ‘I don’t know whether you do or not.’ Burton replied, ‘Well, this is as much of an apology as you’re ever going to get.’ Actually the two ended up on rather friendly terms.

  Burton drank for most of the filming, which took place in Sardinia. One evening he disappeared, despite having promised to meet Elizabeth for dinner. Kidnapping was rife in Sardinia at that time and Liz was desperately worried. The police were called, hospitals alerted, but of Burton there was no sign. He was finally found by the police at ten o’clock at night outside a bar, standing on a table reciting Shakespeare to an audience of bemused locals, and promising a drink to anyone who could tell him which play the speeches came from.

  When Richard Harris heard that Warner Brothers intended to film the stage musical Camelot, in which Burton had scored such a hit, he set out to claim the role of King Arthur more obsessively than any other in his career. The only drawback was Julie Andrews, who’d been the stage Guinevere. If it’s her, Harris thought, forget it. For six months studio head Jack Warner and composer Alan Jay Lerner pursued Burton, until the star finally priced himself out of the deal. The role of King Arthur was up for grabs and so began a four-month campaign of Harris chasing Lerner, Warner and director Joshua Logan. It started with handwritten letters and ‘I love you’ cards. When Logan attended a party in Palm Springs Harris gatecrashed and delivered a note describing himself as ‘The out of work actor, King Richard Harris’. Logan ignored him and moved on to casting sessions in London where he was inundated with telegrams like ONLY HARRIS FOR ARTHUR and HARRIS WORKS CHEAPER. When these were ignored Harris flew to London and burst into Logan’s hotel suite, as the director was about to tuck into breakfast, demanding an audition. ‘I don’t want you,’ blasted Logan. ‘You wouldn’t be right, so please go away.’ ‘Never!’ cried Harris.

  The next evening Harris dressed up as a waiter to gatecrash a private party at the Dorchester hotel. As Logan reached out for a drink the Irishman was standing there. ‘Jesus,’ shrieked the director. ‘Will you leave me alone, for Christ’s sake?’ ‘Never,’ said Harris, handing him the drink. ‘Wherever you go, I’ll be there. If you go to the toilet, I’ll pop out of the bowl. If you catch a plane, I’ll be in the next seat. Just give me a test.’ Finally Logan could take it no more after returning to his hotel from a morning jog only to see Harris waiting in the lobby looking as if he’d been there all night. ‘Look, I’ll even pay for my own test,’ Harris pleaded. ‘OK,’ conceded Logan. ‘Now please go away.’

  Harris hired top cameraman and future cult director Nicolas Roeg to shoot the screen test. When Logan and Warner saw it they had to agree that they’d found their King Arthur and Harris was finally awarded the role for which he would become most identified in the public’s mind. But this obsession cost Harris one of his closest friendships. Laurence Harvey, his old drinking buddy, was currently a success in the London stage version of Camelot and assumed he’d be first in line for the film. One evening there was a knock at his dressing room door and Harris stormed in and warned Harvey that King Arthur was his and his alone. ‘I didn’t know you were interested,’ queried Harvey. ‘Well I am,’ snapped Harris. ‘So keep your fucking hands off. King Arthur’s mine.’ It would be the last time the two men spoke to each other and Harvey’s career faded into obscurity until his untimely death in 1973 from cancer aged only 45.

  Having won the role Harris decided to sail to New York in style on the Cunard liner Queen Mary, and then fly on to Hollywood. Elizabeth came along, as did Patrick Walker, whose astrology newspaper column
would soon be read by millions. Harris had just hired Walker as his personal astrologer after he’d predicted the Camelot role would indeed be his. One evening over dinner Harris was drinking to excess and brooding over his wife’s recent admission that she’d been unfaithful. Walker, sensing Harris was about to erupt, excused himself and headed for his private cabin. Harris duly self-combusted and hurled every abuse imaginable in his wife’s face, shocking fellow passengers. One member of staff later called Harris, ‘Probably the most dangerous drunk I have encountered in 40 years on passenger liners.’ Elizabeth fled to Walker’s room and as he began consoling her Harris suddenly stormed in, grabbed the astrologer by his lapels and flung him against the far wall. He then slowly and deliberately proceeded to destroy every item in the room. Walker later confessed that it was the most frightening experience of his life.

  While in Hollywood waiting for Camelot’s start date Harris quickly made the spy spoof Caprice (1967) with Doris Day, something he later deeply regretted; getting onto an aircraft once, when he heard Caprice was the in-flight movie, Harris walked off. Elizabeth was also regretting travelling out to Hollywood with her husband. His drinking was reckless and their arguments were rousing neighbours nightly. During the filming of Caprice Harris collapsed on set, excusing it by explaining that he had been on the tiles with actor Jason Robards the night before. After another long booze session Harris drank vodka diluted with water from his swimming pool, full of chlorine, bees, ants and spit. He collapsed again on the set and was rushed to hospital, everyone fearing it was a heart attack. The doctors ruled that out but were baffled as to the actual cause. After two days of tests they said it was an inflamed gullet and that recovery was dependent on a sensible stress-free lifestyle and a drastic reduction in alcohol. Harris celebrated his near death escape by getting pissed.