Hellraisers

by Robert Sellers

  It went pretty much downhill from then on, much to Hussein’s dismay; he came to the project with a great deal of respect for Burton and at the start of filming was made to feel very much at ease by the star. ‘Unfortunately when the drink hit, it was a Jekyll and Hyde situation. He just became a roaring mass of anger and frustration and he would shout and scream. One day he couldn’t remember his lines and was swaying so much that we couldn’t take close ups of him, so I went up to him and said, “Can I help you?” And he just said, in an incredible bellow, “FUCK OFF!” and the whole place shook. Then he stood up and yelled, “I could be Lear, I could play Lear.” It was really pathetic, because he was self-aware, he saw what was going on but couldn’t control it. He came to me the next day and apologized profusely; he always apologized afterwards; it was terrible really.’

  The project was the brainchild of acclaimed scriptwriter John Hopkins, and on paper at least looked an interesting concept that was ultimately scuppered by the Burtons according to Hussein. ‘In the hands of a more conscientious, competent couple it would have been absolutely riveting, but they didn’t even look at the script until they came on the set, because they wouldn’t rehearse. Liz would arrive and say, “What’s this crap I’m saying? Who wrote these crappy lines?” I’d say, “Elizabeth they’re not crappy, and by the way this scene here refers to something that is in Richard’s story.” She’d suddenly interrupt, “Oh fuck that. I don’t care about Richard’s story. I’m talking about mine.” I’d say, “Yes Elizabeth, but it’s all tied in together.” Now, with that atmosphere going on the result was absolutely barmy. It was a ship out of control, and I was trying to keep it afloat; unfortunately it sank.’

  Things got even worse when they moved to a German studio to shoot interiors. For a scene in a hotel a group of eager young American women, recruited from a nearby air base, were hired as extras. The next day Hussein was informed the women were no longer available. ‘It turned out that the night before Richard had taken one of them up to his dressing room and Elizabeth jumped out from behind the sofa, smashed a bottle of vodka and chased him around with a broken bottle. They also trashed their hotel room in Munich to the tune of £20,000.’

  It was quite ironic that Burton and Liz were making a film about the disintegration of a marriage when their own was hurtling down a very similar path. Their fights were growing increasingly ugly and spilling out into the public domain for all to see. In Hollywood they quarrelled outside a nightclub, resulting in Elizabeth spending the night with a friend. The next day she turned up at the Beverly Hills Hotel, walked up to Burton in the bar and punched him in the face.

  Finally early in July 1973 Liz Taylor announced to the world that she and Richard Burton had officially separated: a story that knocked Nixon and Watergate off the front pages. Burton drowned his sorrows in copious amounts of drink in Italy where he was shooting The Voyage (1974). Barry Norman went out to interview him for his BBC film programme and was told that Burton’s daily ritual consisted of getting pissed and then getting extremely horny whereupon he’d take a young actress to his hotel room. The next morning, full of post-coital remorse, he’d ask the girl to leave. But the guilt only started him drinking again, the horniness would return and he’d shag the same actress. When Norman arrived to conduct the prearranged interview he could see that Burton was sozzled and offered to reschedule it. No, Burton was adamant that it had to take place then and there. The crew quickly set up the cameras and Norman asked his first question which was answered by a burst of snoring. Burton had fallen asleep, on camera. Annoyed, Norman gave the star a swift kick in the shin. ‘Richard, wake up!’ But he just shook himself slightly and snored again. ‘Let’s go and have dinner,’ said the director after a while. Norman nodded in agreement and packed up, leaving Burton to his dreams.

  Outside the room Norman spotted the film’s publicist and explained what had happened. He laughed. Norman asked if they could reschedule the interview for tomorrow. The publicist laughed even louder. ‘No, that’s it. You only get one shot; tough luck.’ Seething, Norman hit back. ‘OK then I’ll tell you what’s going to happen. Listen carefully. In my programme next week I will use the stuff we have just recorded and I will explain to the viewers how it came about. You think Richard will like that, do you – five minutes of him, pissed out of his head, on national television?’ The publicist visibly cowered. ‘You wouldn’t.’ ‘I bloody would,’ barked Norman. ‘And I will.’ A second interview was hastily arranged.

  For the whole of the next day Norman watched Burton like a hawk, even standing next to him between takes to see that he sipped nothing stronger than coffee. When shooting finished Burton wanted to change prior to the interview and went to his dressing room, Norman followed. As he feared, one of Burton’s acolytes was waiting with a large Bloody Mary so pale that Norman wondered if it contained any tomato juice at all. Unlike his old hellraising days when a stiff drink wouldn’t have affected him at all, now just one Bloody Mary was enough to make Burton drunk and when the interview began he was hardly more coherent than he’d been the previous night. At least he didn’t pass out this time. The interview went out on air and it must have been obvious to viewers that the man was pissed. When Norman ran into Burton again some years later the actor recalled that infamous interview by saying, ‘I think I was sloshed at the time, was I?’

  After the disastrous Bloomfield Richard Harris’s choice of movies didn’t get much better.

  There was Man in the Wilderness (1971), a rather piss-poor Man Called Horse rip-off. Next was a crappy western that he made in Mexico called The Deadly Trackers (1973). Cult director Samuel Fuller was at the helm but fierce clashes with Harris resulted in his dismissal, or his walking away, depending on whose story you believe. Co-star Rod Taylor was another boozer, but both he and Harris had promised not to touch a drop until the weekends. To get through the week without a drink they developed a secret code between themselves. On Monday morning they’d hold up four fingers to each other, meaning four days left. On Tuesday it was three, Wednesday two and so on. When Friday night arrived it was no-holds barred boozing and whoring until dawn on Monday.

  One notable role that Harris was offered at this time was Zed, a futuristic superman in John Boorman’s sci-fi movie Zardoz. First choice Burt Reynolds had fallen ill and backers 20th Century Fox wanted Harris after the success of A Man Called Horse. Boorman wasn’t sure Harris had the physique for what was a highly physical role, but went to see him at his London home. Boorman was dazzled by the interior design, all mock medieval and decorated with props from Camelot. ‘It was chaotic.’ With Harris’s hung-over mates wandering in and out and their kids running amok, Boorman found it impossible to conduct the meeting. What about next weekend, suggested Harris who was going to be in Dublin for a rugby match. ‘OK, why don’t you come out to my house for Sunday lunch,’ said Boorman who lived not far from the city. It was agreed. But one o’clock came and went and Boorman waited, and waited. At three o’clock lunch went ahead without him. ‘There was no sign of Harris,’ Boorman later told Hollywood executives. ‘If he can’t show up for the audition, what will it be like once he’s got the job?’ Years later their paths crossed again and Harris apologized. He’d had a heavy Saturday night after the rugby match and was hung-over. He noticed it was already past noon when he hailed a cab and told the driver to go hell for leather. Halfway to Boorman’s house the driver offered him the day’s paper. Harris looked at the date. It was Monday. ‘Turn back to Dublin,’ he said, ‘and stop at the first pub.’

  At this time Harris lived in a splendid mansion in Kensington, next door to Michael Winner. ‘My mother adored him,’ recalls the director. ‘He used to come round and borrow sugar. My mother thought he was the most charming man. I was very fond of Richard, too. When he died his children rang me up and asked if I could get them into the house, which was now owned by Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, because they wanted to pay a last visit to that part of their childhood. I got them into the house, Jimm
y let them in. But Richard was a very similar type to Oliver Reed, he did things when he was drunk and then regretted them, but tried to hide the fact that he regretted them.’

  Harris came to live in that house thanks to a curious twist of fate. He claimed that years before he became famous he woke up one morning after a heavy night on the town in the garden of this beautiful house and knew that one day it would be his. Sure enough he eventually bought the place. But he didn’t live there alone. Harris claimed the place was haunted by the ghost of an 8-year-old boy who lived in the tower. Harris didn’t mind sharing his dream house with a ghost, save for the fact that he could never get enough sleep. The spirit would often wake Harris up at night by slamming doors and running up and down the stairs to the tower. Historical records showed that an 8-year-old boy had been buried there within its walls. Harris tried explaining to the ghost that an actor needs his sleep and that if he didn’t stop making all the late night noise he’d have him exorcised. This didn’t solve matters so Harris had a nursery made in the tower, filled with games and toys, and that helped settle the spirit down.

  One wonders what on earth induced Peter O’Toole to appear in his next film, a musical version of the Don Quixote legend, Man of La Mancha (1972), besides the obvious one of acting opposite Sophia Loren, whom he playfully nicknamed ‘silicone’. A remarkable woman, Sophia was born in a hospital charity ward and raised in poverty by her single mother, yet managed to turn herself into one of cinema’s greatest ever sex symbols. ‘The more I was with Sophia, the more edible she looked,’ O’Toole claimed.

  O’Toole’s sparring relationship with Sophia was akin to the one he’d earlier enjoyed with Katharine Hepburn. ‘I love that cow!’ he said at the end of filming. But when he heard that Sophia was to make a film with Burton next, O’Toole couldn’t resist writing a mischievous note to her: ‘The news is all over Ireland that I am spitting blood at the moon, aghast because you have abandoned me for a bandy-legged pockmarked little Welshman.’

  Man of La Mancha had been a huge Broadway hit, running well over 2,000 performances and for cinema audiences there was now the prospect of witnessing O’Toole singing on screen. Or not, as the case may be. In spite of admitting that he had a singing voice akin to ‘a broken bottle going under a door’, O’Toole gamely trotted out the numbers. ‘But apparently it was horrendous, so they brought in a highly paid opera singer to do the high notes.’

  After Man of La Mancha O’Toole took a sabbatical from the cinema. He’d grown restless with the film-making process, the spark had gone and it took another three years to return. He was also suffering from ill health, the bane of his life, problems that in just a few years’ time would almost put him into an early grave. It wasn’t just ill health, though, that perturbed O’Toole. For years he’d also suffered from the most dreadful insomnia. He’d always been a night person anyway and detested having to get up for early morning film calls. ‘The man who invented mornings was no Christian. I prefer to go straight into the afternoon.’ From time to time he’d tried numerous cures for his insomnia: hypnosis, drugs, the lot, even a special cushion from Japan that you plugged into the mains and which was supposed to vibrate you to sleep. ‘All it did was give me a sore ass.’ Next he bought a record that consisted of soothing sounds. ‘Soothing sounds!’ he ranted. ‘What a bloody awful record.’ In the end O’Toole came to realize that the only thing that was keeping him awake all night was wondering why he couldn’t sleep.

  To the surprise of many Oliver Reed had become the world’s most unlikely country squire, buying a huge mansion in Surrey called Broome Hall, with 52 bedrooms. He came to own the vast sprawl in the first place because of his horse, Dougal, which he’d intended to enter in show jumping trials, only to realize the animal was allergic to coloured poles. Drowning his sorrows in his local pub, numerous pints later he had a brainwave: what Dougal needed was a little bit of land to graze in that could be filled with coloured poles in order for him to get used to them. Reed was off like a shot across the road to the estate agent’s. ‘I want to buy a field,’ he announced. ‘What sort of field?’ The man asked. The question temporarily threw Reed: ‘A field with grass in it.’

  Most of the fields in the estate agent’s books had either a house or a cottage attached to them, but one property in particular caught Reed’s interest – Broome Hall. It definitely had a field, plus a further 65 acres. Back in the pub the landlord heard that Reed was thinking of buying Broome Hall and laughed that of all the people in the world, Ollie was joining the country aristocracy. ‘Sod you,’ blasted Reed, stormed back into the estate agent’s and got his chequebook out there and then.

  Reed set about restoring the stately pile to former glories, supervising up to 30 workmen paid full time for years. More often than not the workmen were found in the local pub rather than working; Reed’s fault, of course, he’d come down most days to where the men were working and holler, ‘Come on, let’s go down to the pub. Only for a short time, mind you. You’ve got fucking walls to build.’ Afterwards he’d go into the garden and complain to friends, ‘Look, they’ve dug absolutely nothing today.’ ‘But you took them down to the pub, Oliver,’ his friends would say. ‘All day!’

  Broome Hall came complete with a wine cellar. ‘Predictably that is where I am often to be found.’ Reed opened his own bar down there and pride of place was kept for the Thorhill Glass, an old crystal glass that held the equivalent of a bottle of port. Part of the tradition of coming to Reed’s private bar was to drink its full contents and then stay in the room for 20 minutes afterwards without being sick.

  Broome Hall was the scene of numerous wild parties, notable among them the time Reed invited 30 members of his local rugby club over. The evening started off in the pub when the lot of them stripped naked and sang ‘Get ’em down you Zulu warrior,’ crammed 15 of their party into a single ladies’ lavatory cubicle and then went on a cross-country run to the house in their jockstraps. Once at Broome Hall the real fun began. In all 50 gallons of beer were consumed, 32 bottles of whisky, 17 of gin, four crates of wine and 15 bottles of Newcastle brown ale. Then for an encore they smashed dozens of eggs on the kitchen floor to slide around and play mock ice hockey. ‘It could have been worse,’ Reed’s girlfriend said. ‘A lot of them were in training and off the drink.’

  Reed loved his rugby, especially the earthy humour and no bullshit of the people who played it. One day he went into Doncaster rugby union club, slapped a £50 note on the bar and said, ‘Buy all these working class pigs a drink.’ Reed later denied the members were upset by his comments, indeed the word pig was a term of affection in his household, and anyway the club made him a life member.

  Reed not only loved showing Broome Hall off to his mates, but also to visiting journalists. A lot of interviews were conducted there; sometimes the invitation came with the caveat of bringing a change of clothing. ‘You’re going to be pushed in the pond or the swimming pool,’ Reed would warn them. Lots of drink was consumed too, with Reed doing the pouring, his eyes fixing on the reporter, daring him not to say stop. One journalist drank so much he was sick in the garden. Ollie followed the poor retching hack advising him, ‘No, not on the roses, or the path. That’s right, in the bushes.’

  When top celebrity photographer David Steen was invited over to photograph Reed in a series of typical lord of the manor poses he was startled by the sheer size of the place, particularly the room they were using which had four French windows and was some 50 feet long and 30 feet wide. After the photographs had been taken Reed announced, ‘Right, let’s have a drink.’ Usually with Ollie that didn’t mean a glass or a bottle and so out came a case of red wine. The two men drank well into the evening, and then Reed suddenly disappeared out of the room for an hour, returning riding a white horse. It was a balmy night so the huge French windows were open. Steen watched in utter disbelief as Reed charged out of the window on to the terrace, over the balustrade and off into the countryside.

  Of all the terrible films R
ichard Burton made, and there’s a lot to choose from, The Klansman (1974) must rank as his creative nadir. Burton’s co-star was Lee Marvin, who ran Burton a close second in the drinking Olympics. He was a monumental boozer. Filming The Dirty Dozen in London Marvin attended a cocktail reception where the equally volatile Sean Connery counted amongst the guests. Rather the worse for wear Marvin spied a quaint old lady sitting on her own in the corner, and, staggering across the room, propositioned her in the most vulgar manner possible. So slurred was his speech that the woman had trouble understanding, so innocently asked him to repeat it. Marvin obliged. It was then that someone whispered to him that the old dear in question was in fact Connery’s aunt and that the man himself had heard what was happening and was on his way over. Dirty Dozen’s producer Kenneth Hyman saw the danger and desperately leapt into the breach. ‘Don’t hit him in the face Sean,’ he begged. ‘He’s got close-ups tomorrow.’ Just in time Connery saw the funny side of it. ‘You fucking producers,’ he roared.

  John Boorman won’t forget his experience of working with Marvin either on Point Blank, shot in LA. He and some friends went to dinner with Marvin at a sea front restaurant. When it was time to leave Boorman could see that Marvin was in no fit state to drive home and told him so. ‘Fuck you,’ said Marvin as he missed with a punch at the director’s head. Boorman grabbed the keys to Marvin’s own Chrysler station wagon and got in. Like a wild animal Marvin prowled around the vehicle, bashing it occasionally, until finally climbing onto the bonnet and up onto the roof rack. Everyone pleaded for him to come down but he refused. Carefully Boorman drove along the harbour front hoping some of the sea air might sober Marvin up. It didn’t, he just snarled and refused to budge. The streets looked pretty deserted so Boorman decided to take a chance and drive down the Pacific Coast Highway towards Malibu. Just minutes later he saw flashing lights in his rear view mirror. He pulled over. The patrolman walked purposefully to the car, looked up, looked at Boorman and said, ‘Do you know you have Lee Marvin on your roof?’