After the high of The Wild Geese Richard Harris finished the decade on a low; films like Games for Vultures (1979), about black freedom fighters in Rhodesia, he later admitted not even remembering doing. The industry had changed, too. This was the era of Taxi Driver and Star Wars and Harris seemed to not have a place in it. ‘It was the same for Burton and O’Toole. Their careers had been mighty. And then, where were we all?’
To dull the pain Harris sedated himself in booze (up to two and a half bottles of vodka a day) and then a new predilection for cocaine, which very quickly became a ‘social necessity’ for him. Then, according to Ann, when coke didn’t give him the same rush – he became immune to it – he would take both coke and drink, ‘which made him like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’.
He spent a fortune on it and it almost killed him. He was also plagued by bouts of sudden and prolonged fainting fits. Told by doctors that he should stop drinking if he wanted to stop falling into these comas Harris just took more drugs in order to wean himself off the booze. When the problem didn’t go away he returned to his doctor. ‘What’s the fucking trouble here? I’m not drinking and still the comas. What’s wrong? I want it sorted out.’ Asked if he ever took drugs Harris replied, ‘No, never touch the stuff.’ The doctor was confused, unable to pinpoint the problem, so asked what Harris took in place of alcohol. ‘Oh I use that white stuff, up me nose. I smoke some weed, that kind of thing. But I never take drugs. I wouldn’t be caught dead taking sleeping pills or aspirin or any of that muck.’
The comas – and sometimes fits – continued. One in LA was so bad that Ann rushed her husband to hospital. Doctors were so concerned by his condition they informed his family that there was little hope of survival. He was placed on a life support machine and newspapers around the world started compiling his obituary. Even a priest was rushed to his bedside to administer the last rites. When Harris woke to see the man offer him a rosary he said, ‘Father, if you are going to hear my confession, prepare to be here for days. By the end of it, I can guarantee you will very much regret your vow of celibacy.’ The priest bolted.
Harris pulled through. When he got back home, traumatized and frightened, he flushed $6,000 worth of coke down the toilet. ‘The doctors said if my cardiovascular system hadn’t been so strong I would have died.’
But the years of boozing were catching up with Harris and one morning in January 1978 he woke up and declared, ‘This is it. I’m stopping drinking for life.’ Ann laughed; she’d heard it all before. But Harris was serious this time and there was a reason for it. His hangovers were getting worse. ‘Sometimes they would last for three days.’ But mostly it was because of Burton. On the set of The Wild Geese Harris had seen a man full of courage in his battle to stop drinking. ‘But there was agony and pain in his abstinence. I thought, well I’m beyond that stage. I was as bad as him in the early 70s, so why carry on and get that way again.’ Talking on location, the Welshman had regaled Harris with tales of their three previous meetings; Harris could remember only the one. ‘And the stories he tells about the other two meetings are hilarious and totally unprintable. So what’s the point of doing things that only other people get a kick out of? That’s not leading a life at all. After all, your life is your memories. So what life have I had?’ Some of the crew on Geese had also worked on Mutiny on the Bounty and were saying things like, ‘Remember the day you and Brando did so and so?’ Or, ‘Remember when you and Trevor Howard went to such and such a place?’ Trouble was, Harris didn’t remember any of it. ‘That shocked me. They were hilarious stories and I didn’t even have the joy of remembering my own exploits.’
Nervous Harris underwent medical checks and everything inside seemed to be OK. ‘I was ahead of the game, so I stopped. The crazy period of my life is over. Maybe things won’t be as exciting in the same way, but at least I’ll be able to remember them the next day.’
In January 1979 Harris walked into a bar to celebrate a year off the booze. ‘And I drank myself stupid.’ He’d noticed that the barman had recognized him and was probably wondering if it was true that Richard Harris drank as much as the press made out. So there was sometimes within Harris an element of him trying to live up to his own reputation. ‘It taught me a lesson. I couldn’t get out of bed for two days after that.’
Like Harris’s and Burton’s, Peter O’Toole’s career was in poor shape come the end of the decade, making films like Power Play (1978), a lacklustre drama about a coup d’etat in a mythical country, and Zulu Dawn (1979), a star laden sequel of sorts to the classic, and much better, Zulu, that no one really wanted to see. With the rise in the 70s of directors like Scorsese and Spielberg and a new breed of American acting personified by the likes of Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro, O’Toole’s theatrical performance style looked positively prehistoric and was affecting the kind of films he was being asked to appear in. O’Toole never had much truck with ‘gibberish spouting’ method actors. ‘When you’re playing Hamlet and you and Horatio are up on the battlements, Horatio says, “But, look, the morn in russet mantle clad/walks o’er the dew of yon high eastward hill.” Well, it doesn’t! You’re looking at Charlie the prop man with a fag in his gob. It’s pretend, for God’s sake!’
O’Toole was drifting out of fashion with little prospect of ever again attaining the fame he commanded in the 60s. Then suddenly along came the role that brought him back to public prominence: Eli Cross, a maverick director who hires a criminal on the run as a stunt man on his new movie. The man behind the story, director Richard Rush, had been a fan of O’Toole for years and couldn’t understand why he was being used so badly in film.
Desperate to land his favourite actor for his pet project, The Stunt Man, Rush got himself invited to a party he knew O’Toole was attending. ‘I met him there, and we chatted for half of the evening,’ remembers Rush. ‘I never brought up the screenplay because it seemed like such a tacky thing to do at a party. When he walked out the door I remember saying to myself, “You chicken shit bastard, why the hell didn’t you mention it?” Then fate interceded. It so happened that an actor O’Toole had come to the party with was a fan of one of my pictures and on the way out to the car told O’Toole, “You know that guy has done some very interesting films,” and he mentioned Freebie and the Bean. O’Toole came dashing in and said to me, “Did you direct Freebie and the Bean?” I said, “yes,” and he said, “I’m crazy about that picture.” So I said, “I’ve got a screenplay for you.” A week later he called me after reading it. “I’m a literate and intelligent man, and unless you let me do your film I will kill you.” Which I thought was about the best answer one can possibly get.’
By the late 70s though Hollywood executives considered O’Toole commercial death, his movies hadn’t taken a dime at the box office for years and Rush faced a major battle convincing his backers that O’Toole was the man for the job. ‘There was no chance of yielding on my part. Once O’Toole said yes the picture had to go with him as far as I was concerned.’ Rush was also warned about the star’s reputation for being difficult on set. ‘But Peter had a deified position in my mind that placed him above all of those trivialities. As it turned out he was an absolute dream to work with. You couldn’t ask for a more perfect working companion. It was like having a Stradivarius to play that was quite willing to be played.’ This was a view shared by the cast and crew. Barbara Hershey, his co-star, put it best: ‘When you meet Peter O’Toole, he does not disappoint.’
Much has been written about O’Toole basing the character of the rather crackpot and tyrannical movie director Eli Cross on his old Lawrence collaborator David Lean. O’Toole was certainly instrumental in refining the role of Cross, though it didn’t change overly much from Rush’s own original conception. O’Toole was also careful to select the right costume. Every morning he’d go to Rush with a new set of clothes and the director would offer suggestions. ‘One day Peter came to me and said, “How’s this?” and I said, “That’s it, that’s exactly the look I’ve been after, the Ameri
canization of Peter O’Toole.” And I didn’t realize that he was dressed exactly as I was and it wasn’t until noon that day that I finally figured that out. The rest of the crew were aware of it and it caused some amusement.’
In the words of O’Toole, The Stunt Man was not released, ‘It escaped.’ No one in the States would touch the film at first. ‘It didn’t fit into the wrapper that the distributors had prepared that they send their hamburgers out in,’ says Rush. ‘They would always say when they saw the film, what is it, is it a comedy, is it a drama, is it an action adventure? Is it a satire? And of course I would say, yes! It’s all those things.’
Shot during 1978, The Stunt Man finally saw daylight in 1980 and the critics raved. Single-handedly it resurrected O’Toole’s movie career and remains a cult favourite. It also earned him another Oscar nomination. ‘He was staying at my house at the time of the academy awards,’ recalls Rush. ‘And he came out of his room that morning and said, “I am a movie star!” He was getting in the mood for the ceremony.’
Today Rush recalls fondly his time with O’Toole. ‘He was great fun to work with because he’s such a bright man and such an eagerly enthusiastic man about everything in life. He had a great sense of humour.’ The poster art for The Stunt Man was a devil figure sitting on a director’s chair looking through a camera. Originally it was drawn as a dwarf-like devil but then changed into a graceful Peter O’Toole devil. Rush thought it best to show this image to O’Toole first in order to get his approval. ‘So I sent him a copy and he called me back and said that he took one look at the picture of this devil with that massive tail thrusting forward between his legs and said, “How did you know?”’
Since Tommy Oliver Reed and Keith Moon had continued their rabble-rousing friendship. Once in Los Angeles they kidnapped David Puttnam as a prank. The British film producer was leaving the Beverly Wilshire Hotel when he was grabbed from behind and bundled into a waiting car, which then sped off onto the public highway. ‘It was mad,’ Puttnam later recalled. ‘They were laughing and it was stupid and edgy. I knew I could handle Keith, but the two of them together I certainly couldn’t handle.’
It wasn’t just the playful side of Moon that appealed to Reed; he also must have identified with the violent streak that ran through the drummer like fat through bacon. Sitting in a pub one afternoon Moon whispered gently into Reed’s ear, ‘I’m going to chuck that table through the window.’ Ollie watched as the musician hoisted the table on his shoulders and demolished the entire window frame. Reed’s own violent nature was much in evidence at this time. One of his favourite haunts of the late 70s was Stringfellows nightclub where he enjoyed a game that he christened ‘head butting’. Each player was required to smash his head against his opponent until one collapsed or surrendered. A regular victim was The Who’s bass player John Entwistle, who, after being knocked out three times, pleaded with the nightclub’s owner Peter Stringfellow to either ban the game or bar Ollie.
Reed could also behave just as outrageously in public as Moon. At London’s Grovesnor House Hotel he turned a soda siphon on himself and other celebrities attending a charity boxing match. He then climbed into the ring and entertained everyone with his own version of ‘The Stripper’. Another time he was in a posh restaurant in France with a friend and there was no sign of the waiter. Growing irritable Reed wanted to leave but was persuaded to hang on. Half an hour later they’d still not been served. ‘Right,’ said Ollie. ‘I’ll show you how to get some service.’ He picked up a chair and hurled it through a window and into the street. Within seconds an irate manager and five waiters had surrounded the table. ‘Ah yes,’ said Ollie. ‘I’ll have some fish soup please.’
By 1978 Keith Moon was well past his devilish peak and had grown increasingly dependent on booze. Ironically the prescription drugs he’d been given to wean him off alcohol ended up killing him. On September 6th he attended a party thrown by Paul McCartney. It would be his final fling. The following day Moon died in a London flat. The post mortem found 32 pills in his system, 26 of which were undissolved. Reed was devastated when he heard the news of his friend’s passing, but can’t have been very surprised.
Reed had much more to worry about anyway, like the fact the films he was making, turkeys like A Touch of the Sun (1979), by remaining unreleased weren’t even getting the chance to flop. This hopeless thriller was shot in Zambia and about the only good thing to come out of it was the decision by Reed to go off on a safari holiday to nearby South Africa. In one town he befriended a white farmer who invited him back to his farm. The whisky came out and the two men got steadily pissed. Reed mentioned the fact that he was on safari and the farmer explained that he’d once been a white hunter. ‘Oh really,’ replied Reed fascinated. ‘I used to be in the army and I was a sniper.’ Reed’s porky pies impressed the farmer so much that he produced a rifle and pointed to a clothesline with some pegs on it 40 yards away. ‘Do you think you could hit one of those?’ Still bullshitting Reed said, ‘Which one would you like me to hit?’ ‘The second one from the right,’ said the farmer. Reed picked up the rifle, took aim and fired through the window. To his – and everybody else’s – utter amazement he scored a bullseye. ‘Wow man that was fantastic. I’ve never seen shooting like that,’ the farmer hollered, getting to his feet. ‘Do you think you could shoot this cigarette out of my hand?’ Reed figured that since he could hit a clothes peg from 40 yards, a fag a few feet away would be a doddle. Reed aimed and fired and hit the man straight through the hand. The farmer just stood there, blood pumping from the wound. Reed was about to leg it when the farmer announced, ‘That was fantastic, man. You were only an inch out.’
Things picked up slightly with an appearance in a moderately good horror film called The Brood (1979), directed by cult favourite David Cronenberg. Filming on location in Toronto, Ollie enjoyed a four-hour lunch on one of his days off, during which he personally drank five bottles of wine. He decided to walk back to his hotel sans trousers, just a shirt, tie and shoes. When stopped by a pair of bemused police officers Ollie asked, ‘You mean you can’t walk the streets of Toronto with your trousers off at Christmas?’ Both policemen shook their heads, to which Reed confirmed that he didn’t give a brass monkey what they thought. He was escorted to his hotel room.
A few weeks later Reed was guilty of wrecking a pub. He’d challenged the bar’s regular drinkers to an arm wrestling competition that descended into a fistfight. Arrested, he spent a night in jail, putting his shoes outside the door of the cell to be cleaned, and later apologized to the court for his behaviour. He even sent flowers to the police; a gentleman to the last.
The Blotto Eighties
Richard Burton took a massive gamble at the start of the new decade by returning as King Arthur in a new theatrical production of Camelot that was set for a year-long tour round America. The show was a hit with both public and critics alike and played to standing ovations every night. Highly gratified Burton wondered why audiences were responding in such frenzy. ‘Is it that the audience know so much about me from my highly publicized and infamous past?’ he mused in his diary.
Off the booze Burton’s mind was rarely off the subject. He wrote this in his diary: ‘Ah! How I’d love the panacea of a drink now, a double vodka martini straight down and the warm flood of painkiller hitting the stomach and then the brain and an hour of sweetly melancholy euphoria. I shall have a Tab instead – disgusting.’
Occasionally he did drink, only moderately, but sometimes that was enough. He only drank wine, steering clear of spirits, depending on his will power. One evening, with Camelot scheduled to open in just two days’ time, he dined with its creator Alan Jay Lerner. The waiter was taking their order and Burton said, ‘I think I’ll have a vodka and martini.’ Then he looked over at Lerner. ‘Richard, don’t you look at me. You can have anything you want; because I know you won’t let this play down.’ That gave Burton pause and he called back the waiter: ‘Well never mind, perhaps I’ll have some Perrier.’
The next night he was back on stage, terrified about the reception he would get from an audience who all would have read the papers. The moment he set foot on the stage there was a massive roar that turned into a three and a half minute ovation. ‘I just stood there, and I could feel the audience supporting me and the affection and the warmth,’ Burton said afterwards. ‘It was one of the most extraordinary experiences I have ever had in the theatre.’
Hellraisers Page 26