Hellraisers

by Robert Sellers

  More than anything Tony Palmer was struck by Burton’s sheer magnetism; even at the end of his life, with Burton a shadow of the man he had once been, power oozed off his frame. ‘He was immensely cultured and knowledgeable. He once told me he could recite every single one of Shakespeare’s sonnets, all 151 of them. I never challenged him, but I bet he could, that would not have surprised me. Brook Williams always swore that he could. This was a miner’s son; he’d got to his position by his own power. In the end it’s the power of his personality which was overwhelming. You were aware of a presence, and it wasn’t simply because he was legendary. Of course that adds a bit of gloss, but there are undoubtedly certain people for who, when they come in the room, you stand up, and Richard never came into the room and I didn’t want to stand up; even when I’d had supper with him the previous night and knew the colour of his underpants, as it were, you always wanted to stand up, he had that effect on you.’

  Rather apt was this observation from a commentator saying that Burton was Dylan Thomas as played by Casanova, directed by Mel Brooks. ‘Wealth was not enough,’ wrote another. ‘It had to be opulence. Fame was not enough. It had to be notoriety.’

  Not long before his death Burton was asked to look back over his life and sum it up if he could. ‘Much of it has been a circus,’ he admitted, ‘played out in full view of the public. And, to be honest, I’ve loved every terrible minute of it.’

  God bless you Richard Burton.

  Not long after Burton’s death Harris and O’Toole met up in a London pub and talked into the night about their recently departed friend. ‘Richard once told me,’ Harris said, ‘that we spent a third of our lives drunk, a third with a hangover and a third sleeping.’ There they sat quietly in a corner, two of the biggest hellraisers of all, sipping their tonic water. ‘Ooh, what I wouldn’t give for one glass of red wine,’ pined Harris, ‘just one.’ A friend was sharing the evening with them and O’Toole picked up the man’s glass of muscadet, held it to his nostrils and took in the heavy bouquet before replacing it untouched on the table. ‘Aaah,’ he said, in fond remembrance of drinks past. Then a minute’s silence was called, not just for Burton, but for all thespian chums who had recently taken their final bows and moved on to that great saloon bar in the sky: ‘Richard, Finchy, Larry Harvey, Bob Shaw, all my mates,’ said O’Toole, shaking his head. ‘They did drop like flies; everybody, all young.’

  Harris was not enjoying sobriety very much. It was a bore: ‘There must be other things in life besides drinking, though I haven’t discovered what they are yet.’ At least he was waking up in the morning and actually able to remember what he did the night before: ‘Trouble was it wasn’t worth remembering.’ Minus the booze, though, he was still able to enjoy the craic. ‘Richard Harris may no longer be a wildcat,’ wrote one journalist, ‘but he is certainly not a pussy cat. Perhaps the description “amiable tiger” will do.’

  He still loved to go back to the pubs in Ireland where some of the best story tellers in the world congregate. ‘First rate liars all of them. I love listening to the beautiful words coming through the Guinness froth.’ But Harris knew that he couldn’t have gone on the way he was drinking and that going back would lead to calamity. ‘I can resist the first drink,’ he told the press, ‘but I cannot guarantee that I could resist the second one. I used to enjoy hangovers. I used to love to wake up the next morning with a roaring head because curing it was the perfect excuse to start all over again. But then it was taking me days to recover and I was getting genuinely sick.’

  Peter O’Toole’s own battle with booze had for a long time been won. ‘I drank because I enjoyed it, not to solve a problem or because I needed a crutch. It was easy to give up.’ He missed, though, the simple pleasure of boozing and still frequented pubs, careful to order nothing stronger than lemonade. ‘I like being around men with jars in their hands. Sober people, they’re not for me.’ Such abstinence reminded him of the example he would have loved to have followed himself, that of the old comedian Max Miller who was told by his doctor to cut all his activities by half. Miller duly sat on his yacht for six months doing nothing. Then he returned to six months of working the clubs, eating and drinking heavily and bonking like mad. ‘What a perfect division,’ thought O’Toole.

  Smoking was now the only act of defiance left to the actor. His preference was for Gauloise cigarettes that he chain-smoked in a long, black holder, equipped with a filter as a concession to health. ‘I give up smoking from time to time,’ he said, ‘but, as a kid, I always had what Dylan Thomas called a “conscious woodbine” hanging out of my gob.’ Such was his devotion to the habit that a friend once complained, ‘Peter, you smell like a French train.’

  Even without drink O’Toole was determined to give free rein to his eccentricities. ‘I can still cause mayhem,’ he gleefully said. Too true: in October 1984 he insulted a celebrity audience at a gala night in Dublin and half the audience walked out while the rest booed. The TV station carrying the show hastily ran a commercial during O’Toole’s outburst. ‘I’ll always love to frolic, but now I can remember what I’ve done.’ Like most drinkers O’Toole had suffered memory loss. ‘That’s the great snag of booze, oblivion. So sobriety’s a real turn-on for me; you can see what you’re doing.’

  Now in his fifties, those decades on the piss had taken their toll on him. O’Toole cut an almost cadaverous figure, his great mop of straw-coloured hair long faded to grey, and his heavily lined face a testament to the excesses of his past. Despite his Grim Reaper appearance O’Toole had recently been cast as a teacher who has an affair with a young student, played by Jodie Foster, in Svengali (1983). The American TV movie was shot in one of the more dangerous areas of New York where transvestite prostitutes plied their trade nearby and a pyromaniac set fire to cars in a parking lot used by the film crew.

  The director was Anthony Harvey, who after The Lion in Winter had met O’Toole quite often, going for long walks over Richmond Park, but he never truly got to know the actor; few people did. The two men hadn’t met for years prior to Svengali and Harvey relished the opportunity to work with him again. ‘Peter had enormous intelligence, a great sense of humour and huge energy, like a machine. He also had what all great actors must have, and that’s an enormous sense of danger; you wouldn’t like to mess with him.’

  Most notably though, Svengali marked the first time Jodie Foster had stepped back into the limelight after she was the unwitting motive in an assassination attempt on the then incumbent US President, Ronald Reagan. When John Hinckley gunned down Reagan it was to prove his warped love for the actress, after becoming infatuated with her ever since she’d played a prostitute in Taxi Driver. It was O’Toole who helped Jodie face the movie camera again, his wealth of experience proving invaluable; after all he was a star before she was even born. ‘It is all so unfair,’ he told reporters, ‘that this tremendously nice and talented girl should have become the target for every nutter in the land.’ The pair struck up a touching friendship on set, with O’Toole mischievously calling her ‘Midget’.

  Although most of his recent work had been in America, O’Toole still made a habit of visiting Ireland. On one trip he was accompanied by a journalist who noted O’Toole’s behaviour and observations on the cabin crew with some amusement. Sitting on the plane, and unaware of a priest close by, O’Toole broke into a broad smile as the stewardess, a quite robust little blonde in a tight fitting tweed uniform, walked by. ‘Oh, look at that arse!’ he roared, his face aglow. ‘That ass is covered with tweed made in Connemara, where I was born. Nicest asses in the world, Ireland. Irish women are still carrying water on their heads and carrying their husbands home from pubs, and such things are the greatest posture builders in the world.’

  As for Ireland itself, O’Toole, just like his father, had no intention of ever going back there for good. ‘God, you can love it! But you can’t live in it. Oh, the Irish know despair, by God they do. They are Dostoyevskian about it. Forgive me, Father, I have fucked
Mrs Rafferty. Ten Hail Marys son. But Father, I didn’t enjoy fucking Mrs Rafferty. Good, son, good.’

  In 1985 Oliver Reed married for the second time, his bride named Josephine Burge. They’d met when she was just a 17-year-old schoolgirl in a Sussex pub from which, predictably, he was later banned for boisterous behaviour. He’d seen her there a few times with her gang of mates, even saying to the barman, ‘See the skinny one. I’m going to marry her.’ One day he plucked up the courage to introduce himself. Taking the ring-pull tab off the top of a can of beer Reed went over and put it on her finger. She wore it for the whole of her summer holidays, although when she came back to the pub Reed had trouble remembering her name. The press made much play of the fact that Josephine was 25 years his junior, three years younger than Reed’s own son, Mark. Even his friends and family were shocked by it all.

  Reed not so much planned the wedding as he planned the stag night and the reception. He wanted to hire a coach to take his mates and himself roaring round the countryside showing porn films and football matches. ‘That way we can’t be thrown out of any pub.’ In the end Reed and his gang took over a boozer in Surrey and drank for three days solid: beer, cider, half pint mugs of gin and vodka and gunk. Reed, naked but for a kilt, presided over the booze orgy and friends arrived in shifts to replace revellers who had fallen by the wayside. Local villagers kept their fingers crossed that sleep deprivation might render Reed harmless. ‘He’s in there with a real rough lot,’ said one quaking neighbour. ‘They could take the village apart.’ But come the third day the boozers were still going strong, pausing only for a cuppa: two teabags in a litre of scotch heated in a kettle, of which everyone had to partake. Periodically food in the form of sandwiches was sent in from a nearby hotel. The manager placed the tray outside the door. ‘I dare not enter because Ollie sees me as representing authority. If he got half a chance he would grab me and I’d never be seen again.’

  As the press watched from the relative safe distance of the car park small groups of Reed’s handpicked boozing chums who could no longer stand the pace staggered out into the harsh daylight. ‘I can’t keep up with the man,’ said one. ‘I don’t know where he’s putting it.’ By the end of it all there was but one drinker left in the pub, Reed himself.

  By comparison the wedding itself was a relatively calm affair. ‘I have talked to the police,’ the registrar in charge told the press, ‘and assured them that it will be a quiet and quick ceremony.’

  After downing a reported 104 pints during the two-day reception Reed announced to Josephine and the world his plan to be a new man; his hellraising days were over, he vowed. Alas, just two weeks later he was embroiled in a bar room brawl. ‘Once a pirate,’ he excused, ‘always a pirate.’ Besides he’d only recently come off a wager to stay off booze: ‘My life against twelve and a half pence was the stake.’ It was an experience he didn’t particularly care for. ‘I like the effect drink has on me. What’s the point of staying sober?’

  Not long after their marriage Reed and Josephine moved to Guernsey. Many pondered that the reason was because Ollie had been banned from every pub where he lived, most notably the Bull’s Head where he climbed the chimney naked, shouting ‘Ho! Ho! Ho! I’m Santa Claus!’ One regular drinker at his old local did lament his departure. ‘We just hope that for the sake and sensibilities of the good people of Guernsey that Mr Reed refrains from a regrettable habit of his insisting on showing complete strangers his tattoo.’

  That was the least of the islanders’ concerns. Over the years Reed had visited Guernsey often and havoc, as usual, hadn’t been far behind. One hotel even took the precaution of installing bars on the windows of his first floor room. Why? The room overlooked the outdoor swimming pool and one evening Reed charged across his bedroom and dived headfirst through the open window, sailing over the terrace patio and into the water. To prove his feat was no mere fluke, he did it again.

  Then there was the occasion he was challenged to a drinking contest by a bunch of sailors and just couldn’t refuse. ‘But we were having quadruple measures of chugalug, one after another, and I am afraid they sank me.’ Reeling from the effects of too much rum Reed put his fist through a hotel window and was arrested in his underpants, covered with dirt and blood, after squaring up to the police. ‘Come on,’ he bellowed. ‘Come on, have a go if you dare.’ Finally he collapsed and was arrested and dragged comatose to the police station. In court he later admitted the charge of damage and ‘acting in a disorderly manner while drunk’. He was fined £100. Released, Reed apologized on bended knees to Josephine and promised reporters to give rum a very wide berth indeed from now on. Josephine, on the other hand, seemed remarkably relaxed about things. ‘He’s much more fun when he’s drunk. He can be rather boring when he’s sober.’ Josephine recounted the occasion when she woke up at home one evening to find Reed sitting on the bed, wearing a policeman’s helmet and swapping jokes with a strange man. ‘I just went back to sleep.’

  True he was invariably fun, but a drunk Reed on a film set could be an accident waiting to happen. One time, wardrobe had come to collect Reed who was lunching at his hotel and on his sixth bottle of Dom Perignon. Somehow recognizing them, Reed immediately demanded that they sit and drink with him. His call time was 11 o’clock. Before the wardrobe assistants could coax him off his barstool, Reed downed one more bottle of champagne (in 15 minutes) and declared that he was ready to act. He was unable to stand, so the assistants dragged him by the arms out of the bar, Reed ranting and raving all the while, and deposited him in a car to speed him to the location.

  Gently laying him down on the grass, wardrobe proceeded to take off Reed’s trousers and boots. On seeing his co-star Reed suddenly whipped out his cock and started pretending that it was a gun. ‘Bang, bang,’ he hollered. ‘How do you like my chopper?’ The actor tried not to take any notice. ‘It looks better when it’s at attention.’ Fortunately, Ollie didn’t feel the need to prove that.

  Reed was then handed a prop pistol for his scene. He was on a hill surrounded by enemy troops and two helicopters hovered overhead. Realizing he was defeated, Reed had to dramatically toss his gun aside. The cameras rolled, everything proceeded smoothly, until a scowling Reed hurled his pistol at an extra, pulled out his cock and screamed, ‘Bang, bang, bang.’ The director could scarcely believe it. ‘CUT!’ Reed just stood there laughing, then stumbled up to another actor and said, ‘I know that I’m supposed to just drop the gun, but I think that my only way to survive is to pretend I’m crazy so they won’t shoot me!’ He laughed more, choked, and then threw up. The eventual shot in the film had to be accomplished using his stunt double.

  Reed also still had a habit of dropping his trousers in public to reveal his ‘mighty mallet’. One day in the pub with friend Stephen Ford, Ollie brought up the subject of his cock. ‘You talking about that silly little thing again,’ Ford said in exasperation. ‘I bet you right now that I’ve got a bigger cock than you,’ Ollie said. Not having that, Ford said, ‘Oh all right, fine. What are you going to do about it?’ Reed stood up. ‘Right, come through.’ Reed pressganged Ford into a small back room which had a large mirror on a wall. ‘Right, trousers down,’ ordered Reed, who realized he had lost immediately. Still pulling up his trousers Reed went back into the bar. ‘Silence everybody, stop. Stop!’ A hush fell over the whole establishment. ‘I wish to announce that Stephen Ford has got a bigger cock than I have.’

  Out of all Richard Harris’s brothers Dermot – his business manager – was the one he felt closest to. Dermot had a huge capacity for drinking day and night. It was the booze that wrecked his marriage to actress Cassandra Harris, who would later marry Pierce Brosnan. People who knew the two brothers and saw them together could see that they were nothing but a bad influence on each other.

  Touring Camelot in Chicago, Harris was waiting in the wings for his opening cue when Dermot said, ‘Dick, I don’t feel too good. I think I’ll go and lie down.’ As he walked onto the stage Harris heard himself sayin
g, ‘Look after yourself.’ When he came off again after the curtain call Dermot was dead. He was only 48. Coming so soon after the loss of Burton, Dermot’s death profoundly affected Harris. Some say it changed him. Others were more of the opinion that once a rogue, always a rogue, but at least one that bordered on the loveable. A female journalist told of the time she interviewed Harris at his hotel suite and the star kept telling her, ‘You haven’t seen the whole suite until you’ve seen the bedroom.’

  Harris was capable of the most obscene behaviour, but a lot of it was tinged with humour and playfulness. ‘I’ve always said the reason I don’t feel my age is because I’ve preserved the child in myself. The child has never grown up.’ Harris was the Peter Pan of hellraising. At home in the Bahamas neighbours took to dropping by uninvited. To deter them Harris conceived an impish plot. One afternoon a family living close by turned up. Walking inside they found Harris with two mates sitting naked watching porno movies and masturbating. ‘Oh, hello there,’ said Harris. ‘Come on in.’ The poor family fled in terror. It was all an act, of course. Harris had deliberately bought the worst hardcore movie he could find in New York and when he saw anyone coming up his drive shouted to his mates, ‘Action station boys,’ and they all stripped off. The incident went round the island like all good gossip does and afterwards Harris was left pretty much in peace; the way he wanted it.

  In the 80s Harris had moved lock, stock and barrel to the Bahamas but his career was down the pan. By the close of the decade he was reduced to making TV movies, bad ones to boot. His poor choice of material was epitomised by his insistence on playing the detective Maigret (a role Burton had been considering prior to his death) in a TV series in 1988. It was crap indeed and the critics weren’t kind. The Daily Mirror poured scorn on Harris’s Irish brogue. After destroying Maigret, they said, why not go the whole distance: ‘How about Sherlock O’Holmes, Paddy Mason, Hercule Guinness?’