Hellraisers

by Robert Sellers

  It proved a tough shoot, however. The assistant director called it ‘pure hell’. For many on the film Harris’s larger than life reputation was well founded and Sheridan struggled to keep the peace. At one point co-star Tom Berenger walked away in disgust when Harris blew his top on the set. The problem was that Harris identified so strongly with the tough, single-minded farmer that he was literally living the role; the character was obnoxious, therefore so was he. His perfectionism became overbearing. ‘But any kind of perfection needs ruthlessness; you just won’t take second best. So, if that means I’m a pain in the arse, then I’m a great pain in the arse.’ Upon completion one of the actors summed up Harris as ‘a circus of a man’. Still, Harris footed the £1,000 bill for the crew’s boozy wrap party. He himself sat quietly sipping tea.

  After The Field Harris confessed to being knackered. What he wanted now was to find himself an heiress with an island in the Pacific where he could write poetry all day and shag the servants at night. But all those exertions turned out to be worth it when Harris received an Oscar nomination for his performance. ‘About fucking time,’ he ranted, though he’d no desire to attend the ceremony. ‘Why the fuck would I want to participate in any of this Hollywood bollocks. It’s 14 fucking hours there, 14 fucking hours back, two hours of fucking stupidity and kissing people’s fucking cheeks. Fuck that.’

  It was hardly the kind of attitude to endear oneself to Academy members, and not surprisingly Harris lost out on the Oscar. Still, after describing himself as ‘a dinosaur’ only a year before he was suddenly in demand again, even ‘hot’. Alas the British Academy failed to recognize his work in The Field with even a nomination, a decision that deeply pissed Harris off. A few months later, when BAFTA asked him to deliver the opening address during a royal visit to America, he wrote back claiming he had a previous engagement with his television set and suggested they ask the five actors they’d seen fit to nominate for Best Actor instead of him. The rebel was still there. Dragged along to the LA launch of Planet Hollywood, Harris was talking to Ann Turkel when he was cut up by Bruce Willis, who totally ignored him. Tapping the star on the shoulder Harris said, ‘Excuse me, your face seems so familiar, but I can’t put a name to it. I was actually talking to my ex-wife when you moved into my space. So would you please fuck off!’

  Current stars like Willis didn’t cut any ice with Harris; to him most of them were ciphers, irrelevant when matched up with his generation. Someone asked him once what the difference was between the stars of today like Tom Cruise and when he was a major star. ‘I said there is a great difference, look at a photograph of me from the old days and I’m going to one of my film premieres with a bottle of vodka in my hand. Tom Cruise has a bottle of Evian water. That’s the difference.’

  Ever the hellraiser, Harris loved to behave badly, this time not spurred on by the booze. ‘Just because I don’t drink any more people think I’m not hellraising.’ It was showing off really, minus the violence that so characterized his behaviour in his 60s heyday. He’d launch into an impromptu Irish jig in the middle of a crowded restaurant for example or tour the tables kissing the hand of every woman present. During an interview in his hotel suite the phone rang. Harris didn’t bother to ask who it was but just shouted down the line, ‘Come straight up and take your knickers off.’ It was the Royal Shakespeare Company. With another journalist in a restaur ant, Harris’s interest was piqued by a group of elegant, middle-aged women in pearls taking tea at the next table. He suddenly spouted, ‘Would you like to ride the arse off her?’ so loud that the women couldn’t fail to hear, eliciting shocked embarrassment. Harris roared with laughter. ‘Jesus, it’s only fun, isn’t it. It’s what they expect of me. It makes their day.’

  Peter O’Toole had begun the new decade on a massive high, back in the West End with a certifiable hit show. Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell was based on the real life columnist of The Spectator, whose weekly accounts of successive disasters caused by booze, women and horse racing became cult reading. In Keith Waterhouse’s brilliant play Bernard wakes up under a table to find that he’s been locked in his favourite pub, the Coach and Horses in Soho, after closing time and spends the night reflecting on a life of dissolution. O’Toole was inspired casting and had known Bernard personally for 30 years. The two could almost have been brothers.

  Jeffrey Bernard was a real London character and a chaotic drinker; his stomping ground was the pubs and drinking dens of Soho, his tattered frame a permanent feature, sometimes obscured by clouds of smoke from the ever permanent fag in his gob. One great story has him on the town with TV and radio star Tony Hancock in the late 50s. Hancock is so absolutely soused that it takes some time before they can find a taxi which will take him home – the cabbies’ reluctance due in no small part to the fact that Hancock has quite obviously pissed his pants. Finally they stop a cab and Hancock immediately collapses onto its floor. Bernard, leaning against the door, is surprised to see Hancock offer him his card and say, ‘If you ever need my help, just call me.’ Looking at the urine-soaked clown with incredulity Bernard replies, ‘Why on earth should I want help from you?’ Hancock smiles benignly, ‘Because I think you might have a drinking problem.’

  At the time of Waterhouse’s theatrical homage to Bernard the boozy writer had a column in the Daily Mirror. One day he informed his readers that the play about his life was packing them in, punters were literally hanging from the rafters. Later that day Bernard called Keith Waterhouse to say how wonderful it was that they were filling one of London’s biggest theatres, to which the playwright replied, ‘But Jeffrey, we haven’t opened yet. We open in six weeks.’ Pissed out of his head the previous night, Bernard had gone to bed, dreamt the whole thing had been a huge success and woken up to write his column.

  Unlike Bernard, O’Toole hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol since 1975. That all changed in the new decade after a trip to Moscow. He found the Russian capital truly ghastly, a real eye opener. ‘There were all these people queuing for cardboard shoes and everyone with forms and clipboards. I found a tea bar where they served sly vodkas. What else could I do?’

  Hardly back on the booze big time, O’Toole drank only in moderation, when he felt like it. But his eccentricity hadn’t deserted him. Meeting O’Toole you never quite knew what to expect. One journalist was assigned to interview him at the close of the day on the set of a film. As the shooting wrapped she loaded her cassette recorder in anticipation and asked if he was prepared to do the interview. ‘No, I’m going to fuck off,’ he said, firmly. ‘That’s what I’m going to do. I’m a tired old fart and I’m cold.’ And off he went.

  His friends, too, had come to accept his strange behaviour. When Sarah Standing, the daughter of Bryan Forbes and a dear friend of O’Toole’s, was pregnant, she sent a note saying she was going into hospital. The birth was about to be induced, with Sarah hooked up to machines, when suddenly the doors burst open and O’Toole, a Gauloise in his mouth, came in shouting, ‘The stork has arrived. The stork has arrived.’ He sat at the bottom of the bed and had his lunch with Sarah’s husband and her gynaecologist. Afterwards the gynaecologist turned to O’Toole and said, ‘I think Mrs Standing is about to give birth now, if you’d like to leave.’ O’Toole looked puzzled. ‘No, I’m perfectly all right where I am thank you,’ and continued smoking with the windows wide open.

  In 1991 an unusually dense Channel 4 producer decided that it would be a great idea to invite Oliver Reed onto a live late night discussion programme entitled ‘Do Men Need to Be Violent?’ The second mistake was to supply a well-stocked drinks cabinet that Reed made predictable full use of. Drinking wine from a pint glass he swore at fellow guests and sat next to feminist writer Kate Millett, who he insisted on calling, ‘Big tits’. After a lecture on fighting dogs Reed asked the host, ‘Is it after midnight yet? It is, good. Well, a woman’s role in society depends on whether or not she wants to get shafted.’ This didn’t go down very well with the feminist writer, nor did Reed’s assertion that, ‘I�
��ve had more punch ups in pubs than you’ve had hot dinners darling.’

  Reed’s behaviour got increasingly worse, much to the delight of the watching audience, until Channel 4 were forced to pull the plug for half an hour. During the enforced break the show’s host and its producers tried to persuade Reed that he really ought to behave himself. When the show finally returned to the airwaves viewers saw Reed staggering back to his seat uttering the immortal words, ‘I’ve had a slash.’ Trying to get back onto the discussion subject, he announced that he’d tried to volunteer for the Gulf War but was so drunk he only got as far as the telephone operator before passing out. Then, after tumbling over a sofa to give the feminist writer a snog, he was reproached by the programme host. Reed took his chastisement like a guilty schoolboy. ‘Do you want me to leave?’ he asked. ‘Yes, yes,’ was the chorus from everyone else. Reed slouched off. It’s a classic piece of television and one wonders whether Reed deliberately behaved in such a manner in order to send up the gathering of pretentious intellectuals – or was he just pissed out of his box.

  For some years Reed had established near legendary status for behaving badly on chat shows. When he appeared on the Gay Byrne programme, one of the most popular shows on Irish television, he stunned the audience by taking off his shirt and making a grab for fellow guest Susan George (you can’t blame him), ending up on the floor with her. Within minutes callers had jammed the switchboard of the TV station. ‘Oliver was just doing what he normally does,’ said Susan afterwards. The next day reporters besieged Reed’s hotel but he refused to talk about the incident. All press enquires were answered with the comment, ‘Mr Reed will only speak to you if you promise to put him on page 3 beside a nice lady.’

  Other memorable TV appearances followed. On the David Letterman show, America’s number one chat show, Reed adopted an American accent for much of the interview, pointed at the camera and shouted, ‘I’m after you, Stallone,’ replied to some of Letterman’s questions in German, spoke nonsense such as claiming he was a fisherman who wore boots in his ears, took the piss out of Letterman’s nose by pressing his own down in imitation, and stared Letterman down, forcing the host to plead to his band leader, Paul Schaffer, to help him out.

  In 1992 Reed appeared on a bizarre Channel 4 show where celebrity guests were interviewed while having their hair cut by a French barber. Reed was in a very grim mood and so the interview did not exactly go swimmingly. ‘So, I hear you were once in the British Army?’ ‘Yeah. Got a problem with that, frog?’

  Reed was fully aware of the fact that such behaviour classed him as a bad boy, but he was secretly proud of the fact that he was truly the last of his kind. ‘I’ve always liked being called a hellraiser. The sad thing is that I’m the last of them. There was O’Toole, Harris and I was the baby. Now I’m the only one carrying the baton.’

  While many critics looked down on his infantile rabble rousing, one scribe from the Mail on Sunday surely expressed what the majority of the nation thought: ‘The world needs Oliver Reed. He’s the last great bad boy, a lone, shining beacon in the long dark night of political correctness. Richard Burton is dead and Richard Harris has had to reform to stay alive. No, only Ollie still raises hell day in, day out.’

  He was also blissfully unaware of the current climate of political correctness, still espousing male chauvinistic views that made feminists’ blood boil. ‘I believe that my woman shouldn’t work outside the home. When I come home and I’m tired from filming all day, I expect her to be there and make sure everything is cool for me. You know, like drawing my bath and helping me into bed. That’s the kind of job she has and in return for it, she can bear my children and if any man talks bad to her, I’ll hit him.’

  Then something happened to sour Reed’s image and call into question his boisterous antics. In 1993 his former stunt double and drinking pal, Reg Prince, sued him over an injury that had almost cost him his life. The incident dated back to the mid-80s and the filming of Castaway when the two men were enjoying a boozy night at their hotel. Reed was performing handstands in the restaurant and showing diners the tattoo on his cock. When they moved outside to the balcony Prince claimed that Reed deliberately tipped him over the side where he fell 12 feet onto the beach. Prince suffered a double spine fracture and told the court he hadn’t been able to work since. Reed claimed the incident was self-defence, that Prince attacked him with a table knife. But Prince told of how this wasn’t the first time Reed had injured him. At a New Year’s Eve party in Mexico, so Prince claimed, he’d gone up to Reed to wish him a happy New Year. ‘And he head butted me and broke my nose.’

  In the end Prince lost the case, but a few years later turned up at Ollie’s house with a very large knife. Prince was a man not to be messed with, he was big. He got into the house and crept up behind Ollie, planting the knife across his neck. ‘You know I’ve come here to kill you,’ he said. ‘I would much rather you had a drink, Reggie,’ said Reed, turning to offer Prince a tumbler of gin. The two men talked awkwardly for hours and then Prince left.

  Rejuvenated by his role in The Field Richard Harris fell in love with making movies again, jumping into work with an abandon he’d never shown before, making in the next ten years some 22 pictures. He also retrieved his theatrical reputation by playing the title role in Pirandello’s Henry IV in the West End. James Hogg was box office assistant at Wyndham’s at the time and recalls that period all too clearly. ‘I must say he was excellent in the role and the show was a triumph. However, one thing that we hadn’t bargained for at the theatre was Mr Harris’s flatulence. Apparently he was famous for it, although I’d never heard anything. We started to get the odd complaint during the previews. Some old ladies in the front row had heard what they thought was someone blowing a raspberry on stage. Naturally we thought nothing of it. Then, as the run progressed, we started to get complaints every other night. To investigate, we gave ourselves seats in the front row, and sure enough, just after Harris made his entrance we heard one. A bit of a corker too. The thing was, Harris really didn’t seem to care. Either that or he didn’t even know it was happening. The morning after one performance I was sitting in the box office with the manager, having a cup of tea and reading the Daily Mail, and there it was, something along the lines of “Star’s wind spoils theatre trip.” A disgruntled customer had decided to go to the papers and they’d obviously snapped it up. Another part of my job was getting the odd programme signed for special guests and I used to dread going to Harris’s dressing room. He had a record player next to his bed and seemed to just play “MacArthur Park” on a loop. I honestly never heard anything else! On top of that he would swear at you for bothering him, throw the programmes back after signing them and, if I was lucky, send me off with one of his specials!’

  He was also in rude health, having recently had a medical check which came up trumps. ‘I’ve survived,’ he proclaimed, ‘but to be honest, I’m surprised that both O’Toole and I are still alive. The last time we met we spent all evening talking about the miracle of still being alive.’ For a while, during their boozing heyday, the two men had decided not to see each other, ‘because if we did, we’d kill us both,’ said Harris. ‘We always brought out the worst in each other.’

  The two men now regularly saw each other, usually at rugby matches. During one sporting afternoon O’Toole suddenly said, ‘Ah, Jesus, I miss waking up in fucking places that you never knew you had been to.’ Harris smiled. ‘I know. I used to love going to the shop to buy a packet of cigarettes and not coming back for a month.’ Both men burst out laughing. As O’Toole recalled, ‘We were two old codgers trying to watch a rugby match and stay sober!’

  Amongst the best of Harris’s new spate of films was Unforgiven (1992), Clint Eastwood’s revenge Western. Casting the picture, Eastwood called Harris in the Bahamas. ‘Who’s this?’ said the Irishman. ‘Richard, this is Clint. I got this picture that I’d really like for you to play a part in. Can I send you a script?’ Harris was ecstatic. ‘You got t
o be kidding? Do you know what I’m watching right now? High Plains Drifter, it’s my favourite Western! You don’t have to send me a script for your new movie. I’d love to do it.’

  Though they’d never met, Eastwood admired Harris greatly: ‘He was a slightly mad Irishman and a truly gifted performer.’ The feeling was mutual. ‘Clint’s one of the few Hollywood heads worth the money.’

  Although he was back making ‘Hollywood’ pictures again, Harris’s dislike of the movie capital remained. ‘The only good thing about Hollywood is that you know where all the thieves in the film business live.’

  Harris had always preferred home-grown talents to the puffed up twits in Hollywood. He admired the likes of Olivier and also Gielgud, an actor Harris admired from afar as socially their paths had scarcely if ever crossed. On the thespian’s 90th birthday Harris decided to telephone the great man. ‘Happy birthday, Sir John,’ he hollered down the line. ‘This is Richard Harris phoning from the Bahamas just to wish you happy birthday and thank you for everything you have done for British theatre. We are hugely in your debt.’ There was a pause. ‘Harris you say,’ replied Sir John. ‘I don’t know a Harris. Of course there is that very loud, vulgar chap from Ireland. Did the Camelot thing. Very bad reputation with drink and women, I believe. Very bad indeed. Anyway, I thank you so very much for phoning from Bermuda; so sweet.’ ‘Bahamas, Sir John, Bahamas.’ ‘Yes, yes, yes. The sun shines there as well, I believe.’

  Alas, Harris had little time for his old 60s chum Michael Caine, whose career, after years in the wilderness, had rejuvenated to such a point that he was being revered as the Queen Mum of British film. Harris could stand it no longer and wrote a letter to the newspapers claiming Caine had got too big for his boots. Incensed, Caine burst into Harris’s London hotel suite one day demanding an apology. Harris obliged. Not long afterwards Harris read an interview with Caine in The Sunday Times in which the star referred to Burton, O’Toole and himself as ‘drunks’. Harris fired back with a letter printed in the following week’s Sunday Times that referred to Caine as ‘a fat, flatulent 62-year-old windbag. If only he had indulged in a few trips to his local boozer instead of breezing past the common man in his Rolls-Royces he might have achieved a modicum of immortality, instead of being part-owner of dreary restaurants.’ During an interview when Harris was asked what he thought of Caine he let rip an almighty fart. ‘Do you hear that?’ Harris asked the journalist. ‘That was an automatic fart after hearing his name.’ Harris went further: ‘I don’t care what he says. But don’t characterize Burton, O’Toole and me as drunks as if that’s all we’ve achieved in our life, because he could live 20 fucking lives and he couldn’t achieve as much as we three have achieved.’