OLIVER REED – THE WHISPERING GIANT by John A. A. Logan
As
a child in the 1970s, I remember that those cheap hardback editions “for
children”, of classics like The Three Musketeers, The Prince and the Pauper, or
Oliver Twist, were in circulation, so that this was how I first came across
those wonderful stories.
At
the same time, remakes of these stories were being made for British cinema and,
perhaps because, as he later said of himself, he was born too late and would
have been happier in an earlier time, it was Oliver Reed that UK directors
turned to when they wanted to cast a powerful character in these films: Athos
in The Three Musketeers, Bill Sykes in Oliver Twist, Miles Hendon in The Prince
and the Pauper…
As
a child watching these films on a black-and-white portable TV, I noticed Reed
right away. His energy seemed different from other “actors”. This is probably
because he was doing less “acting”.
And
yet, there can be sensed within him a fierce, but sensitive, commitment to
whichever part he is playing at any given time.
Here,
we see Oliver wearing what he later referred to as “the hairy trousers”,
portraying cinema’s first barrel-chested werewolf, in The Curse of the Werewolf
(1961)
“Play”
seems to have been something very important to Reed.
Sometimes
better described as “madness”, such as the antics he got up to with his good
friend, Keith Moon, who once had a life-size fibre-glass rhinoceros delivered
by van to Reed’s home, Broome Hall, in the middle of the night.
But
“play”, as Samuel Beckett and Alexander Trocchi tried to point out at various
times, can be a very serious thing indeed, both in intent and consequence.
In
later life, Reed would run the gauntlet of drunken TV chat show appearances.
“Like
watching a train wreck” they were described at the time.
It
seemed that the most successful British film actor of the 1970s (at least the
most successful one who stayed in Britain to pay the then-new high-rate tax for
several years) had ended up as a self-parody.
But
did he?
Watching
the most outrageous interview scenes again on Youtube (and many of the
commenters below these film clips address and respond to this) there can often
be seen an enormous sensitivity and dignity, vulnerability and character, at
the centre of these set-up media circus performances.
As
the TV interviewers became more inane, the society around him more and more
corporate, sanitised, PC-driven, Reed can be seen perhaps, especially in retrospect, to
have held on to the best part of himself, the centre.
He passed away before the age of the truly organised televisual indignities arrived: Celebrity Big Brother, I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of This Jungle…I’m a Celebrity, Let Me Retrain as a Chef Live Onscreen and be Shouted and Sworn at By a Celebrity Cook…Strictly Come Celebrity Prancing…etc etc etc…
And
the proof that Oliver had successfully held on to the centre of himself, even
while apparently playing the clown for the TV gods, was that last role in
Ridley Scott’s Gladiator.
Oliver
Reed’s son has said that Oliver had always loved Ridley Scott’s early film, The Duellists
(Harvey Keitel and Keith Carradine carry on an extended existential feud during
Napoleonic times amid a lusciously-shot period backdrop), and that he recorded
it on video for Oliver who then watched this film again and again.
So, Oliver
knew a good director when he encountered one, and often the feeling was mutual.
When
asked to explain the secret of Oliver Reed’s success, the late great Orson
Welles had once said, “He’s one of those rare fellows who have the ability to
make the air move around them.”
Best
to shut up now, and let Mr Reed move the air for himself, in these clips:
Oliver
Reed - Nudity Lesson, 1973
Oliver
Reed – Equestrian and Swimming Lesson, 1979
Oliver
Reed - Acting Lesson, 1985:
Oliver
Reed - Accent Lesson, 1990
Oliver
Reed – Last Lessons on Freedom, 1999
Comments
There's a wonderful chapter about him in Ken Russell's autobiography, about the time they were making Women In Love. Reed calls on Russell one night to argue with him about the naked wrestling scene. Hilariously written, and it captures the danger in the man. But it comes, as you say here, from dedication to the truth of the role. It's a shame he didn't always get roles that mined this quality.
As always an interesting article. I have always though Oliver Reed was a great dramatic actor, there always seemed a dark edge to him though.
Regards
Margaret
Oliver was wild...but that's what made him unique.
He made mistakes. He was human. But he was when not affected ny drink..kind,shy and a gentleman.