Robert Oliver Reed (13 February 1938 – 2 May 1999) was an English actor known for his upper-class, macho image, hellraiser lifestyle, and "tough guy" roles. His films include The Trap, Oliver!, Women in Love, Hannibal Brooks, The Devils, The Three Musketeers, Tommy, Castaway, Lion of the Desert and Gladiator. At the peak of his career, in 1971, British exhibitors voted Reed 5th most popular star at the box office.

Biography

Family
Reed was born in Wimbledon, to sports journalist Peter Reed and his wife Marcia (née Napier-Andrews). He was the nephew of film director Sir Carol Reed, and grandson of the actor-manager Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree by his alleged mistress May Pinney Reed. He was alleged to have been a descendant (through an illegitimate step) of Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia. Reed attended Ewell Castle School in Surrey. He claimed to have been expelled from more than a dozen schools. Oliver's brother Simon Reed, a sports journalist, works for British Eurosport.

In 1959–1960, Reed married Kate Byrne. The couple had one son, Mark, before their divorce in 1969. While filming his part of Bill Sikes in Oliver!, he met Jacquie Daryl, a classically trained dancer who was also in the film. They became lovers and subsequently had a daughter named Sarah. In 1985, he married Josephine Burge, to whom he was still married at the time of his death. In his last years, Reed and Burge lived in Churchtown, County Cork, Ireland.


Activities
Reed's face was scarred in a 1963 bar fight after which he received 63 stitches and was in danger of losing his film career over his facial damage. He claimed to have turned down major roles in two Hollywood movies: The Sting (1973; although he did appear in the 1983 sequel The Sting II) and Jaws (1975).

When the UK government raised taxes on personal income, Reed initially declined to join the exodus of major British film stars to Hollywood and other more tax-friendly locales. In the late 1970s Reed finally relocated to Guernsey as a tax exile. He had sold his large house, Broome Hall, between the villages of Coldharbour and Ockley some years earlier and initially lodged at the Duke of Normandie Hotel in Saint Peter Port.

The writer Robert Sellers published in 2013 What Fresh Lunacy Is That? – The Authorised Biography of Oliver Reed.


Alcoholism
Reed was known for his alcoholism and binge drinking. Numerous anecdotes exist, such as Reed and 36 friends drinking in an evening 60 gallons of beer, 32 bottles of scotch, 17 bottles of gin, four crates of wine, and a bottle of Babycham. He subsequently revised the story, claiming he drank 106 pints of beer on a two-day binge before marrying Josephine Burge; "The event that was reported actually took place during an arm-wrestling competition in Guernsey about 15 years ago, it was highly exaggerated." Steve McQueen told the story that in 1973 he flew to the UK to discuss a film project with Reed and suggested the two men visit a London nightclub. They ended up on a marathon pub crawl during which Reed vomited on McQueen.

Reed became a close friend and drinking partner of The Who drummer Keith Moon in 1974 while working together on the film version of Tommy. With their reckless lifestyles Reed and Moon shared much in common, and both cited the hard drinking actor Robert Newton as a role model. Christopher Lee, a friend and colleague of Reed, commented on his alcoholism in 2014: "when he started, after number eight, he became a complete monster. It was awful to see."

Reed was often irritated that his appearances on TV chat shows concentrated on his drinking feats rather than his latest film. David Letterman cut to a commercial when it appeared Reed might get violent after being asked too many questions about his drinking. In September 1975, in front of a speechless Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show, the bellicose Reed had a glass of whisky poured over his head on-camera by an enraged Shelley Winters (Winters had been upset by Reed's derogatory comments toward women).

He was held partly responsible for the demise of BBC1's Sin on Saturday after some typically forthright comments on the subject of lust, the sin featured on the first programme. The show had many other problems, and a fellow guest revealed that Reed recognised this when he arrived and virtually had to be dragged in front of the cameras. Near the end of his life, he was brought onto some TV shows specifically for his drinking; for example The Word put bottles of liquor in his dressing room so he could be secretly filmed getting drunk. He left the set of the Channel 4 television discussion programme After Dark after arriving drunk and attempting to kiss feminist writer Kate Millett, uttering the memorable phrase, "Give us a kiss, big tits."

However, Cliff Goodwin's biography of Reed, Evil Spirits, offered the theory that Reed was not always as drunk on chat shows as he appeared to be, but rather was acting the part of an uncontrollably sodden former star to liven things up, at the producers' behests. In addition, he was arrested in the southern United States, where he was acquitted of disturbing the peace while drunk. He was banned from Georgia as a result. In December 1987, Reed, who already suffered from gout, became seriously ill with kidney problems as a result of his alcoholism and had to abstain from drinking for a year.

In later years, Reed could often be seen quietly drinking with his wife, Josephine Burge, at the bar of the White Horse Hotel in Dorking, Surrey, not far from his home in Oakwoodhill. When working in London, he was often found at the The Duke of Hamilton pub in Hampstead, an area and pub he often frequented earlier in his career with Peter O'Toole and Richard Burton.

In his final years, when he lived in Ireland, he was a regular in the one-roomed O'Brien's Bar in Churchtown, County Cork, close to the 13th Century cemetery in the heart of the village where he was laid to rest.


Death
Reed died from a heart attack during a break from filming Gladiator in Valletta, Malta, on 2 May 1999. He was 61 years old. Several of his scenes in Gladiator had to be completed using computer-generated imagery (CGI) techniques and, in one place, a mannequin. Despite not completing his work on the film, he was posthumously nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Reed's funeral was held in Churchtown, County Cork, where he had spent the last years of his life. The song "Consider Yourself" from the film Oliver! was played at Oliver Reed's funeral.

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