Articles/Interviews
Return to ListingOLIVER
No, not a review of the Musical but an interview with the Star - OLIVER REED
by VINCENT FIRTH Every now and then there appears on the movie horizon a star who does not fit easily into any recognisable film star mould. Such a one is Oliver Reed, now an artiste of international acclaim and in very big demand by producers everywhere. Oliver's brooding dark looks might not win him much of a prize in a male beauty competition, but they go down well with the girls. He was born in Wimbledon and he still lives there - not in the same house, of course, but all the same there must be few big-time stars who are still content with their birthplace after achieving his kind of success. Oliver not only looks tough, he is tough. You are not taken on as a bouncer in a Soho strip club, as he was, unless you are able and willing to tackle any obstreperous client and chuck him out of the place. Nor do you get a job in a fairground boxing booth, like he did, unless you know how to use your mitts. Both these jobs came to grief, however. The police put a stop to the first (they raided the joint); and an opponent who proved to be better than Oliver called a halt to the second. "I decided I didn't like being hit," Oliver told me with disarming candour. I was talking to him and Diana Rigg at the London Hilton Hotel shortly after they had made Assassination Bureau for Paramount. His somewhat pugnacious screen image has given rise to the myth in some quarters that he is difficult to get on with, but this is not correct. With equals and those who serve him he's as nice a chap as you could wish to meet, but he does tend to chafe against authority. "They tell me you were expelled from no fewer than thirteen schools," I challenged him. "Not true," he retorted. "I left of my own free will." "What did they make of you in the Army ?" was my next thrust. "I didn't give them much chance to make anything," he replied. "I did my National Service in Malaya and Hong Kong, but the best day I spent in the Army was the day I was demobbed." See what I mean about authority ? He even disregarded the advice of his uncle, famous director Sir Carol Reed, who suggested that if he wished to become an actor his best plan was to enrol with R.A.D.A. Oliver decided to come up the hard way by getting himself a �7-a-week job as a film extra. In Assassination Bureau he plays the part of the head of an organisation of expert assassins who have dedicated their talents to the 'removal' of certain people whose continuing presence on earth has become a source of embarrassment to somebody. The 'somebody' in question has, of course, to make the operation well worth the organisation's while. The Assassination Bureau also has its moral principles - they agree to kill only if the members consider that the victim deserves to die. Investigating the Bureau's activities is girl reporter Sonya Winter (Diana Rigg), and the elegant Ivan Dragomiloff (Oliver Reed) is very much taken aback when he receives a commission from her in his capacity as head of the Bureau. Miss Winter's modest request is that the Bureau should remove Ivan Dragomiloff, its own august head! After Ivan has gulped down his surprise he accepts the commission and later informs his colleagues - these include Telly Savalas, Warren Mitchell, Clive Revill and Kurt Jurgens among others - that after a 24-hour truce they must either kill him or he will assuredly kill them. The fun - for that's what it is - goes on from there. I asked Oliver what had urged him to accept a part like this. "I felt that after playing so many heavies I needed a change unless I wanted to settle down to type-casting, which I certainly didn't," he said. "Comedy, and more especially black comedy, seemed to offer a challenge, worth a try." Oliver Reed has indeed come up with a subtle comedy style in Assassination Bureau which I for one had previously never suspected. The same may be said of Hannibal Brooks where we saw him trying to emulate the first Hannibal's feat of crossing the Alps with an army of elephants. His partner was Michael J. Pollard of Bonnie And Clyde fame, and although they had only one elephant, it probably caused them more trouble than Hannibal's army. He has a totally different role in Women In Love, the screen version of the famous D. H. Lawrence novel. The portrayal of Gerald Crich was a difficult proposition because this complicated character is a tormented prisoner of his own emotions. He takes over the family mining project which he rules with a cruel hand. After his tremendous success as Bill Sykes in the Academy Award-winning Oliver! which was directed by his uncle, Sir Carol Reed, Oliver was able to pick and choose his parts from the many offers coming in from producers all the time. It was not always so and he looks back on the lean years with a touch of bitterness. "Many people seem to enjoy glamorising their early poverty," he said to me, "But believe me, I don't. I rarely had the price of even a modest meal and when I had to go into hospital with meningitis it came almost as a relief. My national insurance money accumulated and when I came out it tided me over until I got my first acting job on TV." Those were the days when he had to buy his clothes from Army surplus stores. Now that he can easily afford the best that Savile Row has to offer, he still prefers to buy reach-me-downs from the surplus stores. His latest film. Take A Girl Like You, is straight comedy which he is making with Hayley Mills and Noel Harrison (son of Rex). It is from the novel by Kingsley Amis and Oliver has the part of a small-town Casanova whose conceit takes a sharp knock when his advances are vigorously turned down by young primary schoolteacher Hayley Mills, who is determined to hold on to her virtue at all costs. Hayley, incidentally, will have more cause to remember Oliver's face than most girls. After some hours of love play between the two in front of the camera, Hayley's delicate skin broke out in a rash after so much contact with her co-star's strong beard! To guard against a repetition of this minor catastrophe on the set, Oliver decided to shave twice a day. Anyhow, he had the laugh on Hayley in another scene from the film which called on her to eat landlady Sheila Hancock's badly-cooked boiled cod which was provided for the boarding house supper. The story line allowed Oliver to refuse, but the luckless Hayley had to plough through six plates of the stuff before director Jonathan Miller was satisfied. Oliver and Hayley have one thing in common - neither has ever appeared on the stage. They do, however, part company in their desire, or lack of it, to play in front of an audience. Hayley is rather sensitive about the fact that she is now the only member of the illustrious Mills family never to have acted in the theatre. She feels that she has rather let the side down and she is now determined to have a go when filming commitments permit and when a suitable part for her can be found. "I never thought my voice would stand up to it because I must admit it was rather piping," she says. "But I've worked really hard on it and maybe I'll be ready for the stage before long." Oliver, on the other hand, doesn't let the fact that he has never been on the stage bother him one iota, even though his grandfather was an actor. "Jonathan Miller wants me to go into the theatre and says he would like to direct me at Nottingham in 'King Lear'," he says. "But I'm not all that interested because I just don't want to act on the stage." And you can take it from me that if Oliver Reed says he doesn't want, he's going to take a mighty lot of persuading to change his mind. So anytime you happen to be on Wimbledon Common and you come across a grim-faced man furiously chasing something not discernible to you and followed by a delighted small boy, don't be alarmed, for it will probably be Oliver Reed playing his son Mark's favourite game of goblin hunting. Oliver, you see, is a baddie who's a real good sort. Oliver Reed's major films to date are: Beat Girl, The Angry Silence, League Of Gentlemen, His And Hers, The Bulldog Breed, Rebel, The Two Faces Of Doctor Jekyll, The Sword Of Sherwood Forest, The Curse Of The Werewolf, Captain Clegg, Pirates Of Blood River, Paranoiac, The Brigand Of Kandahar, The Party's Over, The Scarlet Blade, The System, The Trap, The Shuttered Room, The Jokers, I'll Never Forget What's 'Is Name, Oliver, Hannibal Brooks, Assassination Bureau, Women In Love, Take A Girl Like You (last two awaiting release).
Vincent Firth, Film Review, July 1969
Return to Listing
by VINCENT FIRTH Every now and then there appears on the movie horizon a star who does not fit easily into any recognisable film star mould. Such a one is Oliver Reed, now an artiste of international acclaim and in very big demand by producers everywhere. Oliver's brooding dark looks might not win him much of a prize in a male beauty competition, but they go down well with the girls. He was born in Wimbledon and he still lives there - not in the same house, of course, but all the same there must be few big-time stars who are still content with their birthplace after achieving his kind of success. Oliver not only looks tough, he is tough. You are not taken on as a bouncer in a Soho strip club, as he was, unless you are able and willing to tackle any obstreperous client and chuck him out of the place. Nor do you get a job in a fairground boxing booth, like he did, unless you know how to use your mitts. Both these jobs came to grief, however. The police put a stop to the first (they raided the joint); and an opponent who proved to be better than Oliver called a halt to the second. "I decided I didn't like being hit," Oliver told me with disarming candour. I was talking to him and Diana Rigg at the London Hilton Hotel shortly after they had made Assassination Bureau for Paramount. His somewhat pugnacious screen image has given rise to the myth in some quarters that he is difficult to get on with, but this is not correct. With equals and those who serve him he's as nice a chap as you could wish to meet, but he does tend to chafe against authority. "They tell me you were expelled from no fewer than thirteen schools," I challenged him. "Not true," he retorted. "I left of my own free will." "What did they make of you in the Army ?" was my next thrust. "I didn't give them much chance to make anything," he replied. "I did my National Service in Malaya and Hong Kong, but the best day I spent in the Army was the day I was demobbed." See what I mean about authority ? He even disregarded the advice of his uncle, famous director Sir Carol Reed, who suggested that if he wished to become an actor his best plan was to enrol with R.A.D.A. Oliver decided to come up the hard way by getting himself a �7-a-week job as a film extra. In Assassination Bureau he plays the part of the head of an organisation of expert assassins who have dedicated their talents to the 'removal' of certain people whose continuing presence on earth has become a source of embarrassment to somebody. The 'somebody' in question has, of course, to make the operation well worth the organisation's while. The Assassination Bureau also has its moral principles - they agree to kill only if the members consider that the victim deserves to die. Investigating the Bureau's activities is girl reporter Sonya Winter (Diana Rigg), and the elegant Ivan Dragomiloff (Oliver Reed) is very much taken aback when he receives a commission from her in his capacity as head of the Bureau. Miss Winter's modest request is that the Bureau should remove Ivan Dragomiloff, its own august head! After Ivan has gulped down his surprise he accepts the commission and later informs his colleagues - these include Telly Savalas, Warren Mitchell, Clive Revill and Kurt Jurgens among others - that after a 24-hour truce they must either kill him or he will assuredly kill them. The fun - for that's what it is - goes on from there. I asked Oliver what had urged him to accept a part like this. "I felt that after playing so many heavies I needed a change unless I wanted to settle down to type-casting, which I certainly didn't," he said. "Comedy, and more especially black comedy, seemed to offer a challenge, worth a try." Oliver Reed has indeed come up with a subtle comedy style in Assassination Bureau which I for one had previously never suspected. The same may be said of Hannibal Brooks where we saw him trying to emulate the first Hannibal's feat of crossing the Alps with an army of elephants. His partner was Michael J. Pollard of Bonnie And Clyde fame, and although they had only one elephant, it probably caused them more trouble than Hannibal's army. He has a totally different role in Women In Love, the screen version of the famous D. H. Lawrence novel. The portrayal of Gerald Crich was a difficult proposition because this complicated character is a tormented prisoner of his own emotions. He takes over the family mining project which he rules with a cruel hand. After his tremendous success as Bill Sykes in the Academy Award-winning Oliver! which was directed by his uncle, Sir Carol Reed, Oliver was able to pick and choose his parts from the many offers coming in from producers all the time. It was not always so and he looks back on the lean years with a touch of bitterness. "Many people seem to enjoy glamorising their early poverty," he said to me, "But believe me, I don't. I rarely had the price of even a modest meal and when I had to go into hospital with meningitis it came almost as a relief. My national insurance money accumulated and when I came out it tided me over until I got my first acting job on TV." Those were the days when he had to buy his clothes from Army surplus stores. Now that he can easily afford the best that Savile Row has to offer, he still prefers to buy reach-me-downs from the surplus stores. His latest film. Take A Girl Like You, is straight comedy which he is making with Hayley Mills and Noel Harrison (son of Rex). It is from the novel by Kingsley Amis and Oliver has the part of a small-town Casanova whose conceit takes a sharp knock when his advances are vigorously turned down by young primary schoolteacher Hayley Mills, who is determined to hold on to her virtue at all costs. Hayley, incidentally, will have more cause to remember Oliver's face than most girls. After some hours of love play between the two in front of the camera, Hayley's delicate skin broke out in a rash after so much contact with her co-star's strong beard! To guard against a repetition of this minor catastrophe on the set, Oliver decided to shave twice a day. Anyhow, he had the laugh on Hayley in another scene from the film which called on her to eat landlady Sheila Hancock's badly-cooked boiled cod which was provided for the boarding house supper. The story line allowed Oliver to refuse, but the luckless Hayley had to plough through six plates of the stuff before director Jonathan Miller was satisfied. Oliver and Hayley have one thing in common - neither has ever appeared on the stage. They do, however, part company in their desire, or lack of it, to play in front of an audience. Hayley is rather sensitive about the fact that she is now the only member of the illustrious Mills family never to have acted in the theatre. She feels that she has rather let the side down and she is now determined to have a go when filming commitments permit and when a suitable part for her can be found. "I never thought my voice would stand up to it because I must admit it was rather piping," she says. "But I've worked really hard on it and maybe I'll be ready for the stage before long." Oliver, on the other hand, doesn't let the fact that he has never been on the stage bother him one iota, even though his grandfather was an actor. "Jonathan Miller wants me to go into the theatre and says he would like to direct me at Nottingham in 'King Lear'," he says. "But I'm not all that interested because I just don't want to act on the stage." And you can take it from me that if Oliver Reed says he doesn't want, he's going to take a mighty lot of persuading to change his mind. So anytime you happen to be on Wimbledon Common and you come across a grim-faced man furiously chasing something not discernible to you and followed by a delighted small boy, don't be alarmed, for it will probably be Oliver Reed playing his son Mark's favourite game of goblin hunting. Oliver, you see, is a baddie who's a real good sort. Oliver Reed's major films to date are: Beat Girl, The Angry Silence, League Of Gentlemen, His And Hers, The Bulldog Breed, Rebel, The Two Faces Of Doctor Jekyll, The Sword Of Sherwood Forest, The Curse Of The Werewolf, Captain Clegg, Pirates Of Blood River, Paranoiac, The Brigand Of Kandahar, The Party's Over, The Scarlet Blade, The System, The Trap, The Shuttered Room, The Jokers, I'll Never Forget What's 'Is Name, Oliver, Hannibal Brooks, Assassination Bureau, Women In Love, Take A Girl Like You (last two awaiting release).