Articles/Interviews

Ann Stewart gets behind the feud that has been making the headlines.

"I WONDER what it'd be like to star Oliver Reed and Richard Harris in the same movie?" a producer friend of mine contemplated. He shook his head somewhat thoughtfully/ "Now that would be an explosive movie to do." Explosive because Reed and Harris have been bitching at each other for some time now. They really ought to settle their differences and make it up. What's their verbal quarrel about? Or are they just kidding us that they're bitter rivals? Is their feudin' and fightin' in print really that serious or are they playing us along just trying to keep us on tenterhooks?

Ollie has certainly been rousing it up again off the set of his new movie The Prince And The Pauper proving that he really is the bad boy of movies, the court jester who loves the centre stage, the boisterous lad you love to hate. Richard Harris, former hell-raiser extraordinaire, has meanwhile retired to the mellower pastures of martial life with Ann Turkel his beautiful wife. But Ollie soldiers on, itching to prove he's the world's number one hell-raiser, and he will challenge anyone who wishes to dispute that fact. Hence the running battle between him and Harris.

But what really started it all?

Ollie's brother Simon, who handles his publicity, cannot pinpoint exactly when the feud began but it must have been about six years ago. And not once in that time have our two 'heavies' met face to face. Why not get them together on a Harty or Parkinson TV show? That'd raise the roof and work the language bleeper to death. Such a confrontation would be hard to resist. The match of the day. The battle of the century.

I've been trying to trace when these two top stars first came together in battle, and from what I can discover it would seem that Ollie started it all. He declared, somewhat brashly and boldly in a newspaper article a few years ago: "Where is Richard Harris today? Where have all his punch-ups in Covent Garden got him? He is nowhere."

Mt Harris responded swiftly with a letter to Mr Reed which read, "It appears Mr Reed, that you are having some difficulty in locating me. My address, should you require it, is Buckingham Palace and the flag is still up with the monarch still reigning. If I decide to abdicate, I will let you know."

With the letter, Richard sent Oliver a "gift" neatly wrapped in brown paper. Inside was a pair of Victorian crutches, one inscribed with the names Vanessa Redgrave, Glenda Jackson and Candice Bergin; and on the other the name of Ken Russell. Attached to them Richard had written a note stating, "In my Royal opinion you should not dispense with these, otherwise you will fall flat on your arse."

What Harris was implying was that in his opinion Oliver would have been lost without the guiding hand of director Ken Russell who'd directed Oliver in some of his best movies; and the support of such Reed co-stars as Glenda Jackson (Women In Love), Vanessa Redgrave (The Devils) and Candice Bergen (The Hunting Party).

When Oliver was asked for his opinion on actors and acting he answered, again somewhat brashly and boldly, "I am much better than I am given credit for... I am much better than Richard Harris who had a pair of callipers made for him when he filmed This Sporting Life and has leaned on them ever since."

There was, as far as I can gather, no response from Richard. Perhaps he thought it better to ignore the statement and let Ollie get on with it. He refused to comment on there being any feud between them. When asked directly about Oliver, Richard simply replied, "I always ignore bores."

Later Richard allowed himself a few more words about Reed when he said, "I really can't understand why Oliver attacks me all the time. I have never met the man in my life. I don't know why he should be so angry with me." Then came the sting in the tail... "Oliver did three films that I turned down, so he should be extremely grateful to me."

I cannot find any reaction by Mr Reed to this statement, perhaps it was unprintable.

For a while things were quiet on the Reed-Harris front. Then Richard married Ann Turkel and he settled down to a quieter life. A reporter visiting their home in the Bahamas returned with more fuel to stoke up the fires that had burned between Oliver and Richard. Harris had told him, "I've made Oliver a star by having turned down many of the movies he went on to make. Now he can try his luck by making himself a sex symbol. Because he will not have any competition now. He can pursue any of the birds he wants. I've had them all, but I had to go on searching until I found the one woman that mattered. At last I've got here. I don't have to look any more. I don't have to be part of the jet set world or go out on the town for kicks. Let them think of me as a recluse here in the Bahamas. This is my abdication. I was once the king of the pack. Tell them the crown is up for grabs."

Was this the end of the bickering?

While Richard was filming The Return Of A Man Called Horse (the sequel to his highly successful original movie) down Mexico way someone informed him that Oliver was filming The Great Scout And Cathouse Thursday 300 miles away in Durango. Richard couldn't resist the urge to think of sending Ollie a telegram. Battle commenced yet again. "It will read," said Harris, "'First-class actors live in Cuernavaca. Second-class actors live in Durango.' That should make him hop!" Harris gleefully declared.

Nobody knows for sure whether Harris sent that telegram but the fact that Richard implied he would send such a message did nothing to douse the flames of their rivalry.

Oliver was once asked if his feud with Harris was still on. "What feud?" he asked. "How can you have a feud with a middle-aged actor who sends you a book of his poems and in the inscription puts: 'To Oliver, the only actor I know who affiliates himself to a bankrupt country'."

A comment prompted probably by a statement Oliver had made when asked if he might leave England and his Dorking mansion for tax reasons to which Oliver said he would get "as homesick as hell".

"You don't feud with a man like that," Oliver continued. "You ignore him. Actually if you want the truth - I love Richard Harris."

Oliver went on: "The poor bloke can't help it if he's known in the business as The Horizontal Champ, can he? When it comes to doing anything dangerous on the set, he usually found flat on his back. "For a start, I'm a far better cowboy than he is. Bet then, to be fair, I'm a younger man. And I'm prettier. And I have more hair than he has. But as I say, he can't help any of that. My feeling for Harris is pity, not hatred..."

Big Chief rivals they may well be, but isn't it time they buried the hatchet, preferably not in each other's heads! They're really too good to lose.