Articles/Interviews

After a month spent driving to Monaco for the Grand Prix with a friend, John Crosthwaite, I got back to England to find that I'd been cast in my third and, as it happened, last film for Michael Winner, so in the summer of 1963 I set of for Torquay in balmy Devon to make The System. I was introduced to Oliver Reed, with whom I was to work (and carouse enthusiastically) on several subsequent occasions, lastly in 1999 on Gladiator.

If one has a proclivity for a sip on a warm day and others of a similar persuasion are at hand, trouble will ensue - not necessarily violence, but certainly exuberance - and so it was when Oliver and I first met.

Ollie was never a man you would miss - broad, intelligent, funny, frightening and deeply unpredictable. He could drink twenty pints of lager with a gin or créme de menthe chaser and still run a mile for a wager. His aim always was to be larger than his already oversized self.

I knew, inevitably, that I was in trouble when I awoke in a dazzling haze and found myself staring up into the face of a swarthy orang-utan who breathed a fiery Anglo-American tang of Jack Daniel's and Boddington's Best. This could only get worse. My tongue felt like an affectionate kitten that had fallen into a deep sleep, not to be disturbed, in my mouth.

I was also - and here's the good bit - hanging over a vicious set of spearhead railings sixty feet below while large drips of soda water splashed on to me from the orang-utan's neck.

The orang-utan was Reed, and he was holding me by my ankles, dangling me from a sixth-floor window of the Grand Hotel, Torquay, while being liberally sprayed with a soda siphon by a drunk and giggling Andrew Ray - all for a bet, for God's sake - and I prayed he wouldn't drop me.

'How do you like this, boy?' Ollie growled like a bear, and another squirt from Andrew's siphon dribbled off his chin on to my naked arse. 'Wanna come up, boy?'

Oliver had a grin that split his face like an early muppet, but with less of the charm. Miraculously, I was heaved back in, wet with soda and sweat, and handed a drink, which I'd never needed more.

At the time, I concluded that Oliver, for all his charismatic, cavalier efforts as an apprentice hellraiser, was inclined to bully anyone smaller than himself - like me. In truth, it wasn't until Gladiator that I stopped feeling physically threatened by him. Pathetic, I know.

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Early in the new year, Jeremy Conway rang to confirm all the details and dates for my part in Gladiator, Cassius, who could be described as the 'Don King' of the Colosseum. I wasn't needed for the earlier battle scenes in Germania, which were being filmed in woodland near Farnham in Surrey, but I would be needed on the Colosseum set in Malta during April and May.

I enjoyed the build-up to it all, the meeting of old friends in the cast and crew, and the inevitable dramas that arose. Not surprisingly, one of the earliest of these involved Oliver Reed, who had come over from his home in Ireland for a fitting and had got so drunk and abusive at Heathrow on the way home that he wasn't allowed on the plane. People were beginning to wonder if Ridley Scott might not have been a little rash in employing three of the most notoriously overindulging actors in Britain, Oliver Reed, Richard Harris and D. Hemmings. (In fairness to Harris, he had put his boozing days behind him, though he still enjoyed a good shout.)

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I feel very fortunate to be part of it all, finding myself in the daunting shadow of this immense construction, on my first day, muttering, under my breath, a mild expletive of wonder. As actors, for a few months, Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Derek Jacobi, Connie Nielsen, Ollie Reed, along with the rest of the cast and crew, will share themselves with Malta, an island renamed by us 'Hard Rock Cafe of the Mediterranean', it has survived so many invasion attempts. Most of us are crammed into the Meridian Phoenicia, once the most lavish and elegant of all hotels on the island, now, sadly, a rusty remnant of its past. It is helped along, though, by an enthusiastic staff who seem to work endless shifts. You might have a chambermaid serve you breakfast, pass you towels at the pool, serve you a beer at the bar and then drive you to the airport - all in different liveried outfits.

The Phoenicia's south-facing rooms also enjoy the benefits of the bus station next to the town gates. There are no timetables, it seems, and their function is met by a little man calling out when and where the buses are going through wildly over-amplified speakers, just below our balconies, starting at about five-thirty. Fortunately for most of us, it's an early-morning wake-up/make-up call. Activity starts on the set earlier, at about four, with extras to be costumed, prosthetic limbs to be scattered, tigers to be wrestled out of puppy sleep - all early-morning mayhem that making epic films demands. On a morning off, with time to look about you, it's depressing to note that the gardens of the hotel grow soft and dusty from lack of attention and, strolling down to the pool, you observe that mini-golf has taken over what were once immaculately manicured lawns. Yet to all this there is a kindly rakish charm, a sort of 'shabby-chic' feel. It makes you want it to be the Singapore 'Raffles' of Malta. But it isn't.

What the Phoenicia has become is a prime location for weddings -very loud weddings, in the Maltese tradition. So much that, denied access to the lounge and the bar on a Sunday afternoon, Oliver Reed, never one of the quietest voices himself, peers into a tremendously loud and ebullient nuptial party that is taking place and bellows, 'Shut up! Or I'll come in and join you!'

I had known Oliver for forty years, but hadn't seen him in a decade or so. We had trampled many paths together, films and friends. We had even learned to love Michael Winner together! When Oliver walked into the Phoenicia bar, ordering orange juice, he looked forever the gentleman that he sometimes could be. With grey flowing hair, a silver beard and a white linen jacket, he looked the quintessential expatriate, at home in Malta, swirling an arm at the assembled company, as if he were Her Majesty's representative, bestowing pleasure at the drop of his white Fedora.

He grinned at me, laughed in recognition, and we lapsed into tales of old, of lovers we'd shared and, in particular, The Prince and the Pauper, when he'd beaten me to a pulp in a horse-drawn carriage on the pretext of making it look 'real'. And where Raquel Welch, smitten by Ollie's mischievous eyes and aggressive wit, had to be rescued from despair on the edge of the Danube.

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One Sunday, Russell organised a football match in which he played, while the producers watched, paralysed with fear because they had not insured him for sporting injuries. This was followed by a cricket match which he'd arranged against a local team.

I had, with quiet pragmatism, excused myself from active participation. I was equipped with a perfectly good Panama, from beneath whose broad brim I was prepared to spectate with torpid curiosity. I was, in any case, already quite knackered from watching the footie. But Ollie, who was supposed to be playing, could not be found, and I was press-ganged into taking his place, although I had no suitable shoes, no cricket trousers and, Lord help me, no box.

I was appalled to learn that we were going out to meet the opposing team at McDonald's next to the airport - by far the ugliest, most culturally unrepresentative and least romantic spot on the island -which was a pity. From there they led us to the cricket ground.

The sight of the other side - fit, young and terracotta - didn't augur well for our chances. This impression was confirmed when Russell was quickly bowled out by a small boy and was rather upset - or so it seemed, unless, perhaps, he'd seen a wasp on the ground and was trying to hit it by throwing his bat and pads at it.

However, as we were still short of players, he was going to bat again at No. 10, while I went in at No. 9, and quickly lost my first partner, to have him replaced by Russell. Although I was suffering from seriously wobbly knees on account of my lack of protector (though, God knows, I don't really need any more children) and the rate these Maltese were hurling the ball at us, I managed by some incredible fluke to hit the ball straight past the facing wicket, where it gamely trickled on towards long stop. To my horror, Russell was galloping towards me in an unstoppable way, yelling, 'Yes!'

I simply didn't have time to explain to him that I was pretty sure it was my call - which would have been 'No!' - and set off obediently towards the other end, seeing the wicketkeeper knock the bails off the stumps as I reached the halfway point, hobbling badly in leather-soled shoes.

The umpire's finger went up and I walked. I didn't throw my bat down, though, I must confess, I was rather relieved Russell had run me out.

I was less pleased to find Ollie back at the bar of the Phoenicia, all dressed up in his whites, with a bag full of pads, jockstrap, box and bat, and well beyond the danger level on his inebriation scale, demanding that someone take him to the game. When it was clear that no one was going to, I went off to find his lovely wife, Josephine - one of the few people who could handle him - and left Lucy with Ollie, who was beginning to crash about and breathe fire.

The barman was studiously ignoring his requests for more drink.

'Come here, you monkey!' yelled Ollie, well practised in the art of catching the attention of reluctant barmen.

I came back with Oliver's supremely patient wife to find that he now wanted to fight the barman, and was still droning on about playing cricket. We told him it wasn't happening, but he wouldn't leave the bar and soon wanted to fight with anyone, upsetting all the old greys and the other people on the film who were beginning to fill the place.

The hotel management were moving in with ugly looks on their faces. I told them, knowing Ollie of old, that if they tried to get him out now there'd be real trouble.

I thought of myself being dangled by the ankles by Oliver outside the sixth-floor window of the Torquay Grand, forty years before, the grinning, simian face and warm beer that trickled onto my naked buttocks. But despite these memories and all the bullying I'd seen and received from him over the years, he was part of my tribe and I owed him loyalty.

'Let me give him a drink' I said. 'Then I'll calm him down and get him upstairs without a scene.' And, astonishingly, I did, without further trouble.

However, the management thenceforth banned him from all public parts of the hotel, except the pool.

The week after the cricket, a card was slipped under our door by Josephine, asking us if we could have dinner with Ollie and her the following Saturday, just the four of us. When we met them in the hotel lobby, Ollie was utterly sober, which was a great relief for Lucy, and we took a taxi to Marsaskala, known as the best place on the island for fish. Gabriel's was a restaurant at the bay's edge which had been recommended and the sight of Robin Demetriou, the superb catering boss on the Gladiator set, already there with his wife, was more than reassuring. We all accepted the 'catch of the day', as we'd been advised. And, in any case, it was clear that Gabriel didn't ask his punters what they wanted; he just told them.

In our younger days Oliver and I would have considered 'catch of the day' an altogether different proposition, but now dinner was a quieter, even sotto voce affair - a single bottle of wine drunk between the four of us. Ollie was reflective, Josephine happiest to talk about life in Ireland and their horses. There was no reference to or hint of the scene that had taken place a week before, and we headed back early to the hotel, where, because Ollie was sober, we were allowed in a corner of the bar. We drank coffee there, chatting quietly for a while, until Ollie announced that he was tired, and he and Josephine went to bed. He looked tired, too, I thought, and worn out in a way I'd never seen him.

In the morning, Lucy and I set off early to catch the ferry to Gozo, to check out hotels for the short break we planned to take there as soon as filming was over. We arrived back at the Phoenicia in the early evening and, as we walked in, we saw Ridley Scott with his producer and Rob Harris, the publicity man, in a huddle.

I didn't like the look of that; there was something ominous about it.

Lucy went on up and I walked over to the bar, to buy a drink and to discover what had happened. Rob Harris caught my eye and came over to tell me himself.

Ollie and Josephine had been in a bar together at lunchtime, where Ollie had said he felt tired and had lain down for a quick zizz. Seeing that he hadn't moved for a while, Josephine went to wake him, finding to her great distress that she could not. It transpired that he had suffered a major heart attack, and had died.

It was an appalling shock to me - that this massive character, this man who had always dominated every room he had been in, every event he had attended and who had entered and re-entered my own life so often over the last four decades, should suddenly have ceased to be. As I rushed to the lifts to go up and find Lucy, tears filled my eyes and I could barely tell her what had happened. When she had calmed me down, we went off to see if we could do anything for Josephine.

Poor Ollie, his was such an abrupt end, though perhaps that was inevitable, even preferable, in one who had lived his life so much at full throttle.