The “hellraising” Oliver Reed once drank 100 pints in 24 hours
Oliver Reed‘s excellence as an actor was undoubted. Having starred in a number of highly-lauded films across five decades in the film industry, including The Trap, The Devils and the Oscar-winning Oliver, Reed established a legacy entirely of his own making throughout the years.
Of course, Reed’s excessive lifestyle was also well-documented. He is well known for his alcoholism and penchant for binge drinking. In a book documenting their booze-fuelled exploits entitled Hellraisers: The Life and Inebriated Times of Richard Burton, Peter O’Toole, Richard Harris and Oliver Reed, author Robert Sellers details a time in which Reed amazingly (and disturbingly) drank 100 pints in just 24 hours.
Sellers claims that the four legendary actors are “four of the greatest hellraisers that ever walked, staggered or fell into a pub.” Interestingly, none of the four ever denied having a penchant for a drink, with Harris once saying: “O’Toole, Burton, Reed, and I all drank to excess not because we had problems, but because we loved it.”
Reed had been known to get violent on occasion, as had the other three cinema icons. Reed told an interviewer: “I don’t have a drink problem. But if that was the case and doctors told me I had to stop, I’d like to think that I would be brave enough to drink myself into the grave.” Sadly, this proved to be the case.
Reed died in the way that many claimed that he would have wished. During a break from filming his last film Gladiator in 1999, Reed visited an Irish bar in Valetta in Malta and drank eight pints of lager, 12 shots of rum, half a bottle of whiskey and a few Cognacs to wash it all down. Pissed, Reed beat five younger Royal Navy sailors in an arm-wrestling competition before suddenly collapsing. An ambulance was called, but Reed died on the way to the hospital.
Omid Djalili, who also appeared in Ridley Scott’s film, said: “He hadn’t had a drink for months before filming started… Everyone said he went the way he wanted, but that’s not true. It was very tragic. He was in an Irish bar and was pressured into a drinking competition. He should have just left, but he didn’t.”
Reed was buried in Churchtown, County Cork in Ireland, where he had resided in the last years of his life. He was subsequently awarded a posthumous BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor and will be remembered for his fine acting and hell-raising lifestyle.
