Hellraisers

Drunks are boring. This book isn’t.

What it offers is four brisk biographies of four talented actors; their successes and failures; and descriptions of the oceans of alcohol they consumed throughout their lives. (Well, Harris and O’ Toole managed to quit drinking for the most part, and Burton made efforts from time to time, but Reed just kept on going until his death at the age of 61.*)

There’s a slightly unpleasant tinge of admiring laddishness at the exploits of this quartet, as if, you know, it’s such fun to go out, get smashed and make a complete and total mess of the world around you, at any hour of the day or night. I repeat, drunks are boring. 

And yet.

These four lives are recounted so readably that it’s very, very hard to stop turning the pages. I finished the book in just over a day. Marvelling at the talent they all so obviously had; at Oliver Reed’s ability to drink all night, then turn up on time on the set, word-perfect and ready to go the next morning; at the fact that Elizabeth Taylor could match Burton drink for drink; that Richard Harris stood up and booed back at a Cannes audience that didn’t like his latest film. 

Among others.

*Reed spent his last hours in a drinking match with British sailors in a bar in Malta. At one point in the proceedings he sat down, settled himself into his chair, went to sleep… and never woke up. Despite my opinion about drunks, I can’t help feeling that that’s a pretty good way to go.