Oliver Reed, actor, 61

["Deathwatch Central" <cdw@slick.org>]

http://www.cnn.com/SHOWBIZ/Movies/9905/02/reed.obit.ap/index.html

Actor Oliver Reed dies at age 61
May 2, 1999
Web posted at: 7:26 p.m. EDT (2326 GMT)

LONDON (AP) -- Oliver Reed, the feisty, hard-drinking actor who was as
well
known for his antics off screen as he was for such film performances as
the
fearsome Bill Sikes in the 1968 musical "Oliver!", died Sunday in Malta.

He was 61.

Reed, in Malta filming a new movie "The Gladiator," died on the way to a

hospital about 15 minutes after being taken ill while drinking with
friends
in a bar in the Maltese capital, Valetta, police said. The cause of
death
was not immediately announced.

On screen, he was best-known as a muse of sorts for the director Ken
Russell, appearing in several of the eccentric, erratically brilliant
filmmaker's best-known movies. In Russell's "Women In Love" (1969), Reed

shared a famous nude wrestling scene with co-star Alan Bates, while "The

Devils" (1971) and "Tommy" (1975) found him entering gamely -- sometimes

sadistically -- into Russell's heated, often campy cinematic vision.

Reed was born Feb. 13, 1938, in London and went on to be a veteran of
some
53 films, appearing alongside Michael York and Faye Dunaway in Richard
Lester's "The Three Musketeers" (1973) and its 1974 and 1989 sequels. In

Nicolas Roeg's 1986 film "Castaway," adapted from the Lucy Irvine novel,
a
disheveled Reed lures Amanda Donohoe to a desert island in what turns
out to
be a marriage mostly of inconvenience.

In his 1989 autobiography, "A Living Picture," Russell recalls an
association with Reed dating back to the mid-'60s when Russell first
approached the young actor to play Claude Debussy in a film for the
British
Broadcasting Corp. about the French composer.

Reed subsequently played Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the Victorian poet, in
a
second television film for the director, followed by the various feature

films that announced the swarthy, fierce-eyed Reed as an unmistakable,
if
volatile, leading man.

"He was the life and soul of the party," Russell wrote of Reed, adding
"For
all his macho image, Oliver is a sensitive actor who approaches his
craft
intuitively."

And unlike some stars who need elaborate explication of their roles,
Reed
was content, according to Russell, to create his own shorthand as a way
of
understanding his character: "moody one, moody two, or moody three ...
depending on the intensity of the smoldering meanness required."

A legendary hellraiser and prankster, Reed was often better-known for
misdeeds away from the camera than for any mastery in front of it,
especially during the uninspired stretch of credits including "Venom"
(1982), "The Sting II" (1983) and "Treasure Island" (1990).

When filming "The Prince and the Pauper" in Hungary, he and stunt double
Reg
Prince were arrested after a restaurant brawl with another man about
rugby.
They were not charged.

In a separate exploit, Reed once arrived at Galway airport in Ireland
lying
drunk on a baggage conveyor.

And at a hotel in Madrid, in 1973, he stripped during dinner and jumped
into
a huge tank containing goldfish. He was later ordered to leave the hotel

after a fight there.

Reed once described himself as "only an actor -- not a priest beyond
reproach."

"I'm not a villain, I've never hurt anyone," he said. "I'm just a tawdry

character who explodes now and again."

"I have cultivated the image of a baddie, which is what I will pursue if

that is what people wish," he told Britain's Daily Mail in 1995.

Glenda Jackson, the British actress-turned- politician who won her first
of
two Oscars for appearing in "Women in Love" with Reed, told SKY News
television station that Reed was "immaculately professional."

"Once he was in front of the camera, he was all work," she said. "I am
very
sorry he has gone, but I think he probably went the way he would have
wished."

Reed is survived by his wife, Josephine Burge, a daughter, Sarah, and a
son,
Mark.

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