Product Description

In May 1999, after a 40-year acting career, Oliver Reed succeeded in destroying himself. He died, as he had invariably lived, drinking with friends in Malta while making yet another film - Ridley Scott's "Gladiator", which was completed after his death using a computer-generated "Oliver Reed". Oliver Reed's acting breakthrough came in 1968 as Bill Sykes in the musical "Oliver!" which one six oscars and made Reed an international star. By the late 1960s he was Britain's highest paid actor. His drinking, womanising and marriages earned him great notoriety in addition to his acting successes. The author reveals much about Reed's past: his involvement with the south London underworld, and the women in his life. Material from friends, family and colleagues add new perspectives to the story of this legendary character. As the great man said, "Life should be lived, and that's all there is to it."

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #247652 in Books
• Published on: 2000-09-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 318 pages

From the Publisher
'I'm the biggest star this country has got,' Oliver Reed once claimed. 'Destroy me and you destroy the whole British film industry.' But Oliver Reed did not need anyone to destroy him as, in May 1999, after a forty-year acting career which included 100 films, he succeeded in destroying himself. He died, as he had invariably lived, drinking with friends while making yet another film.

Born in Wimbledon, London, Reed rose to international stardom with his powerful performance as Bill Sykes in the 1968 musical Oliver! He was seen as one of the brightest prospects of the British film industry and, by the late 60s, he was Britain's highest-paid star. However, his later career became overshadowed by his reputation for drunken behaviour.

Reed's career was full of characteristic firsts: in 1969 he starred in Women in Love, the first English-speaking commercial film to feature full-frontal male nudity; in 1967 he starred in I'll Never Forget What's 'Is Name, the first film to feature the word 'f**k'; and in 1972 he starred in Sitting Target, the first British film to receive an X rating purely for its violent content.

Throughout his eventful and colourful career, Reed worked with some of the most famous names in the film industry from Bette Davis to Raquel Welch. His opinions were expressed bluntly, his exploits are legendary, but bestselling author Cliff Goodwin also explores the other side to this complex character.

Unique, compelling and insightful, Evil Spirits contains material from first-hand interviews with Reed's family, friends and colleagues, and features never-before-seen photographs from the family album. This is the fascinating story of one of the UK's most infamous stars.

About the Author
Cliff Goodwin has worked as a reporter, feature writer and sub-editor for various newspapers and magazines. His coverage of the 1988 Lockerbie air crash earned him a regional press award and he has published features in over 200 newspapers and magazines worldwide. Cliff has written five books which include the bestselling biographies To Be A Lady: The Story of Catherine Cookson and When the Wind Changed: The Life and Death of Tony Hancock.

Customer Reviews

Britain's Biggest Hellraiser!
Having just finished Evil Spirits my opinion of Oliver Reed has changed. I had always considered him to be thuggish, rude and a violent drunk. This book gives you a new insight into the life and mind of one of Britain's most talented actors.

His childhood is discussed in great detail. His difficulty during his school years due to dyslexia, his parents frosty relationship, his mother's many lovers and then his rebellious teenage years, ending with him completing his National Service. His passion for film leads him to pursue an acting career. You follow Oliver's struggles as he went from audition to audition. Then he made it. He became a film star.

Fiercely patriotic he refused parts in Jaws and The Sting because it would mean moving over to America. He later confessed that was probably one of his biggest mistakes.

The book also discusses the three main relationships of his life. His first wife Kate, with whom he had a son, his partner of a decade Jackie with whom he had a daughter and most notably his very much publicised relationship with Josephine, over twenty five years his junior, who would become the second Mrs Reed.

The book also tells of his many affairs and of course, his love of alcohol. The latter would usually be more of a threat to the women he loved than the former.

His films are discussed in great detail with first hand accounts of on-set shananigans and difficulties from the cast and crew.

Even if you are not an Oliver Reed fan you shall enjoy reading about his truly remarkable life.

It starts well, gets repetitive, but has plenty to hold you.
Something about the cover of this book distracted me from the book section that I intended to purchase my next read. There's a little hellraiser in us all, but in Ollie (Well I think we're friends now after reading this book) there was a lot of a hellraiser and for that reason this book appeals. It begins with reports of his death and then goes on to describe his rise and fall. The rollercoaster ride between the covers takes the wind out of the reader with accounts of his drinking binges, the many occasions when he showed some flesh, including the fast becoming famous 'tattooed member!' his good friends and the hangers on, the houses, the wives, the cars the animals, his son, the escapades, the escapades and the escapades. I became quite tired just reading it all and I was sitting in a comfy armchair with a cup of tea and not the three bottles of Vodka that Ollie could drink in one sitting. But what made me carry on? What made me read to the end when at one point I felt that the book was becoming a little repetitive, not unlike his life? Answer: The sheer admiration for his talent. We hear of a man who said to himself 'I'm going to be an actor', and then went out to teach himself by watching other's act. Not for him the fancy classes at RADA, no he did it his way. Every time people, friends and advisors tried to tell him different he did it his way anyway. Frankie would be proud of him. He made some great films and even when the films were not so great he was great in them. He had something, not just the looks, but what seemed to be a God given ability. I loved the telling of his life, I was fascinated at the number of films he did and the relationships he had and as I closed the book, I didn't feel sad for his early death, his difficult childhood or his broken relationships, I felt privileged to have read a little more about a man who took life by the throat, had a wild time, and checked out before old aged could make him miserable.

A great man - a not so detailed book
A book like this cannot fail to please you because its subject matter is so appealing. The book is very even in its reporting of Olly's antics and shows the bad and malevolent side as well as the humourous side of Olly's life. The only place it falls down is through a lack of detail and a not too large a pool of new quotes (indeed the book is more a collection of excerpts from previous tomes mentioning Olly). A great book to get to know "who Olly was" but lacked details and had chunks of his antics/life seemingly missing - case in point, the intro' tells us of his buying a house in Ireland through the help of a bar associate and later giving it away to a homeless couple - but this is never again mentioned in the book and we do not find any of the details.

Good! but could have been better