Happy birthday to actor Oliver Reed (13 February 1938–2 May 1999), who followed me through my early life (above, in Women in Love, wrestling Alan Bates in the nude).
From sultry in the ’60s, when I first saw him in Oliver! and The Assassination Bureau, to stout in the ’70s as Tommy’s horrible step-father or in Richard Lester’s Three Musketeers films, he was a fixture of my youth.
He devolved into horror and exploitation films as time went on, quite possible related to his epic drinking problem. He reappeared in 2000, in a small role in Gladiator, but his death while filming led to a bizarre CGI scene that is creepier than any of his horror flicks.
Ah, well. He’ll always be Bill Sykes to me:
Below, with Diana Rigg in The Assassination Bureau;with Ann-Margret in Tommy; as Athos in The Three Musketeers:
