Oliver Reed

Diagnoses

Vocation

British actor, a burly leading man, usually cast in sullen roles. His films include, "The Curse of the Werewolf," 1962, "The Jokers," 1966 and "The Three Musketeers," 1973. His 53 movies include roles in Ken Russell films, "Women in Love," "The Devils" and "Tommy." Reed worked as a boxer and strip-club bouncer with an occasional movie role before his uncle, director Carol Reed, cast him in "Oliver," 1968. He was a character off-screen as well as on. He once arrived at Galway airport in Ireland lying drunk on the baggage conveyor, and at a hotel in Madrid in 1973, he stripped during dinner and jumped into the huge fish tank. Reed had two kids, one from his marriage to Kate Byrne from 1960-'70, and another with his '70s companion. In 1980, at 42, he began dating 16-year-old Josephine Burge. They married five years later but he continued his unrepentant ways. In January 1999, he was arrested in London after a drunken brawl. A consummate professional while on the job, he was filming "The Gladiator" in Malta when he died of a heart attack on 2 May 1999, survived by his wife Josephine and two children. Link to Wikipedia biography