"Hellraisers - The Life and Inebriated Times of Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Peter O'Toole and Oliver Reed" by Robert Sellers Thomas Dunne Books 286 pages $25.99
Of the four listed above, O'Toole is the only one still alive. And, frankly, he doesn't look well at all. It's not surprising the other three died when you take into account just how much they drank. Oliver Reed, for a lark, once drank 126 pints in 24 hours -- about 12 minutes for each pint. Burton, at one point, was drinking three bottles of vodka a day.
What amazed me initially was the fact that all of them could stay up all night drinking and then step in front of the cameras as fresh as a daisy. But as time went on and the drink wore out their systems, this ability vanished. They were, as they aged, nightmares to work with. Reed and Harris both liked to fight as much as they did the drink. Harris could wake up covered in bruises or stitches and not have a clue as to how theinjuries had occurred.
And attitude? Lordy! "God put me on this earth to raise sheer hell," said Richard Burton. "I don't have a drink problem. But if that was the case and doctors told me I had to stop I'd like to think I would be brave enough to drink myself into the grave," said Oliver Reed.
Read about them and be amused; whatever you do don't emulate them!
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