Hellraisers: The Life and Inebriated Times of Burton, Harris, OToole and Reed

Editorial Reviews. Review. "A rollicking read" * Sunday Express * "Sellers' biography is a leondumoulin.nl: Hellraisers: The Life and Inebriated Times of Burton, Harris, O'Toole and Reed eBook: Robert Sellers: Kindle Store.
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Ships from and sold by Amazon. Customers who bought this item also bought. Page 1 of 1 Start over Page 1 of 1. The Richard Burton Diaries. Trump in the White House. Sex, Death and the Movies: Sponsored products related to this item What's this? A WW2 novel about resistance, love and the courage to stand up and do the right thing. Based on a true story. The Woman Who Smashed Codes: I Can Only Imagine: We share a fatal condition: Want to live a life full of joy and peace, even when there is no cure? Start reading this insightful guide. The Hooligans of Kandahar: Not All War Stories are Heroic.

Not all true war stories are heroic. Mismanaged and overlooked by command, a group of soldiers must fight to survive in Afghanistan. Martin's Griffin April 26, Language: Related Video Shorts 0 Upload your video. Laurence Olivier and Richard Burton: This book examines the lives and careers of both legendary actors, from their time on the stage and in Hollywood to their tumultuous marriages.

Burton, Harris, O'Toole and Reed: Hellraisers Inc | Reuters

Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton: A Romance Made and Broken in Hollywood. This book looks at one of Hollywood's most legendary romances, and how the two movie icons came together over the course of their remarkable careers. The Life of Richard Burton. This book profiles the life of the man who became one of the world's greatest Shakespearean actors and a Hollywood star who married Elizabeth Taylor.

Try the Kindle edition and experience these great reading features: Share your thoughts with other customers. Write a customer review. Read reviews that mention actors lives lived drinking men entertaining funny sad drink drunk sellers drunken alcohol robert guys antics famous acting becomes tales. There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later. Still a good read for fans. One person found this helpful. Kindle Edition Verified Purchase. This is a lightweight look at four acting heavyweights and their relationship to booze and each other. While it's true their drunken tales do get tiresome, I enjoyed reading the behind-the-scenes anecdotes about the filming of their many movies and found myself investigating these films further.

Unfortunately many of their 70s stinkers are not available on Netflix, though I was certainly intrigued by a few. One of the funniest involves the great theater actor Wilfrid Lawson, whom Sellers has taking Burton around to a local pub just before a matinee performance of a play in which Lawson was appearing. Since he wasn't required on stage during the early part of the first act, Lawson settled into the stalls with Burton to watch the opening scenes like any other audience member.

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Finally, Lawson tapped Burton on the shoulder and said, "You'll like this bit. This is where I come on. Harris, who was -- as the Irish say -- "a difficult man when he had drink taken," was frequently violent, and there's nothing funny about that. Still, what can you say about a guy who, momentarily sober, asks to see his wife and is informed that she'd left him some years before.

One of the interesting things about these four actors and their drinking was how important its public dimension was. Anyone familiar with the drinking life knows how crucial company can be -- an uncritical audience for and source of stories and companionship that demands no more than that you stand your round. Still, except for Burton -- the tormented son of a Welsh miner -- the carousing seemed for these artists an adjunct of their performance: No, no, no; we went out on the town, baby, and we did our drinking in public.

O'Toole, who all but gave up drinking after a near-fatal medical crisis in the mids, was the only one of the four to cork the bottle. Hardcover , pages. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.


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To ask other readers questions about Hellraisers , please sign up. Graphic Novels and Photobooks are good investments as opposed to other books. I mostly buy e books, but make the exceptions when it comes to graphic books and photo books. I'll put it on a list of to buy, for when I have money.

Buy my books from books category Russell Scott Day? See 1 question about Hellraisers…. Lists with This Book. This is an odd book. It's basically a collection of anecdotes from the drinking lives of four amazing actors. The anecdotes pretty much follow one basic form: Person X got really drunk, did something stupid, doesn't remember it, doesn't regret it.

There is a slight variation where Person X remembers it and regrets it, but this variation doesn't occur often. It's slightly different for each man - with Richard Harris and Oliver Reed there is a fight of some kind, with Richard Burton there is also This is an odd book.

It's slightly different for each man - with Richard Harris and Oliver Reed there is a fight of some kind, with Richard Burton there is also Elizabeth Taylor who drank as much or more than he did , and with Peter O'Toole there is always a bon mot. In the end the endless repetition of dumb activities reads like a great advertisement for a step program - the pursuit of fun is all so desperate and boring and soulkilling. I'm a bit undecided as to whether or not this reaction is by design or not - the author is so absent and deadpan it's difficult to know what he might think.

I was reminded of reading Touched with Fire , Kay Redfield Jamison's study of artists and bipolar disease. She neatly punctures the idea that madness and art are romantically and inextricably intertwined and instead dares to wonder how much these individuals might have accomplished had they not suffered from depression. Anyone who has ever been through a severe depression knows that there's nothing romantic or even remotely creative about it. When getting out of bed is your biggest achievement for the day it's hard to produce anything other than tears.

Burton, Harris, O'Toole and Reed: Hellraisers Inc

I was left to wonder what they all might have been without the booze. It's telling that Peter O'Toole, the only one forced to quit drinking due to health concerns, is the only one of the four still alive. If you think you drink a lot, well, you probably do. But if you think you drink a lot compared to these cinematic icons, then it's a miracle that you haven't been in a coma since Utterly insane tales of drunken debauchery from some of your favorite actors is what this book sets out to provide, and for the most part, succeeds in.

People seem to knock this book for culling from too many already published biographies, but the author did interview a bunch of people as well, including one of my favorite directors of all time, Richard Lester.

Hellraisers

And the gory details just don't stop: Anthony Hopkins used to be a bottle-of-tequila-a-day black out drunk, Elizabeth Taylor delighted in whispering "fuck you and you and you" to fans as she waved from her car, Richard Burton drank so much his spinal column was coated in crystallized booze, and much more. So if you ever hear a friend--who's maybe having a crap day at work or going through a rough breakup--utter the words, "I'm about to get as drunk as Peter O'Toole," you might want to think about staging an intervention instead of buying them a shot.

View all 3 comments. This book wore me out.

Wild tales, well-told, of the Brit booze brigade.

Just reading about the frenetic pace at which these men lived their lives was exhausting. Yes, I feel like I know a lot more about these men when I finished the book than I did when I started - was any of it anything I really needed to know? More than the endless repetitive stories of boozing and brawling, I would have enjoyed reading about their careers - but that's not what this book was designed to be. The book served it's purpose well - to tell us about the This book wore me out. The book served it's purpose well - to tell us about the Hellraisers - but after a while I felt like I was just reading about the same drunken brawl, over and over and over, looping into eternity.

Mar 08, Beverly rated it did not like it Shelves: A totally uninteresting boring recount of 4 men who spent most of their lives in a drunken stupor.

While they claim to love life, they were so drunk that they did not remember much of theirs, and caused a great deal of distress to many people around them both known and unknown. It quickly becomes a very tiresome read. Mar 08, Dustin Reade rated it really liked it. Peter O'Toole is a badass though.

Only one of these men is left alive, which is a pity. One may be able to tell a lot about how these men lived by how they died. Richard Harris was living in the Savoy Hotel when he died of Hodgkins disease. As he was being wheeled out on a stretcher to an ambulance, he propped himself up on emaciated elbows and shouted "It's the food! Don't touch the food! Reed "bel Only one of these men is left alive, which is a pity.

Reed "bellowed "let's have a drink" and downed 12 double measures of rum before he retreated to his more accustomed double whiskies.

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He also challenged the sailors to a number of arm wrestling contests and won several matches. The night before he died of a cerebral hemorrhage, we wrote the following line from The Tempest on a napkin next to his bed: These guys did all of these things and more. This is by turns a funny and incredibly sad book. Ultimately what saves it is that these fuckers are so likable. The least likable is Oliver Reed, who was a violent chauvinist pig when drunk but a most generous man when sober.

The most likable is, of course, Harris. By the s, people were in awe of O'Toole and Harris, less so of Reed because he was unemployed and damn near broke. Of course, what draws people to stories like this are two items. One, most of us could never hope to consume bottles of vodka a day for six months Harris, Burton or drink pints of beer in a 24 hour period Reed.

Two, these men are an antidote for our plasticine, bull shit celebrities of today. Harris openly mocked Hugh Grant, and once told Bruce Willis politely to "fuck off, I am talking to my ex-wife". The only one of today's movie stars that holds a candle to them is Russell Crowe. Harris made this comment about Crowe: In other words, he acts stunningly like a guy you would meet in a pub. The "Hellraisers" are genuine people, not about to be handled by publicists and studio douchebags.

Burton went that route with Liz Taylor, and she comes out of this book looking like a booze-soaked old hag. Hollywood does not like real people, they like fake ones. Never was that so much in plain view as it was in this text. At his height in the s, Burton could consume a fifth of brandy and still play Hamlet with little or no ill effects. Burton became a movie star and made some great films and some incredibly awful stinkbombs, but he had presence, as did the rest. What makes them awesome is not the amount of liquor they can drink or the women they can bed, but that they can function not only like human beings but like talented actors.

That's why Harris bagged on Hugh Grant; Hugh Grant has played the same damned nitwit character in every movie since Harris played himself to the hilt, and it was the only role he never varied. Just about what I thought it would be: There is also plenty of talk about wasted talent, but each, for the most part, gave interviews in which they admitted they loved every minute Just about what I thought it would be: There is also plenty of talk about wasted talent, but each, for the most part, gave interviews in which they admitted they loved every minute of their wild years and wouldn't have changed a thing.

All but Burton had an opportunity for some late in life career renaissance Oliver Reed really didn't do a good movie from "Tommy" to "Gladiator," unless you count "Baron Munchausen," which Sellers apparently doesn't, as it isn't mentioned here. But Burton threw all his talent away to be with the most beautiful woman in the world, so who can blame him? Peter O'Toole is probably my least favorite of the four, although I loved "My Favorite Year" when I was a teenager I watched it again recently, and was sad to find it didn't hold up for me.

May 26, Susan rated it liked it. Tales of wretched excess: But they all made indelible marks during the 50's, 60's, and 70's when they were in their heyday. A lot of what went on with these guys Richard Burton, Oliver Reed, Richard Harris and lone survivor, Peter O'Toole off stage caused bruises on my chin from my jaw dropping so often and I felt a bit woozy from all the vicarious boozing --but after Tales of wretched excess: A lot of what went on with these guys Richard Burton, Oliver Reed, Richard Harris and lone survivor, Peter O'Toole off stage caused bruises on my chin from my jaw dropping so often and I felt a bit woozy from all the vicarious boozing --but after a while, the legacy of their excesses and their attempts to stay on various wagons was wrenching; doctors operating on Richard Burton, towards the end of his life, discovered that his spinal column was coated with crystalized alcohol; marriages were shattered; careers evaporated.

In the end, all of them are and will be remembered fondly for the brief shining moments of their acting lives--and that they had a hell of a time. The chapter titles give an idea what the reader is in for: Oct 19, Mike rated it really liked it Shelves: If there was a Mount Rushmore for drunks, these guys would be on it, probably along with Liz Taylor.

Anecdotes out the wazoo on the drinking lives of these guys, and a lot of it gets repetitive at times, especially with Oliver Reed's antics. I just thought I knew what a heavy drinker was, until I read this book. Somewhat sad and sobering but it also had numerous belly laughs throughout. Reading this was like seeing a bad train or car accident. You know you shouldn't but you just can't keep If there was a Mount Rushmore for drunks, these guys would be on it, probably along with Liz Taylor. You know you shouldn't but you just can't keep from looking and at the same time being glad you're not a victim.

In this case just being glad you're not a boozer. These guys left quite a trail of empty bottles and broken relationships. While I enjoyed the tidbits of Hollywood stars gossip on some of my favorite actors not just the main four on the cover but many others as well , for the most part this book was just "he got drunk, he did damage, he didn't learn his lesson, he drank again. I did like how it covered their movie careers in chronological order, but I would have loved more details about the making of those movies.