Originally Posted by antonina

Has anyone seen "Anne of a Thousand Days" ?
Best film ever made about Anne Boleyn, I think.

Originally Posted by Brisieis

I have this movie, I haven't watched it yet.

Originally Posted by antonina

Wow, I didn't expect DVDs were available- it's Richard Burton, you know, old as the hills. But really good. Watch it and give me your opinion, Brisieis

Originally Posted by beetle

I remember Oliver Reed. I do recall remembering some mentions of him in this regard. One of the most memorable flicks I recall in which he starred was when he played the werewolf. (I saw it as a child and I've never forgot it.)

Hey, I wonder (this is in good fun) why is it so many UK actors have a reputation for the drink, but not famous US actors like John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Gary Cooper, Vincent Price, Kirk Douglas, Jimmy Stewart, etc. None of them have that sort of reputation. But when we get to famous UK or Aussie actors, heck, I start getting thirsty!

BTW, I consider Derek Jacobi to be the best English-speaking actor of our modern era. The variety of roles, his enormous talent. US folks think De Niro is one of the premier US actors, but for years he's just been playing the same character role over and over. He's not fit to be Jacobi's waiter or barkeep in a tavern. (Jacobi doesn't have a reputation for drink, does he?) Edit: As a matter of fact in regard to US actors, the only movie John Wayne ever "acted" in was the early 1970s True Grit. It was reported after the filming of the famous US movie The Alamo, his co-star Richard Widmark couldn't stand Wayne because Wayne couldn't act. John Wayne spent his whole career playing John Wayne.

All in good fun.

p.s. My mention of Vincent Price brings to mind Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing (when Cushing died I actually snipped out his obit and saved it.) When I was a kid I watched all those Hammer movies. Vincent Price was a noted gourmet chef with no link to the drink. What about Lee and Cushing? Did they have any reputations for such a thing? (No one frightened me more than Lee as Dracula, though by far the best of that series of movies was the first one. The subsequent flicks declined to an enormous extent. In the first flick, just when all seemed lost and Cushing was cornered, he raced across the top of the long table and yanked down the drapes to expose Dracula to the dawn sun. What a dash.)

Originally Posted by Triceratops

This is an excerpt from "Alexander Nevsky",music by Prokofiev.

'Advance of the Teutonic Knights' from Alexander Nevsky - YouTube

Originally Posted by Ancientgeezer

An Ollie Reed and Richard Harris anecdote.
About twenty five years ago the two were making a film in South Africa on location not far from Sun City. Our company was running a conference at another resort nearby and about 22h00 these two, accompanied by a few other movie hangers on, including an unknown extra called Robbie Coltrane, descended on the bar. It transpired that they had been thrown out of Sun City permanently due to outrageous behaviour (including Reed jumping onto a roulette table in the salon prive and flashing at the croupiers). It also transpired that the local cops still had an open docket on Harris for wrecking a hotel in the company of Richard Burton and Roger Moore from some years before.
Harris had recently given up drinking, but that night fell off the waggon and the movie group challenged the room full of self-confident, young, rugby-playing sales reps to a drinking contest. Now, I am talking about a hick hotel bar where most of the booze was for display. No problem. Pints and pints of beer ( I will never forget Olllie Reed's "This is the most appalling piss. It is not surprising you blokes get angry and beat up the blacks whenever you have the chance. Haven't you anything that a gentleman might drink?") followed by every damn thing on display from 20 year old brandy to Mampoer (moonshine). By midnight the reps were stumbling, vomiting and going cross-eyed. The movie group were just getting started. The hotel manager tried to close the bar and Olllie Reed's screen menace is NOTHING to his act in real life ( he was actually a really big bugger, so was Harris). Anyway, the bar was drunk dry of anything worthwhile and the movie guys wanted to carry on. No problem, I volunteered, I knew a shebeen not far away ( a native drinking establishment). About twenty survivors convoyed a few k's to an absolute shithole where drain cleaner was consumed until the sun came up. However, Oliver Reed disappeared. He seemed to be interested in one of the local Tswana lasses and somehow, just vanished. He went missing for two days to emerge at a Johannesburg hotel telling the press how impressed he was with the local hospitality.
Richard Harris on the other hand was a master of self control and confided in me that "If he couldn't screw my wife that night, he would wait until tomorrow" ( it was actually my PA, I thought that claiming her as a wife might be some protection--not that she cared) and fell asleep.
Epilogue: I was invited to an end-of-shoot party, but the main players had already flown home.

Originally Posted by Ancientgeezer

A couple of bits of movie trivia for you. In the Hammer production of The Curse of Frankenstein starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee as the monster, Lee's stand-in/double was the very young Oliver Reed.
Christopher Lee is amazingly old. He was a volunteer in the Russo-Finnish War of 1939/1940!
Hollywood prefers movie stars to good actors. William Goldman recounted the story of Dustin Hoffman and Laurence Olivier filming "Marathon Man". To "get into" his role of a nervous, overwrought student, Hoffman took drugs and subjected himself to sleep deprivation; Olivier commented "Why doesn't the boy just learn to act?"
Why are so many British/Irish/Aussie actors big time boozers? I don't know if it is connected, but most of the leading men appear to be raving queens or at least bisexual or alternatively hard-drinking, punch-yer-lights-out hellraisers. Maybe the latter lifestyle keeps the former at bay.

Originally Posted by Corbulo

Ha ha !! I remember that werewolf film too !! I think that may have been Reed's first lead film role? With regards to the reputation UK and Commonwealth actors have for hell-raising and the booze!! Well I think that is very much to do with British drinking culture. This culture trancends the Class barriers. Burton was Welsh from a working class family, Harris was from middle class Irish family, O'Toole son of an Irish father and Scottish mother was brought up in Leeds in Yorkshire. Reed was related to the British aristocracy and was even said to be decended (through an illigitimate line) from Tsar Peter the Great of Russia.

One thing that connects all these great boozers is Rugby!! All of the afore-mentioned were Rugby players in their youth or great fans of the sport. In the UK & Ireland Rugby was and still is very much a man's sport were the social side revolves very much around drinking, drinking songs, and drinking games. I think rugby is the common denominator in the later hellraising reputations of these Thespians!! Mr Crowe you might be not suprised to hear is a very active fan of Rugby league!! Supporting the Sydney Rabbitohs back in Australia. ......................So the answer to the question you posed regarding Why British actors are more likely to be boozers and hell raisers than their American colleagues and cousins?.............is Rugby (In the case of these lovable rogues anyway.)!! You guys dont really play the game so I guess thats why its mostly Brits and their progeny ..lol Though Steve McQueen liked a good bucket!!

I also have to agree with you somewhat regarding Mr Jacobi he is a most brilliant actor. His peformances from Claudius, Alan Turen, and his Shakespearean roles are immense. Derek Jacobi does not have a rep for drink that I know of !! Jacobi and his friend and contemporary John Hurt for that matter are more actors in the tradition, of Guinness, Gielguld and Olivier.

Price is one of my all time favourite actors I think like Cushing and Lee he could turn his hand to anything and did. All three became great friends I believe in late 60's, Cushing meeting Price via Lee. Peter Cushing was said to be a very kind and sincere family man in his private life very much the English gentleman. Lee again was never classed as a hell-raiser, he was more used to being raised from hell in his films. He is known as being very intelligent man, with a sharp wit and good sense of humour, with both a keen sense and interest in history. He is related to several great European Aristocratic families and apparently he can trace his family tree back to the Romans, not many of us can do that. lol I have to agree with you on John Wayne he didnt have much of a range lol My favorite case of Wayne miscasting was as the Roman Centurion in the ol 50's epic "The Robe" ..........."Tru..ly this man is the suun of God!, Get off your cross and................CUT!! What were they thinking Ha ha