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Oliver Reed

Biography

Robert Oliver Reed was an English actor known for his "hellraiser" lifestyle. After making his first significant screen appearances in Hammer Horror films in the early 1960s, his notable films include The Trap (1966), playing Bill Sikes in the 1968 Best Picture Oscar winner Oliver! (a film directed by his uncle Carol Reed), Women in Love (1969), Hannibal Brooks (1969), The Devils (1971), portraying Athos in The Three Musketeers (1973) and The Four Musketeers (1974); the lover and stepfather in Tommy (1975), Funny Bones (1995) and Gladiator (2000).

For playing Antonius Proximo, the old, gruff gladiator trainer in Ridley Scott's Gladiator, in what was his final film, Reed was posthumously nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in 2000. At the peak of his career, in 1971, British exhibitors voted Reed fifth most popular star at the box office. The British Film Institute (BFI) stated that "partnerships with Michael Winner and Ken Russell in the mid-60s saw Reed become an emblematic Brit-flick icon", but from the mid-1970s his alcoholism began affecting his career, with the BFI adding "Reed had assumed Robert Newton's mantle as Britain's thirstiest thespian".

Known For

Gladiator
Gladiator
The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll
The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll
The Big Sleep
The Big Sleep
The Three Musketeers
The Three Musketeers
Revolver
Revolver
And Then There Were None
And Then There Were None
The Misfit Brigade
The Misfit Brigade
The Prince and the Pauper
The Prince and the Pauper
The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun
The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun
Tommy
Tommy

Filmography

2012 Director of Devils
as Self
2012 The Devils Original on-set footage
as
2005 Strength and Honor: Production Pods
as Self (Archival footage)
2005 Strength and Honor: Creating the World of 'Gladiator'
as Self
2002 Living Famously
as (archive footage)
2002 L'esattore (parodia de "Il gladiatore")
as
2000 Orpheus & Eurydice
as Narrator
2000 Hellraisers
as Self (archive footage)
2000 Gladiator
as Proximo
2000 The Real Oliver Reed
as Self (archive footage)
1999 Parting Shots
as Jamie Campbell-Stewart
1999 Monster by Moonlight! The Immortal Saga of 'The Wolf Man'
as Self (archive footage)
1998 Jeremiah
as General Safan
1998 The Incredible Adventures of Marco Polo
as Captain Cornelius Donovan
1996 The Bruce
as Bishop Wisharton
1996 Superbrain
as Professor Norbert Marcus
1995 Funny Bones
as Dolly Hopkins
1995 Luise knackt den Jackpot
as Matthias
1995 Russian Roulette - Moscow 95
as
1994 The World of Hammer: Lands Before Time
as Narrator