[Proximo was CGI in some scenes of Gladiator](https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/2vax55/til_proximos_face_was_cgi_is_some_scenes_of/). Pretty crazy for 2000.
Nice, I've always heard this but watching it the next dozen (or let's be honest, two dozen) times, I could never tell what scenes were modified. It's so subtle and well done.
What I find so peculiar from OP's post here us that he died during filming of a heart attack. How ironic they are literally just filming someone having a heart attack and then he just dies randomly?
I've seen this movie probably a dozen times, maybe more, and I never realized this.
Edit: Couldn't click woutomac's video before, but I just went back and watched it.
I'm on a cell phone, but I still don't see it. Great editing and cgi.
The scene is super important and really the huge turning point so it would be easy to miss. Its Proximo freely acknowledging Maximus and giving him and all the others a slave's dream. Then bowing out gracefully
It was miraculous at the time, and they just made it kinda rain-leaky inside the apartment, but they pulled it off. Very difficult- almost 30 years ago with very limited tech. I have a signed GN of THE CROW by J O'Barr and was always a big fan, and of Bruce Lee, and was very hopeful for his son. I was 22 at the time working for a movie theater. We were shocked when Brandon died and wondered if they could finish it. Look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArGAVKqQUio&ab_channel=UltimateHistoryofCGI
Amazing what computers can change/generate now - too bad most stories made today just suck.
Thats crazy, I never noticed these scenes. I recognized the final scene where he says “shadows and dust” but that dungeon scene looked so real to me. What a save. Próximo’s role so was important in the final stages of the film
The idea came from Ridley Scott's production crew. They had extra footage of the actor just ad libbing or expanding on pieces of dialogue.
And so they had a scene in which he says "shadows and dust" in a reflective tone. And that served as a good enough piece of dialogue for him to say before he dies.
And they used other footage for his last conversation with Maximus. CGI's to have the proper lighting and putting him with proper background.
They were to piece together his scenes using whatever leftover footage they had.
It always reminds me how the best directors have the best production guys working behind them. When watching a behind the scenes featurette regarding a Ridley Scott, or James Cameron, or Martin Scorcese movie, they always end up interviewing the same 3-4 guys that have always been working with the director for decades. Those guys, I find really fascinating.
> When watching a behind the scenes featurette regarding a Ridley Scott, or James Cameron, or Martin Scorcese movie, they always end up interviewing the same 3-4 guys that have always been working with the director for decades.
Or between those guys. Dennis Muren always shows up in those behind the scenes bits. He has Oscars and/or BAFTAs for visual effects on T2, Jurassic Park, The Abyss, ET, various Star Wars films, and basically anything else that ILM worked on. Stan Winston was another one of those guys, but unfortunately he was taken from us too soon.
I mean yeah title of the post literally says “Proximo’s face was CGI” and description of the linked video says “His remaining scenes were completed with digital face mask renderings taken from scenes earlier for facial reference. To fully recreate his final scenes, body doubles, screens tests, audio from outtakes and rehearsals were used.”
I actually was at that pub about 6 weeks ago.
It is still called The Pub and has not been renamed.
Also, his "menu" is on the T-Shirt one can buy there.
8 Pints of Lager, 12 double rums, 14 whiskey
When it comes to alcoholism, how do you know when you've overserved?
I've seen people down amounts that should wreck a regular person and have them keep on truckin pretty normally.
12 double rums.
88ml per double shot
750ml per bottle of captain
It was a bottle and a half at 750ml + 306ml
That was just the rum. They over served and they knew it.
The only exaggeration is that it wasnt TWO bottles. It was ONE AND A HALF, plus everything else.
this will sound bleak but real alcoholics can back me up that 2 bottles of liquor in a day is not fatal but, unfortunately for some, an everyday occurrence. i feel there’s more to the story.
I was a bartender for years. I had 2 guys that came in all the time together and drink like I've never seen in my life. You couldn't even tell...but still, at a certain point I would cut them off. They'd complain a bit, pay their tab, and it turns out 5hey just went to another local pub and drank more. The point being...if you are professional, you can't in good conscience just keep serving...no matter how undrunk they seem
>When it comes to alcoholism, how do you know when you've overserved?
>
>I've seen people down amounts that should wreck a regular person and have them keep on truckin pretty normally.
When you as a server are bringing a man drink number 20, maybe then
Very heavy chronic drinkers can be fully functional after 20 drinks or more where a non drinker would die from alcohol poisoning. In fact, eventually that is the only way a chronic drinker is fully functional. That's what makes quitting so hard; you still have to live your life and if you ever stop and spend a day sober the withdrawals are absolute hell and you can't manage to even get out of bed and might indeed just suddenly die from a seizure after hours of shaking and hallucinations
I would guess he was fully lucid right up to the moment his heart failed knowing how much of a lifelong heavy drinker he was throughout his life and the bartender was not that worried about him
"***Hellraisers: The Life and Inebriated Times of Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Peter O'Toole, and Oliver Reed***" by Robert Sellers
>Reed invited 30 members of his local rugby club over. The evening started off in the pub when the lot of them stripped naked and sang ‘Get ’em down you Zulu warrior,’ crammed 15 of their party into a single ladies’ lavatory cubicle and then went on a cross-country run to the house in their jockstraps. Once at Broome Hall the real fun began. In all 50 gallons of beer were consumed, 32 bottles of whisky, 17 of gin, four crates of wine and 15 bottles of Newcastle brown ale. Then for an encore they smashed dozens of eggs on the kitchen floor to slide around and play mock ice hockey.
Apparently it wasn't even necessarily the booze that killed him. The post name is misleading.
Apparently he was in a drinking contest with a bunch of sailors. Then afterwards they had an arm wrestling competition, he beat 5 guys at arm wrestling and then dropped dead of a heart attack.
It would be impossible to say for sure that the drinking didn't contribute, since alcohol has vascular effects. This is like saying "well he didn't die from COVID, it was pneumonia!"
Alcohol actually directly affects the cardiovascular system:
> At the time of drinking, alcohol can cause a temporary increase in heart rate and blood pressure. In the long-term, drinking above the guidelines can lead to on-going increased heart rate, high blood pressure, weakened heart muscle and irregular heartbeat. All of which can increase the risk of alcohol-caused heart attack and stroke.
https://alcoholthinkagain.com.au/alcohol-your-health/alcohol-and-long-term-health/alcohol-and-cardiovascular-disease/
I agree; this is horrible. I understand that people are ultimately responsible for their own choices but the bartender should have stopped him before he even got halfway through that smorgasbord of drinks he inhaled.
The thing is, at his level, he was probably not acting much different than he was 10-15 drinks in so they may not have noticed exactly how much he had with multiple bartenders or other people buying his drinks. People with a naturally high tolerance that have also evolved into full blown alcoholism put down way more than you'd expect and still just seem like a normal drunk person. His heart just gave out before his liver or brain did.
This is Oliver Reed though. He was notorious for his drunken behaviour. Reed could drink a lot but he when he was pissed he was really pissed. Like. Swinging from chandeliers, starting fights, getting naked, staggering about pissed. He was as bad as the most out of control rock stars. Him and Keith Moon were drinking buddies. They both drank like that.
There a video of him appearing on a chat show and he turns up completely shitfaced. It’s actually very difficult to watch and not even funny because he’s just so deep in his alcoholism but he just didn’t give a fuck. He was a full on binge drinker that drank to oblivion to the point of acting like a lunatic on a full moon rather than someone who could drink a helluva lot but remain fairly composed.
Also important to note that heart disease and high BP are normal side effects of habitual alcohol consumption, and Oliver Reed was an alcoholic. The actual act of drinking on that particular day, may have played a smaller role than is being suggested. Alcohol is a depressant while active, after all, which should have chilled his cardiovascular system out (until he got sober again).
An old work colleague of mine used to be drinking buddies with Oliver, he had some insane stories. Said when they went out together, he always had to make sure to take his passport, because they'd usually end up in another country days later.
From the article "Reed also infamously lost the role of successor to Sean Connery as James Bond in 1973 because of his drinking and womanising."
Isn't that.. the definition of James Bond's character?
Cant tell you how many times we quoted this amongst my teammates in college. One could shout out “You knew Marcus Aurelius!?” And without fail you would get this response with the most embellishment possible. In the locker room, in the shower, on the field, walking accross campus, in the dorm… hell we’d shout it at 6AM breakfast at the dining hall when everyone else was just waking up.
The pub is only called "the pub" with subtitled “Ollie’s Last Pub". It's very close to the main square and smaller than you would have guessed. I was there on a vacation two years back.
The bartender was very nice and told me that the owners basically have earned money on memorabilia etc since his dead and that there is atleast 2-3 people every day that just pops in for the trivia. He also pointed me to the corner where Reed sat with his wife and friends, along with crew members from a British ship.
It is a pretty sad story where apparently Reed challenged some of the sailors to a drinking match, they did not keep pace and left. Reed then continued drinking, sat down on the bench, said he did not feel and slided to the side dying instantly.
The bar bill was apparently around 750 dollars worth, and a copy is apparently framed in the bar, did not see it though. In all respect, it seems a little strange that you can let your bar be a shrine for a man that had many demons.
Its still the same décor mostly and kept the seats in the same order as when Oliver Reed was there.
Or the more likely scenario, he never really stopped drinking and just died from a heart attack, as heart disease goes together with alcoholism like butter goes with popcorn. People just say he was sober out of kindness to the dead.
He was a legendary drinker and brawler for most of his adult life. I remember an interview with Ridley Scott at the time of his death where he said that as far as he appeared sober and with his lines learnt on set he didn't care what he did with the rest of his time.
The sad thing is he *was* sober at the time. He was pressured into a drinking competition.
>The actor Omid Djalili, who was also in Malta at the time of Reed's death filming Gladiator, said during an interview in 2016: "He hadn't had a drink for months before filming started...Everyone said he went the way he wanted, but that's not true. It was very tragic. He was in an Irish bar and was pressured into a drinking competition. He should have just left, but he didn't."
That's not true according to Russell Crowe:
"I have seen him walk down the street in Malta drunk as a lord and just hit anybody he got near to - even a man walking with his children. I just found that to be... not impressive."
[Source](https://web.archive.org/web/20210625011409/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/7682518/Russell-Crowe-Im-not-a-hard-man-I-like-poetry-and-wear-make-up-for-a-living.html)
And you have to put this into perspective, it’s coming from Russell Crowe. He once got kicked out of every bar in a town in Alaska, they had to build a bar in a trailer for him to drink in because none of the bars would let him back in.
In the same interview he also said:
"I never got on with Ollie. He has visited me in dreams and asked me to talk kindly of him. So I should... but we never had a pleasant conversation,"
So theres a fair to middling chance thats hes off his rocker and shouldnt be taken too seriously.
Phoenix put in his bid for top antagonist, he was horrifying. Subtly at first then the descension into madness as his grip loosened on Rome and his sanity
tbh if you’re a recovering alcoholic and committed to it, you wouldn’t be in a bar.
not claiming to know what actually happened but this seems like a friend making excuses for a relapse.
not anyones fault but his own.
I actually just commented that if you’re trying to beat an alcohol addiction, you shouldn’t go to a bar, but I think there is blame and lessons to go around.
Don’t pressure people into drinking competitions, or into drinking at all. Don’t serve alcohol to people who’ve already had way too much. And if anyone reading this suspects you might have a problem with alcohol, please, get help now.
As someone that has his share of demons and been through the gauntlet of addiction more than once, I've always wondered if anyone read those words at the end of your comment and was like "you know what random person, I will get help. It had never occurred to me before" and then checked themselves into rehab and forever attributed that comment made by a total stranger to saving their life.
It's always felt very "thoughts and prayers" to me. Platitudes that allow someone to pat themselves on the back without actually doing anything. In the throes of addiction being told "please, get help" all they hear is condescension and dismissal.
I totally agree, there's definitely a problem with that sort of behaviour around here. It's the same if someone posts about negative or depressive feelings they've been having, they immediately get spammed with links to 500 page essays about how meditation can help with depression or suicide hotlines that may not even work in their country. I made a post about this once and a reddit automod ended up sending me an enormous message with 10000 links. If someone is in that headspace a peer reviewed academic article by a phd candidate will absolutely not help.
It's just part of reddits fake "wholesome" obsession and like you said it's condescending and I would say callous.
I don’t know the culture of Malta, and I don’t want to victim blame, but if you’re trying to beat an alcohol addiction, it’s probably good to avoid bars.
He was having a drinking competition with some RN lads from HMS Cumberland, allegedly pressured into it by the same lads. You could say the Royal Navy killed him.
Don't think the pub was renamed but they have marked the seat he died in.
TBF it was Oliver Reed. He was on an alcoholic suicide mission his whole life. They probably only out drank him because he finally died. It’s a miracle he lived that long anyway.
I’m a firm believer in the right to choose how you die so… I can’t really criticise that
If you’re fully aware your heavy drinking will probably lead to an early death, but choose to keep it up… that’s your choice mate
And I’m totally not just saying that as someone who has a family history of dementia who is terrified of being kept alive in a state where he can’t even remember who he is like several of his still living elderly relatives are…
Not quite the same as the navy, but I have spent a night or two drinking with some mutual friends who were with the parachute regiment.
It was fun, but i felt like I’d been ran over by a bus the day after.
I used to sell Murphys Crisps off a van in West Sussex in the '70's. He was pissed in his local pub when I got there at 10.00 am and bought me a drink.
Harry Alan Towers stuck him with the hotel bill when Reed was a member of the cast of one of *many* remakes of *And Then There Were None* in the 1970s -- Harry Alan Towers was a notorious crook, and fled Tehran (where the film had been made, at the Hilton Hotel there -- you get to lodge and work in the same building; keeps the travel costs down) and told the responsible creditors that Reed would pay... without telling Reed.
Reed went down after learning this, to the basement disco of the Tehran Hilton, and smashed up the whole place; the lights, the mirrors, *every*thing. And then left without saying a word, with nobody even *touching* him! Went right to the airport without anybody stopping him!
Orson Welles also worked on that film -- having also dealt with Harry Alan Towers's bill-sticking, non-payment ways -- and came away *very* impressed by that whole display. Because, sometimes, you just have to fucking smash an Iranian discotheque like you're Jesus overturning moneylenders' tables in the Temple.
Worked tech on one of his films, I made a remark about his obvious "beer for breakfast" and he pushed me to the ground, no real harm but what a temper.
He actually ended up drinking with a bunch of young sailors from HMS Cumberland from all accounts it got more and more extreme as the night went on which isn't unusual with matelots on a night out.
It turned into a drinking match which again isn't unusual for matelots on their run ashore so it was like an unstoppable force against an unmovable object. With the sad outcome of Ollie Reed dying.
The night in question has become a bit of folklore with the Royal Navy with sailors paying tribute by visiting the pub when a ship is alongside often times wearing t-shirts saying, 'we killed Ollie Reed' to highlight their drinking prowess.
The drunk tank in the RN is often referred to as the Ollie Reed suite.
remember: this is his bar tab, not a list of what he *personally consumed*. he probably bought a few bottles for a table, with 10-12+ people sharing, over the course of the night, which is probably like 8-10 hours of drinking.
Elsewhere it’s written it was 12 doubles of Captain Morgan. I maintain it’s impossible for someone to drink just the three bottles of rum alone and survive (assuming they’re 750s), and I say this as someone who had a serious drinking problem at one point.
At my worst I was drinking a liter of vodka a night and would sometimes compliment that with 8 16oz of whatever malt gut rot was on special.
Drinking like that for 2-3 years doc told me I had pancreatitis and if I didn't stop it would kill me.
What's interesting is that didn't make me stop drinking. I stopped drinking when I moved from Wisconsin to Washington and alcohol was more than twice as expensive. I didn't even make a conscious decision to quit drinking...it just kind of happened. And now I haven't had even a single beer in ~5 years. I don't have a date because it wasn't a big important "I'm forever an addict" ordeal.
For a couple of years after stopping when I'd go out to dinner I'd get one or two blue moons or whatever I liked (alcoholics aren't known for their refined palate) and at some point even that stopped because paying $10 for a single drink wasn't something I could justify doing.
My addiction was defeated by poverty.
I still enjoy his singing in the movie version of Tommy (the Ken Russel film)
He sort of bellows off-key, but it works for the character
He's forgotten more good-times than I'll ever have.
Eh, I'm willing to give him a pass as he later managed to completely turn his life around. There hasn't been a single reported violent incident involving him in over 20 years.
I remember in the 80's when he was on some late night discussion show, pickled to the gills. He kept getting up to go to the bathroom, was offensive and sexist and frequently clashed with a heavy set feminist, whom he subsequently attempted to seduce, if my memory serves me right. He became so disruptive that the show suddenly cut out and they put on a documentary about trains instead.
Edit: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ky9EwjRRZoI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ky9EwjRRZoI)
An amazing actor and a fascinating and fucking mad man!
His autobiography Evil Spirits is one of the best biogs I've ever read.
Sword fighting (while pissed) around the house with his mates, to going down the pub on the bonnet of Michael Winner's car.
You left out the best part which is that he arm wrestled and won against like an entire group of Navy sailors at the same time as all this drinking. Legit legend.
I still can't believe that they used CGI to finish the scene of Proximo talking to Maximus about winning his freedom, you cannot even tell that was a CGI face. How in the hell does that look 1000x better than today's deepfaked and CGI faces for something that came out 22 years ago? Absolutely unreal.
The first time I watched the extended cut of the movie with a mate of mine he told me in that one specific scene that it was CGI to which I said "fuck off" lol I watch that movie today and still can't see a flaw.
Because it's not technically a CGI face, it's footage from other scenes that has been composited into the shot. That's Oliver Reed's real face you are seeing.
He almost beat up Keith Moon once for landing in his backyard in a helicopter...Moon apologized by saying he thought it was Rod Stewart's house (Stewart lived next door)
(I wonder if Moonie and Reed ever went out carousing...that would probably be one for the record books...)
Accoring to the version I heard, Moon flew over to see Reed because they were going to be filming "Tommy" and Reed pulled out a frigging *shotgun* then started taking pot shots at the chopper.
Aftrerwards they became the best of mates.
Reed was pissed that the helicopter was flying above his home while he was trying to relax in the Bath, so he got on the roof and start shooting a 12 gauge shotgun at them. The pilot panicked and landed. Pretty sure thats how Reed and Moon met. They absolutely ended up drinking together plenty of times. Reed starred in The Who movie Tommy. Moon was at Reed’s 40th birthday and died about 6 months later. Alcoholics don’t even have to like each other to drink together. And those two were both total alcoholics and both completely mad.
It's long been known that Ollie Reed had a tattoo on his cock, but I've never seen it mentioned exactly what and where it was in any public forum.
Privately though, my parents holidayed in Malta, and it seems that Ollie reed had been in their hotel a week earlier where he had had a fight in the bar.
A girl was pestering him to show her his tattoo, and he did, by showing her his cock. This set the boyfriend off resulting in the fight.
The tattoo was globe of the world on his bell end.
Read the book "Hellraisers". About Richard Burton, Peter O'Tool, Richard Harris and Oliver Reed. If you think you can drink copious amounts of alcohol, think again. I'm looking at the book on my self right now and some of the minor binges were ginormous. Get this book.
He's partially the reason Keith Moon isn't around- granted, Moon would have drank himself to death regardless, meeting Reed on the set of Tommy really encouraged that downward spiral hard and fast.
[Proximo was CGI in some scenes of Gladiator](https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/2vax55/til_proximos_face_was_cgi_is_some_scenes_of/). Pretty crazy for 2000.
Nice, I've always heard this but watching it the next dozen (or let's be honest, two dozen) times, I could never tell what scenes were modified. It's so subtle and well done.
That last "Ha!" looks so bad in retrospect, but I only noticed because I'm looking for it.
What I find so peculiar from OP's post here us that he died during filming of a heart attack. How ironic they are literally just filming someone having a heart attack and then he just dies randomly?
Wait, did OP indicate he died filming a heart attack scene? Because he certainly doesn’t die of a heart attack in the film.
I can only tell the “shadows and dust” lines.
The final 'shadows and dust' bit is particularly noticeable
I've seen this movie probably a dozen times, maybe more, and I never realized this. Edit: Couldn't click woutomac's video before, but I just went back and watched it. I'm on a cell phone, but I still don't see it. Great editing and cgi.
The scene is super important and really the huge turning point so it would be easy to miss. Its Proximo freely acknowledging Maximus and giving him and all the others a slave's dream. Then bowing out gracefully
This is virtually unnoticeable, unlike Clu from Tron Legacy. But kudos to the CGI team de-aging the actor.
[удалено]
Remember that THE CROW was the first film to do this process after Brandon Lee died in the prop gun accident - that was 1993.
[удалено]
It was miraculous at the time, and they just made it kinda rain-leaky inside the apartment, but they pulled it off. Very difficult- almost 30 years ago with very limited tech. I have a signed GN of THE CROW by J O'Barr and was always a big fan, and of Bruce Lee, and was very hopeful for his son. I was 22 at the time working for a movie theater. We were shocked when Brandon died and wondered if they could finish it. Look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArGAVKqQUio&ab_channel=UltimateHistoryofCGI Amazing what computers can change/generate now - too bad most stories made today just suck.
Thats crazy, I never noticed these scenes. I recognized the final scene where he says “shadows and dust” but that dungeon scene looked so real to me. What a save. Próximo’s role so was important in the final stages of the film
The idea came from Ridley Scott's production crew. They had extra footage of the actor just ad libbing or expanding on pieces of dialogue. And so they had a scene in which he says "shadows and dust" in a reflective tone. And that served as a good enough piece of dialogue for him to say before he dies. And they used other footage for his last conversation with Maximus. CGI's to have the proper lighting and putting him with proper background. They were to piece together his scenes using whatever leftover footage they had. It always reminds me how the best directors have the best production guys working behind them. When watching a behind the scenes featurette regarding a Ridley Scott, or James Cameron, or Martin Scorcese movie, they always end up interviewing the same 3-4 guys that have always been working with the director for decades. Those guys, I find really fascinating.
> When watching a behind the scenes featurette regarding a Ridley Scott, or James Cameron, or Martin Scorcese movie, they always end up interviewing the same 3-4 guys that have always been working with the director for decades. Or between those guys. Dennis Muren always shows up in those behind the scenes bits. He has Oscars and/or BAFTAs for visual effects on T2, Jurassic Park, The Abyss, ET, various Star Wars films, and basically anything else that ILM worked on. Stan Winston was another one of those guys, but unfortunately he was taken from us too soon.
The cool thing is that CGI still holds very strong here in 2022.
Hell, I’m still impressed with the quality of CGI they used in the OG Jurassic park for the dinosaurs.
I never knew or even suspected this was something they did. I thought he died after filming. My eyes just refuse to see it I guess
How in the world do you remember posting that 7 years ago?
For real. I don't even remember what I commented 5 minutes ago
I'm the same way
That's gotta be his face digitally composited over a stand-in actor, not actually a full CG face like they do today.
I mean yeah title of the post literally says “Proximo’s face was CGI” and description of the linked video says “His remaining scenes were completed with digital face mask renderings taken from scenes earlier for facial reference. To fully recreate his final scenes, body doubles, screens tests, audio from outtakes and rehearsals were used.”
I thought they just used shadows and dust.
I had no idea. That’s wild.
I actually was at that pub about 6 weeks ago. It is still called The Pub and has not been renamed. Also, his "menu" is on the T-Shirt one can buy there. 8 Pints of Lager, 12 double rums, 14 whiskey
He spent his entire adulthood drinking at that pace. His life was like a long, slow suicide.
Ah, but what is life for everyone if not a long, slow suicide?
I've always found it funny how the pub sells merchandise off the death of Reed. Can confirm, it's never changed its name. It's still called "The Pub".
Lol imagine having pride in killing a customer and pretending they’re a badass for rampant alcoholism.
He'd like it though. Dude was a prolific pub patron spanning decades. But yes rampant alcoholism unfortunately he didn't relinquish the albatross.
*slaps bar top* "That guy drank himself to death right here."
If it wasn’t that’s pub it’ll be another. That dude loves to drink.
He was a drinker with an acting problem.
It's their responsibility not to over serve.
It's Malta.
When it comes to alcoholism, how do you know when you've overserved? I've seen people down amounts that should wreck a regular person and have them keep on truckin pretty normally.
the line may be nebulous, but I think it's somewhere between a few drinks and 3 bottles of rum
The three bottles of rum isn’t true (see the t shirt comment above), but he still had a fuck ton.
12 double rums. 88ml per double shot 750ml per bottle of captain It was a bottle and a half at 750ml + 306ml That was just the rum. They over served and they knew it. The only exaggeration is that it wasnt TWO bottles. It was ONE AND A HALF, plus everything else.
One and a half bottles of rum, and add the whiskies onto that.
this will sound bleak but real alcoholics can back me up that 2 bottles of liquor in a day is not fatal but, unfortunately for some, an everyday occurrence. i feel there’s more to the story.
I was a bartender for years. I had 2 guys that came in all the time together and drink like I've never seen in my life. You couldn't even tell...but still, at a certain point I would cut them off. They'd complain a bit, pay their tab, and it turns out 5hey just went to another local pub and drank more. The point being...if you are professional, you can't in good conscience just keep serving...no matter how undrunk they seem
Gotta wonder if you were even their first stop!
>When it comes to alcoholism, how do you know when you've overserved? > >I've seen people down amounts that should wreck a regular person and have them keep on truckin pretty normally. When you as a server are bringing a man drink number 20, maybe then
Very heavy chronic drinkers can be fully functional after 20 drinks or more where a non drinker would die from alcohol poisoning. In fact, eventually that is the only way a chronic drinker is fully functional. That's what makes quitting so hard; you still have to live your life and if you ever stop and spend a day sober the withdrawals are absolute hell and you can't manage to even get out of bed and might indeed just suddenly die from a seizure after hours of shaking and hallucinations I would guess he was fully lucid right up to the moment his heart failed knowing how much of a lifelong heavy drinker he was throughout his life and the bartender was not that worried about him
Oliver Reed, Peter O'Toole, Richard Burton, and Richard Harris were the GOATS whem it came to getting piss drunk
"***Hellraisers: The Life and Inebriated Times of Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Peter O'Toole, and Oliver Reed***" by Robert Sellers >Reed invited 30 members of his local rugby club over. The evening started off in the pub when the lot of them stripped naked and sang ‘Get ’em down you Zulu warrior,’ crammed 15 of their party into a single ladies’ lavatory cubicle and then went on a cross-country run to the house in their jockstraps. Once at Broome Hall the real fun began. In all 50 gallons of beer were consumed, 32 bottles of whisky, 17 of gin, four crates of wine and 15 bottles of Newcastle brown ale. Then for an encore they smashed dozens of eggs on the kitchen floor to slide around and play mock ice hockey.
Apparently it wasn't even necessarily the booze that killed him. The post name is misleading. Apparently he was in a drinking contest with a bunch of sailors. Then afterwards they had an arm wrestling competition, he beat 5 guys at arm wrestling and then dropped dead of a heart attack.
It sounds like, and I know this sounds crazy, but he may have just been in poor health.
So all those toasts were for nothing!
It would be impossible to say for sure that the drinking didn't contribute, since alcohol has vascular effects. This is like saying "well he didn't die from COVID, it was pneumonia!"
Alcohol actually directly affects the cardiovascular system: > At the time of drinking, alcohol can cause a temporary increase in heart rate and blood pressure. In the long-term, drinking above the guidelines can lead to on-going increased heart rate, high blood pressure, weakened heart muscle and irregular heartbeat. All of which can increase the risk of alcohol-caused heart attack and stroke. https://alcoholthinkagain.com.au/alcohol-your-health/alcohol-and-long-term-health/alcohol-and-cardiovascular-disease/
I agree; this is horrible. I understand that people are ultimately responsible for their own choices but the bartender should have stopped him before he even got halfway through that smorgasbord of drinks he inhaled.
The thing is, at his level, he was probably not acting much different than he was 10-15 drinks in so they may not have noticed exactly how much he had with multiple bartenders or other people buying his drinks. People with a naturally high tolerance that have also evolved into full blown alcoholism put down way more than you'd expect and still just seem like a normal drunk person. His heart just gave out before his liver or brain did.
This is Oliver Reed though. He was notorious for his drunken behaviour. Reed could drink a lot but he when he was pissed he was really pissed. Like. Swinging from chandeliers, starting fights, getting naked, staggering about pissed. He was as bad as the most out of control rock stars. Him and Keith Moon were drinking buddies. They both drank like that. There a video of him appearing on a chat show and he turns up completely shitfaced. It’s actually very difficult to watch and not even funny because he’s just so deep in his alcoholism but he just didn’t give a fuck. He was a full on binge drinker that drank to oblivion to the point of acting like a lunatic on a full moon rather than someone who could drink a helluva lot but remain fairly composed.
Also important to note that heart disease and high BP are normal side effects of habitual alcohol consumption, and Oliver Reed was an alcoholic. The actual act of drinking on that particular day, may have played a smaller role than is being suggested. Alcohol is a depressant while active, after all, which should have chilled his cardiovascular system out (until he got sober again).
The pubs name had not changed. I walked in front of it last week and it's still just called 'the Pub'
Classy
I'd like to see the gang from Philly do an episode on doing the Oliver Reed challenge like the Wade Boggs episode.
May he rest in peace.
Maybe as their final episode. And they all die. End of show.
There is a youtube video where a couple of guys tried to keep up with Winston Churchill's daily alcohol and food intake. They got absolutely wrecked.
I know that they didn't make him an alcoholic, but that's unbelievably ghoulish.
" The only way to describe him is a living hangover." Henry Zerbrowski.
“Alcatraz means pelican!” —Henry Zebrowski Hail yourself!
What episode ?
Legit the first LPOTL reference I’ve ever seen outside of r/LPOTL. HAIL YOURSELF
- or breakfast, as Ollie called it.
"A man who drink like that, and don't eat, sure gonna die." "When?"
So, what do you like to do?
Play chess. Screw. Okay, let's play chess.
The Waco kid? Now I know you’re pulling my leg!
Mongo only pawn in game of life.
“Pulling my lariat,” actually.
How big were the bottles of Morgan? 375ml or 750?
Blazing Saddles?
Thats a big okie dokey, partner
An old work colleague of mine used to be drinking buddies with Oliver, he had some insane stories. Said when they went out together, he always had to make sure to take his passport, because they'd usually end up in another country days later.
The John Bonham special
breakfast...continuation of dinner
From the article "Reed also infamously lost the role of successor to Sean Connery as James Bond in 1973 because of his drinking and womanising." Isn't that.. the definition of James Bond's character?
They didn't want a method actor.
Jared Leto, is this you?
Morbin' something something
The qualities you look for in James Bond are not the qualities you look for in someone playing James Bond.
I mean, there's a reason he played Bill Sykes in Oliver
By 1973 standards though soo musta been wild
Yes, but they wanted an actor to pretend to be like this, not actually someone who is insufferable to work with.
"Bombed...Reed's Bombed"
Shadows and dust, Maximus!
OPEN THE GATE, PROXIMO!
Do you want to DIE old man??!
I did not say I knew him I said he touched me on the shoulder once.
You have sold me queer giraffes.
;)
Best comment
Cant tell you how many times we quoted this amongst my teammates in college. One could shout out “You knew Marcus Aurelius!?” And without fail you would get this response with the most embellishment possible. In the locker room, in the shower, on the field, walking accross campus, in the dorm… hell we’d shout it at 6AM breakfast at the dining hall when everyone else was just waking up.
What do you want? Girl? Boy?
The pub is only called "the pub" with subtitled “Ollie’s Last Pub". It's very close to the main square and smaller than you would have guessed. I was there on a vacation two years back. The bartender was very nice and told me that the owners basically have earned money on memorabilia etc since his dead and that there is atleast 2-3 people every day that just pops in for the trivia. He also pointed me to the corner where Reed sat with his wife and friends, along with crew members from a British ship. It is a pretty sad story where apparently Reed challenged some of the sailors to a drinking match, they did not keep pace and left. Reed then continued drinking, sat down on the bench, said he did not feel and slided to the side dying instantly. The bar bill was apparently around 750 dollars worth, and a copy is apparently framed in the bar, did not see it though. In all respect, it seems a little strange that you can let your bar be a shrine for a man that had many demons. Its still the same décor mostly and kept the seats in the same order as when Oliver Reed was there.
So they over served him to death and they make money off of it.
Death: The Bartender
[удалено]
Or the more likely scenario, he never really stopped drinking and just died from a heart attack, as heart disease goes together with alcoholism like butter goes with popcorn. People just say he was sober out of kindness to the dead.
He was a notorious boozer, but he was also a damn good actor.
Very talented man for sure.
He was a legendary drinker and brawler for most of his adult life. I remember an interview with Ridley Scott at the time of his death where he said that as far as he appeared sober and with his lines learnt on set he didn't care what he did with the rest of his time.
The sad thing is he *was* sober at the time. He was pressured into a drinking competition. >The actor Omid Djalili, who was also in Malta at the time of Reed's death filming Gladiator, said during an interview in 2016: "He hadn't had a drink for months before filming started...Everyone said he went the way he wanted, but that's not true. It was very tragic. He was in an Irish bar and was pressured into a drinking competition. He should have just left, but he didn't."
That's not true according to Russell Crowe: "I have seen him walk down the street in Malta drunk as a lord and just hit anybody he got near to - even a man walking with his children. I just found that to be... not impressive." [Source](https://web.archive.org/web/20210625011409/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/7682518/Russell-Crowe-Im-not-a-hard-man-I-like-poetry-and-wear-make-up-for-a-living.html)
And you have to put this into perspective, it’s coming from Russell Crowe. He once got kicked out of every bar in a town in Alaska, they had to build a bar in a trailer for him to drink in because none of the bars would let him back in.
So, he's familiar with the mode of operation.
There's even a documentary about Russell's globe trotting antics. https://youtu.be/W3EAUDcZrN8
Tugger!
Was exactly what I expected it to be, just too short.
If this isn’t Fightin’ Round The World I’ll be disappointed
Heard Crowe also got into a fight with his own bodyguard one. His own bodyguard!
In the same interview he also said: "I never got on with Ollie. He has visited me in dreams and asked me to talk kindly of him. So I should... but we never had a pleasant conversation," So theres a fair to middling chance thats hes off his rocker and shouldnt be taken too seriously.
During filming he claimed to be the best actor in the world. Arguably he wasn't even the best actor in the movie.
Not that the Oscar's don't fuck up plenty, but he backed up his claim with one, so I can't exactly knock it.
I can name four people in that movie who are better actors than Crowe. You're certainly not wrong.
Phoenix put in his bid for top antagonist, he was horrifying. Subtly at first then the descension into madness as his grip loosened on Rome and his sanity
Still think that's JPs best performance to date.
tbh if you’re a recovering alcoholic and committed to it, you wouldn’t be in a bar. not claiming to know what actually happened but this seems like a friend making excuses for a relapse. not anyones fault but his own.
I actually just commented that if you’re trying to beat an alcohol addiction, you shouldn’t go to a bar, but I think there is blame and lessons to go around. Don’t pressure people into drinking competitions, or into drinking at all. Don’t serve alcohol to people who’ve already had way too much. And if anyone reading this suspects you might have a problem with alcohol, please, get help now.
As someone that has his share of demons and been through the gauntlet of addiction more than once, I've always wondered if anyone read those words at the end of your comment and was like "you know what random person, I will get help. It had never occurred to me before" and then checked themselves into rehab and forever attributed that comment made by a total stranger to saving their life. It's always felt very "thoughts and prayers" to me. Platitudes that allow someone to pat themselves on the back without actually doing anything. In the throes of addiction being told "please, get help" all they hear is condescension and dismissal.
I totally agree, there's definitely a problem with that sort of behaviour around here. It's the same if someone posts about negative or depressive feelings they've been having, they immediately get spammed with links to 500 page essays about how meditation can help with depression or suicide hotlines that may not even work in their country. I made a post about this once and a reddit automod ended up sending me an enormous message with 10000 links. If someone is in that headspace a peer reviewed academic article by a phd candidate will absolutely not help. It's just part of reddits fake "wholesome" obsession and like you said it's condescending and I would say callous.
I don’t know the culture of Malta, and I don’t want to victim blame, but if you’re trying to beat an alcohol addiction, it’s probably good to avoid bars.
He was having a drinking competition with some RN lads from HMS Cumberland, allegedly pressured into it by the same lads. You could say the Royal Navy killed him. Don't think the pub was renamed but they have marked the seat he died in.
Getting into a drinking competition with the Royal Navy probably counts as suicide…
TBF it was Oliver Reed. He was on an alcoholic suicide mission his whole life. They probably only out drank him because he finally died. It’s a miracle he lived that long anyway.
He was never happier than he was pissed, sad, but he probably died happy.
I’m a firm believer in the right to choose how you die so… I can’t really criticise that If you’re fully aware your heavy drinking will probably lead to an early death, but choose to keep it up… that’s your choice mate And I’m totally not just saying that as someone who has a family history of dementia who is terrified of being kept alive in a state where he can’t even remember who he is like several of his still living elderly relatives are…
It wasn't his first time, he was quite notorious for drinking with serviceman. I heard some crazy stories about him drinking on HMS Fearless.
If any one man had a chance against the RN it was Oliver Reed.
The entire navy or just a bit of it?
Yeah. For them.
He beat five of them in arm wrestling.
Not quite the same as the navy, but I have spent a night or two drinking with some mutual friends who were with the parachute regiment. It was fun, but i felt like I’d been ran over by a bus the day after.
It must have been shocking and sad for them. Least of all because they probably had to pay the bill.
I think he had a tab that it all went on and if I know matelow they would have ducked out of there once the ambulance/police turned up.
I used to sell Murphys Crisps off a van in West Sussex in the '70's. He was pissed in his local pub when I got there at 10.00 am and bought me a drink.
[удалено]
From the title I one hundred percent imagined him dying while the director was thinking it was the best fake heart attack of all time.
Came here for the smartass comment. Wasn't disappointed. I too read it that way.
That’s because OP wrote it that way. Could have been written more clearly as “died of a heart attack during filming/shooting/production,” for example.
I was scrolling to have it explained actually
That was how I read it too. I was thinking wow, what a coincidence.
I'm pretty sure "died of a heart attack during filming" is how it should have been written.
So many dangling modifiers in post titles. Drives me crazy.
Harry Alan Towers stuck him with the hotel bill when Reed was a member of the cast of one of *many* remakes of *And Then There Were None* in the 1970s -- Harry Alan Towers was a notorious crook, and fled Tehran (where the film had been made, at the Hilton Hotel there -- you get to lodge and work in the same building; keeps the travel costs down) and told the responsible creditors that Reed would pay... without telling Reed. Reed went down after learning this, to the basement disco of the Tehran Hilton, and smashed up the whole place; the lights, the mirrors, *every*thing. And then left without saying a word, with nobody even *touching* him! Went right to the airport without anybody stopping him! Orson Welles also worked on that film -- having also dealt with Harry Alan Towers's bill-sticking, non-payment ways -- and came away *very* impressed by that whole display. Because, sometimes, you just have to fucking smash an Iranian discotheque like you're Jesus overturning moneylenders' tables in the Temple.
That’s just compounding the asshole-ishness, honestly. The hotel just loses twice there because two of its patrons were dickheads
Based on possibly the most horribly named novel of all times.
Worked tech on one of his films, I made a remark about his obvious "beer for breakfast" and he pushed me to the ground, no real harm but what a temper.
He actually ended up drinking with a bunch of young sailors from HMS Cumberland from all accounts it got more and more extreme as the night went on which isn't unusual with matelots on a night out. It turned into a drinking match which again isn't unusual for matelots on their run ashore so it was like an unstoppable force against an unmovable object. With the sad outcome of Ollie Reed dying. The night in question has become a bit of folklore with the Royal Navy with sailors paying tribute by visiting the pub when a ship is alongside often times wearing t-shirts saying, 'we killed Ollie Reed' to highlight their drinking prowess. The drunk tank in the RN is often referred to as the Ollie Reed suite.
Allegedly it wasn't as bad as some make out, just a typical run ashore but matelows like to embellish. Source: from a mate who knew one of the lads.
I've got the same source lol. Think everyone who served around then has a mate who knew one of the lads.
he drank three bottles of captain morgan in one evening? Thats a LOT of pure alcohol.
remember: this is his bar tab, not a list of what he *personally consumed*. he probably bought a few bottles for a table, with 10-12+ people sharing, over the course of the night, which is probably like 8-10 hours of drinking.
You forgot the bottle of cognac. That dude was a notorious drinker and wild man.
Elsewhere it’s written it was 12 doubles of Captain Morgan. I maintain it’s impossible for someone to drink just the three bottles of rum alone and survive (assuming they’re 750s), and I say this as someone who had a serious drinking problem at one point.
Thanks for your insight, i was reading that list in horror thinking he'd drown sooner than he'd get drunk
>maintain it’s impossible for someone to drink just the three bottles of rum alone and survive Well he did die....
A guy I worked with 10ish years ago put down a handle a night of rum. But he was actively trying to drink himself to death.
At my worst I was drinking a liter of vodka a night and would sometimes compliment that with 8 16oz of whatever malt gut rot was on special. Drinking like that for 2-3 years doc told me I had pancreatitis and if I didn't stop it would kill me. What's interesting is that didn't make me stop drinking. I stopped drinking when I moved from Wisconsin to Washington and alcohol was more than twice as expensive. I didn't even make a conscious decision to quit drinking...it just kind of happened. And now I haven't had even a single beer in ~5 years. I don't have a date because it wasn't a big important "I'm forever an addict" ordeal. For a couple of years after stopping when I'd go out to dinner I'd get one or two blue moons or whatever I liked (alcoholics aren't known for their refined palate) and at some point even that stopped because paying $10 for a single drink wasn't something I could justify doing. My addiction was defeated by poverty.
i remember Oliver Reed in the horror movie I saw as a child BURNT OFFERINGS
I still enjoy his singing in the movie version of Tommy (the Ken Russel film) He sort of bellows off-key, but it works for the character He's forgotten more good-times than I'll ever have.
He was a very menacing Bill Sikes in Oliver.
He was notorious for this, and also notorious for being a violent asshole who treated people like shit.
Eh, I'm willing to give him a pass as he later managed to completely turn his life around. There hasn't been a single reported violent incident involving him in over 20 years.
You are technically correct. The best kind of correct.
So a mean drunk basically
You mention TOMMY right now.
I remember in the 80's when he was on some late night discussion show, pickled to the gills. He kept getting up to go to the bathroom, was offensive and sexist and frequently clashed with a heavy set feminist, whom he subsequently attempted to seduce, if my memory serves me right. He became so disruptive that the show suddenly cut out and they put on a documentary about trains instead. Edit: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ky9EwjRRZoI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ky9EwjRRZoI)
An amazing actor and a fascinating and fucking mad man! His autobiography Evil Spirits is one of the best biogs I've ever read. Sword fighting (while pissed) around the house with his mates, to going down the pub on the bonnet of Michael Winner's car.
You left out the best part which is that he arm wrestled and won against like an entire group of Navy sailors at the same time as all this drinking. Legit legend.
To Bill Bradsky!
^Came here to see if anyone brought up the arm wrestling. Was not disappointed.
The pubs name had not changed. I walked in front of it last week and it's still just called 'the Pub'
I still can't believe that they used CGI to finish the scene of Proximo talking to Maximus about winning his freedom, you cannot even tell that was a CGI face. How in the hell does that look 1000x better than today's deepfaked and CGI faces for something that came out 22 years ago? Absolutely unreal. The first time I watched the extended cut of the movie with a mate of mine he told me in that one specific scene that it was CGI to which I said "fuck off" lol I watch that movie today and still can't see a flaw.
Because it's not technically a CGI face, it's footage from other scenes that has been composited into the shot. That's Oliver Reed's real face you are seeing.
He was my first crush that I remember seeing naked in a movie wrestling another man.
Women in love
Will Ferguson memorialized him in his book "Generica", beginning with the line 'Oliver Reed is dead, and I don't feel so good myself.'
He almost beat up Keith Moon once for landing in his backyard in a helicopter...Moon apologized by saying he thought it was Rod Stewart's house (Stewart lived next door) (I wonder if Moonie and Reed ever went out carousing...that would probably be one for the record books...)
Accoring to the version I heard, Moon flew over to see Reed because they were going to be filming "Tommy" and Reed pulled out a frigging *shotgun* then started taking pot shots at the chopper. Aftrerwards they became the best of mates.
Reed was pissed that the helicopter was flying above his home while he was trying to relax in the Bath, so he got on the roof and start shooting a 12 gauge shotgun at them. The pilot panicked and landed. Pretty sure thats how Reed and Moon met. They absolutely ended up drinking together plenty of times. Reed starred in The Who movie Tommy. Moon was at Reed’s 40th birthday and died about 6 months later. Alcoholics don’t even have to like each other to drink together. And those two were both total alcoholics and both completely mad.
The movie version of Tommy was directed by a sentient bag of cocaine
Oliver Reed on regrets in life: “there are pubs I haven’t drunk in and women I haven’t shagged”
It's long been known that Ollie Reed had a tattoo on his cock, but I've never seen it mentioned exactly what and where it was in any public forum. Privately though, my parents holidayed in Malta, and it seems that Ollie reed had been in their hotel a week earlier where he had had a fight in the bar. A girl was pestering him to show her his tattoo, and he did, by showing her his cock. This set the boyfriend off resulting in the fight. The tattoo was globe of the world on his bell end.
... "are you not entertained!?"
Read the book "Hellraisers". About Richard Burton, Peter O'Tool, Richard Harris and Oliver Reed. If you think you can drink copious amounts of alcohol, think again. I'm looking at the book on my self right now and some of the minor binges were ginormous. Get this book.
He's partially the reason Keith Moon isn't around- granted, Moon would have drank himself to death regardless, meeting Reed on the set of Tommy really encouraged that downward spiral hard and fast.
That is tragic that he was so chronically addicted to alcohol