Oliver Reed In Love

When I was twelve years old I developed a strong crush on the great English actor, Oliver Reed. This infatuation stemmed from first seeing him as Bill Sikes in his uncle's film Oliver (a treacly musical based on Dickens's Oliver Twist.)

Here I'm presenting some images of him, shot around that time, from a much better film: Ken Russell's Women In Love. Some wags said it might have better been called "Men In Love" because of the fire-lit wrestling scene which takes place between Oliver and Alan Bates. I think of such people as hypocrites and homophobes, unlike the adamantly heterosexual Mr. Reed.





Here he is with Glenda Jackson in a later scene from the same film, their first fuck. Ollie has a decidedly bullish quality to him in this story (as he did in life) and it weighs heavily upon the young woman he couples with.