You may remember British actor Oliver Reed as his character Antonius Proximo,
the aged former Roman gladiator who took Russell Crowe's character, Maximus,
under his wing in the 2000 film "Gladiator." That would be Reed's final role after a lengthy
career in film that included turns in "Oliver!" and "The Trap." Reed died while Gladiator was
being filmed, forcing director Ridley Scott to finish his remaining scenes using CGI.
Reed's career in film, as described in his obituary in The Guardian,
was somewhat low-brow. Yet, for a man who got into the industry on a whim one night,
while drinking with friends who were working as film extras, he did pretty well for himself.
Reed was known for his love of frequenting pubs, once saying, as reported in the Difford's Guide,
"You meet a better class of people in pubs,"
He was regarded as somewhat of a hell-raiser in his personal life.
He would get so drunk he'd sometimes start flashing people. He even had a tattoo of a
rooster on a certain — ahem, appendage — that he would flash. Still, Reed found his way
into more than 90 films over the span of his 40-year career before he died suddenly in 1999.
As it turns out, though, a few years before he died, Reed had eerily predicted his own death,
including where and how he would die. What's more, he predicted that he would die in much
the same way that he lived — hard and fast — and that's exactly how he left this world.
If you are a hard-drinking person, it's probably
not much of a stretch to imagine your death having something to do with that lifestyle.
But there are lots of ways too much alcohol can kill you. It could be due to a car accident,
cirrhosis to various drunken mishaps, organ failures, and cancers, just to name a few.
For Reed's part, he thought death would come by way of a heart attack in a bar,
which is what actually happened. According to reports, just before the heart attack,
"[He had consumed] three bottles of Captain Morgan's Jamaica rum,
eight bottles of German beer, numerous doubles of Famous Grouse whiskey and Hennessy cognac."
That left a hefty bar tab of nearly $600. If he didn't die that night,
he probably would have wished he was dead the next morning.
Still, Reed got a few details about his death wrong, and indeed,
nobody is claiming that he had some supernatural gift of prophecy.
Rather, it's certainly just a coincidence — unless you believe in that sort of thing.
The prediction came on a satirical British TV show called "Without Walls",
in an episode called "The Obituary Show." This documentary series of a sort, from Channel Four,
showed living people address the camera as if they were speaking to the audience
from beyond the grave. It probably sounded like a good idea at the time.
During his fake obituary, Reed told the audience how he thought he'd spent his final moments.
"I died in a bar of a heart attack, full of laughter.
We were having a, uh, a cabbage competition."
In fact, Reed did die in a bar filled with people. He died in Valletta, Malta,
at a bar known simply as "The Pub." He'd been drinking copious amounts of liquor,
arm-wrestling — and beating — members of the British Navy, and picking up the tab for the
entire room. Then, he, quote, "dropped down dead," as Ridley Scott told Variety.
About the only thing missing was the mysterious "cabbage competition."
Still, it had to be a scary and awful end to the night. The Irish Times reported that Reed's wife
was there, along with some friends. One of the friends recalled Reed's final moments as follows,
"He had been drinking on the floor when he felt sick. I tried giving
him artificial respiration on a bench as an ambulance was called."
By then, all the laughter likely had dissipated.
Reed's death is forever enshrined at the infamous pub, where the owners subtitled the location
"Ollie's Last Pub." One thing Reed didn't predict about his death at age 61 was that the bar would
then start selling Oliver Reed souvenirs, cashing in on his demise at the booze establishment.
Regarding his epitaph, Reed said on the episode of "Without Walls,"
"On my gravestone was written: He made the air move."
And that he did.
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