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Robert Oliver Reed (13 February 1938 – 2 May 1999) was an English actor. 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 Oliver! (a film directed by his uncle Carol Reed that won the 1968 Academy Award for Best Picture), Women in Love (1969), Hannibal Brooks (1969), The Devils (1971), Athos in The Three Musketeers (1973) and The Four Musketeers (1974), the stepfather in Tommy (1975), The Brood (1979), 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-[19]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". Early life Robert Oliver Reed was born on 13 February 1938 at 9 Durrington Park Road, Wimbledon, southwest London, to Peter Reed, a sports journalist, and Marcia (née Napier-Andrews). He was the nephew of film director Sir Carol Reed, and grandson of the actor-manager Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree and his mistress, Beatrice May Pinney (who later assumed the name 'Reed'), she being "the only person who understood, listened to, encouraged and kissed Oliver". Reed claimed to have been a descendant (through an illegitimate step) of Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia. Reed attended 14 schools, including Ewell Castle School in Surrey. "My father thought I was just lazy," Reed later said. "He thought I was a dunce." Reed claimed he had worked as a boxer, a bouncer, a taxi driver and a hospital porter. He then did his compulsory army service in the Royal Army Medical Corps. "The army helped," he said later. "I recognized that most other people were actors as well. I was in the peacetime army and they were all telling us youngsters about the war." Career Early years Reed began his acting career as an extra in films. He appeared uncredited in Ken Annakin's film Value for Money (1955) and Norman Wisdom's film The Square Peg (1958). Uncredited television appearances included episodes of The Invisible Man (1958), The Four Just Men (1959) and The Third Man. He appeared in the documentary Hello London (1958). Reed's first break was playing Richard of Gloucester in a six-part BBC TV series The Golden Spur (1959). It did not seem to help his career immediately: He was not credited in the films The Captain's Table (1959), Upstairs and Downstairs (1959), directed by Ralph Thomas, Life Is a Circus (1960), The Angry Silence (1960), The League of Gentlemen (1960) and Beat Girl (1960). He played a bouncer in The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960) for Hammer Films with whom he would become associated; the director was Terence Fisher. Reed was then in The Bulldog Breed (1960), another Wisdom film, playing the leader of a gang of Teddy Boys roughing up Wisdom in a cinema. Reed got his first significant role in Hammer Films' Sword of Sherwood Forest (1960), again directed by Fisher. He went back to small roles for His and Hers (1961), a Terry-Thomas comedy; No Love for Johnnie (1961) for Ralph Thomas; and The Rebel (1961) with Tony Hancock. He played the role of Sebastian in the ITV series It's Cold Outside, which was popular with teenagers, making him an idol for the first time. Leading man Reed's first starring role came when Hammer cast him as the central character in Terence Fisher's The Curse of the Werewolf (1961). Hammer liked Reed and gave him good supporting roles in the swashbuckler The Pirates of Blood River (1962), directed by John Gilling; Captain Clegg (1962), a smugglers tale with Peter Cushing; The Damned (1963), a science fiction film directed by Joseph Losey; Paranoiac (1963), a psycho thriller for director Freddie Francis; and The Scarlet Blade (1963); a swashbuckler set during the English Civil War, directed by Gilling, with Reed as a Roundhead. During this time, he appeared in some ITV Playhouse productions, "Murder in Shorthand" (1962) and "The Second Chef" (1962), and guest-starred in episodes of The Saint. He also had the lead in a non-Hammer horror, The Party's Over (made 1963, released 1965), directed by Guy Hamilton. Michael Winner and Ken Russell In 1964, he starred in the first of six films directed by Michael Winner, The System (known as The Girl-Getters in the US). The film was seen by Ken Russell who then cast Reed in the title role of The Debussy Film (1965), a TV biopic of French composer Claude Debussy. Reed said this was crucial to his career because "That was the first time I met Ken Russell and it was the first part I had after I'd had my face cut in a fight and no one would employ me. Everybody thought I was a cripple." It was also the first time he broke away from villainous roles. "Until that time they thought I was a neolithic dustbin," said Reed. Reed later said "Hammer films had given me my start and Michael Winner my bread then Ken Russell came on the screen and gave me my art." He narrated Russell's TV movie Always on Sunday (1965). Reed returned to Hammer for The Brigand of Kandahar (1965), playing a villainous Indian in an imperial action film for Gilling. He later called it the worst film he ever made for Hammer. He guest-starred in episodes of It's Cold Outside and Court Martial, the latter directed by Seth Holt. He had a regular role in the TV series R3 (1965). Reed was the lead in a Canadian-British co-production, The Trap (1966), co-starring with Rita Tushingham. Reed's career stepped up another level when he starred in the popular comedy film The Jokers (1966), his second film with Winner, alongside Michael Crawford. After playing a villain in a horror movie, The Shuttered Room (1967), he did a third with Winner, I'll Never Forget What's'isname (1967), co-starring with Orson Welles. Reed was reunited with Russell for another TV movie, Dante's Inferno (1967), playing Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Oliver! and stardom Reed's star rose further as a result of playing Bill Sikes in Oliver! (1968), alongside Ron Moody, Shani Wallis, Mark Lester, Jack Wild and Harry Secombe, in his uncle Carol Reed's screen version of the successful stage musical. It was a huge hit, winning the Academy Award for Best Picture, with Reed receiving praise for his villainous performance. He was in the black comedy The Assassination Bureau (1969) with Diana Rigg and Telly Savalas, directed by Basil Dearden; and a war film for Winner, Hannibal Brooks (1969). More successful than either was his fourth film with Russell, a film version of Women in Love (1969), in which he wrestled naked with.... Discover the Terry Reed popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Terry Reed books.