Hellraisers: The Life and Inebriated Times of Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Peter O'Toole, and Oliver Reed »

ROBERT SELLERS is the author of eight books. He contributes regularly to Empire, Total Film, Cinema Retro, and The Independent. A former stand up comedian, he lives in the United Kingdom with his wife and daughter.

The Boozy Biography of the Four Greatest Actors to Ever Walk—Or Stagger—Into a Pub.

Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Peter O’Toole, and Oliver Reed: On screen they were stars. Off screen they were legends!

Hellraisers is the story of drunken binges of near biblical proportions, parties and orgies, broken marriages, riots, and wanton sexual conquests. Indeed, acts so outrageous that if you or I had perpetrated them we could have ended up in jail. Their mercurial acting talent and love from the press and the public allowed them to get away with the kind of behaviour that today’s film stars could scarcely dream of. They were truly the last of a breed, the last of the movie hellraisers.

This book traces the intertwining lives and careers of Burton, Harris, O'Toole, and Reed, plus an assortment of other movie boozers who crossed their path. It's a celebratory catalogue of their miscreant deeds, a greatest-hits package, as it were, of their most breathtakingly outrageous behavior, told with humor and affection. You can’t help but enjoy it—after all, they bloody well did.

"God put me on this earth to raise sheer hell."—Richard Burton

"I don't have a drink problem. But if that was the case and doctors told me I had to stop I'd like to think that I would be brave enough to drink myself into the grave."—Oliver Reed

"I was a sinner. I slugged some people. I hurt many people. And it's true, I never looked back to see the casualties."—Richard Harris

"Booze is the most outrageous of drugs, which is why I chose it."—Peter O'Toole

The New York Times - Janet Maslin

Hellraisers wants only to be a rowdy collection of greatest hits, and it lives up to that fun-loving ambition. It reels off riotous tales about Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Peter O'Toole and Oliver Reed without giving a moment's thought to what those tales might mean…Anyone horrified by the reckless abandon of Hellraisers should know what its ultimate effect turns out to be. This fun-loving celebration of drunkenness proves to be an even more sobering cautionary tale than some of the most serious addiction and recovery memoirs. And the fact that none could entirely stop drinking, even when it became a life-or-death medical necessity, makes it that much sadder. Funny as it is, the book's boisterous beginning gives way to grimly premature states of illness and dotage

Spitting Image television sketch 3

Introduction 5

An Aperitif 7

Legends are Born 11

The Plastered Fifties 29

The Soused Sixties 68

The Sozzled Seventies 145

The Blotto Eighties 208

The Pickled Nineties 248

Last Man Standing 273