Hellraisers : The Life and Inebriated times of Richard Burton, Richard Harris , Peter O’Toole, and Oliver Reed by Robert Sellers

 

 

*This weeks Story Musing is written by library staff member Christine DeSousa. Thanks Christine!

 

Hellraisers : The Life and Inebriated times of Richard Burton, Richard Harris , Peter O’Toole, and Oliver Reed 

by Robert Sellers

This book was funny, crass, raw, and crude - and I loved every second!

Hellraisers is an unapologetic account of the lives of the four most alcoholic, self-indulgent, womanizing men on the planet. Following the lives of Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Peter O’Toole, and Oliver Reed, it takes you on adventures of naughty nannies, restless school boys, liquor, and starving actors to starlet conquering, fame and fortune, more liquor, love, and up to their greatest last bows.

This wasn’t some expose intended to shock the reader, this read like you happened to walk into a bar and sat down with these men and just listened to their life story over a drink.

Now, in no way am I making saints out of sinners. These guys have crashed more cars, been hospitalized, hospitalized other people and caused more trouble than any star today. It also makes the case that these men were just fun loving guys and they wanted to live life to the fullest. They certainly seemed to, all died with their boots on. They were funny and irreverent but they weren’t malicious.

One of the things you have to be prepared for when reading this book is the colorful uses for words. It’s not a book for those who are easily offended, that is something that needs to be made abundantly clear. There are many cases of violence, profane language, sexual situations and alcoholic brawling.

It certainly never got boring, in part because of all of the different words they came up with to describe physical parts, or the recurring use of the word pissed in all of its definitions.

The most trouble I had was the way it was set up. Each chapter is a different decade and, within that, it covered a couple of years at a time, rotating through  Burton, Harris, O’Toole, and Reed, then back to Burton throughout the decade.

This book was written in 2002 so it was before Peter O’Toole died but it follows him up to that point, remembering each star in his turn - the good, the bad and the drunk. I highly recommend it.

C.D.