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

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Ditto for the other three hellraisers, who were not available for comment, having all fallen into sad states of decline and developed the true physiognomies of Dorian Gray before they died of alcohol-induced or alcohol-accelerated problems.

Even if a quarter of the stuff covered in ‘Hellraisers’ is true, these guys sure weren’t candidates for sainthood. It's telling that Peter O'Toole, the only one forced to quit drinking due to health concerns, is the only one of the four still alive.Their names are included up there with the acting g In the dead of night one evening, Oliver Reed came down and stole the fish from the ornamental pond," Sellers says. The two gonzo antiheroes start as they mean to go on, loading the trunk of their convertible with enough drugs and drink to knock out the US navy. Robert Sellers is the author of Hellraisers, Bad Boy Drive, Hollywood Hellraisers and An A-Z of Hellraisers.

How they really knew how to have a good time, while their wives stayed home looking after the kids, who according to one anecdote didn’t even recognise his own father because he was never there.

One by one, each of the four Hellraisers take this disillusioned soul on a personal tour of their childhoods, rise to stardom and chaotic personal lives. The night before he died of a cerebral hemorrhage, we wrote the following line from The Tempest on a napkin next to his bed: "Our revels are now ended. He'll Play This Bout First: Peter O'Toole starred as Hamlet in an Old Vic production directed by Laurence Olivier in 1963. Gonzo antiheroes … Benicio Del Toro and Johnny Depp in the film version of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The author appears to be indifferent to the boozy troublemakers’ victims or wanton destruction beyond it being great material for a book.

They got away with their destructive behaviour - smashing up restaurants and hotels was their forte - because of the adulation, amounting to a societal disease, that we accord to those we deem to be celebrities. The best book we've ever read involving binge drinking, botched stage entrances, Hollywood floozies and British movie stars . His iconic work for the Prodigy on the Fat of The Land LP brought him to the attention of an international audience. The sanctimonious Robert Wringhim’s clergyman stepfather is tipped off by the Almighty that the lad is predestined to be one of the Elect. Tales of wretched excess: these actors spent most of their days drunk as skunks getting into all kinds of mischief--much of which they couldn't remember.Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Peter O'Toole and Oliver Reed were one-offs: amazing actors, razor-witted raconteurs and above all, down to earth, honest to goodness human beings who took life by the scruff of the neck and gave it a darned good shake. Robert Sellers and Jake cleverly weave the four biographies seamlessly into one fast-paced adventure of drunken binges, orgies, parties and fun.

Immensely repetitive, but then again it appears their lives were much the same: only so many ways you can get drunk over the course of an entire lifetime. Robert Sellers certainly has no intention of turning readers’ thoughts in that moody direction, but “Hellraisers: The Life and Inebriated Times of Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Peter O’Toole and Oliver Reed” probably will, though there’s a tremendous amount of unapologetic, unself-conscious fun to be had on the way to introspection. Images Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape Donate Ellipses icon An illustration of text ellipses. It's a story of drunken binges of near biblical proportions, parties and orgies, broken marriages, drugs, riots and wanton sexual conquests. But not in dancing, drinking and gambling all night, followed by an opiate chaser, where Georgiana held her own among the Foxite Whig caucus.So wonderfully captures the wanton belligerence of both binging and stardom you almost feel the guys themselves are telling the tales.