Cliff Goodwin – författare

In May 1999, after a 40-year career including 100 films, Oliver Reed died, as he had invariably lived, drinking with friends while making a film - his well-reviewed performance in the blockbuster Gladiator. Having risen through Hammer Horror films to international stardom as Bill Sykes in Oliver!, Reed became, in his own works, 'the biggest star this country has got'. With his legendary off-screen exploits and blunt opinions - especially of his co-stars - he was also one of the most infamous.Bestselling author Cliff Goodwin uses material from first-hand interviews with Reed's family, friends and colleagues and never before seen photographs to explore Reed's eventful career. But he also reveals another side to this unique and complex man.

Richard Harris was never an easy person to get along with. He was a difficult schoolboy (and was later disowned by his Limerick teachers), then he went to work in the family flour and milling business - where he organised a strike against his father.It was as a gifted and compelling actor that Richard Harris dominated stage and screen for more than four decades. He was nominated for an Oscar twice: for his earthy portrayal of a rugby player in This Sporting Life and as a dominant and bullish Irish farmer in The Field. More recently he delivered gripping screen performances in Gladiator and two Harry Potter films.But it was his violent, drunken, womanising private life that fed the public myth and made Harris, one of a new breed of rogue male actors, an international celebrity. Married and divorced twice, with three sons - two actors, one a film director - he claimed the only time he had been miscast was as a husband. His lovers included legends such as Merle Oberon, Sophia Loren, Ava Gardner and Vanessa Redgrave.

Covering Sid's early years in South Africa and life as a ladies' hairdresser, his obsession with gambling and women, his questioning by Scotland Yard in a murder case, Hancock's Half Hour and the Carry On films, and Sid's death on stage at the age of 63, Cliff Goodwin reveals the amazing truth behing the legend.