When Oliver Reed predicted his own death
Actor Oliver Reed was the very epitome of British machoism and was fully deserving of his “hellraising” lifestyle. He performed in several critically admired roles, including The Trap, Oliver!, Women in Love, The Devils, and even Ridley Scott’s Gladiator, which proved to be Reed’s final performance.
It was during the filming of Gladiator that Reed passed away at the age of 60. True to his lifestyle, Reed died of a heart attack suffering in a bar in Valetta, Malta, after a heavy drinking session. Fellow actor Omid Djalili claimed that Reed was pressured into a drinking competition and hadn’t had a drink for several months. Some claimed that Reed went the way he wanted, but Djalili wasn’t so sure.
Oddly enough, though, Reed appeared to predict his own death in a TV interview in 1994. However, it was no ordinary chat show that Reed appeared on, but rather The Obituary Show, in which celebrity guests discuss their lives as though they are looking down from heaven (or hell) after they had died.
On the show, Reed said with scary clairvoyance, “I died in a bar of a heart attack full of laughter. We were having a cabbage competition. I was very confident that, for once, I was going to win this vegetable competition. And somebody made a bet with me that was so lewd that I took it on, and he shook my hand. And I laughed so much I was sick and died.”
During his interview, Reed also opened up on the things he would regret after he had passed away. He humorously said, “I regret having not made love to every woman on Earth. I regret having not kissed the nose of every dog on Earth. I regret having not been into every bar on Earth. But that doesn’t make me a hellraiser. If somebody punches me on the nose, I’ll punch them back. If somebody buys me a drink, I’ll buy them one back.“
Perhaps the most touching moment of the interview was when Reed claimed that his biggest regret was not being able to attend the party that would be his funeral. “The only thing I regret about my own funeral was that I couldn’t go to my own wake because it was a wonderful party,” he said. “And every time I kept on tapping somebody on the shoulder—I’m going to cry now. They didn’t know I was there.”
So somewhere underneath all the drinking and hellraising and most likely unwanted press lay a man keen on providing entertainment and a good time for his friends and family. It looks as though Reed always knew the way he would go, which perhaps eases his sad passing just a touch.