About Oliver Reed
Robert Oliver Reed (13 February 1938 – 2 May 1999) was an English actor, known for his upper-middle class, masculine image and his heavy-drinking, "hellraiser" lifestyle. His screen career spanned over 40 years, between 1955 and 1999. At the peak of his career, in 1971, British exhibitors voted Reed fifth-most-popular star at the box office. After making his first significant screen appearances in Hammer Horror films in the early 1960s, his notable film roles included La Bete in The Trap (1966), Bill Sikes in Oliver! (a film directed by his uncle Carol Reed that won the 1968 Academy Award for Best Picture), Gerald Crich in Women in Love (1969), Stephen 'Hannibal' Brooks in Hannibal Brooks (1969), Father Urbain Grandier in The Devils (1971), Athos in The Three Musketeers (1973) and The Four Musketeers (1974), "Uncle" Frank Hobbs in Tommy (1975), Dr. Hal Raglan in The Brood (1979), Dolly Hopkins in Funny Bones (1995) and Antonius Proximo in Gladiator (2000). For playing the old, gruff gladiator trainer in Ridley Scott's Gladiator, in what was his final film, Reed was posthumously nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in 2000. The British Film Institute (BFI) stated that "partnerships with Michael Winner and Ken Russell in the mid-[19]60s saw Reed become an emblematic Brit-flick icon", but from the mid-1970s his alcoholism began affecting his career, with the BFI adding: "Reed had assumed Robert Newton's mantle as Britain's thirstiest thespian". Reed's first break was playing Richard of Gloucester in a six-part BBC TV series The Golden Spur (1959). Reed got his first significant role in Hammer Films' Sword of Sherwood Forest (1960), again directed by Fisher. Reed's first starring role came when Hammer cast him as the central character in Terence Fisher's The Curse of the Werewolf (1961).
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.