Author: Robert Sellers
Title: Hellraisers
Illustrator: JAKe
Publication Info: London : SelfMadeHero, 2011.
Summary/Review:
This graphic biography tells the exploits of the Irish & British actors Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Oliver Reed, and Peter O’Toole. I’ve long admired the work of Harris and O’Toole, and familiar with Burton by reputation, but Reed was new to me. What they have in common is that they were part of new class of post World War II actors who were gritty and real, and lived a wild and hardscabble life off the screen and stage. The book focuses on the legendary exploits of the quartet’s drinking and partying but also their feelings of inadequacy and failed relationships. It’s common to romanticize their wild lives, but the book does not shy away from the harm they caused, the violence, the sexual harrasment, and general arrogance. Cleverly, the author ties their stories together by having the Burton, Harris, Reed, and O’Toole appear as ghosts to a character named Martin who is drinking his life away. The four hellraiser actors are able to help Martin to focus on his life and family. Oddly, when I checked this book out, the librarian told me he’d read the book and said it was “good, clean fun.” I’d say it’s anything but, a cautionary tale more than anything else. Burton, Harris, Reed, and O’Toole lived lives of reckless abandon so that you don’t have to.
Rating: ***1/2
Panorama of the Mountains 