Hollywood hellraisers in the spotlight

"Look at a photograph of me from the old days and I'm going to one of my film premieres with a bottle of vodka in my hand. Tom Cruise has a bottle of Evian water. That's the difference," the outlandish Irishman once recalled.

When drunk, he would rush into traffic and attack passing cars with his bare fists. He once threw a wardrobe at his wife.

O'Toole, who soared to fame in Lawrence of Arabia, once beat up a policeman after seeing some of his colleagues rough up a prostitute.

Burton twice faced angry husbands brandishing guns after he had seduced their wives.

Reed got the juvenile cast of the musical Oliver drunk after spiking the children's drinks with vodka.

But, as the book so tellingly relates, non-stop debauchery inevitably took its toll - even with a fitting final curtain.


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