One Saturday night, he was at a local pub which was also visited by five sailors who were on shore leave. Upon seeing Reed, they challenged him to a drinking contest. He out-drank them all, downing eight pints of beer, twelve shots of rum, half of a bottle of whiskey, and a couple of large glasses of cognac.
By Paul Miller – Compliance Recruiter: London Market Insurance
Robert Newton was an English actor and one of the more popular actors of the 1940s and early 1950s. He once said “I know I was a bad insurance risk. I went on some awful benders, but it was great fun.”
Mr. Newton’s drinking problem caused a few issues for him on set. One insurance claim was made for delays in filming after he arrived for the first day at the wrong studio. Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t paid. One of his most famous roles was in 1952’s Blackbeard the Pirate in which he played Blackbeard. After he was cast, the film’s producer decided that he would take out a $100,000 fire insurance policy at Lloyd’s of London. It was for Mr. Newton and covered him whilst the film was made. His drinking habit often meant that he fell asleep during breaks in filming with a cigarette in his mouth. His producer worried that he may do so whilst wearing the flammable beard he wore in the film and so, covered him against that risk.
Another man insured at Lloyd’s who was known for his issues with alcohol was actor, Oliver Reed, who sadly died from a heart attack during a break from filming Gladiator in Valletta, Malta, in 1999. Reed had promised Ridley Scott that he wouldn’t drink on filming days, while shooting on location in Malta, and he kept that promise, only drinking on rest days at weekends.
One Saturday night, he was at a local pub which was also visited by five sailors who were on shore leave. Upon seeing Reed, they challenged him to a drinking contest. He out-drank them all, downing eight pints of beer, twelve shots of rum, half of a bottle of whiskey, and a couple of large glasses of cognac. After beating each of the Royal Navy sailors at arm-wrestling, Reed collapsed. He died in an ambulance, on the way to hospital.
A clause in the movie’s insurance contract with Lloyd’s underwriters would have allowed the filmmakers to re-shoot all of Reed’s scenes with another actor, at the insurer’s expense, which would have been around $25 million. However, most of the actors and crew were exhausted from the punishing schedule, and Ridley Scott did not want to cut Reed from the movie. The script was rewritten, and a body double and CGI were used to complete his remaining scenes, after a $3.2 million claim was paid by Lloyd’s.
One man who was told that he couldn’t drink by underwriters was English comedian, Norman Vaughan. He had a long and successful career in television and theatre, also appearing occasionally in films. When he appeared in 1967’s Boeing Boeing, he was so worried about forgetting his lines that he insured against that risk with a £5,000 policy from Lloyd’s. Apart from being told by his insurer that he couldn’t touch alcohol for the
