Guinness goodness!

>> Richard Harris discusses To Walk With Lions and booze

by MATTHEW HAYS

 Richard Harris sounds surprisingly strong, speaking by phone from his London, England hotel room. It's surprising because the actor has just delivered an entirely convincing performance as the ailing George Adamson, the lion guru who was murdered by poachers in 1989 as he desperately tried to figure out what to do with his lion reserve.

 But Harris is alive and well, and even better, decidedly charming, serving up a good deal of wit about his wacky career and notorious offscreen adventures. Though he appreciates the themes inherent in To Walk With Lions--the film tells the story of the final years of Adamson's life, after Born Free and its sequel Living Free left off--Harris says he had little or no interest in the role initially. "I really liked the script, but I knew very little of Adamson beyond Born Free," he recalls. "I really wasn't sure I could play the part. Then I rented a number of documentaries on him and watched them over and over again. Suddenly it dawned on me that I could do it. It was great to play someone who had a purpose in life, rather than someone who just wanders around doing stupid things like acting."

 A not-so-consistent career
 Stupid things like acting? Does the twice-Oscar-nominated Harris really think that little of his craft? "Oh, people take things far too seriously in this life. I find it all sort of... well, I believe what Samuel Beckett believed: life is a big joke. People with ambition are silly. What's it all about, Alfie?"

 Harris concedes that his career has been strange. From the highs of his two Oscar-nominated roles (1963's This Sporting Life and 1990's The Field, his two personal faves) to bizarre points (like his recording the hit song "MacArthur Park") to appearances in dreadful films like the 1977 Jaws knockoff Orca. In that film, Harris played a man caught in a bitter fight with a whale; at one point he blurts out to co-star Charlotte Rampling, "I resent it when a pretty and intelligent woman tells me I'm dumber than a fish!"

 "I'm afraid I have done some work that I shouldn't have done," Harris laughs. "There's been some rubbish, no doubt. But I've had fun. My least successful roles were as a husband. I've been married twice, and miscast badly both times."

 No Richard Harris interview would be complete without a question concerning his legendary drinking problem. But the actor doth protest. "I've never had any problems with alcohol. Most alcoholics drink to escape or run away from something. I just enjoyed it. We had such fun with vodka. It was a laugh. We just enjoyed ourselves. I used to love disappearing for a couple of days and then reading about what happened in the papers."

 Harris cut the alcohol out of his life after his doctor told him he was close to developing hypoglycemia. He managed to remain dry for 13 years. "They were 13 of the most boring years of my life. Appalling. I could remember the night before but there was nothing worth remembering."

 In recent years, Harris has returned to alcohol for the same reason he left it: medicinal purposes. "A few years ago I was getting very slim, losing a lot of weight. So I told my doctor I was going to go back to beer. I drink three or four pints of Guinness every day. It helps keep the weight on. Plenty of iron, too."

 For love of mother country
 Though Harris now makes his home in the Bahamas, he remains terrifically fond of his native Ireland. "I visit, but I couldn't live there. Our personalities are too alike. You know, Peter O'Toole and I have the same agent, and O'Toole told him, 'I'd love to pal around with Richard, but if we did, we'd be dead by now.' It's the same thing with Ireland: I'd wander from pub to pub, staying up all night drinking and telling lies, and pretending to believe them. I'd drink until Guinness came out of my ears. I couldn't live that life. I'd rather live away from it, long for it, enjoy it, hate to leave--and leave." :

 

To Walk With Lions opens Friday, March 10