List of iconic drinkers

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"The trouble with this world is that everybody in it is three drinks behind," said American actor and cocktail lover Humphrey Bogart. The enjoyment of spirits, wine and beer is celebrated in the arts, literature and popular culture. Many well-known public figures have been equally well-known for their love of having a drink — or more — in their careers. Not everyone likes to imbibe, as Knute Rockne, American football coach, said, "Drink the first, sip the second, and skip the third."

This is a list of famous people, for whom drinking is clearly a recognised part of their public or private image, and/or who act in a peculiar way about themselves drinking.

Tallulah Bankhead - American actress. Was reputed to be able to drink a bottle of bourbon in thirty minutes, referencing her last words "codeine, bourbon" ^[1]

John Barrymore

John Barrymore - American actor. A biographer of Barrymore estimated that ". . . in 40 years he consumed 640 barrels of hard liquor." ^[2]

Robert Benchley - American humorist, wrote for both The New Yorker and Life magazines. He also has a table named for himself at the 21 Club in New York City. Benchley is credited with saying, "Why don't we slip out of those wet clothes and into a dry Martini?" ^[3]

Jeffrey Bernard - English journalist, whose near permanent habitation of the Coach and Horses became the stuff of legend. ^[4]

George Best - Northern Irish footballer whose high-profile drinking and womanising made him arguably the first celebrity footballer. He is generally regarded as having failed to fulfill his potential as a sportsman due to his alcoholism. The contradictions of his life are summed up in the oft-quoted anecdote about the bellboy who entered his hotel room with breakfast in the early 1970s. Seeing Best in bed with Mary Stavin, the current Miss World, a magnum of Champagne and several thousand pounds of cash won from a night's gambling, the youth exclaimed, "George, where did it all go wrong?" ^[5]

David Boon - Australian Cricket Legend who, apart from his skills as a cricketer, achieved much fame and notoriety for consuming 52 cans of beer on a flight between London and Sydney before the victorious Ashes tour that saw Australia regain the trophy after five years of English dominance. ^[6]

George Brown, Baron George-Brown - British Labour politician of whom The Times commented "Lord George-Brown drunk is a better man than the Prime Minister sober" (4 March 1976).

Charles Bukowski - German born American author and poet, whose writing and life revolved heavily around drinking. The central theme of many of his books and poems is drinking or being drunk. A prolific writer, he detailed his life as a barfly or a lonely alcoholic author through his recurring character Henry Chinaski who is in essence a thinly disguised portrait of himself. ^[7]

Anthony Burgess - English novelist and critic is held in awe by many for the prolificacy of both his writing and his drinking. He invented his own cocktail, "Hangman's Blood", which is prepared as follows: "Into a pint glass, doubles [i.e. 50ml measures] of the following are poured: gin, whisky, rum, port and brandy. A small bottle of stout is added and the whole topped up with Champagne... It tastes very smooth, induces a somewhat metaphysical elation, and rarely leaves a hangover." ^[8]

Richard Burton - Welsh actor, whose stormy marriages to Elizabeth Taylor saw the consumption of much alcohol. It was Burton's precarious state in a hangover during the filming of Cleopatra that Taylor claimed made her fall in love with him. ^[9]

Winston Churchill - English politician whose relationship with alcohol nursed him through the terrors of World War II. Always quotable, one of Churchill's personal mantras included, "My rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them." Pol Roger champagne famously made pint bottles solely for Churchill's consumption. After a lifetime of drinking, he concluded that he had "taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me." ^[10]

William Faulkner - American author and Nobel Prize winner who was once quoted as saying "The tools I need for my work are paper, tobacco, food, and a little whiskey." ^[11]

W.C. Fields - American actor made a career out of playing the lovable sop. He took his act from vaudeville to motion pictures. He said, "I always keep a supply of stimulant handy in case I see a snake... which I also keep handy." His co-star Mae West said, "Too much of a good thing can be wonderful." ^[12]

F. Scott Fitzgerald - American author loved the bottle, but during one of his drying-out periods, he had a conversation with his friend, humorist Robert Benchley: "Listen, Bob," Fitzgerald said. "Don't you know drinking is slow death?" Whereupon Benchley took a sip, smiled, and said, "So who's in a hurry?" ^[13]

Benjamin Franklin - American statesman and intellect, who, in a 1773 letter wished for an ideal form of Cryonics caused by 'having a very ardent desire to see and observe the state of America a hundred years hence', and instead he 'should prefer to an ordinary death, being immersed with a few friends in a cask of Madeira, until that time, then to be recalled to life by the solar warmth of my dear country!'. ^[14] Also, in a 1779 ^[15] letter to Abbé Morellet, Franklin wrote that 'We hear of the conversion of water into wine at the marriage in Cana as of a miracle. But this conversion is, through the goodness of God, made every day before our eyes. Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards; there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy. The miracle in question was only performed to hasten the operation, under circumstances of present necessity, which required it.'

Judy Garland - American actress, who for the premier of her 1954 film A Star Is Born reportedly asked her dress designer to make a muff big enough to conceal a bottle of Vodka. ^[16]

Vincent van Gogh - Dutch painter. Van Gogh was a prolific consumer of Absinthe, the effects of which may have contributed to his depression, psychotic behaviour and eventual suicide. ^[17]

Richard Harris

Richard Harris - Irish actor. When asked for his favorite food replied "I adore the hamburgers at P. J. Clarke's. In my drinking days, it was my first stop from the airport. A fellow named Vinny used to be the bartender there, and when I told him I wanted the usual, he lined up six double vodkas. I told an interviewer that once, and he said, 'That's a lot of bull, that's one of your exaggerated stories!' I said, 'Call a taxi.' We walked into P.J. Clarke's, I said, 'Vinny, my usual.' And he lined up six double vodkas." ^[18]

Bob Hawke - Former Prime Minister of Australia. He achieved notoriety as the holder of a world record for the fastest consumption of beer: two and a half pints in eleven seconds. In his memoirs, Hawke suggested that this single feat may have contributed to his political success more than any other, by endearing him to a voting population with a strong beer culture. ^[19]

Ernest Hemingway - American writer, who had this to say of Paris in the 1920s: "Sometimes I wish I’d went through those good times stone cold sober so I could remember everything, but then again, if I had been sober the times probably wouldn’t have been worth remembering." ^[20] The Mojito was supposedly Hemingway's favorite cocktail.

Alex Higgins - Northern Irish snooker player. His consumption of alcohol led to the decline of his career, notable events inculde spiking Oliver Reed's rum with fairy liquid, Reed in turn spiked Higgins' scotch with aftershave. ^[21]

Christopher Hitchens - English journalist who has a reputation as a drinker. Hitchens wrote that "in my time I've met more old drunks than old doctors", and noted that many great writers "did some of their finest work when blotto, smashed, polluted, shitfaced, squiffy, whiffled, and three sheets to the wind."^[22] His 2007 book is titled Hitch Is Not Great: How Everything In My Body Is Filled With Poison, Particularly My Liver where he writes that he is "a self-centered fantasist and an Scotch-centered ignoramus." ^[23]

Jack Kerouac - American novelist, poet, and esteemed member of the Beat Generation. Much of his most famous novels, On the Road and Big Sur, revolve around his taste for liquor: the former in a wilder and more classically beat fashion; the latter offering his tablet to the life of a self-destructive drunkard. Comparatively, one quote from On the Road reads: "...[like] the time I drank sixty glasses of beer and wrapped myself around the toilet to sleep while passing patrons cast their sentient debauchments on me..." and the story that in celebration of his successful and artistic completion of Big Sur he bought a case of brandy and wound up in hospital two weeks later - as a consequence he lost his young, healthy-traveller physique and until his death remained bloated and overweight, the appearance uncannily of many of his written musings on Skid Row alcoholics and winos.

Shane MacGowan - The lead singer of Irish band The Pogues, his alcoholism ultimately lead to him being removed from the band. ^[24]

Dean Martin - American singer, the most notable drinker in the hard living Rat Pack. ^[25]

Duff McKagan - American bassist with rock bands Guns N' Roses and Velvet Revolver was well known for appearing drunk at most performances and public appearances until an attack of accute pancreatitis forced him to stop drinking in 1994. ^[26]

Jim Morrison - An American singer, songwriter and poet, lead singer for the 1960s group The Doors. Known for using several different mind-altering drugs, Morrison was most noted for his fondness for alcohol, and his mysterious death at age 27 may have been at least partly a result of alcohol poisoning. ^[27]

Dorothy Parker - American writer, poet and journalist, leader of the legendary Algonquin Round Table. It was Parker's fate that prohibition in the United States coincided with the Jazz Age, and she famously asserted that, "I like to have a Martini/ Two at the very most/ After three I'm under the table/ After four I'm under my host". ^[28]

Edgar Allan Poe - American author, of whom a college classmate wrote: "Poe's passion for strong drink was as marked and as peculiar as that for cards . . . without a sip or a smack of the mouth he would seize a full glass and send it home at a single gulp." It is rumored, though unconfirmed, that his death at the age of 40 was the result of alcohol poisoning. ^[29]

Oliver Reed

Oliver Reed - English actor whose alcoholic binges were highly noted and led him to be voted "England's most embarassing man". Famous stories include arriving at Galway airport and passing out drunk on the luggage conveyor belt, and an arm wrestling competition in Guernsey saw him down 104 pints of beer in a two-day session. He died of an upper gastro-intestinal bleed in a bar in Valletta, Malta whilst on a break from filming Gladiator, after reportedly downing '12 double rums, eight pints of the local lager, and half a bottle of Scotch' and defeating five sailors at arm wrestling. ^[30]

Elliott Smith - An American singer-songwriter and musician. The singer battled with depression, alcohol addiction and drug use for many years, and the topics would often appear in his lyrics. In his song "Miss Misery" he writes, "I'll fake it through the day with some help from johnny walker red send the poison rain down the drain to put bad thoughts in my head" and more alcohol references through out his lyrics. Smith died in 2003, aged 34, from two apparently self-inflicted stab wounds to the chest. ^[31]

Dylan Thomas - Welsh poet, who on the day of his death in New York City commented to a friend, "I've had 18 straight whiskies. I think that's the record". ^[32] Reputed to have vomited in a wastebasket during a reading given at Johns Hopkins University in the 1950s.

Mark Twain - American author who frequently wrote about drink in the late 19th and early 20th Century. He said, "There are people who strictly deprive themselves of each and every eatable, drinkable, and smokable which has in any way acquired a shady reputation. They pay this price for health. And health is all they get for it."^[33]

Tom Waits - An American singer, songwriter and poet, Waits is best known for his low, gravelly voice and offbeat lyrics. Having been quoted as saying "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy," (originally quipped by Dorothy Parker) and "I don't have a drinking problem 'cept when I can't get a drink," much of his lyrical subject matter also revolves around liquor and the drunkard's lifestyle. ^[34]

Bill Werbeniuk - Canadian snooker player. Werbeniuk's pre game rituals would include drinking ten pints of lager, his use of the drug Inderal to temper his alcohol consumption would see him get banned from the game. ^[35]