Downfall of the Dodger: Told in his haunting memoir only now made public, the tragic story of the Oliver! star who was the toast of Hollywood... then drank himself into the grave 

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Famous as the Artful Dodger in Lionel Bart’s hit musical film Oliver!, Jack Wild was billed as a Hollywood superstar in the making. 

Yet in just a few years the teenager from Hounslow in West London had become a hopeless alcoholic on the brink of death. 

He managed to fight back – before finally succumbing to cancer in 2006. 

Now his widow, Claire, has completed the searingly honest memoir he had composed before his death – which we publish here for the first time. 

Famous as the Artful Dodger in Lionel Bart’s hit musical film Oliver!, Jack Wild was billed as a Hollywood superstar in the making

Cruising through Hollywood in a dark brown Rolls-Royce that used to belong to Ringo Starr, the window wound right down, my Polaroid sunglasses on and a fag in my hand, I thought: for goodness sake, I’ve definitely made it now. At 16!

We were driving down Sunset Strip when Marty Krofft, producer of the TV show I was about to star in, said: ‘Hey Jack, look at that.’

Only a few months earlier, I had been at the Oscars, nominated in the category of Best Supporting Actor for my role as the Artful Dodger in Oliver! I didn’t win, although the show was nominated for eight awards and received six. I looked up at this giant billboard which shouted down: ‘Hollywood welcomes Jack Wild.’ I couldn’t believe it, but there it was. I thought, this is mad.

And it was – although I could hardly have known then how long the madness would continue, or the terrible shape it would eventually assume.

Now, I never wanted to be an actor. I saw myself as either a footballer or a doctor. I played football in my local park in Hounslow with the kids in the road, my brother Arf, and an older, spotty lad who wasn’t that good at football, Phil Collins. Yes, that Phil Collins.

We were minding our own business, playing soccer one day, when Phil’s mum came to pick him up. She saw me and Arf and called over to us and asked if we had ever thought of being actors and being on TV.

‘You can earn a lot of money, like a real job,’ she persisted.

‘Yeah, well, we’ve already got a job, lady – we deliver milk.’

‘Oh no, no, no!’ she said. ‘You’ll earn far more money than that.’

So that was how I ended up auditioning for a West End Musical called Oliver! To prepare me for my debut, I joined a stage school and after lessons each day I would take the Tube to the New Theatre in St Martin’s Lane.

'In January 1967, I got an even bigger break: they were making a movie of the play and wanted me to be the Artful Dodger'

It was 1964 and I had just turned 12. I was short for my age but outrageously cocky. I really wanted to play Dodger but I wasn’t tall enough. Phil Collins played the part and I had to settle for Charlie Bates, Dodger’s right-hand man.

When I wasn’t on stage I did TV shows, such as Opportunity Knocks, and Z Cars, as well as commercials. All of which helped to pay my stage school fees. My parents could never have afforded them on my dad’s earnings as a factory worker.

Then, in January 1967, I got an even bigger break: they were making a movie of the play and wanted me to be the Artful Dodger. The lead was played by Mark Lester.

Charles Dickens [who wrote the novel on which the film was based] described Dodger as ‘short of his age: with rather bow legs, and little sharp, ugly eyes… He was, altogether, as roistering and swaggering a young gentleman as ever stood 4ft 6in…’

I don’t think I knew then how close the fit was; and I couldn’t possibly have known how closely my image would be linked with his for the rest of my life.

Rehearsals began at Shepperton Studios, just outside London. The sets were incredible – it was just like being back in Dickensian London.

Oliver Reed, who played Bill Sikes, would arrive at the studios in a primrose yellow, E-Type convertible Jag. He was everything I wanted to be: successful, butch, strong and good-looking, a bear of a man whom women adored, and he drove fast cars – could there be anything more?

Jack with second wife Claire in 2005 – the year before he died

I wouldn’t actually speak to him; in fact I don’t think I had a conversation with him in the whole year we worked together – I was far too frightened of him. We all were.

At lunchtimes, along with the other boys in Fagin’s gang, I would head off to smoke and play football. Mark Lester, a shy, quiet boy, wasn’t allowed to play with us in case he got too red and hot, or bruised and damaged. He was kept out of the sun in case he went pink; his milk teeth were stuck back in if they had the audacity to fall out; nothing was to ruin a hair on his head, or the continuity of the film.

Even before the movie was released, people were saying: ‘You’ve stolen the film! You and Ron Moody [who played Fagin] have such chemistry!’

But I couldn’t begin to have any idea of what was to happen when the film was premiered three months later in Leicester Square.

I’d never experienced anything like this before: the cameras, the attention, the noise; I thought I must be the fifth Beatle.

After the premiere, I started guesting on all the TV variety shows: The Jimmy Tarbuck show, The Bachelors show, The Val Doonican show, The Engelbert Humperdinck show, Liberace, Ed ‘Stewpot’ Stewart…

One morning my agent, John Daly, called to say he was in talks with a production company for a children’s TV series in America, in which I would star. I was to play a kid named Jimmy who is trapped on an enchanted island where the trees, mushrooms and flowers are alive. He tries to escape but is constantly thwarted by a wicked witch. There was also a dragon, Pufnstuf, who gave his name to the series.

We flew to Los Angeles and met the producers, Marty Krofft and his brother Sid. After several meetings, John returned to the Beverly Wilshire Hotel where we were staying.

‘Well, Jack. You are now a millionaire… They’ve agreed a five-year deal for a million dollars. Oh, one thing though, they want you to have your teeth done.’

‘Bloody hell!’ When we flew back to London I was mobbed by the press. I had suits hand-made by a Mayfair tailor. If I asked for something, I got it. In restaurants, I’d get the best table and there were always chauffeur-driven cars to take me everywhere. It was only later that I learned many of these ‘gifts’ weren’t gifts at all and that I was paying for them myself.

While I was filming H. R. Pufnstuf, I lived at Marty’s house in LA. I was invited out to expensive restaurants and wild parties where the tables would be laden with bowls of drugs – you could take your pick of uppers or downers. Instead of Twiglets, crisps and peanuts, one ashtray was full of speed, another of cocaine, marijuana, LSD, everything. I just stuck to a glass of wine and maybe a Bristol Cream sherry when I got home. At the time, alcohol seemed the lesser of the two evils.

More movies followed, and television shows – I appeared on the Bing Crosby Christmas Special and I even recorded an album that made it into the charts. However, by the start of 1978, aged just 25, I had also started a parallel career as a serious drinker. Everyone around me seemed to be doing the same.

In fact, I was drinking myself silly, but I was playing football and squash and I ran 15 laps round the White City greyhound stadium for charity, so there couldn’t be too much wrong with me, could there?

When I was filming in Poland the following year, the barman at the hotel we stayed at used to give us double measures and the vodka was twice as strong as normal. I drank it every day, partly to keep out the freezing cold, and barely ate anything as the food was terrible. One day I felt a terrible stabbing pain in my stomach. It was acute pancreatitis and I was flown back to England for emergency treatment.

‘If you carry on drinking you will die,’ the doctor said. It was like vodka off an alcoholic’s back. I just cut back on spirits and stuck to wine and beer.

'I played football in my local park in Hounslow with the kids in the road, my brother Arf, and an older, spotty lad who wasn’t that good at football, Phil Collins. Yes, that Phil Collins'

At the start of 1980, I wasn’t working, so I filled in the time with… drinking. I began to make sure I had a good supply and always had some in the boot of my car, especially if I did manage to get some work and we were on location. Booze came before anything or anyone.

And so it continued. Work became sporadic and gradually my friends disappeared. I couldn’t figure out where everything had gone wrong.

Once I managed to come off the booze for nine months, but then I had lunch with Lionel Bart (who wrote the musical Oliver!) to discuss a work project and he came out with the famous line: ‘Go on mate, just have one glass of wine. It won’t do you any harm.’ I refused three times, but eventually succumbed. My resolve was gone and I was back on the booze. I needed it constantly to stop me shaking. I thought I needed it to live.

I developed diabetes and alcohol sent my blood sugars all over the place. I had to be hospitalised, but as soon as I got out I started drinking again. My first wife, Gaynor, nagged me to stop, but I simply began hiding the booze.

While rehearsing for a pantomime in December 1985, I began hallucinating. I felt quite frightened to the point of death. I became convinced that some East End gangsters were coming down to assassinate me.

I was taken to hospital and sectioned under the Mental Health Act. But when I came out of hospital, I began drinking again. On a typical day I’d consume half a bottle of vodka and a couple of bottles of wine. Despite all this, I honestly believed I was in control.

I’d sign on for Unemployment Benefit and use that for drink. I would constantly have a drink within 3ft of me so I could be unaware of what was going on around me. At the same time I was expecting a phone call from Spielberg saying: ‘I want you to be in my next movie!’ It was insane.

Eventually I gave in to family pressure and agreed to go to a drying-out clinic. As part of the therapy, I had to tell my life story: I’d had a ball, so how had I ended up here?

Jack would sign on for Unemployment Benefit and use that for drink. I would constantly have a drink within 3ft of me so I could be unaware of what was going on around me

I tried to explain: ‘When children become stars in showbiz, it’s almost like becoming an orphan. You are taken from your normal surroundings and put on thrones and made out to be superhuman, and there is just so much time and money to play with but you’re not prepared, mentally, physically or financially for the life of a celebrity…’

I trailed off. Was I just making excuses? I didn’t want to blame my drinking on being a child star, because I believed I’d have been a heavy drinker in any case. My brother Arthur also drank too much and ended up in hospital because of the booze.

It took nearly five years before I managed to stop drinking, found a new agent and began to work again.

One of my first roles was Much, the miller’s son, in the 1991 movie Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves, starring Kevin Costner. A West End play followed. It had been a long road, but I had survived.

Over the years, people have tried to blame my battles on my early success as a child actor, but I just don’t see that. I’d have been an alcoholic no matter what career I had chosen and, rather than my success unbalancing me, I think it balanced me out.

Without it I would have been capable of anything, even murder. Some of my family ended up on the wrong side of the law, and I think I would have been there too if it hadn’t been for my success; my success did not destroy me, it saved me.

As I write, I’m in my 16th year of sobriety and I’m still working – not too bad eh?

POSTSCRIPT: In 2001, what Jack thought was a pain in his ear turned out to be a sign of oral cancer. In 2004 he had to have his tongue and voice box removed – a traumatic operation, yet it didn’t stop him working. That Christmas he was due to appear in Cinderella and, unwilling to let the audience down, he played a silent Baron Hardup.

In 2005, Jack learned that his cancer had returned. He married his second wife Claire in September that year but in March 2006 he died, aged 53. Jack told Claire that he had no regrets about his life.

‘I only wish I’d invested the money and not drank quite so much,’ he had said. ‘But other than that I don’t think there is much else I’d change. And I did have a lot of fun.’

lIt’s A Dodger’s Life, by Jack Wild, is published by Fantom Publishing at £19.99, fantomfilms.co.uk.