Harrelson’s wayward ways were a far cry from his affable namesake in the American sitcom Cheers. During filming in the late 1980s and early ’90s, “Wicked Woody” famously claimed to be sleeping with three women a day, spending his time “having as much sex” as he could. He said he “felt trapped in a relationship after three hours”.

Girlfriends were never in short supply: Moon Zappa, Ally Sheedy and Carol Kane were just three of them. In 1985, Harrelson and Nancy Simon were married as a “joke” in Mexico and planned to divorce immediately afterwards. The joke turned sour when it took 10 months for the divorce to come through. His romance with Glenn Close, 15 years his senior, lasted five months before rumours of Harrelson’s infidelity ended the relationship in 1991. Laura Louie is Harrelson’s long-standing, long-suffering partner — or POSSLQ (Person of Opposite Sex

Sharing Living Quarters), as Harrelson previously referred to her. Louie, his former assistant and the mother of his three daughters, has survived Harrelson’s rumoured infidelity and even being left at the altar in Fiji in 1992 as Woody flew to party with friends in Hawaii. He eventually married her in 1998 and the two have now “been hanging on” for more than 18 years.

Harrelson would not be first to claim he is a hopeless romantic, but is forthcoming about his violent streak. He admits he “must have been in over 100 fights” and says he has “had a lot of violence” in his life. Perhaps this was the influence of his late father, Charles Voyde Harrelson. Harrelson Sr died in early 2007 in a maximum-security prison while serving two life sentences for murder — one for the contract killing of the top American judge John Wood.

Reported to have roughed up the paparazzi, bouncers and a passer-by on a film set, it is no wonder that Woody identified with his violent role in Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers. In 2007, a dispute about leaving a Californian nightclub with a wine glass turned violent, and two passing police officers slapped Harrelson into handcuffs. His temper has also proved an expensive hobby: Harrelson once escaped charges for smashing a taxi door and breaking photographers’ equipment by paying thousands in compensation.

Today Harrelson is a staunch supporter of the production and use of hemp, and maintains that marijuana helps him “deal with stress”. He is flagrant about his continued smoking of the drug, and in an interview in 2005 he laid down the gauntlet to the British police to find him on a Saturday night and “nail” him for doing drugs. His other nickname says it all: “Wacky Woody”.

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