By David Raether
Peter O’Toole was an actor who lived an actor’s life.
O’Toole’s days started when he showed up on the set or at the stage door of the theater and ended when the last light went out or the echo of the final round of applause faded for the night. And then, of course, when the bar across the street finally closed and the last cigarette was crushed out and the first light of the next day was starting to streak across the sky. Sometimes he wore a tuxedo, other times a leather jacket covered in “Guinness, blood, mud, and what have you.”
Peter O’Toole was one of the greatest actors in the English language. Classically trained, O’Toole was nominated for eight Best Actor Academy Awards, won four Golden Globes, and appeared in movies ranging from the sublime (The Lion in Winter (1968)) to the ridiculous (What’s New, Pussycat? (1965)). He even voiced a character in a Pixar movie, Anton Ego in Ratatouille (2007). But O’Toole never really left the theater. At one point, during a stint as a part of the regular company at the Old Vic, he played 50 roles in 4 years, most of them Shakespeare—Lear, Hamlet, Othello, etc.
And then there were those blue, blue eyes of his. Maybe they were the blue of the Mediterranean on a summer day. Or maybe they were the color of the Irish wildflower, the Alkanet. Or maybe those blue eyes were just Peter O’Toole Blue, shining through in every one of his movies. When you think of his signature film, Lawrence of Arabia (1962), I’ll bet that you remember those blue eyes framed by the white keffiyeh and its gold agal most of all.
Peter O’Toole was born on August 2nd, 1932, to a Scottish mother and an Irish father in Leeds, England. His mother was a nurse and his father was a bookmaker. During his childhood, Peter often traveled with his professional odds-making father around horse racing tracks in England, Ireland, and France. He remained on the continent until World War II broke out, which prompted him and his father to return home to England. Nominally Catholic, Peter grew up in a Catholic school in a rural area far away from Leeds and the bombings. After finishing school, he briefly served as a signalman for the Royal Navy. O’Toole’s commanding officer once asked him if there was something he wanted to do with his life, to which he replied, “an actor.”
He was later granted admittance on a scholarship to the Royal Academy for Dramatic Arts (RADA) in London and was in the same class as Albert Finney and Alan Bates. From 1954 until the late 1950s, he worked steadily in theater and television in Britain and also appeared in a handful of films.
O’Toole’s big breakthrough came when he was cast as T. E. Lawrence in David Lean’s epic masterpiece, Lawrence of Arabia (1962), which Premiere Magazine ranked as the greatest performance of all time. Over the course of a career that lasted more than 50 years, he appeared in (or voiced) more than 60 films, all while maintaining an active career on both the stage and television. O’Toole was nominated for Best Actor Oscars for his performances in Lawrence of Arabia, Becket (1964), The Lion in Winter (1966), Goodbye Mr. Chips (1970), The Ruling Class (1973), The Stunt Man (1981), My Favorite Year (1983), and Venus (2006). Upon receiving an honorary Oscar from the Motion Picture Academy in 2003, he gave a memorably gracious speech in which he thanked, among others, “the United States.”
O’Toole nearly died several times from stomach cancer or other maladies magnified by his incessant drinking, but still managed to live a long and illustrious 81 years. His marriage with Welsh actress Siân Phillips lasted from 1959 to 1979 and produced two daughters, Kate and Patricia. O’Toole was later in a six-year relationship with American model Karen Brown, who gave birth to his son, Lorcan, in 1983. He finally retired from acting in 2012 and died a year later from a recurrence of stomach cancer.
There are certainly many pictures to choose from when it comes to a legend like Peter O’Toole. Here are the five I think you should add to your queue.
Probably the greatest epic ever made. Peter O’Toole plays the brilliant, audacious, and deeply troubled T.E. Lawrence. The film focuses mainly on his experiences in Syria and the Arabian peninsula during World War I and is based on his memoirs of that period, The Seven Pillars of
Wisdom. And here’s a rarity these days: the movie is divided into two parts—including an intermission in between—so you can watch the first half, have a nice dinner or dessert break, and then return to your living room and watch the second part.
Of course, everyone thinks of the first half of the film as Lawrence helping Prince Faisal lead a surprise attack against the fortified port city of Aqaba. This is magisterial filmmaking; O’Toole is thrilling in his stubborn insistence that his crazy plan will work. I would argue, however, that the more interesting part of the movie is the second half, which covers the aftermath of Lawrence’s deep dive into the rebellion against the Turks. This is where his character and actions become much more complicated, his motives more conflicted, and the results less inspiring.
As mentioned earlier, Premiere Magazine called O’Toole’s performance in this film the greatest in film history. That’s pretty hard to argue, although I’m inclined to say Albert Dieudonné’s performance in Napoleon (1927) or Charlie Chaplin’s in City Lights (1931) are both right up there. Regardless, this is the movie for which you have a 60-inch HDTV. The screenplay was by Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson, and the cast includes Alec Guinness, Omar Sharif, Anthony Quinn, Claude Rains, and Anthony Quayle. Set aside an evening, order some takeout, then sit back and revel in this masterpiece.
This film is a serious and complicated drama about the troubled relationship between King Henry II (O’Toole) and Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury (Richard Burton). Based on the French play of the same name by Jean Anouilh, Becket chronicles the changing relationship between Henry, the lively and debauched young king, and his childhood friend, Thomas Becket, whom he appoints to the position of Archbishop of Canterbury. Things would have gone just fine if Becket hadn’t decided to take the job seriously, but instead, intrigues and moral ambiguities ensue.
O’Toole, Burton, and John Gielgud are all outstanding here. If you’ve grown tired of the formulaic gross-out comedies, comic book movies, and woman-in-peril thrillers, it’s probably time to watch a grown-up movie about grown-ups who are larger than life. Peter Glenville directed the film, and the script came courtesy of Edward Anhalt. If a drama about 12th century England and its political intrigues sounds dull, it’s actually not—don’t miss out on this fabulous title.
Oh, my. You may have never heard of this movie, but it’s about as subversive and inappropriate as a comedy can be. O’Toole plays the schizophrenic Jack Gurney, the 14th Earl of Gurney, who literally thinks he is Jesus Christ—which would have been harmless enough until his family learns that Jack has decided to step into his hereditary role in the House of Lords. In his mind, Jesus now lives inside a sagging manor home in 1970s England and likes to break out into a song and dance from time to time.
O’Toole’s Jesus is more along the lines of a blonde-haired hippie version of an Albrecht Durer painting than the Jesus you’ll find in stained glass windows. Some consider this O’Toole’s best performance. Time Magazine’s film critic Jay Cocks wrote that O’Toole’s performance “had such intensity that it may trouble sleep as surely as it will haunt memory. All actors can play insanity; few play it well. O'Toole begins where other actors stop, with the unfocused gaze, the abrupt bursts of frenzied high spirits, and precipitous depressions.” The movie has a lot of technical problems— it was terribly shot, and the sound is muddled. This bothered me until I realized that the overall movie—especially O’Toole’s performance—is worth it despite any drawbacks.
This film has the kind of role that just seems so suited to O’Toole: it’s outrageous, immoral, and utterly conniving. The Stunt Man is pulsating action-comedy about a Vietnam vet and accused murderer (Steve Railsback) who is on the lam but somehow gets hired by megalomaniac director Eli Cross (O’Toole) to be a stuntman on his World War I movie. Cross hires the young fugitive because his last stuntman drove a car into the river (as planned) but was never found—and he can’t afford any more production delays. O’Toole is everything you ever imagined an egomaniacal movie director would be.
If you ever wondered if Peter O’Toole could pull off an action-comedy, the answer here is an emphatic yes. This performance earned him an Academy Award nomination.
This is a lively and amusing farce about life on a variety show in the early days of television, loosely based on Your Show of Shows, which starred Sid Caesar and featured some of the best writers in television history. Mark Linn-Baker plays a junior writer on the show that has the notorious narcissist Stan "King" Kaiser (Joseph Bologna) as its main star. O’Toole plays that week’s guest star: a drunken, faded, and very amusing Errol Flynn-type, named Alan Swann, whose best years were at least a decade or so ago. Linn-Baker’s character is assigned the unenviable task of keeping the drunken wreck of a star on track to perform—a task made more difficult by the fact that Swann is actually terrified of performing.
While the script is not based on any actual events, Executive Producer Mel Brooks once said it was clearly based on his recollections of the week Flynn was a guest star on Your Show of Shows. The movie also features one of my favorite character actresses, Selma Diamond, as Lil, a raspy-voice and salty old member of the crew. This is just a wonderfully funny movie. And Peter O’Toole plays it to the hilt.
David Raether is a veteran TV writer and essayist. He worked for 12 years as a television sitcom writer/producer, including a 111-episode run on the ground-breaking ABC comedy “Roseanne.” His essays have been published by Salon.com, The Times of London, and Longforms.org, and have been lauded by The Atlantic Magazine and the BBC World Service. His memoir, Homeless: A Picaresque Memoir from Our Times, is awaiting publication.