Stage and screen actor Peter O'Toole has become famous for often playing characters who are otherworldy visionaries. The recipient of eight Oscar nominations, he won a lifetime achievement award in 2003 at the 75th Academy Awards ceremony.
Best Known As: Star of the epic film Lawrence of Arabia
Peter O'Toole is an Irish-English actor of stage and screen who became internationally famous for his lead performance in the 1962 epic film Lawrence of Arabia. He earned an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of T.E. Lawrence, and in the next decade starred in Becket (1964), The Lion in Winter (1968, with Katharine Hepburn), Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969) and The Ruling Class (1972), earning Oscar nominations for each. Tall and lean, with blonde hair and bright blue eyes, O'Toole became a leading man whose wily charm on the big screen seemed to reflect the mischief he was making in real life. Stories of O'Toole's drinking were abundant, and in the mid-1970s his health took a turn for the worse and his career stalled. He bounced back in The Stunt Man (1980) and My Favorite Year (1982), scoring two more Oscar nominations for best actor. In the 21st century he has taken supporting roles in the TV mini-series Augustus (2003) and the feature films Troy (2004, starring Brad Pitt and Eric Bana) and Lassie (2005, with Samantha Morton). After seven nominations and no Oscar, O'Toole was given an honorary award in 2003, despite saying that he'd rather earn one outright. In 2007 he was given another chance to win when he was nominated for his lead performance in the May-December romantic comedy Venus (2006).
O'Toole's birthplace is commonly given as Connemare, Ireland, and O'Toole is known to be proudly Irish. O'Toole himself says Connemare is his birthplace, citing "family history." An article dated 28 January 2007 in the Irish Independent, however, cited the General Registry Office in Leeds, England in its claim that O'Toole was actually born in Leeds, England as Peter James O'Toole.
(born Aug. 2, 1932, Connemara, County Galway, Ire.) Irish actor. He studied drama at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He made his London debut in 1956 and played Hamlet in the National Theatre's inaugural production in 1963. His film debut came in Kidnapped (1960), and he won international acclaim for Lawrence of Arabia (1962), for which he won a British Academy Award. Noted for his wit and intensity, he often played uncertain heroes or eccentrics, starring in films such as Becket (1964), The Lion in Winter (1968), The Ruling Class (1972), The Stunt Man (1980), My Favorite Year (1982), The Last Emperor (1987), and Phantoms (1998). His acting range extends from classical drama to contemporary farce. He received an Emmy Award for his performance as Bishop Cauchon in the television miniseries Joan of Arc (1999).
O'Toole, Peter (Seamus), 1932-, British actor, b. Connemara, Ireland. A classical stage actor, he appeared (1955-58) with the Bristol Old Vic, debuted in London in 1956, and has played a variety of Shakespearean roles. Tall and handsome, he made his screen debut in The Savage Innocents (1959) and catapulted to stardom with his portrayal of T. E. Lawrence in David Lean's desert epic Lawrence of Arabia (1962). He was a major star of the 1960s and early 70s, winning praise for performances in motion pictures ranging from historical drama to high comedy. Among his outstanding films are Becket (1964), Lord Jim (1965), The Lion in Winter (1968), The Ruling Class (1972), The Stunt Man (1980), My Favorite Year (1982), and The Last Emperor (1987). Nominated for an Oscar seven times, but never a winner, O'Toole received an Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2003.
Bibliography
See his autobiography (2 vol., 1993-96); biographies by M. Freedland (1982) and N. Wapshott (1983).
Career Highlights: The Last Emperor, The Stunt Man, Zulu Dawn
First Major Screen Credit: The Savage Innocents (1959)
Biography
The legendary Irish-born thespian Peter O'Toole proves that when an actor is faced with a bitter personal crisis and struggles with addiction, spirit and determination can often lead to a forceful "third act" in that performer's career that rivals anything to have preceded it. Blessed with an immensity of dramatic power, the fair-haired, blue-eyed, flamboyant, and virile O'Toole chalked up one of the most formidable acting resumes of the 20th century during the 1950s and '60s, before experiencing an ugly bout of self-destruction in the mid-'70s that led to serious health problems, several disappointing and embarrassing roles, and the destruction of his marriage, and threatened (in the process) to bury his career. By 1980, however, O'Toole overcame his problems and resurfaced, triumphantly, as a box-office star.
O'Toole began life in Connemara, Ireland, in either 1932 or 1933 (most sources list his birthdate as August 2, 1932, though the year is occasionally disputed). His family moved to Leeds, England in the early '30s, where O'Toole's father earned his keep as a racetrack bookie. Around 1946, 14-year-old O'Toole dropped out of secondary school and signed on with The Yorkshire Evening Post as copy boy, messenger, and eventually, a cub reporter. Within three years, he dropped the newspaper gig and joined the Leeds Civic Theatre as a novice player; this paved the way for ongoing parts at the much-revered Old Vic (after O'Toole's military service in the Royal Navy as a signalman and decoder), beginning around 1955. A half-decade of stage roles quickly yielded to screen parts in the early '60s. O'Toole actually debuted (with a bit role) in 1959, in The Savage Innocents, but international fame did not arrive for a few years, with several enviable back-to-back characterizations in the 1960s: that of the gallant, inscrutable T.E. Lawrence in Sir David Lean's 1962 feature Lawrence of Arabia (for which he received his first Best Actor Oscar nomination); Henry II in Peter Glenville's 1964 Becket (starring longtime friend Richard Burton), for which he received his second Best Actor Oscar nomination; the title character in Lord Jim (1965), and philandering fashion editor Michael James in the popular Clive Donner-Woody Allen sex farce What's New Pussycat? (1965). O'Toole's success continued, unabated, with yet another appearance as Henry II alongside Katharine Hepburn in Anthony Harvey's The Lion in Winter (1968), which netted him a third Best Actor Oscar nod. Unfortunately, O'Toole lost yet again, this time (in a completely unexpected turn of events) to Cliff Robertson in Charly, though a fourth nomination was only a year away, for the actor's work in 1969's Goodbye, Mr. Chips.
The early 1970s were equally electric for O'Toole, with the highlight undoubtedly being his characterization of a delusional mental patient who thinks he's alternately Jesus Christ and Jack the Ripper in The Ruling Class (1972), Peter Medak's outrageous farce on the "deific" pretensions of British royalty. That gleaned O'Toole a fifth Oscar nomination; Jay Cocks, of Time Magazine called his performance one "of such intensity that it will haunt memory. He is funny, disturbing, and finally, devastating." Unfortunately, this represented the last high point of his career for many years, and the remainder of the '70s were marred by a series of disappointing and best-forgotten turns -- such as Don Quixote in Arthur Hiller's laughable musical Man of La Mancha (1972), covert CIA agent Larry Martin in Otto Preminger's spy thriller Rosebud (1975), and a Romanian émigré and refugee in Arturo Ripstein's soaper Foxtrot (1976). Meanwhile, O'Toole's off-camera life hit the nadir to end all nadirs. Though long known as a carouser (with friends and fellow Brits Burton, Richard Harris, Peter Finch, and others), O'Toole now plunged into no-holds-barred alcoholism, pushing himself to the very edge of sanity and death. The drinking necessitated major stomach surgery, and permanently ended his 20-year-marriage to Welsh actress Sian Phillips (best known as Livia in I, Claudius). Career-wise, O'Toole scraped the bottom of the gutter (and then some) when he made the foolish decision (around 1976 or 1977) to appear alongside Malcolm McDowell and Helen Mirren in the Bob Guccione/Tinto BrassPenthouse mega-production Caligula (released 1980) -- a period film wall-to-wall with hardcore sex and visceral, graphic violence that led celebrity critic Roger Ebert to echo another viewer's lament: "This movie is the worst piece of s*** I have ever seen." It did not help matters when O'Toole returned to The Old Vic not long after, and was roundly booed off the stage for his uncharacteristically wretched portrayal of Macbeth.
The Macbeth calamity, however, masked a slow return to triumph, for O'Toole had since resolved to clean himself up; he moved in with Kate and Pat O'Toole, his two actress daughters from his marriage to Phillips, both of whom were teenagers in the late 1970s, and both of whom cared for him. And in 1979, he signed on to play one of the most esteemed roles of his career -- that of the sadistic, tyrannical director Eli Cross in Richard Rush's wicked black comedy The Stunt Man (1980) -- a role for which O'Toole received a sixth Oscar nomination. O'Toole again lost the bid, this time to Robert De Niro in Raging Bull. Not one to be daunted, however, the actor continued down the path to full professional and personal recovery by beginning an ongoing relationship with California model Karen Brown, and fathering a child by her in 1983. O'Toole then signed on for many fine roles throughout the 1980s and '90s: that of Alan Swann, a hard-drinking, hard-loving, has-been movie star, in Richard Benjamin's delightfully wacky 1982 film My Favorite Year (which drew the thesp yet another nomination for Best Actor -- his seventh); and as Professor Harry Wolper, a scientist obsessively trying to re-clone his deceased wife, in Ivan Passer's quirky, underrated romantic fantasy Creator (1985). Despite occasional lapses in taste and quality, such as 1984's Supergirl and 1986's Club Paradise, O'Toole was clearly back on top of his game, and he proved it with an admirable turn as Reginald Johnston in Bernardo Bertolucci's 1987 Best Picture winner, The Last Emperor. That same year, O'Toole signed on to co-star in High Spirits (1988), fellow Irishman Neil Jordan's whimsical, spiritual ghost story with Shakespearean overtones. At the time, this looked like a solid decision, but neither Jordan nor O'Toole nor their co-stars, Steve Guttenberg, Liam Neeson, and Daryl Hannah, could have anticipated the massive studio interference that (in the words of Pauline Kael) "whacked away at the film, removing between 15 and 25 percent of the footage" and turned it into one of that year's biggest flops. Ditto with Alejandro Jodorowsky's 1990 comedy fantasy The Rainbow Thief, where studio interference again all but destroyed the work.
O'Toole remained active throughout the 1990s, largely with fine supporting roles, such as Willingham in King Ralph (1991), Welsh nobleman Lord Sam in Rebecca's Daughters (1992), Bishop Cauchon in the made-for-television Joan of Arc (1999), and Von Hindenburg in the telemovie Hitler: The Rise of Evil (2003). In late 2006, O'Toole hit another career peak with a fine turn as a wily old thesp who enjoys a last-act fling with a twentysomething admirer, in the Roger Michell-directed, Hanif Kureishi-scripted character-driven comedy Venus. The effort reeled in an eighth Best Actor Oscar nomination for the actor. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
Peter Seamus O'Toole[2] (born 2 August 1932) is an Irish actor of stage and screen who achieved stardom in 1962 playing T. E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia. He went on to become a highly-honored film and stage actor. He has been nominated for eight Academy Awards, and holds the record for most competitive Academy Award acting nominations without a win. He has won four Golden Globes, a BAFTA, an Emmy, and was the recipient of an Honorary Academy Award in 2003 for his body of work.
Peter Seamus O'Toole was born in 1932, with some sources giving his birthplace as Connemara, County Galway, Ireland, and others as Leeds, in West Yorkshire, England, where he also grew up. O'Toole himself is not certain of his birthplace or date, noting in his autobiography that while he accepts 2 August as his birthdate, he has conflicting birth certificates in both countries, with the Irish one giving a June 1932 birthdate.[2] O'Toole is the son of Constance Jane (née Ferguson), a Scottish-born nurse, and Patrick Joseph O'Toole, an Irish metal plater, football player and racetrack bookmaker.[3][4] When O'Toole was one year old, the O’Tooles began a five-year tour of major racetrack towns in northern England. O'Toole was evacuated from Leeds early in World War II and went to a Catholic School for seven or eight years, where he was "implored" to become right-handed. “I used to be scared stiff of the nuns: their whole denial of womanhood—the black dresses and the shaving of the hair—was so horrible, so terrifying,” he later commented. “Of course, that's all been stopped. They're sipping gin and tonic in the Dublin pubs now, and a couple of them flashed their pretty ankles at me just the other day.”[5]
Upon leaving school O'Toole obtained employment as a trainee journalist and photographer on the Yorkshire Evening Post, until he was called up for National Service as a signaller in the Royal Navy. As reported in a radio interview in 2006 on NPR, he was asked by an officer whether he had something he'd always wanted to do. His reply was that he'd always wanted to try being either a poet or an actor. O'Toole attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) (1952–1954) on a scholarship after being rejected by the Abbey Theatre's Drama School in Dublin by the then director Ernest Blythe, because he couldn't speak Irish. At RADA, he was in the same class as Albert Finney, Alan Bates and Brian Bedford. O'Toole described this as "the most remarkable class the academy ever had, though we weren't reckoned for much at the time. We were all considered dotty".[6]
Career
Peter O'Toole as T. E. Lawrence
O'Toole began working in the theatre, gaining recognition as a Shakespearean actor at the Bristol Old Vic and with the English Stage Company, before making his television debut in 1954 and a very minor film debut in 1959. O'Toole's major break came when he was chosen to play T. E. Lawrence in David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia (1962), after Marlon Brando proved unavailable and Albert Finney turned down the role.[7] His performance was ranked number one in Premiere magazine's list of the 100 Greatest Performances of All Time. The role introduced him to U.S. audiences and earned him the first of his eight nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actor.
O'Toole is also one of a handful of actors to be Oscar-nominated for playing the same role in two different films; he played King Henry II in both 1964's Becket and 1968's The Lion in Winter. O'Toole played Hamlet under Laurence Olivier's direction in the premiere production of the Royal National Theatre in 1963. He has also appeared in Sean O'Casey's Juno and the Paycock at Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, fulfilling a lifetime ambition when taking to the stage of the Irish capital's Abbey Theatre in 1970 to play in Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, alongside the stage actor Donal McCann. In 1980, he received wide critical acclaim for playing the director in the behind-the-scenes movie The Stunt Man. His 1980 performance as Macbeth is often considered one of the greatest disasters in theatre history,[8] but he has redeemed his theatrical reputation with his performances as John Tanner in Man and Superman and Henry Higgins in Pygmalion, and won a Laurence Olivier Award for his performance in Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell (1989). Another fine performance from O'Toole, which gained him a nomination for Best Actor, was 1982's My Favorite Year, a light romantic comedy about the behind-the-scenes at a 1950s TV variety-comedy show, much like Your Show of Shows, in which O'Toole masterfully plays an aging swashbucking film star strongly reminiscent (intentionally) of Errol Flynn.
In 1972 he played both Miguel de Cervantes and his fictional creation Don Quixote in Man of La Mancha, the motion picture adaptation of the 1965 smash hit Broadway musical, opposite Sophia Loren. Widely criticized for using mostly non-singing actors and shunned by the public at the time, the film has gone on to become more of a success on videocassette and DVD, though there are those who still find fault with it. O'Toole's singing was dubbed by tenor Simon Gilbert, but the other actors sang their own parts. O'Toole and co-star James Coco, who played both Cervantes's manservant and Sancho Panza, both received Golden Globe nominations for their performances. He also starred as Audrey Hepburn's lover in How To Steal A Million in 1966.
O'Toole won an Emmy Award for his role in the 1999 mini-series Joan of Arc. In 2004, O'Toole played King Priam in the summer blockbuster Troy. In 2005, he appeared on television as the older version of legendary 18th century Italian adventurer Giacomo Casanova in the BBC drama serial Casanova. O'Toole's role was mainly to frame the drama, telling the story of his life to serving maid Edith (Rose Byrne). The younger Casanova seen for most of the action was played by David Tennant, who had to wear contact lenses to match his brown eyes to O'Toole's blue.
He was once again nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award for his portrayal of Maurice in the 2006 film Venus, directed by Roger Michell, his eighth such nomination. Most recently, O'Toole co-starred in the Pixar animated film, Ratatouille, an animated film about a rat with dreams of becoming the greatest chef in Paris. O'Toole starred in the second season of Showtime's hit drama series The Tudors, portraying Pope Paul III, who excommunicates King Henry VIII from the church; an act that leads to a showdown between the two men in seven of the ten episodes.
Peter O'Toole at Savannah Film Festival, 2004
Personal life
In a BBC Radio interview in January 2007, O'Toole said that he had studied women for a very long time, had given it his best try, but knew "nothing". In 1959, he married Welsh actress, Siân Phillips, with whom he had two daughters, Kate O'Toole (b. 1961), an award-winning actress, and Patricia. Peter and Sîan were divorced in 1979. Phillips later revealed in two autobiographies that O'Toole had subjected her to mental cruelty — largely fuelled by drinking — and was subject to bouts of extreme jealousy when she finally left him for a younger lover.[9]
O'Toole and his girlfriend, model Karen Brown, had a son, Lorcan Patrick O'Toole (born 14 March 1983: O'Toole was fifty years old). Lorcan, now an actor, was a pupil at Harrow School, boarding at West Acre from 1996.
Severe illness almost ended his life in the late 1970s. Owing to his heavy drinking, he underwent surgery in 1976 to have his pancreas and a large portion of his stomach removed, which resulted in insulin-dependent diabetes. In 1978 he nearly died from a blood disorder. O'Toole eventually recovered and returned to work, although he found it harder to get parts in films, resulting in more work for television and occasional stage roles. However, he gave a star turn in 1987's much-garlanded The Last Emperor. He has resided in Clifden, County Galway, Ireland since 1963 and at the height of his career maintained homes in Dublin, London and Paris (at the Ritz which was the hotel he was supposedly staying in the movie How To Steal A Million), but now only keeps his home in London. While studying at RADA in the early 1950s he was active in protesting against British involvement in the Korean War. Later in the 1960s he was an active opponent of the Vietnam War.
He is perhaps the only one of his "London" acting contemporaries not to be knighted. However, according to London's Daily Mail, he was offered a knighthood or honorary knighthood in 1987, but turned it down for personal and political reasons.[10]
In an interview to the Americian National Public Radio in December 2006, O'Toole revealed that he knows all 154 Shakespeare sonnets. A self-described romantic, O'Toole regards the sonnets as among the finest collection of English poems. He reads them daily. In the movie Venus, he recites Sonnet 18, "Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer's Day". O'Toole has written two books. Loitering With Intent: The Child chronicles his childhood in the years leading up to World War II and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year in 1992. His second, Loitering With Intent: The Apprentice, is about his years spent training with a cadre of friends at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. The books have been praised by critics such as Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times, who wrote: "A cascade of language, a rumbling tumbling riot of words, a pub soliloquy to an invisible but imaginable audience, and the more captivating for it. O'Toole as raconteur is grand company." O'Toole spent parts of 2007 writing his third instalment. This book will have (as he described it) "the meat", meaning highlights from his stage and filmmaking career.
O'Toole is a noted fan of rugby and used to attend Five Nations matches with friends and fellow rugby fans Richard Harris and Richard Burton. (Between O'Toole, Harris and Burton they have a combined 17 Oscar nominations.) He is also a lifelong player, coach and enthusiast of cricket. O'Toole is licensed to teach and coach cricket to children as young as ten.
O'Toole has been interviewed at least three times by Charlie Rose on The Charlie Rose Show. In the 17 January 2007 interview, O'Toole said that Eric Porter was the actor who had most influenced him. He also said that the difference between actors of yesterday and today are that actors of his generation were trained for "theatre, theatre, theatre." He also believes that the challenge for the actor is "to use his imagination to link to his emotion" and that "good parts make good actors." However, in other venues (including the DVD commentary for Becket), O'Toole has also credited Donald Wolfit as being his most important mentor. In an appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on 11 January 2007, O'Toole said that the actor he most enjoyed working with was his close friend, actress Katharine Hepburn with whom he played Henry II to her Eleanor of Aquitaine in The Lion in Winter.
O'Toole remains close friends with his Lawrence of Arabia co-star Omar Sharif and his RADA classmate Albert Finney.
Academy Award nominations
O'Toole has been nominated eight times for the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, making him the most-nominated actor never to win the award.
In 2003, the Academy honoured him with an Academy Honorary Award for his entire body of work and his lifelong contribution to film.[11] O'Toole initially balked about accepting, and wrote the Academy a letter saying he was "still in the game" and would like more time to "win the lovely bugger outright." The Academy informed him that they would bestow the award whether he wanted it or not. Further, as he related on The Charlie Rose Show in January 2007, his children admonished him, saying that it was the highest honour one could receive in the filmmaking industry. O'Toole agreed to appear at the ceremony and receive his Honorary Oscar. It was presented to him by Meryl Streep, who has the most Oscar nominations of any actor (15).
^ Whether he was offered an honorary knighthood as a non-British citizen, or a full knighthood based on his status as an Irish citizen born prior to the declaration of the Republic of Ireland when Ireland was technically one of the King's realms, is debated. Whatever the form of knighthood offered, he declined the offer.
