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Peter O'Toole

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Peter O'Toole
File:PeterOToolePicture.jpg
O'Toole in Venus, 2006
Born
Peter Seamus O'Toole
Height6 ft 3 in (1.91 m)
SpouseSiân Phillips (1959-1979)

Peter Seamus O'Toole (born Peter James O'Toole on August 2, 1932) is an acclaimed eight-time Academy Award-nominated Irish actor best known for his performances in such films as Lawrence of Arabia, Becket, The Lion in Winter, My Favorite Year, and, most recently, Venus.

He has received three Golden Globes and an Emmy. He was also awarded an honorary Oscar for his body of work but, despite eight nominations, he has yet to win a Best Actor Oscar for for any individual performance.

Early life

Although O'Toole has previously given his birthplace as Connemara, County Galway, he has himself suggested that this may not be accurate in the first volume of his memoirs, Loitering with Intent, saying that this was the "family version", and that he may have been born in either Kerry, Dublin, or, perhaps, Leeds, England. The Irish Register of Births, Deaths and Marriages has no record of his birth; the General Registry Office in Leeds in England, however, confirms that Peter James O'Toole was born there in 1932.[1] To avoid such complications for his children, he has ensured that both his daughter Kate and son Lorcan were born in Dublin. Elder daughter Patricia was born in England, a mistake which O'Toole regretted, famously saying: "Pat was born in Britain, the poor thing."

In her own memoir, Public Places, his former wife Siân Phillips says, "...he may or may not have been born there, but he is a true son of Connemara." His father, Patrick Joseph O'Toole was an Irish bookmaker and his mother, Constance Jane Eliot (née Ferguson), was a Scottish born nurse.

After National Service in Britain O'Toole served as a radioman 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. Fortunately, for the world, acting worked out.

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, Richard Harris, 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."[2]

Career

He began getting work 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 Albert Finney turned down the role. His performance introduced him to U.S. audiences and earned him the first of his eight nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actor. For further information, see Academy Award nominations below.

File:3292006113525.jpg
Screenshot of O'Toole in David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia (1962).

O'Toole is also one of a handful of actors to be 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.

He has also appeared in Sean O'Casey's Juno and the Paycock at Dublin's Gaiety Theatre and fulfilled a lifetime ambition when taking to the legendary stage of the Irish capital's Abbey Theatre in 1970 to play in Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett alongside the celebrated stage actor Donal McCann.

In 2005, he took a rare television role 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.

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. He was once again nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award for his role Maurice in the 2006 film Venus, directed by Roger Michell, his eighth such nomination.

Personal life

In 1960, he married Welsh actress, Siân Phillips, with whom he had two daughters, Kate O'Toole (an award-winning actress, resident in Clifden, Ireland) and Patricia; the couple divorced in 1979. He and his ex-girlfriend, Karen Brown, have a son, Lorcan O'Toole born when he was in his fifties.

Severe illness almost ended his life in the late 1970s. Due to his heavy drinking, he underwent surgery in 1976 to have his pancreas and a large portion of his stomach removed, making him diabetic. 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) but now keeps only the London one. "I can't stand light", he once said, "I hate weather. My idea of heaven is moving from one smoke-filled room to another."

He is perhaps the only of his "London" acting contemparies not to be knighted by the British Queen, a glaring omission at first glance but one that according to London's Daily Mail in 2006 is of his own making. According the the paper's Richard Kay, he was offered an honorary Knighthood in 1987 but turned it down for personal and political reasons (the Northern Irish troubles were still raging at the time).

He is a noted fan of rugby and used to attend Five Nations matches with friends and fellow rugby fans Richard Harris and Richard Burton.

O'Toole has written two books. "Loitering With Intent: The Child," which chronicles his childhood growing up in England and Ireland during the years leading up to WWII. His second, "Loitering With Intent: The Apprentice" is about his years spent training with a fun cadre of friends at RADA. His writing is infused with his love of language, poetry and literature. His style is sumptuous and much usage of rhyme and tempo is woven into the prose. The books have been praised by critics such as Charles Champlin in the Los Angeles Times Book Review, who wrote: "A cascade of language, a rumbling tumbling riot of words, a pub soliliquoy to an invisible but imaginable audience, and the more captivating for it. O'Toole as raconteur is grand company."

O'Toole is taking the rest of 2007 to finish his third installment. This book will have (as he described it) "the meat," meaning highlights from his stage and filmmaking career.

Trivia

  • The Italian comic book character Alan Ford is graphically inspired by O'Toole.
  • O'Toole is sometimes confused for the Irish musician of the same name who played mandolin on a few tracks off of The Indigo Girls' self-titled album. The other O'Toole is a member of the band Hothouse Flowers
  • A lifelong player, coach and enthusiast for the game cricket, O'Toole is licensed to teach and coach cricket to children as young as ten.
  • 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 an NPR interview 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 xvii, "Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer's Day".
  • O'Toole has been interviewed three times by Charlie Rose on The Charlie Rose Show. On the last interview January 17, 2007, O'Toole said that the actor who had influenced him the most was Eric Porter. 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."
  • On acting: "Whenever I find something getting a bit ornate, I think no, no, deepen. Don't go out, go in." -Charlie Rose Show, January 2007.

Academy Award nominations

O'Toole has received a total of eight nominations for Best Actor in a Leading Role Oscar over 45 years, but he has not yet won the award:

Should he lose again in 2007, he would become the most-nominated actor never to win a Best Actor Oscar. He is currently tied with Richard Burton for this dubious honour, at seven losing nominations each.

In 2003, the Academy honoured him an Academy Honorary Award for his entire body of work and his lifelong contribution to film. It was presented to him by Meryl Streep, who has the most Oscar nominations of any actor (14). 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 reported on The Charlie Rose Show in January 2007, his children admonished him, saying that it was the highest honor one could receive in the filmmaking industry. And so, O'Toole agreed to appear at the ceremony and receive his Honorary Oscar. He took two of his three children (daughter Kate and son Lorcan) to accept the award, and was greeted by accolades and applause from his peers.

Selected filmography

File:PeterOToole.jpg
With Petula Clark in Goodbye, Mr. Chips

Stage appearances

1955-58 Bristol Old Vic

1959 Royal Court Theatre

1960 Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford

1963 National Theatre

1963-1965

1966 Gaiety Theatre, Dublin

1969 Abbey Theatre, Dublin

1973-74 Bristol Old Vic

1978 Toronto, Washington and Chicago

1980-1999

References

  1. ^ Niamh Horan, "O'Toole's claims of Irish roots are blarney", Sunday Independent, 28 January 2007
  2. ^ MovieCrazed

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