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  • Peter O'Toole Dead





    Well, that's a rude headline to read over breakfast!

    A member of that great generation of English stage & screen actors, it is fair to say that Peter O'Toole left an impression on popular culture. If all he had ever done was 'Lawrence of Arabia' he would be a legend, but there was so much more. Missed out on getting an Oscar for any specific role, but eventually got one for living long enough.;) He was a drinker who could have medalled if it was at the Olympics and something of a pants man. O'Toole also had one of those wonderful voices that only the best English stage actors developed. He could keep you entranced reading a phone book.

    Now, back to fielding the phone calls.

    Peter O'Toole, the charismatic actor who achieved instant stardom as Lawrence of Arabia and was nominated eight times for an Academy Award, has died, his agent said on Sunday. He was 81.

    O'Toole died on Saturday after a long illness, Steve Kenis said in a brief statement.

    The family was overwhelmed "by the outpouring of real love and affection being expressed towards him, and to us, during this unhappy time. ... In due course there will be a memorial filled with song and good cheer, as he would have wished," O'Toole's daughter Kate said in the statement.

    O'Toole got his first Oscar nomination for 1962's Lawrence of Arabia, his last for Venus in 2006. With that he set the record for most nominations without ever winning, though he had accepted an honorary Oscar in 2003.

    A reformed — but unrepentant — hell-raiser, O'Toole long suffered from ill health. Always thin, he had grown wraithlike in later years, his famously handsome face eroded by years of hard drinking.

    But nothing diminished his flamboyant manner and candour.

    "If you can't do something willingly and joyfully, then don't do it," he once said. "If you give up drinking, don't go moaning about it; go back on the bottle. Do. As. Thou. Wilt."

    O'Toole began his acting career as one of the most exciting young talents on the British stage. His 1955 Hamlet, at the Bristol Old Vic, was critically acclaimed.

    International stardom came in David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia. With only a few minor movie roles behind him, O'Toole was unknown to most moviegoers when they first saw him as T.E. Lawrence, the mythic British World War I soldier and scholar who led an Arab rebellion against the Turks.

    His sensitive portrayal of Lawrence's complex character garnered O'Toole his first Oscar nomination.

    O'Toole was tall, fair and strikingly handsome, and the image of his bright blue eyes peering out of an Arab headdress in Lean's spectacularly photographed desert epic was unforgettable.

    Playwright Noel Coward once said that if O'Toole had been any prettier, they would have had to call the movie Florence of Arabia.

    In 1964's Becket, O'Toole played King Henry II to Richard Burton's Thomas Becket, and won another Oscar nomination. Burton shared O'Toole's fondness for drinking, and their off set carousing made headlines.

    O'Toole played Henry again in 1968 in The Lion in Winter, opposite Katharine Hepburn, for his third Oscar nomination.

    Four more nominations followed: in 1968 for Goodbye, Mr Chips, in 1971 for The Ruling Class, in 1980 for The Stunt Man, and in 1982 for My Favourite Year. It was almost a quarter-century before he received his eighth and last, for Venus.

    Seamus Peter O'Toole was born August 2, 1932, the son of Irish bookie Patrick "Spats" O'Toole and his wife Constance. There is some question about whether Peter was born in Connemara, Ireland, or in Leeds, northern England, where he grew up.

    After a teenage foray into journalism at the Yorkshire Evening Post and national military service with the navy, young O'Toole auditioned for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and won a scholarship.

    He went from there to the Bristol Old Vic and soon was on his way to stardom, helped along by an early success in 1959 at London's Royal Court Theatre in The Long and The Short and The Tall.

    The image of the renegade hell-raiser stayed with O'Toole for decades, although he gave up drinking in 1975 following serious health problems and major surgery.

    He did not, however, give up smoking unfiltered Gauloises cigarettes in an ebony holder. That and his penchant for green socks, voluminous overcoats and trailing scarves lent him a rakish air and suited his fondness for drama in the old-fashioned "bravura" manner.

    A month before his 80th birthday in 2012, O'Toole announced his retirement from a career that he said had fulfilled him emotionally and financially, bringing "me together with fine people, good companions with whom I've shared the inevitable lot of all actors: flops and hits."

    "However, it's my belief that one should decide for oneself when it is time to end one's stay," he said. "So I bid the profession a dry-eyed and profoundly grateful farewell."

    In retirement, O'Toole said he would focus on the third volume of his memoirs.

    Good parts were sometimes few and far between, but "I take whatever good part comes along," O'Toole told The Independent on Sunday newspaper in 1990.

    "And if there isn't a good part, then I do anything, just to pay the rent. Money is always a pressure. And waiting for the right part — you could wait forever. So I turn up and do the best I can."

    The 1980 Macbeth in which he starred was a critical disaster of heroic proportions. But it played to sellout audiences, largely because the savaging by the critics brought out the curiosity seekers.

    "The thought of it makes my nose bleed," he said years later.

    In 1989, however, O'Toole had a big stage success with Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell, a comedy about his old drinking buddy, the legendary layabout and ladies' man who wrote The Spectator magazine's weekly "Low Life" column when he was sober enough to do so.

    The honorary Oscar came 20 years after his seventh nomination for My Favourite Year. By then it seemed a safe bet that O'Toole's prospects for another nomination were slim. He was still working regularly, but in smaller roles unlikely to earn awards attention.

    O'Toole graciously accepted the honorary award, quipping, "Always a bridesmaid, never a bride, my foot," as he clutched his Oscar statuette.

    He had nearly turned down the award, sending a letter asking that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hold off on the honorary Oscar until he turned 80.

    Hoping another Oscar-worthy role would come his way, O'Toole wrote: "I am still in the game and might win the bugger outright."

    O'Toole divorced Welsh actress Sian Phillips in 1979 after 19 years of marriage. The couple had two daughters, Kate and Pat.

    A brief relationship with American model Karen Somerville led to the birth of his son Lorcan in 1983, and a change of lifestyle for O'Toole.

    After a long custody battle, a US judge ruled Somerville should have her son during school vacations, and O'Toole would have custody during the school year.

    "The pirate ship has berthed," he declared, happily taking on the responsibilities of fatherhood. He learned to coach schoolboy cricket and, when he was in a play, the curtain time was moved back to allow him part of the evenings at home with his son.

    Actor Peter O'Toole dead, aged 81
    sigpic

    Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C

  • #2
    Mate I did a bit if a double take when I saw that this morning on Facebook.

    Then realised that although your a bit of a dinosaur that 81 was pushing it.
    The best part of repentance is the sin

    Comment


    • #3
      Godspeed Peter O'Toole
      Craig Johnson

      Comment


      • #4
        Well, a thing or two.

        First of all, others can relax. We've had our three, Peter, Tom Laughlin, Ray Price.

        Secondly, so is there going to be a rush on getting his movies? I have Joan of Arc, Supergirl, Creator, Caligula, Rosebud, Murphy's War, Lord Jim, Casino Royale, Lawrence of Arabia, and Night of the Generals. I am looking at getting Man of La Mancha, but more from the stand point that I've used that as an acting reference off the net for years.

        What other flicks of his should one have?

        Sure, it is sad that he is gone.....but is this not a good way to remember him?

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by Tamara View Post
          Well, a thing or two.

          First of all, others can relax. We've had our three, Peter, Tom Laughlin, Ray Price.

          Secondly, so is there going to be a rush on getting his movies? I have Joan of Arc, Supergirl, Creator, Caligula, Rosebud, Murphy's War, Lord Jim, Casino Royale, Lawrence of Arabia, and Night of the Generals. I am looking at getting Man of La Mancha, but more from the stand point that I've used that as an acting reference off the net for years.

          What other flicks of his should one have?

          Sure, it is sad that he is gone.....but is this not a good way to remember him?
          If there is a 'rush' it won't last for long. Suggestions beyond what you have:

          * Becket & Lion in Winter: two performances as Henry II in two fine films with excellent casts. His wife appeared in a minor role in the first.
          * Goodbye, Mr Chips: excellent film from the British 'public school film' genre.
          * The Stunt Man & My Favourite Year: two early 80s films about film making. Both good fun performances.
          * Zulu Dawn: I wouldn't necessarily watch it for his performance, and it probably isn't as good as 1964's 'Zulu' (which featured a young Michael Caine as an upper class officer & Sth African political heavyweight Mangosuthu Buthelezi as his own grandfather), unless you are cheering for the Zulus, but it is all good fun...more or less. Thin Red Line & all that.

          There are probably a few more here & there, but those are some suggestions.

          Looking at the filmography I noticed that Lawrence of Arabia was only his 4th film. Remarkable!
          sigpic

          Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C

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          • #6
            RIP Peter,... loved his movies.

            Cheers!...on the rocks!!

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Bigfella View Post
              If there is a 'rush' it won't last for long. Suggestions beyond what you have:

              * Becket & Lion in Winter: two performances as Henry II in two fine films with excellent casts. His wife appeared in a minor role in the first.
              * Goodbye, Mr Chips: excellent film from the British 'public school film' genre.
              * The Stunt Man & My Favourite Year: two early 80s films about film making. Both good fun performances.
              * Zulu Dawn: I wouldn't necessarily watch it for his performance, and it probably isn't as good as 1964's 'Zulu' (which featured a young Michael Caine as an upper class officer & Sth African political heavyweight Mangosuthu Buthelezi as his own grandfather), unless you are cheering for the Zulus, but it is all good fun...more or less. Thin Red Line & all that.

              There are probably a few more here & there, but those are some suggestions.

              Looking at the filmography I noticed that Lawrence of Arabia was only his 4th film. Remarkable!
              Lion In Winter is amazing given the disparity in ages between he and his leading lady, Katherine Hepburn, and yet they both pull it off.

              I can watch Lawrence of Arabia all day long. Just one of those specticles that I cry out for but no one ever makes, and please, don't tell me about the freaking Hobbit.

              I am just old enough that I have vague memories of the early days of television in America, so My Favorite Year rings true with me. The entire cast, many of whom are relative unknowns, is great, and he is brilliant once again.

              Night of the Generals is great if for no reason than it is interesting to watch he and another actor I've long admired, but who has eschewed film for most of his career, Tom Courtney (Pasha/Strelnikov in David Lean's Dr. Zhivago). playing off one another. O'Toole was truly frightening in that role.

              I'm sure there are many others, but those are the ones that touch me.

              Comment


              • #8
                RIP

                My personal favorites are Beckett & Lion in Winter with Lawrence of Arabia coming in a close 3rd. I too like My Favorite Year & Night of the Generals. And Lord Jim was Apocalypse Now before its time.
                “Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
                Mark Twain

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by Albany Rifles View Post
                  RIP

                  My personal favorites are Beckett & Lion in Winter with Lawrence of Arabia coming in a close 3rd. I too like My Favorite Year & Night of the Generals. And Lord Jim was Apocalypse Now before its time.
                  Ummmmm, let's be careful here, okay?

                  I mean, some of us haven't seen these movies, so please, DON'T SPOIL IT!

                  Now, all that said, of the ones I listed, I would say that my modern fav is Creator and my growing up, subject of many the Saturday night late flick, is Murphy's War.

                  But you see, that's sort of the thing I was talking about above. I didn't get to see the complete Murphy's War until a year or two ago. It was always something I caught the end of on TV. Likewise, I've never seen the complete Lord Jim or Night of the Generals.

                  So, PLEASE, even though they may be very old movies, remember that to many, they are still unwatched.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Tamara.....Lord Jim? Its from a book, not giving anything away.
                    “Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
                    Mark Twain

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Albany Rifles View Post
                      Tamara.....Lord Jim? Its from a book, not giving anything away.
                      You said enough.

                      You might as well said that "Star Quest" is a
                      Spoiler!
                      or that "Skyjacked" is a
                      Spoiler!
                      . Just saying a few words is enough to take a lot of one's enjoyment out of a movie.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        RIP , i enjoyed a lot of his movies and last week watched (again) Troy .

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Yeah, both Beckett and Lion In Winter are astounding performances. Brilliant actor and human. This a great loss to us all.
                          "This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski
                          "The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." Lester Bangs

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                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Albany Rifles View Post
                            RIP

                            My personal favorites are Beckett & Lion in Winter with Lawrence of Arabia coming in a close 3rd. I too like My Favorite Year & Night of the Generals. And Lord Jim was Apocalypse Now before its time.
                            Uh, no. Apocalypse Now was a late-20th Century version of another Joseph Conrad novela, Heart of Darkness, although I suppose one can't treat Conrad too harshly for going back to the well yet again with a tale about what happens to "civilized" people when they venture too far into what we used to call "the Third World."

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                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Tamara View Post
                              You said enough.

                              You might as well said that "Star Quest" is a
                              Spoiler!
                              or that "Skyjacked" is a
                              Spoiler!
                              . Just saying a few words is enough to take a lot of one's enjoyment out of a movie.
                              Never saw the movies so I do not know what you are speaking of.

                              And Desert SWO, I know AN was based on HOD....but Lord Jim took the same westerner-going-off-the-rails-in-native-lands-story line as HOD.

                              That is what I meant.

                              Little known tie in between AN & Lawrence....Marlon Brando turned down the role of Lawrence before David Lean turned to O'Toole.
                              “Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
                              Mark Twain

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