Sunday, December 15, 2013

Peter J. O'Toole 2 August 1932 Connemara, Ireland 14 December 2013(2013-12-14) (aged 81)

Peter O'Toole

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Peter O'Toole
Peter O'Toole -- LOA trailer.jpg
Publicity photo for Lawrence of Arabia
BornPeter J. O'Toole
(1932-08-02)2 August 1932
Connemara, Ireland [1]
Died14 December 2013(2013-12-14) (aged 81)
London, England, UK
NationalityUK/Ireland
Alma materRoyal Academy of Dramatic Art
OccupationActor
Years active1954–2012
Spouse(s)Siân Phillips (m. 1959–79)
ChildrenKate O'Toole (b. 1960)
Patricia O'Toole
Lorcan O'Toole, born (1983-03-17) 17 March 1983 (age 30)
Awards
Academy Awards
Academy Honorary Award
2003
Emmy Awards
Outstanding Supporting Actor – Miniseries or a Movie
1999 Joan of Arc
Golden Globe Awards
Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
1964 Becket
1968 The Lion in Winter
Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1969 Goodbye, Mr. Chips
BAFTA Awards
Best Actor in a Leading Role
1962 Lawrence of Arabia
Peter O'Toole[2][3] (2 August 1932 – 14 December 2013) was an Irish-born, British reared and educated actor.[1] He attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and 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 film debut in 1959.
He achieved stardom playing T. E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia (1962) for which he received his first Academy Award nomination. He received seven further Oscar nominations – for Becket (1964), The Lion in Winter (1968), Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969), The Ruling Class (1972), The Stunt Man (1980), My Favorite Year (1982) and Venus (2006) – and holds the record for the most Academy Award acting nominations without a win. He won four Golden Globes, a BAFTA and an Emmy, and was the recipient of an Honorary Academy Award in 2003.


Early life

O'Toole was born in 1932. Some sources give his birthplace as Connemara, County Galway, Ireland,[1] while others have reported Leeds, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. O'Toole himself was not certain of his birthplace or date, noting in his autobiography that, while he accepted 2 August as his birthdate, he had a birth certificate from each country, with the Irish one giving a June 1932 birthdate.[3] He was the son of Constance Jane Eliot (née Ferguson), a Scottish[4] nurse, and Patrick Joseph "Spats" O'Toole, an Irish metal plater, football player, and racecourse bookmaker.[5][6][7][8] When O'Toole was one year old, his family began a five-year tour of major racecourse towns in Northern England. He was brought up as a Catholic.[9][10] O'Toole was evacuated from Leeds early in World War II and went to a Catholic school for seven or eight years, St Joseph's Secondary School, David Street, Holbeck, Leeds, 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.”[11]
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 had always wanted to do. His reply was that he had always wanted to try being either a poet or an actor. O'Toole attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) from 1952 to 1954 on a scholarship after being rejected by the Abbey Theatre's drama school in Dublin by the 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."[12]

Career

Publicity photo for Lawrence of Arabia
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. He first appeared on film in 1959 in a minor role in The Day They Robbed the Bank of England.[13] 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.[1] His performance was ranked number one in Premiere magazine's list of the 100 Greatest Performances of All Time.[14] 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 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 Becket (1964) and The Lion in Winter (1968). O'Toole played Hamlet under Laurence Olivier's direction in the premiere production of the Royal National Theatre in 1963. He demonstrated his comedic abilities alongside Peter Sellers in the Woody Allen-scripted comedy What's New Pussycat? (1965). He also appeared in Seán O'Casey's Juno and the Paycock at Gaiety Theatre, Dublin.
As King Henry II in The Lion in Winter (1968)
O'Toole fulfilled a lifetime ambition when taking to the stage of the Irish capital's Abbey Theatre in 1970, to perform in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot alongside Donal McCann. 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 hit Broadway musical, opposite Sophia Loren. The film was a critical and commercial failure, criticized for using mostly non-singing actors. O'Toole's singing was dubbed by tenor Simon Gilbert,[15] 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. In 1980, O'Toole starred as Tiberius in the Penthouse-funded biographical film Caligula.
In 1980, he received wide critical acclaim for playing the director in the behind-the-scenes film The Stunt Man. He received good reviews 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).[16] O'Toole was nominated for another Oscar for My Favorite Year (1982), a light romantic comedy about the behind-the-scenes at a 1950s TV variety-comedy show, in which O'Toole plays an ageing swashbuckling film star reminiscent of Errol Flynn. He also appeared in 1987's acclaimed The Last Emperor.
O'Toole won an Emmy Award for his role in the 1999 mini-series Joan of Arc. In 2004, he 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. 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 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 (2007), an animated film about a rat with dreams of becoming the greatest chef in Paris, as Anton Ego, a food critic. O'Toole appeared in the second season of Showtime's successful drama series The Tudors (2008), portraying Pope Paul III, who excommunicates King Henry VIII from the church; an act which leads to a showdown between the two men in seven of the ten episodes.
On 10 July 2012, O'Toole released a statement that he was retiring from acting.[17]

Personal life

While studying at RADA in the early 1950s, O'Toole 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 played a role in the creation of the current form of the well-known folksong "Carrickfergus" which he related to Dominic Behan, who put it in print and made a recording in the mid-1960s.[18]
In a BBC Radio interview in January 2007, O'Toole said 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: actress Kate and Patricia. Peter and Siân 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.[19]
In the TV film Present Laughter (1968)
O'Toole and his girlfriend, model Karen Brown[20] had a son, Lorcan Patrick O'Toole (born 17 March 1983), when O'Toole was fifty years old. Lorcan, now an actor, was a pupil at Harrow School, boarding at West Acre from 1996.[21]
Severe illness almost ended O'Toole's life in the late 1970s. His stomach cancer was misdiagnosed as resulting from his alcoholic excess.[22] O'Toole 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. He eventually recovered, however, and returned to work. He resided on the Sky Road, just outside Clifden in Connemara in County Galway, Ireland, from 1963, and at the height of his career maintained homes in Dublin, London, and Paris (at the Ritz, which was where his character supposedly lived in the film How to Steal a Million). Finally, he made his home solely in London.
O'Toole was reportedly offered a knighthood in 1987,[citation needed] but turned it down for personal and political reasons.[citation needed]
In an interview with National Public Radio in December 2006, O'Toole revealed that he knew all 154 of Shakespeare's sonnets. A self-described romantic, O'Toole regarded the sonnets as among the finest collection of English poems, reading them daily. In the film Venus, he recites Sonnet 18 ("Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"). O'Toole wrote two memoirs. 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.[citation needed] 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 the third installment. This book will have (as he described it) "the meat," meaning highlights from his stage and filmmaking career.[citation needed]
O'Toole was a noted fan of rugby union, and attended Five Nations matches with friends and fellow rugby fans Richard Harris, Kenneth Griffith, Peter Finch and Richard Burton. (O'Toole, Harris and Burton have a combined 17 Oscar nominations.) He was also a lifelong player, coach and enthusiast of cricket, licensed to teach and coach cricket to children as young as ten. O'Toole was a fan of Sunderland A.F.C., as he told Chris Evans on an episode of TFI Friday, dated Friday, 11 October 1996. The allegiance lapsed, according to an article at the Salut! Sunderland website.[23]
O'Toole was interviewed at least three times by Charlie Rose on his eponymous talk 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 is 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 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 Katharine Hepburn, his close friend; he played Henry II to her Eleanor of Aquitaine in The Lion in Winter.
Although he lost faith in organised religion as a teenager, O'Toole expressed positive sentiments regarding the life of Jesus Christ. In an interview for The New York Times,[24] he said "No one can take Jesus away from me...there’s no doubt there was a historical figure of tremendous importance, with enormous notions. Such as peace." Earlier in the interview, he announced "I am a retired Christian".[24] O'Toole played Samuel in One Night with the King, about Esther, in 2006 and the minor role of Father Christopher in For Greater Glory: the True Story of Cristiada in 2012.

Death

O'Toole died on 14 December 2013 at the Wellington Hospital in London, aged 81, following a long illness.[25]

Awards and nominations

O'Toole was 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.
YearAwardCategoryTitleResult
1963Academy AwardBest Actor in Lead RoleLawrence of ArabiaNominated
Golden GlobesBest Motion Picture ActorNominated
BAFTA AwardsBest British ActorWon
Laurel AwardsTop Male PerformanceNominated
Top New Male PersonalityWon
Golden GlobesBest Male NewcomerWon
1964David di Donatello AwardsBest Foreign ActorLawrence of ArabiaWon
1965Academy AwardBest Actor in Lead RoleBecketNominated
Golden GlobesBest Motion Picture Actor - DramaWon
BAFTA AwardBest British ActorNominated
Razzie AwardsWorst ActorWon
Sant Jordi AwardsBest Performance in Foreign FilmWon
Laurel AwardsBest Male PerformaceNominated
Top Male StarNominated
1967David di Donatello AwardsBest Foreign ActorThe Night of the GeneralsWon
1968New York Film Critics Circle AwardsBest ActorThe Lion in WinterNominated
1969Academy AwardBest Actor in Lead RoleThe Lion in WinterNominated
Golden GlobesBest Motion Picture ActorWon
1970Academy AwardBest Actor in Lead RoleGoodbye, Mr. ChipsNominated
Golden GlobesBest Motion Picture Actor - Musical/ComedyWon
David di Donatello AwardsBest Foreign ActorWon
National Board of ReviewBest ActorWon
National Society of Film Critics AwardsBest ActorNominated
Laurel AwardsTop Male StarNominated
1972National Board of ReviewBest ActorThe Ruling Class
Man of La Mancha		Won
1973Academy AwardBest Actor in Lead RoleThe Ruling ClassNominated
National Society of Film Critics AwardsBest ActorNominated
Golden GlobesBest Motion Picture Actor - Musical/ComedyMan of La ManchaNominated
1980New York Film Critics Circle AwardsBest ActorThe Stunt ManNominated
1981Academy AwardBest Actor in Lead RoleThe Stunt ManNominated
Golden GlobeBest Motion Picture Actor - DramaNominated
National Society of Film Critics AwardsBest ActorWon
Primetime Emmy AwardsOutstanding Lead ActorMasadaNominated
1982Golden GlobeBest Performance by an ActorMasadaNominated
Los Angeles Film Critics Association AwardsBest ActorMy Favorite YearNominated
New York Film Critics Circle AwardsBest Supporting ActorWon
1983Academy AwardBest Actor in Lead RoleMy Favorite YearNominated
Golden GlobeBest Actor in Motion PictureNominated
National Society of Film Critics AwardsBest ActorNominated
1984Sant Jordi AwardsBest Foreign FilmWon
1987CableACE AwardBest ActorThe Ray Bradbury Theatre
(For episode "Banshee")		Won
Razzie AwardsWorst Supporting ActorMy Favorite YearWon
1998David di Donatello AwardsBest Foreign ActorThe Last EmperorWon
1989BAFTA AwardBest Actor in Supporting RoleThe Last EmperorNominated
1999Primetime Emmy AwardsOutstanding Supporting ActorJoan of ArcWon
2000Golden GlobeBest Performance by an ActorNominated
2002Cherbourg-Octeville Festival of Irish & British FilmBest ActorThe Final CurtainWon
TelegattoSpecial AwardWon
2003Academy AwardHonorary AwardWon
Primetime Emmy AwardsOutstanding Supporting ActorHitler: The Rise of EvilNominated
DVD Exclusive AwardsBest ActorGlobal HeresyNominated
2004Irish Film and Television AwardsBest Supporting ActorTroyWon
Savannah Film and Video FestivalLifetime Achievement AwardWon
2006British Independent Film AwardsBest ActorVenusNominated
Chicago Film Critics AssociationBest ActorNominated
Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association AwardsBest ActorNominated
Satellite AwardsBest ActorNominated
Las Vegas Film Critics Society AwardsLifetime Achievement AwardWon
2007Academy AwardBest Actor in Lead RoleVenusNominated
Golden GlobeBest Performance by an ActorNominated
BAFTA AwardBest ActorNominated
Broadcast Film Critics Association AwardsBest ActorNominated
National Society of Film Critics AwardsBest ActorNominated
Online Film Critics Society AwardsBest ActorNominated
Screen Actors Guild AwardsBest ActorNominated
2009Irish Film and Television AwardsBest Supporting ActorThe TudorsNominated
Best Supporting ActorDean SpanleyWon
London Critics Circle Film AwardsBest British Supporting ActorNominated
New Zealand Film and TV AwardsBest Supporting ActorWon
Monte-Carlo TV FestivalOutstanding ActorThe TudorsNominated

Filmography

Main article: Peter O'Toole filmography

Stage appearances

1955–58 Bristol Old Vic

1959 Royal Court Theatre

1960 Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford

1963 National Theatre

1963–65

1966 Gaiety Theatre, Dublin

1969 Abbey Theatre, Dublin

1973–74 Bristol Old Vic

1978 Toronto, Washington and Chicago

1980–99

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