Remembering Peter O'Toole

"He was the most extraordinary man I ever knew."

It's been five days since my favorite actor died. I'm still speechless, really. How can you measure a man who achieved so much, left such a lasting impression?

What follows is my stab at appreciating Peter O'Toole's life and work - detailed but not comprehensive, admiring but not uncritical. Ordinarily I'd try a more creative or succinct approach, but such thoughts desert me. At any rate, an actor with such a rich and varied career deserves it more than most.

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Peter O'Toole was born in 1932 to an Irish bookmaker and nurse mother. Surviving youthful poverty, Catholic school and Royal Navy service, he dabbled in journalism before drifting into theater. In 1953 he graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, Albert Finney and Alan Bates among his classmates. It was "the most remarkable class the academy ever had, though... we were all considered dotty," O'Toole said. Another peer was Welsh actress Sian Phillips, whom O'Toole married in 1959.

In early roles, O'Toole mixed Shakespeare and Shaw with modern characters like Jimmy Porter in John Osborne's Look Back in Anger (1957) and Bammo in Willis Hall's The Long, the Short and the Tall (1959). Kenneth Tynan, arbiter of English theater, proclaimed O'Toole a budding star: "To convey violence beneath banter, and a soured, embarrassed goodness beneath both, is not the simplest task for a young player, yet Mr. O’Toole achieved it without sweating a drop.” Others compared to him to Laurence Olivier. Playing Hamlet at the Old Vic in 1958, aged just 26, reinforced the comparison.

O'Toole reached an early pinnacle in 1960 when Peter Hall invited him to the Royal Shakespeare Company. During that time, O'Toole played Pertruchio in The Taming of the Shrew opposite Peggy Ashcroft, Thersites in Troilus and Cressida and Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. O'Toole won rave notices for the last role, making Shylock not a monstrous caricature but “a human being of stature driven to breaking point by the inhumanity of others." Perhaps inevitably, O'Toole became drawn to the cinema.

O'Toole with Peggy Ashcroft in The Taming of the Shrew.

O'Toole's film career began, abortively, with a screen test for Suddenly Last Summer. O'Toole engaged in insouciant improvisation throughout, infuriating producer Sam Spiegel. He started with minor roles in unremarkable films like Kidnapped and The Savage Innocents. In 1960 he appeared in John Guillermin's The Day They Robbed the Bank of England, playing an affable English soldier opposite Aldo Ray's Irish bank robber. O'Toole's easy, off-hand charm caught David Lean's attention.

Then preparing Lawrence of Arabia, Lean needed an actor to play T.E. Lawrence after Marlon Brando and Albert Finney declined the role. Lean saw Robbed and, after speaking with Katharine Hepburn, approached O'Toole. After a hastily-arranged screen test, Lean reportedly exclaimed "The boy is Lawrence!" Sam Spiegel, remembering his past encounter with O'Toole, told Lean "he's no good." But lacking alternatives, Spiegel bought O'Toole out of his RSC contract and a film star was born.

O'Toole spent two nightmarish years filming Lawrence. O'Toole had to film in the deserts of Jordan, Spain and Morocco, learn to ride a camel and tolerate Lean's demanding direction.  He struggled to control his drinking: Alec Guinness recounted that O'Toole became drunk in Seville and threw a drink in the face of a local dignitary. Filming a battle scene, he fell off his camel and was nearly trampled to death. "By the time Lawrence wrapped," Robert Sellers writes, O'Toole "received third degree burns, sprained both ankles, torn ligaments... dislocated his spine, broken his thumb, sprained his neck and been concussed twice."

O'Toole was also daunted working opposite so many seasoned actors. Years later, he likened the experience to "a bull fight...every few minutes they opened the trap and out popped another bull: [Jack] Hawkins...[Claude] Rains...[Alec] Guinness...[Jose] Ferrer...[Anthony] Quinn...[Arthur] Kennedy...[Anthony] Quayle." He nonetheless bonded with Omar Sharif, whom he nicknamed "Fred" on the grounds that "no one in the world is called Omar Sharif." The two spent off-hours partying in Beirut, forging a lifelong friendship.

By any measure, O'Toole's is a remarkable performance - especially for a young, relatively untried actor. As conceived by Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson, Lawrence is a multifaceted character mixing contradictory images and impulses: boyish insouciance and cynicism, megalomania and tortured introspection, wild flamboyance and insular brooding. One slight misstep could render him schizophrenic or incomprehensible. O'Toole shows an uncanny mastery of the part, hitting all the right notes.

For Lawrence's first scene in Arab costume, Lean advised O'Toole to improvise his reaction. O'Toole drew his dagger, pondering his reflection in its blade. This small moment reveals so much about Lawrence's character: his vanity, conscious role-playing, childish disbelief that he's become a real-life G.A. Henty hero. Lean echoed this moment in the final massacre scene, as Lawrence ponders the now-blood-soaked blade, horrified at what he's become. It's a small but telling moment that registers almost subliminally. 

O'Toole's genius registers in a hundred similar moments. His boyish glee as the Arabs depart for Aqaba. The quavering tone of voice as he describes how he "enjoyed" executing Gassim. His mincing, effeminate walk when approaching British officers in Jerusalem. His orgasmic trembling as Lawrence ponders unleashing the final massacre. His vacant glare through the final scenes, watching his allies dissolve into chaos. True, Bolt wrote great dialogue, Lean and his technicians crafted visual cues of Lawrence's dissolution. But all that would make no difference if O'Toole was less than perfect.

O'Toole won critical acclaim, his first Oscar nomination (losing to Gregory Peck for To Kill a Mockingbird) and became an overnight superstar. He also gained his reputation as an intellectual hellraiser, witty, sexy, smart as a whip but rowdy and uncontrollable. He turned up drunk for television interviews, and was arrested in New York with Sharif and comedian Lenny Bruce. This proved a curtain raiser for a career of hell-raising, O'Toole matching drinks with Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Oliver Reed and others.

Becket (1963) showed Lawrence wasn't a fluke. O'Toole had originally been asked to star in Jean Anouilh's play onstage, but backed out due to Lawrence. Peter Glenville gave the newly minted a star chance to play Henry II onscreen. O'Toole admitted he was much more comfortable here, acting alongside his friend Richard Burton, wife Sian Phillips and mentors Donald Wolfit and Felix Aylmer. Easy work compared to Lawrence's endurance test, and more fun too.

Becket is not only a "stagier" movie (as a play adaptation, how could it not be?) but a stagier performance by O'Toole. He indulges in rampant scenery-chewing, with little of Lawrence's tortured introspection. This isn't a criticism, as Henry is an outsized character requiring a theatrical performance. O'Toole's fun to watch as a childish king giddy in his absolute power, but Burton gets the more complex part - and gives the more satisfying performance.

If Lawrence and Becket established O'Toole as a formidable actor, What's New Pussycat (1965) and How to Steal a Million (1966) gave him a more audience-friendly pop image. He's no longer a distant historical personage but a hip, swinging sex symbol. I'm especially fond of Million, a cheerful, witty caper pairing O'Toole with the adorable Audrey Hepburn. Neither marks O'Toole's best work, but as breezy star vehicles they hold up well.

O'Toole returned regularly to the stage. In 1963 he played Hamlet again, directed by Laurence Olivier at the National Theatre. O'Toole found the part overwhelming: "If you want to know what it's like to be lonely... try playing Hamlet." Reviews were split between critics who found him brilliant ("A magnificent prince." - R.B. Marriott) and execrable ("The Prince's blondness and his curiously comic trousers are disconcerting." - The Times). A production of Bertolt Brecht's Baal proved an unmitigated disaster. O'Toole had a happier experience in Irish theater, performing successfully in Man and Superman, Juno and the Paycock and Waiting for Godot.

Not every O'Toole role from this period is a gem. Lord Jim (1965) is an unfocused mess, with O'Toole's intense but rudderless performance playing a major role in its dissolution. (It doesn't help that, as Pauline Kael observed, "he already played Lord Jim when he did Lawrence of Arabia.") He fares better in the bloated The Night of the Generals (1967), investing a murderous SS General with palpable menace. His cameos in The Bible (1966) and Casino Royale (1967) accrue him little credit. And The Great Catherine (1968) is known, if at all, for turning up in My Favorite Year.

O'Toole capped a busy decade with two further Oscar nominations. Goodbye Mr. Chips (1969) is his least deserving nomination: O'Toole does well in an uncharacteristically reserved performance, but the movie itself is overlong and dull. That leaves Anthony Harvey's The Lion in Winter (1968).

O'Toole often cited Lion as his favorite film. It gave him a chance to work opposite Katharine Hepburn, a friend since his theater days. The chance to reprise Henry II, older and wearier if not necessarily wiser, was an added incentive. Even if he hadn't played Henry previously, it's a role that unquestionably plays to his strengths. He's larger-than-life yet thoughtful, a great man forced to confront his unglamorous legacy.

I don't share the general enthusiasm for Lion, despite several viewings and reading the play. James Goldman's overripe dialogue eventually overwhelms the story. For every clever witticism, there's a gilded clunker of a line ("You're a stinker and you stink!") or annoying anachronism ("It's 1183 and we're barbarians!") After a well-crafted first hour, the show descends into convoluted chaos, events piling up rather than building on each other, characters losing drive or motivation.

O'Toole is unquestionably the best thing about Lion. He retains a pretense of virility with swordplay and womanizing, but it's evident that Henry's running on will and reputation. O'Toole excels showing the King's haughty exterior; he's grown smart (or cynical) enough to outwit most everybody, intimidating through reputation alone. But Henry deflates over the story, increasingly feeble in his denunciations, tormented by Eleanor's proclamations of infidelity and constant filial backstabbing. His ultimate failure is that, for all he's achieved, England will either fall to an unfit ruler or dissolve into chaos at his death. No wonder he and Eleanor want to live forever.

And so we leave Peter O'Toole at the pinnacle of his career: four Oscar nominations in eight years, an impressive filmography and respectable body of stage work. Parts Two and Three are already mostly written, for those with the patience to endure a series of posts.

Continue to Parts Two and Three