Tag: Peter O’Toole

In Memoriam: Peter O’Toole 1932 – 2013

Peter O’Toole 2 August 1932 – 14 December 2013

Peter O'Toole 1932 - 2013 photo Peter_O27Toole_--_LOA_trailer_zps80a2f910.jpg Peter Seamus Lorcan O’Toole, an Irish bookmaker’s son with a hell-raising streak whose magnetic performance in the 1962 epic film “Lawrence of Arabia” earned him overnight fame and put him on the road to becoming one of his generation’s most accomplished and charismatic actors, died on Saturday in London. He was 81.

His daughter Kate O’Toole said in a statement that he had been ill for some time.

A blond, blue-eyed six-footer, Mr. O’Toole had the dashing good looks and high spirits befitting a leading man, – and he did not disappoint in “Lawrence,” David Lean’s wide-screen, almost-four-hour homage to T. E. Lawrence, the daring British soldier and adventurer who led an Arab rebellion against the Turks in the Middle East in World War I.

The performance brought Mr. O’Toole the first of eight Academy Award nominations, a flood of film offers and a string of artistic successes in the ’60s and early ’70s. In the theater – he was a classically trained actor – he played an anguished, angular tramp in Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” and a memorably battered title character in Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya.” In film, he twice played a robust King Henry II: first opposite Richard Burton in “Becket,” (1964), then with Katharine Hepburn as his queen in “The Lion in Winter” (1968). Both earned Oscar nominations for Best Actor, as did his repressed, decaying schoolmaster in “Goodbye, Mr. Chips” in 1970 and the crazed 14th Earl of Gurney in “The Ruling Class” in 1973.  Mr. O’Toole threw himself wholeheartedly into what he called “bravura acting,” courting and sometimes deserving the accusation that he became over-theatrical, mannered, even hammy. His lanky, loose-jointed build; his eyes; his long, lantern-jawed face; his oddly languorous sexual charm; and the eccentric loops and whoops of his voice tended to reinforce the impression of power and extravagance.

Burton called him “the most original actor to come out of Britain since the war,” with “something odd, mystical and deeply disturbing” in his work. [..]

He is survived by daughters, Kate and Patricia, and son, Lorcan.

At the start of both videos the screen is blank during the orchestral introduction and intermission.

TGIF: Who is Your Favorite Movie Actor of All Time?

Crossposted at Daily Kos

How does one answer such a subjective question?  Is it the performance, commercial success and popularity of the particular movie, or the number of prominent awards won that endears an actor to his or her audiences?

Some actors like Meryl Streep and Robert De Niro are capable of turning in one superb acting performance after another over the years and establishing a particular bond and connection to the audience.  Others are applauded for a once-in-a-lifetime movie role — such as Ben Kingsley’s masterful portrayal of Mahatma Gandhi in Gandhi for which he won universal acclaim and the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1982.



Meryl Streep as Sophie Zawistowski in Sophie’s Choice and Robert De Niro as Vito Corleone in Godfather Part II in two of the finest movie roles ever by an actor