84 Facts About Peter O'Toole

Peter Seamus O'Toole was a British stage and film actor.

Peter O'Toole 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.

Peter O'Toole was the recipient of four Golden Globe Awards, one BAFTA Award for Best British Actor and one Primetime Emmy Award.

Peter O'Toole voiced Anton Ego, the restaurant critic in Pixar's Ratatouille.

Peter Seamus O'Toole was born on 2 August 1932, the son of Constance Jane Eliot, a Scottish nurse, and Patrick Joseph "Spats" O'Toole, an Irish metal plater, football player, and bookmaker.

Peter O'Toole had an elder sister named Patricia and grew up in the south Leeds suburb of Hunslet.

Peter O'Toole was evacuated from Leeds early in the Second World War, and went to a Catholic school for seven or eight years: St Joseph's Secondary School in Hunslet, Leeds.

Peter O'Toole's reply was that he had always wanted to try being either a poet or an actor.

Peter O'Toole attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art from 1952 to 1954 on a scholarship.

Peter 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.

Peter O'Toole played a soldier in an episode of The Scarlet Pimpernel in 1954.

Peter O'Toole was based at the Bristol Old Vic from 1956 to 1958, appearing in productions of King Lear, The Recruiting Officer, Major Barbara, Othello, and The Slave of Truth.

Peter O'Toole was Tanner in Shaw's Man and Superman, a performance he reprised often during his career.

Peter O'Toole was in Hamlet, The Holiday, Amphitryon '38, and Waiting for Godot.

Peter O'Toole hoped The Holiday would take him to the West End but it ultimately folded in the provinces; during that show he met Sian Phillips who became his first wife.

Peter O'Toole has appeared on television, being in episodes of Armchair Theatre, and BBC Sunday-Night Theatre and was in the TV adaptation of The Castiglioni Brothers.

Peter O'Toole made his London debut in a musical Oh, My Papa.

Peter O'Toole gained fame on the West End in the play The Long and the Short and the Tall, performed at the Royal Court starting January 1959.

Peter O'Toole's co-stars included Robert Shaw and Edward Judd and it was directed by Lindsay Anderson.

Peter O'Toole reprised his performance for television on Theatre Night in 1959.

Peter O'Toole reportedly received five offers of long-term contracts but turned them down.

Peter O'Toole's first role was a small role in Disney's version of Kidnapped, playing the bagpipes opposite Peter Finch.

Peter O'Toole had been seen in The Long and the Short and the Tall by Jules Buck who later established a company with the actor.

Peter O'Toole was billed third, beneath Aldo Ray and Elizabeth Sellars.

Peter O'Toole lost the role in the film adaptation of Long and the Short and the Tall to Laurence Harvey.

Peter O'Toole received the BAFTA Award for Best British Actor.

Peter O'Toole's performance was ranked number one in Premiere magazine's list of the 100 Greatest Performances of All Time.

In 2003, Lawrence as portrayed by Peter O'Toole was selected as the tenth-greatest hero in cinema history by the American Film Institute.

Peter O'Toole played Hamlet under Laurence Olivier's direction in the premiere production of the Royal National Theatre in 1963.

Peter O'Toole performed in Baal at the Phoenix Theatre.

Peter O'Toole turned down the lead role in The Cardinal.

Peter O'Toole returned to the stage with Ride a Cock Horse at the Piccadilly Theatre in 1965, which was harshly reviewed.

Peter O'Toole made a heist film with Audrey Hepburn, How to Steal a Million, directed by William Wyler.

Peter O'Toole played the Three Angels in the all-star The Bible: In the Beginning.

Peter O'Toole played in an adaptation of Noel Coward's Present Laughter for TV in 1968, and had a cameo in Casino Royale.

Peter O'Toole fulfilled a lifetime ambition in 1970 when he performed on stage in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, alongside Donal McCann, at Dublin's Abbey Theatre.

Peter O'Toole was reunited with Richard Burton in a film version of Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas, produced by himself and Buck; Elizabeth Taylor co-starred.

Peter O'Toole received another Oscar nomination for his performance in The Ruling Class, done for his own company.

Peter O'Toole's singing was dubbed by tenor Simon Gilbert, but the other actors did their own singing.

Peter O'Toole performed at the Bristol Old Vic from 1973 to 1974 in Uncle Vanya, Plunder, The Apple Cart and Judgement.

Peter O'Toole returned to films with Rosebud, a flop thriller for Otto Preminger, where O'Toole replaced Robert Mitchum at the last minute.

Peter O'Toole followed it with Man Friday, an adaptation of the Robinson Crusoe story, which was the last work from Keep Films.

Peter O'Toole was critically acclaimed for his performance in Rogue Male for British television.

Peter O'Toole did Dead Eyed Dicks on stage in Sydney in 1976.

Peter O'Toole toured Uncle Vanya and Present Laughter on stage.

In 1979, Peter O'Toole starred as Tiberius in the Penthouse-funded biopic, Caligula.

Peter O'Toole appeared in a mini series for Irish TV Strumpet City, where he played James Larkin.

Peter O'Toole followed this with another mini series Masada, playing Lucius Flavius Silva.

Peter O'Toole was nominated for another Oscar for My Favorite Year, a light romantic comedy about the behind-the-scenes at a 1950s TV variety-comedy show, in which Peter O'Toole plays an ageing swashbuckling film star reminiscent of Errol Flynn.

Peter O'Toole returned to the stage in London with a performance in Man and Superman that was better received than his MacBeth.

Peter O'Toole focused on television, doing an adaptation of Man and Superman, Svengali, Pygmalion, and Kim, and providing the voice of Sherlock Holmes for a series of animated TV movies.

Peter O'Toole did Pygmalion on stage in 1984 at the West End's Shaftesbury Theatre.

Peter O'Toole returned to feature films in Supergirl, Creator, Club Paradise, The Last Emperor as Sir Reginald Johnston, and High Spirits.

Peter O'Toole appeared on Broadway in an adaptation of Pygmalion, opposite Amanda Plummer.

Peter O'Toole won a Laurence Olivier Award for his performance in Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell.

Peter O'Toole was in an adaptation of Gulliver's Travels, playing the Emperor of Lilliput; FairyTale: A True Story, playing Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; Phantoms, from a novel by Dean Koontz; and Molokai: The Story of Father Damien.

Peter O'Toole won a Primetime Emmy Award for his role as Bishop Pierre Cauchon in the 1999 mini-series Joan of Arc.

Peter O'Toole produced and starred in a TV adaptation of Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell.

Peter O'Toole was 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.

Peter O'Toole was in One Night with the King and co-starred in the Pixar animated film Ratatouille, an animated film about a rat with dreams of becoming the greatest chef in Paris, as Anton Ego, a food critic.

Peter O'Toole appeared in the second season of Showtime's drama series The Tudors, 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.

Peter O'Toole was in Thomas Kinkade's Christmas Cottage ; and Iron Road, a Canadian-Chinese miniseries.

On 10 July 2012, Peter O'Toole released a statement announcing his retirement from acting.

Peter O'Toole played a role in the creation of the current form of the well-known folk song "Carrickfergus" which he related to Dominic Behan, who put it in print and made a recording in the mid-1960s.

Phillips later said in two autobiographies that Peter 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.

Peter O'Toole described Roker Park as his last connection to the club and that everything "they meant to him was when they were at Roker Park".

Peter O'Toole was interviewed at least three times by Charlie Rose on his eponymous talk show.

Peter O'Toole 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, Peter O'Toole credited Donald Wolfit as being his most important mentor.

Peter O'Toole underwent surgery in 1976 to have his pancreas and a large portion of his stomach removed, which resulted in insulin-dependent diabetes.

Peter O'Toole resided on the Sky Road, just outside Clifden, Connemara, County Galway from 1963, and at the height of his career maintained homes in Dublin, London and Paris.

Peter O'Toole's second, Loitering With Intent: The Apprentice, is about his years spent training with a cadre of friends at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

Peter O'Toole retired from acting in July 2012 owing to a recurrence of stomach cancer.

Peter O'Toole died on 14 December 2013 at Wellington Hospital in St John's Wood, London, at the age of 81.

Peter O'Toole's funeral was held at Golders Green Crematorium in London on 21 December 2013, where his body was cremated in a wicker coffin.

Peter O'Toole's family stated their intention to fulfil his wishes and take his ashes to the west of Ireland.

Peter O'Toole has a memorial plaque in St Paul's, the Actors' Church in Covent Garden, London.

On 21 April 2017, the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin announced that Kate Peter O'Toole had placed her father's archive at the humanities research centre.

Peter O'Toole was offered a knighthood but rejected it in objection to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's policies.

Peter O'Toole received four Golden Globe Awards, one BAFTA Award for Best British Actor and one Primetime Emmy Award.

Peter O'Toole was nominated eight times for the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, but was never able to win a competitive Oscar.

Peter O'Toole told Charlie Rose in January 2007 that his children admonished him, saying that it was the highest honour one could receive in the filmmaking industry.

Peter O'Toole agreed to appear at the ceremony and receive his Honorary Oscar.

Peter O'Toole joked with Robert Osborne, during an interview at Turner Classic Movies' film festival that he's the "Biggest Loser of All Time", due to his lack of an Academy Award, after many nominations.