Peter OToole

Peter O'Toole 1932-, British actor, b. Connemara, Ireland. A classical stage actor, he appeared (1955-58) with the Bristol Old Vic, debuted in London in 1956, and has played a variety of Shakespearean roles. Tall and handsome, he made his screen debut in The Savage Innocents (1959) and catapulted to stardom with his portrayal of T. E. Lawrence in David Lean 's desert epic Lawrence of Arabia (1962). He was a major star of the 1960s and early 70s, winning praise for performances in motion pictures ranging from historical drama to high comedy. Among his outstanding films are Becket (1964), Lord Jim (1965), The Lion in Winter (1968), The Ruling Class (1972), The Stunt Man (1980), My Favorite Year (1982), and The Last Emperor (1987). Nominated for an Oscar seven times, but never a winner, O'Toole received an Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2003.

Bibliography: See his autobiography (2 vol., 1993-96); biographies by M. Freedland (1982) and N. Wapshott (1983).

O'Toole, Peter (1932– ) Irish stage and film actor. O'Toole's stage performances (1955) as Shylock and Hamlet were exhilarating. He gained an Academy nomination for best actor in his film debut in Lawrence of Arabia (1962). Other Oscar nominations include Becket (1964), The Lion in Winter (1968), Goodbye Mr Chips (1969), and The Ruling Class (1972). O'Toole's career revived with further nominated performances in The Stunt Man (1980) and My Favorite Year (1982).

O'Toole, Peter (1932– ), Irish-born actor, who began his career with the Bristol Old Vic, 1955–8, and made his first appearance in London in 1956 with the company in Shaw's Major Barbara. He built up a formidable reputation in Bristol, particularly with his Jimmy Porter in Osborne's Look Back in Anger in 1957. He made his first outstanding success in London as the earthy, cynical trouble-maker Private Bamforth in Willis Hall's The Long and the Short and the Tall (1959). In 1960 he was with the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre company, playing Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew and giving an electrifying performance as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. He then moved into films and made only intermittent returns to the stage in the title-role in Brecht's Baal, as Hamlet in the National Theatre company's inaugural production (both in 1963), and as the Yorkshire novelist-hero of David Mercer's Ride a Cock Horse (1965). A year later he was in Dublin to play Jack Boyle in O'Casey's Juno and the Paycock, and in 1969 at the Abbey Theatre there as Vladimir in Beckett's Waiting for Godot. He returned to the Bristol Old Vic in 1973 in the title-role of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, and in 1980 he returned to the London stage to give a controversial performance as Macbeth for the Old Vic Company (see PROSPECT THEATRE COMPANY). He later appeared in the West End in several plays by Shaw: Man and Superman in 1982, Pygmalion (as Professor Higgins) in 1984 (NY, 1987), and The Apple Cart in 1986. In 1989 he gave a virtuoso display as a well-known contemporary columnist in Keith Waterhouse's Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell.