Peter O'Toole

Peter Seamus O'Toole (2 August 1932 – 14 December 2013) was an English stage and film actor.

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

O'Toole claimed he was not certain of his birthplace or date, stating in his autobiography that he accepted 2 August as his birth date but had birth certificates from England and Ireland.

Records from the Leeds General Register Office confirm he was born at St James's University Hospital in Leeds, Yorkshire, England on 2 August 1932.

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

When he was one year old, his family began a five-year tour of major racecourse towns in Northern England.

He and his sister were brought up in their father's Catholic faith.

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.

He later said, "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. [...] 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."

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.

He attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) from 1952 to 1954 on a scholarship.

This came after being rejected by the Abbey Theatre's drama school in Dublin by the director Ernest Blythe, because he could not speak the Irish language.

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."

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 played a soldier in an episode of The Scarlet Pimpernel in 1954.

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

He was Henry Higgins in Pygmalion (1957), Lysander in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1957), Uncle Gustve in ''Oh!

My Papa! (1957), and Jimmy Porter in Look Back in Anger'' (1957).

O'Toole continued to appear on television, being in episodes of Armchair Theatre ("The Pier", 1957), and BBC Sunday-Night Theatre ("The Laughing Woman", 1958) and was in the TV adaptation of The Castiglioni Brothers (1958).

He made his London debut in a musical Oh, My Papa.

O'Toole was Tanner in Shaw's Man and Superman (1958), a performance he reprised often during his career.

He was also in Hamlet (1958), The Holiday (1958), Amphitryon '38 (1958), and Waiting for Godot (1958) (as Vladimir).

He 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.

In 1959 he made his West End debut in The Long and the Short and the Tall, and played the title role in Hamlet in the National Theatre's first production in 1963.

Excelling on the London stage, O'Toole was known for his "hellraiser" lifestyle off it.

Making his film debut in 1959, O'Toole achieved international recognition playing T. E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia (1962) for which he received his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor.

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.

His co-stars included Robert Shaw and Edward Judd and it was directed by Lindsay Anderson.

He reprised his performance for television on Theatre Night in 1959 (although he did not appear in the 1961 film version).

The show transferred to the West End in April and won O'Toole Best Actor of the Year in 1959.

O'Toole was in much demand.

He was nominated for this award another seven times – for playing King Henry II in both Becket (1964) and 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 Oscar nominations for acting without a win (tied with Glenn Close).

Other performances include What's New Pussycat? (1965), How to Steal a Million (1966), Supergirl (1984), and minor roles in The Last Emperor (1987) and Troy (2004).

In 2002, he was awarded the Academy Honorary Award for his career achievements.

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

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.

He also voiced Anton Ego, the restaurant critic in Pixar's Ratatouille (2007).