Yesterday came the news Peter O’Toole had died. This was sad news, as it is when any great actor with a long career that has touched many lives is. There are plenty of tributes to the man and his work. I’m not going to try and touch on those. I simply don’t have the authority to do so. What I can do, however, is describe a little of why his work touched me as a movie watcher and fan of the medium. This is a paltry tribute, but it is what I have to offer.
It is a shame he will be remembered for some amazing performances and holding the record for most acting Academy Award nominations without a win. Sure, he was given an honorary award several years ago, but he was hoping to win one outright, and there are a couple of times when he definitely deserved it.
2006’s Venus was a role which should have absolutely won him that Oscar. No offense to Forest Whitaker, who turned in a good performance in The Last King Of Scotland, but Peter O’Toole should have won. Go on, rewatch both films back to back. I could also make the argument his performance in 1980’s The Stunt Man was better than Robert DeNiro’s in Raging Bull.
It was his performance as T. E. Lawrence, the title character in 1962’s Lawrence Of Arabia that brought him to a wide audience for the first time. It was also that same film that had a profound impact on me as a movie viewer.
Fantasia is my favorite movie of all time. The combination of visuals and music does something for me. Lawrence Of Arabia comes a close second.
I grew up watching old movies on television and had at a very young age a healthy appreciation for film and story. I knew cinematography, logos and typography, acting versus screen presence and more. But when in middle school we were shown Lawrence Of Arabia during history class, all bets were off.
More than likely I had seen the film before on television, as I had with so many other classics. The thing is, the was back in the day when independent television stations aired theatrical movies regularly, even networks would show theatrical films a year or so after they were in theaters because this was before home video had become a full market. Televisions were square, picture quality was decent at best and commercial interruptions were just part of the deal with getting to see a movie. And letterbox? That debate was more than a decade away.
Seeing that 8 millimeter print in school broken up over the course of a week was enough to turn me from somebody who liked movies into an absolute fan. Sure the picture was still cropped to the square screen the classroom had but the picture was bigger. Maybe it wasn’t as horribly cropped as the television broadcast version was. Whatever. I remember being mesmerized by the film. From then on I paid more attention to who directors were and how a film was made, what storytelling devices were employed, and more.
Sure, a large part of what makes the film great is director David Lean, who won an Academy Award for his work and cinematographer Freddie Young, who also won an Academy Award. The film won a few other Oscars including Best Picture. By no means was the success of Lawrence Of Arabia solely that of Peter O’Toole, but you simply can not imagine the film without him, almost as if he were born to play the role.
The Stunt Man was probably the first film starring Peter O’Toole that I remember seeing in the theater. His career, as with any that is long, had its ups and downs, but for the most part he was always a pleasure to watch, even when he was “slumming it” in a film such as 1988’s High Spirits.
Peter O’Toole retired from acting last year, as roles had simply dried up as they usually do for a man of his age and stature. He has left behind a great (and not so great) body of work.
Thank you, Mr. O’Toole.