End of an era: Tributes paid to ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ star O’Toole

LONDON: Known for his starring role in “Lawrence of Arabia,” leading tribesmen in daring attacks across the desert wastes, Peter O’Toole was one of the most magnetic, charismatic and fun figures in British acting.
O’Toole, who died Saturday at age 81 at the private Wellington Hospital in London after a long bout of illness, was nominated a record eight times for an Academy Award without taking home a single statue.
He was fearsomely handsome, with burning blue eyes and a penchant for hard living which long outlived his decision to give up alcohol. Broadcaster Michael Parkinson told Sky News television it was hard to be too sad about his passing.
“Peter didn’t leave much of life unlived, did he?” he said.
A reformed — but unrepentant — hell-raiser, O’Toole long suffered from ill health. Always thin, he had grown wraithlike in later years, his famously handsome face eroded by years of outrageous drinking.
But nothing diminished his flamboyant manner and candor.
O’Toole began his acting career as one of the most exciting young talents on the British stage. His 1955 “Hamlet,” at the Bristol Old Vic, was critically acclaimed.
International stardom came in David Lean’s epic “Lawrence of Arabia.” With only a few minor movie roles behind him, O’Toole was unknown to most moviegoers when they first saw him as T.E. Lawrence, the mythic British World War I soldier and scholar who led an Arab rebellion against the Turks.
His sensitive portrayal of Lawrence’s complex character garnered O’Toole his first Oscar nomination, and the spectacularly photographed desert epic remains his best known role. O’Toole was tall, fair and strikingly handsome, and the image of his bright blue eyes peering out of an Arab headdress in Lean’s film was unforgettable.
Playwright Noel Coward once said that if O’Toole had been any prettier, they would have had to call the movie “Florence of Arabia.”
Prime Minister David Cameron said Sunday the movie was his favorite film, calling O’Toole’s performance “stunning.”
Actor Michael Gambon, who played Dumbledore in several "Harry Potter" films, declared it the end of an era. He told the BBC on Monday: "There won't be any more like that, will there?"
Actor Will Ferrell also remembered “Lawrence of Arabia.”
“My father took me to see a re-release of ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ on the big screen and I couldn’t get over how amazing that movie looked for the time it was shot and how charismatic he was on screen,” Ferrell said Sunday at the New York premiere of “Anchorman 2.” “You hear a name like Peter O’Toole, you hear these names and you go, ‘uh, yeah, OK, they were movie stars,’ then you watch them on film and you go, ‘they really were movie stars.”
After a teenage foray into journalism at the Yorkshire Evening Post and national military service with the navy, a young O’Toole auditioned for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and won a scholarship.
He went from there to the Bristol Old Vic and soon was on his way to stardom, helped along by an early success in 1959 at London’s Royal Court Theatre in “The Long and The Short and The Tall.”
A month before his 80th birthday in 2012, O’Toole announced his retirement from a career that he said had fulfilled him emotionally and financially, bringing “me together with fine people, good companions with whom I’ve shared the inevitable lot of all actors: flops and hits.”
“However, it’s my belief that one should decide for oneself when it is time to end one’s stay,” he said. “So I bid the profession a dry-eyed and profoundly grateful farewell.”
The honorary Oscar came 20 years after his seventh nomination for “My Favorite Year.” By then it seemed a safe bet that O’Toole’s prospects for another nomination were slim. He was still working regularly, but in smaller roles unlikely to earn awards attention.
O’Toole graciously accepted the honorary award, quipping, “Always a bridesmaid, never a bride, my foot,” as he clutched his Oscar statuette.
O’Toole’s death was announced by agent Steve Kenis, who said the actor had been ill for some time.
His daughter Kate said the family had been overwhelmed by the expressions of sympathy.
“In due course there will be a memorial filled with song and good cheer, as he would have wished,” she said in the statement.