2/26 Michael turned down both male leads in Women in Love because he refused to do on-camera nudity.
4/26 Caine was Peter O'Toole's understudy for The Long and The Short and The Tall at the Royal Court Theatre in 1959. When O'Toole left to film Lawrence of Arabia, Caine took over the role for the remaining months.
6/26 After graduating high school Michael did two years of mandatory national service with the Queens Royal Regiment, serving in Germany and South Korea.
ANGLOPHENIA
By Fraser McAlpine | Posted on May 23rd, 2014
Benedict Cumberbatch (Pic: Red Carpet News TV)
You can’t just ask Benedict Cumberbatch a couple of quick questions, especially on a topic such as the continued popularity of British theater, grab a couple of soundbites and waltz off.
Here’s a video taken a few days ago by Red Carpet News TV, at the first anniversary party for London’s Park Theatre.
You will notice he is un-swerved from his dedication to talking total inspirational sense about the dramatic arts by an attempted videobombing, and the clear presence of a party in the background.
And he draws a firm parallel between his early career and that of Tom Hiddleston, pointing out they both got started in relatively low-key theatrical productions—he playing Shakespeare in the open air in Regent’s Park, Tom in Cheek By Jowl productions—but treating them with the reverence and respect a paying audience deserved.
CHARLOTTE OBSERVER
By GREGORY KATZ
Associated Press
Posted: Sunday, Dec. 15, 2013
"If you can't do something willingly and joyfully, then don't do it," he once said. "If you give up drinking, don't go moaning about it; go back on the bottle. Do. As. Thou. Wilt."
LONDON Known on the one hand for his starring role in "Lawrence of Arabia," leading tribesmen in daring attacks across the desert wastes, and on the other for his headlong charges into drunken debauchery, 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.
Robert Pattinson is to follow in the footsteps of great British actor Peter O'Toole, by playing Lawrence Of Arabia.
The young heart-throb - currently nursing a broken heart after his break-up from Twilight co-star Kristen Stewart - will star as British army officer TE Lawrence in Werner Herzog's new film, Queen Of The Desert, opposite Naomi Watts, Variety reports.
Watts will play Gertrude Bell in the film, which will focus on the English writer's life.
Bell, one of the first female graduates from Oxford University, travelled through the Middle East, working as an archaeologist, explorer, cartographer and political officer for the British Empire, defining the borders of Iraq, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
Actor Peter O' Toole was awarded an honorary Oscar for lifetime acheivement during the 75th Annual Academy Awards at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, California, March 23, 2003. OSCARSPLUS REUTERS/Lucy Nichols REUTERS BS/AS
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Veteran British actor Peter O'Toole, praised for esteemed roles in classic films such as "Lawrence of Arabia," announced on Tuesday he is retiring from acting in films and stage.
"It is time for me to chuck in the sponge. To retire from films and stage. The heart for it has gone out of me: it won't come back," O'Toole, who is 79 and lives in London, said in a statement released by New York publicist Bill Augustin.
((PETER O'TOOLE and KATHERINE HEPBURN IN THE LION IN WINTER - JUST TO REMEMBER FOR A MOMENT WHAT REALLY GREAT ACTING IS LIKE WITHOUT COMIC BOOKS AND COMPUTER TRICKS - Karen))
O'Toole said that his career, which has included eight Academy Award nominations without a win, "has brought me public support, emotional fulfillment and material comfort. It has brought me together with fine people, good companions with whom I've shared the inevitable lot of all actors: flops and hits."
"However," he added. "It's my belief that one should decide for oneself when it is time to end one's stay."
Early in his career, O'Toole made waves on stage in several key Shakespearean roles, including an acclaimed turn as "Hamlet," before gaining fame in films such as "Goodbye, Mr. Chips," "The Ruling Class", "The Stunt Man" and "My Favorite Year."
With nearly a fifth of all votes (19.9%), Neeson soared above other Irish acting talent including Lawrence of Arabia star Peter O'Toole and Ballykissangel turned Hollywood star Colin Farrell, second and third with 9.1% and 7.6% respectively.
To celebrate St Patrick's Day 2012, Sky Movies HD asked over 1,000 Irish and UK residents about their favourite Irish screen stars.
Four times Bond star Pierce Brosnan, most recently seen alongside Sarah Jessica Parker in I Don't Know How She Does It, was fourth in the poll (7.5%).
Posted by Michelle McCue
in General TCM Classic Film Festival
As a prelude to the opening of the 2012 TCM Classic Film Festival, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) will air a special on-air tribute to eight-time Oscar® nominee and honorary Academy Award® recipient Peter O’Toole, who took center stage at last year’s festival.
OnWednesday, April 11, TCM will premiere Peter O’Toole: Live from the TCM Classic Film Festival, a one-hour special taped at the 2011 festival in which TCM host Robert Osborne interviews the legendary actor in front of an audience of festival attendees.
Peter O’Toole: Live from the TCM Classic Film Festival is set to premiere at 8 p.m. (ET). The special will be followed by three O’Toole classics.
The following is the complete schedule for the evening (all times Eastern):
8 p.m. – Peter O’Toole: Live from the TCM Classic Film Festival(2012) – Premiere
9 p.m. – The Lion in Winter (1968)
11:30 p.m. – Peter O’Toole: Live from the TCM Film Festival (2012) – Encore
12:30 a.m. – Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
4:30 a.m. – The Day They Robbed The Bank of England (1960)
“We all have our favorite actors, and when people ask me about mine, one name I always mention is Peter O’Toole,” Osborne says in his introduction to the special.
“He’s not only a favorite actor but a great actor.”
By: Kevin Wicks Posted: Monday, October 17th, 2011
Johnny Depp in 'From Hell'
The notorious serial killer Jack the Ripper brought a reign of carnage to the Whitechapel neighborhood of London in the late 1880s, terrifying the city and capturing the attention of people all over the globe. BBC America’s new crime drama, Whitechapel — premiering Wednesday, October 26th at 10/9c — Detective Joseph Chandler (Rupert Penry-Jones) investigates what appear to be modern-day copycat crimes inspired by those century-old murders.
In lieu of the crimes being solved, Hollywood has repeatedly sought to tell the tale of the Ripper, with fictionalized accounts going back as early as the silent era. Here are four films (and one TV miniseries) that took on the sordid story:
The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog Of courseAlfred Hitchcock did a Jack the Ripper movie. (The British filmmaker and the story of the Ripper go together like foie gras and apple compote.) This 1927 silent thriller, the first adaptation of Marie Belloc Lowndes‘s novel, starred Welsh actor Ivor Novello as the titular lodger wrongly suspected of committing Ripper-like murders. It was Hitchcock’s first commercial success.
A Study in Terror
This 1965 film put Sherlock Holmes (John Neville) and Dr. Watson (Donald Houston) on the tail of Jack the Ripper. And in this one, our crack crime solvers actually determine the identity of the killer.
The Ruling Class
Not a Ripper film per se, but a very dark comedy (from 1972) starring the sublime Peter O’Toole as a mentally disturbed earl who believes he is Jack the Ripper. Here’s Mr. O’Toole putting on an acting clinic, and, at around 3:43, letting out a primal scream that will absolutely liquefy your bowels:
Jack the Ripper
This Golden Globe-winning 1988 miniseries starred Michael Caine as Detective Abberline, the real-life investigator into the Ripper murders. The trailer, which is truly camptastic in a great way, features Caine doing his best Michael Caine, Jane Seymour purring flirtatiously, and a creepy Armand Assante scowling like a young Peter Lorre.
From Hell
Based on Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell‘s graphic novel about the Ripper case, this 2001 film starred Johnny Depp as the opium-addicted Detective Abberline and took the Hughes brothers off the streets of South Central (where they directed their 1993 hit Menace II Society) to the equally alarming “ghettos” of late 19th century London. Roger Ebert wrote, in his three-star review, “Despite its murders, it’s not a slasher film. What it is, I think, is a Guignol about a cross-section of a thoroughly rotten society, corrupted from the top down. The Ripper murders cut through layers of social class designed to insulate the sinners from the results of their sins.”
It's a Saturday night, the wind is howling outside and there is another rainstorm heading for Florida. And I began to think about all of the wonderful British Actors and Acresses I have loved my whole life. This site, and the actors here, are a continuation of a brilliant acting tradition somehow peculiar to the British. I know I've missed quite a few but here are some of my favorite men:
