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Peter Seamus
O'Toole (born 2 August 1932) is an Irish and British
actor who achieved instant stardom in 1962 playing T.E.
Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia and went on to become one
of the most honoured film and stage actors of his time.
He has been nominated for more Academy Awards without
winning than any other performer.
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Career
Peter O'Toole as T. E. Lawrence
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 and a very minor film debut in 1959. O'Toole's major
break came when he was chosen to play T. E. Lawrence in David
Lean's Lawrence of Arabia (1962), after Marlon Brando proved
unavailable and Albert Finney turned down the role.[7] His
performance was ranked number one in Premiere magazine's list
of the 100 Greatest Performances of All Time. The role
introduced him to U.S. audiences and earned him the first of
his eight nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actor.
O'Toole is also one of a handful of actors to be
Oscar-nominated for playing the same role in two different
films; he played King Henry II in both 1964's Becket and
1968's The Lion in Winter. O'Toole played Hamlet under Sir
Laurence Olivier's direction in the premiere production of the
Royal National Theatre in 1963. He has also appeared in Sean
O'Casey's Juno and the Paycock at Gaiety Theatre, Dublin,
fulfilling a lifetime ambition when taking to the stage of the
Irish capital's Abbey Theatre in 1970 to play in Waiting for
Godot by Samuel Beckett, alongside the stage actor Donal
McCann. In 1980, he received wide critical acclaim for playing
the director in the behind-the-scenes movie The Stunt Man. His
1980 performance as Macbeth is often considered one of the
greatest disasters in theatre history,[citation needed] but he
has redeemed his theatrical reputation with his performances
as John Tanner in Man and Superman and Henry Higgins in
Pygmalion, and won a Laurence Olivier Award for his
performance in Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell (1989). Another fine
performance from O'Toole, which gained him a nomination for
Best Actor, was 1982's My Favorite Year, a light romantic
comedy about the behind-the-scenes at a 1950s TV
variety-comedy show, much like Your Show of Shows, in which
O'Toole masterfully plays an aging swashbucking film star
strongly reminiscent (intentionally) of Errol Flynn.
O'Toole won an Emmy Award for his role in the 1999 mini-series
Joan of Arc. In 2004, O'Toole played King Priam in the summer
blockbuster Troy. In 2005, he appeared on television as the
older version of legendary 18th century Italian adventurer
Giacomo Casanova in the BBC drama serial Casanova. O'Toole's
role was mainly to frame the drama, telling the story of his
life to serving maid Edith (Rose Byrne). The younger Casanova
seen for most of the action was played by David Tennant, who
had to wear contact lenses to match his brown eyes to
O'Toole's blue.
He was once again nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award
for his portrayal of Maurice in the 2006 film Venus, directed
by Roger Michell, his eighth such nomination. Most recently,
O'Toole co-stars in the Pixar animated film, Ratatouille, an
animated film about a rat with dreams of becoming the greatest
chef in Paris. O'Toole has recently starred in the second
season of Showtime's hit drama series The Tudors in which he
portrays Pope Paul III, who excommunicates King Henry VIII
from the church. That leads to a showdown between the two men
in seven of the ten episodes.
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