For the remaining key roles, again O’Toole and Harvey opted for new talent. Timothy Dalton, just a year out of drama school, was cast as the King of France, and Jane Merrow played Alais, Henry’s young devoted lover. Jane had some experience in pictures and was appearing in a London play when O’Toole spotted her. Arriving for her audition perhaps too full of self-confidence, right in the middle of their scene together O’Toole held up his hands. ‘I don’t believe a word you’re saying.’ Jane was mortified, but quickly composed herself and began again, ‘A bit slower this time and not so full of myself.’
Work began late in November 1967 with a two-week rehearsal period at the Haymarket Theatre in London, to help bed in the largely inexperienced cast. For Harvey these rehearsals were both extraordinary and invaluable. ‘There was something about being on that stage, in that particular theatre, the cast found the magic in the writing right away.’ The Plantagenets were an extraordinary group of people and Henry perhaps the most extraordinary of them all. O’Toole, at thirty-five, was much younger than the real Henry, who at around fifty was heading towards the end of his life during the time these events took place. Because of the age discrepancy, Harvey recalls the actor ‘was always rolling in the dust wherever we went to try and make himself look worn out’.
Henry’s life is being completely torn apart by these terrible children: Richard is a war lord and very much aligned with Eleanor. Geoffrey, played by John Castle, is a nasty, devious piece of work, typical middle son, and Nigel Terry’s John is the runt of the litter. Henry and Queen Eleanor are pitted against each other but the fierce love they once shared still smoulders in a dark corner somewhere. For Jane, everyone in that cast adopted a little bit of the characters they were playing, which often happens if the script is good. ‘I know I had a crush on Peter. I thought he was just the bee’s knees. And I think he had a slightly fatherly attitude to the rest of us. And the relationship he had with Kate was fascinating. I mean, he really did adore her and held her in a certain awe.’
What became instantly apparent to everyone when shooting began at Ireland’s Ardmore Studios in December was that lightning in a bottle was happening with O’Toole and Katie Hepburn. Harvey remembers during one highly charged exchange, where they’re tearing emotional lumps out of each other, he was so overwhelmed that he literally couldn’t say the word cut.
The common perception of Katie Hepburn is of a slightly masculine woman, due to the sort of roles she played, but this really wasn’t the case, she was a very feminine woman and had a thing about all her leading men. ‘And Peter was no exception,’ reveals Jane. ‘She adored him, and was quite possessive of him.’ It was at times a love–hate relationship, with Katie insisting on calling O’Toole ‘pig’. ‘Hello, pig,’ she’d cry out each morning as she arrived at the studio. Often she’d berate him in front of his fellow actors and the crew. ‘Peter, stop towering over me. Come and sit down and try to look respectable.’ She’d also bring up his drinking, telling him he was in danger of throwing his talent away. So concerned did she become of his general state of health that she bought him a bike and ordered him to cycle to and from the studios. He’d met his match, no doubt about it.
In return O’Toole christened Katie ‘nags’ and once deposited a load of empty spirit bottles into her car. It did get feisty a few times. When O’Toole kept her waiting on set because he was still in his caravan playing cards, she stormed in shouting: ‘You are a real nut and I’ve met some nuts in my day.’ She then punched him, rather hard. A couple of hours later he meekly knocked on the door of her dressing room to apologize profusely. ‘Don’t worry, pig,’ she answered. ‘I only hit the people I love.’
On one occasion Jane Merrow was with O’Toole in his trailer going through some lines when in stormed Kate, red in the face, almost uncontrollably full of rage. ‘She walked up to Peter and whacked him round the head and screamed, “You son of a bitch, don’t you ever keep the make-up and hair people from me again – ever!” There was a deadly silence and I sort of shrank in the background. Peter sat there with his mouth open and then she stormed out again. I thought, oh bloody hell, now all hell’s going to break loose. Well, Peter just burst out laughing.’
In fact, O’Toole was quite innocent of the charge, the make-up and hair people were simply delayed on their way to the set, but the crew feared that this misunderstanding could spell the end of relations between the stars. Jane explains what happened next: ‘Peter got the first aid man to come in and dress him up with a sling and a crutch and a bandage round his head, and he went back onto the set and of course that broke the ice and Kate and everybody fell about.’ Years later O’Toole was not stinting in his praise of his legendary co-star. ‘Many of us were a little bit . . . tired . . . in the morning, she’d give you about sixty seconds in which to recover and if you weren’t there – zip! She’d cut your head off. I adored the girl.’
After a brief Christmas break, filming resumed on location at various castles in France. Unlike the Broadway play, which Harvey felt was played more for laughs, here he wanted complete authenticity, what it actually must have felt like to live in a damp, dank castle. This approach chimed perfectly with O’Toole, who arrived with reams and reams of research material on Henry Plantagenet and everything to do with that period. Impressed by such dedication, Harvey remained apprehensive about directing O’Toole. ‘I thought he was going to be bloody difficult.’ Instead he found a highly intelligent man, full of constructive ideas, with a solid grasp of contemporary cinema and, thank God, a great sense of humour. What was most surprising was the discovery that O’Toole was an intensely private man who found revealing aspects of his personality difficult. Harvey tells one story of when they were staying at a hotel in Dublin. ‘About two in the morning my bedroom door suddenly burst open and there was Peter quite insanely excitable and he threw something into the room and said, “Happy birthday,” and then disappeared. I turned on the light and lying on the floor was a painting in a beautiful frame with broken glass all over the place. In the morning I was a bit more with it and saw that it was an etching of Picasso. I was so overwhelmed I said to him on the set first thing, “My God, Peter, what a wonderful thing.” And he looked at me and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” ’ Harvey is convinced it wasn’t the drink blurring his memory, that he did find it hard to be openly generous in some ways.
O’Toole had promised Katie Hepburn that he would stay off the drink during the shoot. ‘That was one of the conditions of her doing the film,’ confirms Jane Merrow. And for the most part he kept to his word. Jane herself can recall only one serious lapse, when he disappeared for half a day. ‘The next morning he dropped to the floor grovelling and apologizing to Kate.’
Much drinking went on in the evening however at the numerous restaurants the cast frequented. One night Nigel Stock, who played Captain William Marshall, was delighting everyone with tales of his time with Wingate’s Chindits in Burma during the war. O’Toole took umbrage at this, probably because for once he wasn’t the centre of attention, and began belittling the famous guerrilla force, calling them ‘tin soldiers’. Stock was incensed and a violent argument broke out between both men which ended in Stock having to be restrained from attacking O’Toole.
There was also a bizarre accident during the shooting of the scene where Eleanor arrives at the castle in regal style aboard her barge. O’Toole paddled out to discuss something with Katie but managed to catch a finger between the barge and the rowing boat. ‘Bloody agony it was, took the top right off.’ The unit doctor wasn’t around so O’Toole carried the tip of his finger back to shore, dipped it into a glass of brandy for safe keeping and then stuffed it back on, wrapping it up in a poultice. Three weeks later he unwrapped it and there it was, all crooked and bent and frankly disgusting. ‘I’d put it back the wrong way, probably because of the brandy which I drank.’
On another occasion he awoke at four in the morning to discover his bed was on fire; the result no doubt of
a misplaced Gauloise. For a moment he thought it was a dream, then reality kicked in. ‘At first I tried to put the thing out myself, but I couldn’t read the small print on the fire extinguisher. By the time the first fireman arrived I was so glad to see him I kissed him.’
Remarkably, it had only been five years since his breakthrough as Lawrence, but amidst upstarts like Hopkins and Dalton, O’Toole felt positively middle-aged! At the start of filming he’d told them all – ‘The gloves are off. I’m out to steal every scene. Stop me if you can.’ On set they watched him like hawks while he in turn couldn’t help but impose upon himself a certain fatherly position. ‘They looked to me for advice, for bloody guidance!’ When they dared each other to swim from one bank of the river Rhône to the other, it was O’Toole who stepped in to throw the book at them. ‘The problem was keeping a straight face. I’d done exactly the same thing when I was their age. In Switzerland I’d swum across one of the lakes. In evening dress, as I remember.’
For the young cast this had been an education, Hopkins regarded the advice he received from Hepburn as some of the best he was ever given about film acting, but for him the one all-powerful, charismatic figure he never forgot was O’Toole.
O’Toole had high hopes for The Lion in Winter. ‘If this one doesn’t come off, then I shall hang up my jockstrap and retire.’ For Harvey, too, ‘I never enjoyed making a film in my life like that.’ Jane Merrow called the shoot, ‘Bliss. One of the highlights of my life. Peter was extraordinary to work with, just his energy, his total involvement in what he was doing.’ The only sour note came when Levine threatened to withhold O’Toole’s fee due to ‘disgraceful conduct’, which had added to the film’s costs, including being booted out of two hotels when he became excessively drunk. O’Toole sued the producer and won the case.
A commercial success, The Lion in Winter opened to mixed reviews, with some complaining that Harvey had reduced a major historical event to the level of a soap opera. Yet it is precisely this aspect of the film that has kept it fresh and relevant for modern audiences. Here is a literate script handled intelligently, an all-too-rare thing in a mainstream Hollywood movie. The entire cast are superb but the film belongs utterly to O’Toole and Hepburn; O’Toole’s playing is especially magisterial, yet at the same time heartbreakingly vulnerable, like a mighty tower that can crumble if just one brick is removed. It earned him yet another Best Actor Oscar nomination; this time he lost out to Cliff Robertson’s performance as a man with learning difficulties in Charly. At least he took pleasure in Katharine Hepburn being named Best Actress, though she didn’t take the honour at all seriously. Harvey recalls visiting her some six months later and searching for a bite to eat found the Oscar tucked away unceremoniously in one of the kitchen cupboards.
The Lion in Winter made quite an impression on a young would-be director called Roger Young, who in 2003 cast O’Toole as Augustus Caesar in an epic TV movie. ‘It was an amazing performance. I asked Peter how he arrived at that character because it flies all over the emotional map but never for one second is it melodramatic or overdone. Peter replied: “It was in the script, my boy, in the script.” I doubt that any script could be that good. Peter made that film into something beyond film, beyond theatre. It was a combination of the best of both.’
Siân had always thought it strange that O’Toole found it difficult to compliment her work to her face, it rarely if ever happened, yet would go around telling friends what a great actress she was and how much she meant to him. Over the years she had learnt to live with the mass of contradictions at the centre of O’Toole’s personality, that he was the kind of person who would casually forget birthdays, not remember visiting times at hospital, but was always there for the big important things.
She had even accepted that her career had been largely put on hold in order to be mother to O’Toole’s children and that the energies of Keep Films and Jules Buck were the exclusive territory of her husband. Yet she did regret that the few occasions they had worked together tended to end as bitter and crushing experiences. The latest was no exception. She had been cast by director Herbert Ross to play a flamboyant actress in his remake of Goodbye, Mr. Chips. O’Toole was playing the kindly headmaster, a role made famous by Robert Donat in the classic 1938 film. Siân sensed that her presence in the picture was against O’Toole’s wishes and during a large party scene he point blank refused to rehearse with her, preferring to sit alone on the set some distance away. Ross would later say it was like sending into space astronauts who didn’t know each other. Then, when a reporter asked how she combined her busy private life with a career, O’Toole answered on her behalf, saying how she didn’t have a career as such, only jobs.
Besides these aberrations the shoot was idyllic. The film company rented a charming cottage for them to stay in near Sherborne in Dorset, where most of the picture was shot, and the girls were able to come down and enjoy a few weeks in the sun.
In a role originally earmarked for Audrey Hepburn, Petula Clark was cast as the music-hall actress Mr Chips falls in love with and marries. They met for the first time at a lavish reception for the press at the Savoy Hotel in June 1968 and Petula was uneasy about the encounter. ‘It’s always a little tricky when you admire somebody very much and suddenly you’re going to meet that person, you hope you’re not going to be disillusioned. And of course, he was absolutely charming and funny.’
Their second meeting was very different, taking place in Dublin, where Petula got to know O’Toole much better. ‘After dinner word must have got out that Peter was in town because suddenly all these people came out of the woodwork – to have a drink with him. I finished up just as tiddly as everybody else. And that was the shape of things to come; the film seemed to me like a huge party with a bit of acting thrown in.’ On location in Dorset she’d often visit O’Toole and Siân at their cottage, which had the added bonus of a croquet lawn. ‘Of course the croquet parties used to turn out hysterical and boisterous,’ remembers Petula. ‘Croquet is supposed to be a polite little game, but with Peter it didn’t go that way at all.’
O’Toole had accepted the job largely because of his respect for playwright Terence Rattigan, on whose screenplay it was based. This latest version, however, was to be a musical with songs by Leslie Bricusse and would require O’Toole to sing, something he’d not done since Oh! My Papa in 1957. He’d certainly never sung on screen before. ‘Although when I went out with Peter we’d finish up the evening with him singing at the top of his voice,’ recalls Petula.
This was to be no ordinary musical, ‘where everything stops for five minutes while some bloke yells the place down’, quipped O’Toole. Rather the songs were unobtrusive, with O’Toole performing them not in his own voice, but the slightly cracked voice of the ageing schoolmaster he was playing, ‘a voice full of chalk and reflections’. Alongside musical director John Williams, O’Toole found it tough laying down his tracks in the studio, at one point joking that out of nearly forty-nine takes of one particular song they might be able to salvage one tuneful note. ‘I thought he pulled it off,’ says Petula. ‘He was superb.’
O’Toole had promised Herbert Ross that he would abstain from the sauce during working hours, but in the evenings he was hitting the bottle just as hard as ever. ‘Every morning I would see him drinking this weird thing which I’d never seen or heard of before,’ says Petula. ‘Fernet Branca, a digestive bitter liquor made of herbs and goodness knows what else. I asked him eventually what it was and he said, “My dear, I can’t start the day without this.” Of course, I had to taste it, and just once was enough. And then he would be on the set giving this beautifully controlled performance. The rest of the time, when he could anyway, he was out having a great time.’ George Baker, who had a small role in the film, often joined O’Toole on these boozy nights out and recalled the only thing that would calm him down if he started to get out of control was Mendelssohn. O’Toole had a thing for Mendelssohn, so if you talked about the composer you were at least in
with a chance.
When the unit came to Elstree to shoot interiors, O’Toole took Petula out for a meal at his favourite restaurant in Hampstead. ‘As usual, the meal turned into a boisterous occasion and I finished up sitting on Peter’s shoulders walking down the high street singing at the top of our voices. And people were leaning out of windows telling us to shut up. I remember at one point Peter yelling, “Do you realize who we are. You should be paying for this!” ’
For a week the crew filmed in Pompeii, marking the first time O’Toole had worked in Italy since his disagreeable bust-up with the paparazzi. Just to be on the safe side he took boxer Dave Crowley with him to keep any prying lenses at bay. Being in Pompeii was too good an opportunity to miss and he often disappeared on hunting trips for Etruscan treasures, often with Petula’s husband Claude, both sometimes not coming back until the following day. ‘He was always trying to get his hands on some valuable piece of pottery,’ recalls Petula. Several ceramic pots were packed and sent back to London, save for one large and valuable second-century Apulian pot that was deemed too delicate. Instead O’Toole organized a chauffeur-driven car to transport it all the way across Europe, but during its trip the driver had to brake suddenly and the pot was destroyed.
When Goodbye, Mr. Chips opened it didn’t quite resonate with audiences, for whom perhaps the memory of the sparkling original was still too strong. It didn’t help matters that former Broadway director Herbert Ross was making his feature debut with such a large-scale picture. ‘I had the feeling that Herbert was a bit overwhelmed with Peter,’ claims Petula. ‘In fact, Peter took over quite a lot of the directing.’ Critics weren’t too impressed, either. Vincent Canby of the New York Times singled out O’Toole as the film’s only redeeming feature. Indeed, he was once again nominated for an Oscar, losing out this time to John Wayne for True Grit. Age has been kind to the film though and today it is fondly remembered by many. Perhaps the prime reason is the relationship between the two leads, whose romance is believable and tender. ‘That’s how we felt about each other,’ says Petula. ‘We genuinely loved each other, not romantically, we really did feel for each other and that’s something that I don’t think you can fake.’
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