Peter O'Toole

by Robert Sellers

  The young cast Chappelle had assembled, which included early roles for Liev Schreiber and Ben Affleck, all adored O’Toole, handling him at first with kid gloves; Affleck would for example help him across the street like an invalid. O’Toole liked Affleck, knowing they’d get on well together after overhearing the young actor quote the nineteenth-century English poet A. E. Housman to the first assistant. For his part, O’Toole tried to keep up with his young co-stars in what was a fairly physical role. ‘I thought he was quite spry for someone who had a reputation for carousing over the decades,’ recalls Chappelle. ‘One time when things were slow going and we were trying to work out some technical issue he said, to no one in particular, “Children, we must get going.” But that was the only time I heard him say anything less than 100 per cent positive.’

  Phantoms proved a moderately effective thriller, but did no business at all. ‘I just wish the movie had been a success,’ laments Chappelle. ‘So, if for no other reason, it would have instigated yet another comeback in Peter’s career. He was only sixty-six at the time and could have played parts that went to the likes of Anthony Hopkins, Ian McKellen, etc. – all terrific actors, but not Peter O’Toole.’

  It was back on the London stage where O’Toole was a guaranteed box-office smash, especially in the persona of Jeffrey Bernard. The play’s latest revival had much to thank Hollywood star Kevin Spacey for, then a trustee of the Old Vic. O’Toole had recently seen Spacey in a production of The Iceman Cometh at the theatre and bounded into his dressing room to grab hold of Spacey’s head with both hands and unleashed a flood of compliments: ‘Funny, brilliant, hilarious, quick, fast, clever.’ But as he was doing that he was banging the back of Spacey’s head with his hand. ‘I literally thought I was going to be knocked out. But I didn’t care. Peter O’Toole was bashing my head in with compliments, and it was fine by me. I thought, That’s a way to die.’

  The subject of performing at the Old Vic naturally came up. Spacey wanted to know why he hadn’t appeared there for so long. ‘You should be on this stage. What the fuck are you doing?’

  ‘Fuck off,’ blasted O’Toole.

  After a great deal of pestering and badgering by Spacey and the Old Vic board, Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell opened at the theatre in the summer of 1999, for forty-eight performances only, to sell-out audiences and fulsome praise. It had been ten years since the original production and Bernard himself had died and all but been forgotten, it was now all about O’Toole returning to the role he had made his own. ‘It fitted him so comfortably,’ says Royce Mills. ‘And this time he managed to push it and pull it so it was even better still.’

  The first night was a sensation, with several curtain calls. ‘Somehow the performance had become even richer,’ recalled Sherrin. ‘Peter seemed happier to investigate the darker, more sardonic side of Jeff than he had been when he was alive and might drop in.’ Keith Waterhouse agreed: ‘He has managed to improve a performance that we thought could not be improved upon.’

  Kevin Spacey had secretly flown in from the States and after the performance gate-crashed O’Toole’s dressing room. The actor was sitting on a chair, drained, but sat bolt upright and cried, ‘Spacey! What have you got me into now! I’m exhausted and it’s only opening night!!!’ It was the beginning of a loving friendship. In 2003 when Spacey became the Old Vic’s artistic director O’Toole was one of his keenest supporters and never missed a production. That didn’t stop him from time to time making his opinions known. When Spacey put on the comedy National Anthems, O’Toole came backstage afterwards. ‘It’s a wonderful play, funny, fast. But I have a complaint.’

  ‘What’s that, Peter?’ said Spacey.

  ‘You cannot do comedy without legs!’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  O’Toole continued his point, his voice rising all the time. ‘There are two couches on stage that you stand behind all night long – you cannot do comedy without legs!’

  The couches were removed. Another time O’Toole appeared in Spacey’s dressing room during a show’s interval, he stared long and hard into his face before spitting out the words – ‘Absolutely appalling’ – then leaving.

  By this time O’Toole had called a halt to his theatre career. During the Old Vic run of Jeffrey Bernard he felt that while the love affair was still there he no longer had the appetite to take on and sustain a large role in a long theatrical run. ‘It was an ideal play to bow out on,’ he told reporters. ‘I was dreading saying goodbye on the last night at the Old Vic. Dreading it. But it turned out OK. I just thought, well that’s it. The stage days are over.’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  O’Toole didn’t do very much of anything for the next two years, save for living quietly. Every Sunday evening without fail he would dine with Lorcan and Lucy at his favourite restaurant, La Gaffe, a stone’s throw from Guyon House. It had been a haunt of his since the late sixties and he had become friendly with its proprietor, Bernardo Stella, who never worried about his famous client’s hell-raising reputation. ‘There is a saying, never shit on your doorstep, so in my establishment he was always very well behaved.’ Bernardo remembers one evening a customer asked O’Toole to stop smoking. ‘He turned to her and said simply, “Fuck off.” But it was done in such a way that it appeared almost elegant.’

  One lunchtime Bernardo Stella introduced O’Toole to Martin Bell, a former BBC war reporter who had recently become an independent Member of Parliament, well known for wearing distinctive white suits. After that the pair would regularly meet at La Gaffe for lunch. ‘He smoked. We talked. He never had more than one lager. He was great company,’ recalls Bell. ‘And like many actors he had an acute interest in politics. He used to quiz me about various wars and what was going on in the House of Commons.’ Politics was one of O’Toole’s abiding interests. ‘When he talked about politics you were sitting with a master,’ says Johnnie Planco. ‘One time he was invited on the Jon Stewart Show in America and he started talking about the Middle East, he knew the tribes, he knew the leaders and explained why America’s involvement in Iraq will never work. And he was absolutely right. He was astoundingly well informed.’

  There were also trips over to his beloved New York, where he would always see Johnnie Planco. Over these last few years, however, Planco had seen a marked physical deterioration in his friend. ‘If we were at the Players Club for example and somebody he wanted to meet walked in he would bound up to greet them. But I noticed it was getting really hard for him to get up.’ One day they were leaving the Players and heading back to the Chelsea hotel. It was about a distance of five blocks but O’Toole insisted on walking. ‘About half a block into it he got really angry, “We should be taking a cab.” ’

  At the 2002 Telluride Film Festival, O’Toole seemed to be back to his old self, engaging in several outdoor pursuits including shooting and biking whilst staying at the Colorado resort town. The festival was holding a celebration of his career, culminating in a Q&A on stage with renowned film critic Roger Ebert, who O’Toole had never heard of. It proved a memorable evening with O’Toole and Ebert engaging in a bout of one-upmanship by topping each other with quotations from Yeats. Coming off stage that evening to thunderous applause and a standing ovation planted the seed of an idea in O’Toole’s mind. Back in London he called Planco. He wanted to do a one-man theatre show where he would talk about his career, show film clips and take questions from the audience. He got in touch with comedian and comedy writer Barry Cryer, a fellow Leeds lad who he had known off and on for several years, to help write the show. ‘Peter said, “You’ll be uncredited, Baz, and amply rewarded.” And he had a marvellous idea for the opening. He said, “Let’s get it out of the way, straight away, theme from Lawrence of Arabia full blast and the lights go up and there’s me, an old man with a drink on the stage.” I thought, what a marvellous opening. Boy, would that have sold out – an evening with Peter O’Toole!’ According to Planco the project was quite advanced, ‘until I got a call from him to say he
wasn’t interested in doing it any more.’

  That August, news reached O’Toole that Richard Harris had been taken ill. He was a resident for some years at the Savoy Hotel, and when his family had heard nothing from him for days Elizabeth, who had divorced him in 1969 but remained on friendly terms, managed to gain access into his suite to find him lying on the bed drifting in and out of consciousness. An ambulance was immediately called. The director Peter Medak heard from friends what happened next. ‘When they took him away to hospital the lobby just completely stopped, and Richard sat up on the stretcher and shouted, “It was the food! Don’t touch the food!” ’

  Moved to the University College Hospital in central London, Harris was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease. He was registered under an assumed name and the press never got to know he was there; O’Toole was one of the very few people other than family members allowed to see him. ‘Peter used to come in endlessly into the hospital and sit with Richard,’ reveals Elizabeth. ‘And Richard used to enjoy Peter’s visits. It was wonderful seeing these two old rebels sitting there together.’

  When Harris died on 25 October 2002, aged seventy-two, the effect on O’Toole was profound. ‘Peter was in tears for I don’t know how long,’ reveals Elizabeth. ‘He was so shocked.’ At his memorial celebration Andrew Sinclair bumped into O’Toole, having not met for several years. ‘He was very frail by this time, incredibly frail. He was sticklike almost and walking with grace but difficulty.’ Inevitably the topic of conversation was Harris. ‘Both of them, Peter told me, had lost their gizzard, their spleen and their lights because of the gargle, and they had to give it up.’ As the conversation drifted on O’Toole confessed, ‘A lot of my plumbing is gone.’

  One of Harris’ boys came on the podium and said, ‘Peter’s coming on after this, but I must just tell you a story. There’s my father coming out of Claridge’s one afternoon, and there is Peter weaving down Brook Street. And Harris said, “O’Toole, look at you. Are we not members of Alcoholics Anonymous.” And O’Toole replied, “Indeed. I am trying to find my way to the next meeting.” And Dad said, “But are you observing the rules.” And O’Toole answered, “It is very difficult. You see, every bar I enter, I have to give a false name.” ’

  Having not given a single thought to work for almost two years, O’Toole resumed his career with renewed vigour. There was a cameo role in Stephen Fry’s directorial debut Bright Young Things, a telling appearance as von Hindenburg in the TV miniseries Hitler: The Rise of Evil, and a rare starring role in The Final Curtain, a satire on modern television from the writer of Shallow Grave and Trainspotting, John Hodge.

  The producer Jeremy Thomas, who last worked with O’Toole on The Last Emperor, also got in touch. He and renowned director Peter Brook wanted to make a film of the book The Mind of a Mnemonist, which told the true story of a distinguished Soviet psychologist’s study of a young man who was discovered to have a literally limitless memory. O’Toole had made it known that he was interested in playing the ageing psychologist, mainly because it would offer him the chance to work with Brook, whom he admired, and so a meeting was set up near Chelmsford. ‘We’d planned to meet somewhere and go to a pub,’ recalls Thomas. ‘I was driving Peter Brook and we were on a dual carriageway when I saw Peter driving at incredible speed in a silver estate car on the other side of the road coming from London. He spotted us and instead of going back to a roundabout he did the most amazing U turn I’ve seen in my entire life. He mounted the central barrier, took off, flew through the air, landed on our side of the road and then accelerated towards us. It was his way of getting to us the fastest way, which had included virtually ripping off the underside of his car. Peter was absolutely oblivious that he’d done anything wrong.’ Sadly Thomas never managed to raise the finance and the film wasn’t made.

  O’Toole did agree to play Augustus Caesar in an American TV movie entitled Imperium: Augustus directed by Roger Young. When it came time to begin filming O’Toole’s scenes Young couldn’t find the courage within himself to give the star any piece of direction for three full days. ‘I could barely ask him to do a second take. Finally, on the fourth day he said to me, rather loudly, so all could hear, “Darling, call me Peter. And tell me what you want.” I’m not sure I can impart what a privilege that was. Peter O’Toole just said, “Direct me.” To me! So began one of the most enjoyable shoots I ever had.’

  About a quarter of the way through filming, O’Toole got sick. ‘We thought it was serious,’ says Young. ‘I visited Peter in hospital. I was afraid for him. The next day we started planning how to shoot around him. He was obviously going to be out for weeks. The day after that, he was back on the set! No little illness was going to stop him. He worked every day after that. If anyone showed concern for his health he simply waved them off. He was a strong man.’

  Still, Young remained concerned about his star’s fragile health, particularly as the role required considerable stamina. In one scene Caesar faints on the hard concrete floor of a temple. O’Toole insisted on doing it himself, waving away the stunt man. ‘I don’t want you to take that fall, Peter,’ said Young. ‘Oh, darling, I’ll be fine. Let’s try it.’ Young cried action and O’Toole collapsed in a heap on the hard floor. Getting up he looked over at a concerned Young. ‘Want me to do it again?’

  That kind of dedication seemed to sum up O’Toole for Young. ‘It’s an experience I’ll never forget, sitting around talking about his films, David Lean, cricket, women, his children, various directors, Kate Hepburn, his books, and more cricket. I asked him to explain cricket to me one day and he said, “Oh dear boy, it would take months.” ’

  O’Toole remained in historical garb for his next film, Troy, which at $175m was one of the most expensive films ever made, and boasted an impressive cast led by Brad Pitt. O’Toole appeared as Priam, the father of Paris played by Orlando Bloom. When Johnnie and Lois Planco visited O’Toole on the film’s Mexican location he gave them a personal tour of the sets, which he thought were terrific. ‘That evening we were supposed to have dinner and we kept getting a phone call from his room from Lucy saying, he’s going to be ten minutes late. Now he’s going to be another ten minutes late. He’s going to be half an hour late. Then he’s not coming at all.’ Planco assumed maybe O’Toole had been drinking and was in no fit state to socialize.

  Ever since he’d begun representing him, Planco had noticed the strange relationship the actor had with alcohol and his hell-raising image, how on occasions he liked to play up to it. There was one evening in the Players Club when O’Toole made a big show about ordering a certain type of Martini. ‘I want it up and very cold and very dry.’ He went on and on. ‘When it arrived,’ says Planco, ‘he kept taking the drink and putting it to his lips, but the drink never went down. And when we left the glass was still full but people in the bar were saying afterwards, “Boy, he staggered out of here last night.” And I’m like, he didn’t drink anything!’ From the Players they both headed to P. J. Clarke’s on Third Avenue, which O’Toole loved, the place was something of a New York institution and where they shot scenes for the film Lost Weekend. ‘We go in and the bar tenders all know him, “Oh my God, O’Toole’s here!! You want the usual.” And they make that same giant Martini, and Peter’s walking around saying hello to people he doesn’t know and the Martini’s spilling over him. And this time I really paid attention, he never drank a sip of it. I guess he needed that drink like it was a prop. Then I thought, maybe he just wants to continue the illusion. But then sometimes I would see him and know he’d had something to drink.’

  After almost twenty years of largely indifferent film work, it was a low-budget independent British movie that brought O’Toole back into the limelight, garnering him his eighth and last Oscar nomination for Best Actor. Ironically, he wasn’t first choice. Director Roger Michell first offered Paul Scofield the part of Maurice, an actor in the twilight of his years, who finds himself increasingly attracted to a brash teenager called Jessie, the daughter of his
friend’s niece. Scofield sent a charming letter to Michell politely declining. He’d been somewhat of a long shot anyway, having virtually retired from acting. Michell was a little more hopeful about his second choice, O’Toole, although the actor required some tracking down. ‘He was very elusive, even to his own agent,’ recalls Michell. Eventually the script of Venus by Hanif Kureishi was sent over.

  At last O’Toole agreed to meet with Michell but on home ground, the Garrick Club near Covent Garden. It was the day of John Mills’ memorial service in April 2005 and as Michell waited on the first floor the place began to slowly fill up with a fabulous array of actors over seventy, all struggling up the grand staircase. O’Toole arrived soon after, looking his usual dapper self and led Michell into the bar where he ordered a whisky for himself and a mineral water for Michell. Michell made his pitch. O’Toole smiled. ‘No one better for a dirty old man who falls for a sluttish young woman.’ The plotline, however, had caused some concern with the film’s main backer, Miramax. Michell had done his best to reassure them that his story was much more about death and yearning and damage, ‘and absolutely not a perverts’ paradise’.