It is with a heavy heart that we report the passing of cinema legend Peter O’toole. Press play on the youtube video below and we’ll get to the rest of this In Memoriam.
Of course, he’ll always be chiefly remembered for his portrayal of T.E. Lawrence in David Lean’s masterpiece Lawrence of Arabia. And we’ll be spinning up that film in our Blu-ray players for the rest of the week. And we’ll be pulling out our old vinyl records of the original soundtrack.
For my part, it’s a movie I often have on my mind. One of my recent columns at the official Star Wars website was dedicated fully to the influence of Lawrence of Arabia on Star Wars, so you can be sure it had a profound influence on me. And it never would have were it not for O’Toole’s stunning performance. His performance is haunting, unsettling at times, nuanced in ways you’re surprised by every time you watch the film, and just fantastic.
And long after he was done with the role, the imagery of it never stopped having an effect. I’ll never forget seeing him come out on the David Letterman show in the mid-90s riding a camel. Even then as a young teenager I knew this actor had a lasting power and effect that I couldn’t then understand.
But Lawrence of Arabia tends to overshadow other incredible contributions to O’Toole’s ouevre. For instance: The Lion in Winter. This is a movie that needs to be seen to be believed. Or his recent turn in Venus as an aging actor at the end of his life.
He was also in the first feature film Woody Allen scripted and starred in, What’s New, Pussycat? (Which you can watch right now in it’s entirety.)
You can go right down the list of his filmography and find something intriguing and nuanced to watch. He was truly one of the greats and he’ll definitely be missed.
Do yourself a favor and go visit his work.