The Lion in Winter

Author’s Note:  As it is Academy Award night in Tinsel Town, before I honor this post’s guest star, I would like to take a moment to make a speech of my own. This is the six month anniversary of Letter From Elba and I am thrilled and humbled to report that it’s doing swell.  My readership has grown to the point where I can’t recognize my new subscribers by their email addresses any more and I’d like to thank each and every one of you for making this happen.

Writing is a lonely business.  It’s just you and a blank piece of paper- or computer screen- most of the time. But from day one, I’ve never been alone.  I’ve had you with me.  Oh, one more thing.  Today a special shout-out goes to Laurie and Grant Bagan on the birth of their granddaughter, Logan.  Congrats, guys.  Do I see a future Camp Laurel girl in the family?  And now the producers are frantically signaling me to get off the stage so…

Here’s an hommage to the greatest living actor who never won a regulation Oscar.  Peter Seamus Lorcan O’Toole holds the record for most nominations – eight- without a win.  Shame on all of you Academy members.

In July 2012 Peter O’Toole announced his retirement from acting.  He knows best, of course, but I am devastated to see him go.  When asked about his own retirement plans, the very savvy and still dishy Michael Caine wisely said, “You don’t decide when to retire from show business. The Business decides when to retire you.”  I can promise you that “the Business” did not ask Peter O’Toole to pack it in.  I’m sure- like every other aspect of his wayward, roguish, boisterous life- it was very much his own idea.

Like the green socks he always wore for luck.

On December 16, 1962 Peter O’Toole burst into the public consciousness as T.E. Lawrence in David Lean’s masterpiece Lawrence of Arabia.  And if you have never seen it, do so at once.  See it for the most dashing, flamboyant, clever, and thrillingly heroic leading man debut any screen actor has ever had.  (And he only got the part because Albert Finney did not want to spend seven months filming in a desert.  See what I mean about the green socks and luck of the Irish? )

While you are ogling Mr. O. you’ll still have time to take note of Alec Guinness, Omar Sharif, Anthony Quinn, Jose Ferrer, Claude Rains, and Anthony Quayle.  All mega-star actors giving virtuoso performances.  A lesson in great movie-acting and David Lean’s majestic movie-directing.

We can not neglect to mention the scenery.  On display throughout are two major examples of Nature’s handiwork- the vast expanse of the Sahara Desert and the swoon-inducing Mr. O’Toole.  You won’t know where to look as they vie for your attention in a beauty contest of epic proportions.  It may be a draw but the sight of the heartbreakingly handsome O’Toole twirling in his white desert robes is never to be forgotten.  And, of course, neither is that haunting theme song.  But that was only the beginning of my love affair with the talented Mr. O’Toole.

My next movie date with him was something quite different.

There he was, brought up to very “mod” date and plunked down in the middle of Paris, playing a reluctant womanizer in What’s New Pussycat?  In Woody Allen’s script, (hopelessly botched by the studio according to Mr. Allen) Romy Schneider, Paula Prentice and every other woman he met fell in love with Peter’s character.  And he just had to succumb to their charms.  Count me among the fallen.  His eyes, his voice, his lean saturnine features.  He looked so very handsome and debauched that I was a goner.  (I was almost fifteen and had never seen what “debauched” looked like but I loved it when I saw it.)

This was followed by a bagatelle- How To Steal A Million with beautiful Audrey Hepburn. He didn’t have to do much in that one, but just the way he said “Givenchy”  when Audrey lookied askance at her maid’s uniform, will forever remain in my heart.

But in 1968 he came roaring back as Henry II as The Lion in Winter.  And he was given an opponent worthy of his acting steel- Katherine Hepburn.  Their medieval battle of wills made my third divorce look (almost) tame.

And there’s James Goldman’s magnificent script, and just for fun, check out a future James Bond, Timothy Dalton, and a future Hannibal Lecter, Anthony Hopkins- as if you need to be told- in their film debuts.  But it was Hepburn who got the Oscar.  She tied with Barbra Streisand, remember?

O’Toole was nominated again for playing Henry again.  He had been nominated before in Beckett in 1964 (He was only the second actor to be honored for playing the same character twice.  Bing Crosby as Father O’Malley was the other.)  But he was robbed by Cliff Robertson in Charlie.  That is an outrage.  Give me a minute while I ponder the mind-boggling politics of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Then came The Ruling Class.  Very much of its time and he chewed up the scenery as a lord who thought he was The Lord.  Another spectacular turn.

Do not miss My Favorite Year.  It’s a sweet comic valentine to the early days of television- a love letter to the Show of Shows and the genius of Sid Caesar. You will never forget O’Toole’s performance as the ultimate swashbuckling “Movie Star,” Alan Swann.  It’s a sendup of Errol Flynn but O’Toole skillfully and hilariously plays him in all his sad, insecure glory.

And I loved him in Club Paradise.  When his character finally sobers up and mounts his charger, decked out in the very uniform Prince William wore when he got married, he is the living embodiment of “Rule, Britannia”.

Throughout all of this movie-making Peter O’Toole still found time to drink to legendary excess, carouse, marry, have two children, get divorced, have another child, appear on television, and, of course, play Hamlet in the West End.

He was awarded an honorary Oscar in 2003.  The Academy had partly realized their mistake, and with his days and roles growing shorter, they probably figured “now or never.”  But Mr. O’Toole had another surprise left in his acting bag.

It’s called Venus, and if he started out with a bang as Lawrence, he has bookended his career perfectly as Maurice, a burnt-out, sly, old lothario, an aged actor who still has an eye for a pretty young thing.

See this movie.  It may be a poignant elegy to the loneliness of old age but it gloriously and tenderly proves that one is never too old-or too young- for love, beauty, or poetry.  And the scene when O’Toole and his broken-down old buddy- played wittily by great Leslie Phillips- are dancing together in the Actors’ Church to a melody by Dvorak? It’s the most moving tribute to actors and the special place they hold in our hearts that I have ever witnessed.  He got another nomination for that.  And didn’t win.  But who cares?

Near the end of Venus, there’s an old still photograph- a head shot- of Peter O’Toole in all his youthful glory. It takes your breath away.

And so does he.