| # | Fact |
|---|
| 1 | Although he played John Standing and Edward Fox's father in Gulliver's Travels (1996), he was only two years older than Standing and less than five years older than Fox in real life. |
| 2 | His middle name was actually James, although he often used the Irish version Seamus. |
| 3 | Could play the bagpipes and during his youth was a member of an Irish pipe band. He is seen playing the pipes in two of his films: Kidnapped (1960) and Brotherly Love (1970). |
| 4 | The Leeds City Council register of births, deaths and marriages proved that the man who went through life proudly purporting to be an Irishman was in fact a Yorkshireman, born at the famous St James University Hospital in Leeds, on 2 August 1932. |
| 5 | Although O'Toole always claimed to have been born in Ireland, the birth records show he was actually born in Leeds in England. There is no record of any Peter O'Toole being born in Ireland in 1932. O'Toole's parents had lived in Leeds since 1930. |
| 6 | Is one of 13 actors who have received an Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of a real-life king. The others in chronological order are Charles Laughton for The Private Life of Henry VIII. (1933), Robert Morley for Marie Antoinette (1938), Basil Rathbone for If I Were King (1938), Laurence Olivier for Henry V (1944) and Richard III (1955), José Ferrer for Joan of Arc (1948), Yul Brynner for The King and I (1956), John Gielgud for Becket (1964), Robert Shaw for A Man for All Seasons (1966), Richard Burton for Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), Kenneth Branagh for Henry V (1989), Nigel Hawthorne for The Madness of King George (1994), and Colin Firth for The King's Speech (2010). |
| 7 | He was offered the role of Grigori Rasputin in Nicholas and Alexandra (1971) but he turned it down. Tom Baker was eventually cast. |
| 8 | He appeared in two Best Picture Academy Award winners: Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and The Last Emperor (1987). |
| 9 | After his death his ashes were brought back to Ireland, where they are held in safe keeping by President Michael D Higgins in his official residence, Áras an Uachtaráin, until he can be laid to rest in the west of Ireland. |
| 10 | In his later films (from the 1980s onwards) he is frequently seen wearing an Irish Claddagh ring on the third finger of his right hand. |
| 11 | He worked with Peter Sellers, Woody Allen, Ursula Andress and Burt Bacharach on both What's New Pussycat (1965) and Casino Royale (1967). |
| 12 | He appeared in four films with his ex-wife Siân Phillips: Becket (1964), Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969), Murphy's War (1971) and Under Milk Wood (1972). |
| 13 | Remained friends with ex-wife Siân Phillips after their divorce. |
| 14 | Chosen by GQ magazine as one of the 50 most stylish men of the past 50 years. |
| 15 | (July 10, 2012) Announced his retirement from acting. |
| 16 | Was scheduled to star with Toshirô Mifune in "Will Adams", to be directed by John Huston, with screenplay by Dalton Trumbo and produced by Eugene Frenke and Jules Buck. "A daring adventurer challenges the traditions of a mighty empire". |
| 17 | He played the first Roman Emperor Augustus in Imperium: Augustus (2003), whereas his ex-wife, Siân Phillips, played Augustus' wife, Livia, in I, Claudius (1976). |
| 18 | According to his daughter Kate O'Toole, the actor wears green socks every day due to personal superstitions. |
| 19 | Is a lifelong cricket and rugby fanatic. |
| 20 | Won his career-making part in Lawrence of Arabia (1962) after it was turned down by superstar Marlon Brando and a then-unknown Albert Finney. Both director David Lean and producer Sam Spiegel (who produced On the Waterfront (1954), the movie for which Brando and Spiegel won their first Oscars) wanted Brando, but he turned the role down (allegedly saying he didn't want to spend two years of his life riding on a camel). Finney was put through extensive screen-tests costing 100,000 pounds, but refused to sign a seven year contract demanded by Spiegel. O'Toole signed the seven-year contract and got the part. |
| 21 | Has said that he learned more about acting by working with José Ferrer in Lawrence of Arabia (1962) than in any acting class. Ferrer himself considers that role to be his best. Ironically, Ferrer nearly declined the role he played because it was so small -- roughly five minutes out of a four hour movie. |
| 22 | Allegedly declined a knighthood for political reasons in 1987. |
| 23 | His actual date of birth went unrecorded, and O'Toole has said himself that he may have been born in June 1932. |
| 24 | Was the original choice to play King Henry VIII in A Man for All Seasons (1966) but Robert Shaw, who went on to receive a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his performance, was cast instead. |
| 25 | Resides in Galway, Ireland and London, England. |
| 26 | It is interesting to note that the DVD of Rogue Male (1976) has a two page biography of Peter O'Toole that at the end reads as follows: Peter O'Toole died in 2003 after a long illness. Whoever entered that erroneous fact must have been very surprised to see Peter show up at the Academy Awards for his nomination in Venus (2006). |
| 27 | Broke his hip while filming Venus (2006), but returned to work after only three weeks. |
| 28 | He was almost cast as Professor Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady (1964) due to concerns that Rex Harrison was too old for the part, but his salary demands were more than producer Jack L. Warner was willing to pay. |
| 29 | Has named Eric Porter as the actor who has influenced him most. |
| 30 | A close friend of April Ashley. |
| 31 | Father of actor Lorcan O'Toole, Kate O'Toole and Pat O'Toole. |
| 32 | While at RADA in the early 1950s he was active in protesting British involvement in the Korean War. Later in the 1960s he was an active opponent of the Vietnam War. |
| 33 | Was originally approached by director Billy Wilder to play "Sherlock Holmes" in The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970), opposite Peter Sellers as "Dr. Watson". Wilder later decided to go with lesser known stars instead. |
| 34 | Was a close friend of late actress Katharine Hepburn. Although some believe his daughter, Kate O'Toole is named after Hepburn, according to Sian Phillips' autobiography they named their daughter after Kate, the title character in Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew". They were inspired by the line in the play "Kate, sweet Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom". |
| 35 | Cites Rose Byrne and Jodie Whittaker as the best young actresses he has ever worked with. |
| 36 | Nominated 8 times for best actor but has never won an Academy Award. He has more nominations without winning than any other actor. |
| 37 | His performance as "Alan Swann" in My Favorite Year (1982) is ranked #56 on Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time. |
| 38 | The 1976 film adaptation of the book "The Man Who Fell To Earth", directed by Nicolas Roeg, was originally meant to be a vehicle for O'Toole. |
| 39 | His performance as "T.E. Lawrence" in Lawrence of Arabia (1962) is the #1 ranked performance of all time in Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time (2006). |
| 40 | When he was named the recipient of a Special Oscar for lifetime achievement in 2003, he originally intended to turn it down feeling that the lifetime award signaled the end of his career. He wrote the Academy a letter stating that he was "still in the game" and would like more time to "win the lovely bugger outright." It was only after the Academy informed him that they were bestowing the award on him whether he came to collect it or not that he relented. |
| 41 | In 1976 he underwent surgery to remove parts of his stomach and intestine, at the time attributed to his heavy drinking, but later disclosed to be stomach cancer. In the following year he almost died from a blood disorder. These two serious illnesses greatly affected his ability to work at that time. |
| 42 | Has portrayed three kings, one of them twice (King Henry II in Becket (1964) also in The Lion in Winter (1968)), one of them fictional (Sir/King Cedric Willingham in King Ralph (1991)) and King Priam in Troy (2004), two emperors, one of them real (Emperor Tiberius Caesar in Caligula (1979)) and one of them fictional (Emperor of Lilliput in Gulliver's Travels (1996)), a fictional prince (Prince Meleagre in The Rainbow Thief (1990)), a real president (President Paul von Hindenburg in Hitler: The Rise of Evil (2003)), a real Pope (Pope Paul III in The Tudors (2007)) and several lords. |
| 43 | Both he and his fellow Irish actor (and close friend), the late Richard Harris appeared in versions of 'Gulliver's Travels': Harris played the 1977 film version Gulliver's Travels (1977) and O'Toole played the Emperor of Lilliput in the 1996 TV-film version Gulliver's Travels (1996), where Ted Danson played Gulliver. |
| 44 | Became an Associate Member of RADA. |
| 45 | He is only one of six performers to be nominated for an Oscar twice for playing the same role in two separate films. He was nominated as Henry II in Becket (1964) and The Lion in Winter (1968). The other five are Bing Crosby as Father O'Malley in Going My Way (1944) and The Bells of St. Mary's (1945), Al Pacino as Michael Corleone in The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather: Part II (1974), Paul Newman as Fast Eddie Felson in The Hustler (1961) and The Color of Money (1986), Cate Blanchett as Elizabeth I in Elizabeth (1998) and Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007), and Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa in Rocky (1976) and Creed (2015). Furthermore, O'Toole is the only one of these six who was nominated for playing the same character (at two different stages in his life) in films that were not a prequel or sequel to the other. |
| 46 | Was friends with fellow Irish actor Richard Harris. After Harris died, his family hoped that O'Toole would replace him as Professor Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), but the role went to Michael Gambon instead. |
| 47 | He was awarded the Laurence Olivier Theatre Award in 2000 for Outstanding Achievement Award for his theatrical career. |
| 48 | Father was Irish, mother was Scottish. |
| 49 | Is a supporter of Sunderland football club of the English Premiership. |
| 50 | His daughter Kate O'Toole is a well-respected actress in her own right. |
| 51 | Chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history (#47). [1995] |
| 52 | Coaching cricket professionally in London. [1997] |
| 53 | The title character in the comic strip "Alan Ford", widely popular in Italy, is styled after the physical features of Peter O'Toole |
| 54 | From 1952 to 1954 he attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art as a scholarship student. |
| 55 | O'Toole & Karen Brown's son's name is Lorcan O'Toole. |
| 56 | He attended a Catholic school where the nuns beat him to correct his left-handedness. |
ncG1vNJzZmimlanEsL7Toaeoq6RjvLOzjqmcrZ2iYry1u86lnGamlal6uLvRrZ9o