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Well now what about
this Peter O'Toole story?

Let's hear the beginning of it.

I was born in Ireland and
brought up in Yorkshire

and I was evacuated
to Gainsborough,
worked on a newspaper,

went to the Navy, went to
RADA and became an actor.

Well, that's one kind of story,

now tell us the real story.

And he came back and said,

I want you out of this
house in two hours.

So really, I had to pack
and leave because he,

I thought I must go now
because he said I can go.

But it was, it was
quick, you know, it was,

and I had to speak
to the children,

he wrote out a script for me.

I had to tell them,
which wasn't true.

And I just had to leave.

* How was I to know *

* That this was
always only just *

* A little game to you *

* All the time I thought
you gave your heart *

* I thought that I would
do the same for you *

* Tell the truth I think
I should have seen it *

* Coming from a mile away *

* When the words you say are *

* Baby, I'm a fool
who thinks it's cool *

* To fall in love *

* If I gave a thought
to fascination *

* I would know it
wasn't right to care *

* Logic doesn't seem
to mind to die *

* I'm fascinated
by a love affair *

* Still my heart would benefit *

* From a little tenderness *

* From time to time *

* But never mind, 'cause *

* Baby I'm a fool *

* Who thinks it's cool *

* To fall in love *

* Hmmm *

* Hmm Hmm Hmmm *

He was the most extraordinary
man I ever knew.

It was phenomenal,
because of Peter.

Whatever he did, comedy,
tragedy, farce, he could do it.

And Peter O'Toole, which
was a wonderful experience.

This handsome, kind
of wolf-like creature.

I miss him terribly
because he was just

such fun to be around.

When I did the screen
test, he was phenomenal.

Peter would come in and
assert his dominance,

insisting on pissing in
their, in their basin,

in their dressing room.

He was full of fun.

He was just, he
had such stature,

he had such elegance, you know?

I've only worked
with one other actor

who's given me that
much freedom to play.

And excuse all the
other wonderful people

I've worked with, I learned
more working with Peter

than in the rest of my career.

Yeah, he was quite a remark,
well, he was a genius.

There's the way he speaks,

which is often over-articulated.

* Hey your eyes of dawning *

* Hey your eyes are open *

* Baby your eyes are smoking *

* So please don't send me away *

* You locked me up *

* You said I'm hypnotised *

* Whenever you look my way *

* It's like dynamite *

I was brought up
in a place called Hunslet,

which is a remarkable place.

It's about four square
miles of rabbit warrens.

One up, one down houses,

which were built very rapidly

and rather badly by
the copper bosses

in the Industrial Revolution.

And the people who
lived there initially

were from the Green Belt
of Yorkshire. the Dales,

who moved in and
overnight became engineers

and string makers and
Yorkshire Relish sauce makers,

you know, the whole schmear.

And they, they lived
on Yorkshire pudding,

which was then hard tack.

When the war started,

much to my intense delight,
schools were closed.

And I was then six, and I
was sent down to Gainsborough

and I was sort of
in farms and things.

And I came out to
Leeds when I was 12,

and I went to a school
for my first time, really.

I went for two
years or just under,

and left joyfully whistling,

'cause I really
couldn't bear school.

I mean, they couldn't
teach me anything

that I wanted to know.

I've got the kind of mind that

rejects anything that
I don't want to know.

And it was no, what
they could teach me

I could get out
of books, anyway.

And did, and have done.

I went to the
Yorkshire Evening News

and I asked if
they'd take me on,

gave wrong ages and all
that terrible nonsense,

which I'd read that
someone else had done,

so I did it, and
they accepted me.

Great tea maker, runner,
inquests, coroner's courts.

But the most fun I ever had was

in the photographer's
department.

In fact, it's the
only thing I enjoyed.

And I finished up as Assistant
Art Editor on the paper.

I mean, His Majesty was
desperate for my services

at one point, and I had
to nip into the Navy.

I don't think he
was too grateful.

I was very perverse,
I must admit.

The Navy!

Lovely, thank you, very nice.

No, I wasn't, I couldn't do it.

And I used to play civilian
all the time, you know,

referring to the
funnels as chimneys.

The two years in the
Navy are a total blank.

It's, I've rejected it.

I've hypnotised myself,

I've amputated the
Navy from my mind.

But you see, this is
about becoming an actor,

as I say, I was,
I was born a ham.

One is, I mean, nothing
else I could do.

So I thought, well,
the best thing to do

is to go to a
school for a while.

'Cause I still had a,

this ghastly Irish
Yorkshire accent

I thought should be ironed out.

So I thought I'd go to school,

but which one I hadn't
the faintest idea.

Went to RADA and
became an actor.

Back in the 50s, so O'Toole
was in the same acting class

as Albert Finney, who was
offered "Lawrence" before him,

Alan Bates, Brian
Bedford, Richard Briers,

and Richard Briers,
who I knew well,

said back then when O'Toole
was only in his early twenties,

the other students
would call him "Sir".

There was already this
sense that there was

something exceptional
about this guy.

And I said to Richard,
well what was it?

What did you see
in Peter O'Toole

when he was 22 years old at the

Royal Academy of Dramatic
Art, down from Yorkshire,

but 100% Irishman, what was it?

And he said, well, he was
just, he was electric, love.

It was as simple as that.

O'Toole was bloody electric.

So his reputation as a stage
actor was pretty strong,

particularly from Bristol,
when he went to Bristol,

and he played up, he played
the "Hamlet" in Bristol.

And a lot of people
who saw him there,

people like, there was an actor

I knew called John Phillips,

I think was in that with him,

and he said there
was nothing like him.

That when he walked on
the stage in that time,

there was nothing like him.

I saw O'Toole at the
Bristol Old Vic Theatre

and he was playing Jimmy
Porter in John Osborne's.

tremendous play, revolutionary
play of its time,

and I'd never seen
anything like it,

and he inspired
me to be an actor.

He was one of the most
dangerous actors I've ever seen.

He was quite brilliant on
stage, like an electric light.

He developed in the
most wonderful way.

This is the bedrock
of his career, really.

He went there as a
boy and out of RADA,

not with a good
reputation at all,

not not having
done well at RADA.

And he played tiny parts,
walk-ons for a year, 18 months,

and he really worked hard.

And he finally was
playing the leading parts

by the time he'd finished.

So his training was immaculate,

he did everything by the book.

And he learned how to work,

and he learned how to do well,

and he became a star at Bristol,

his fame was all
over the theatre.

We all talked about
Peter O'Toole at Bristol.

That conveys somewhat
of the Bristol days.

On stage, he was mesmerising.

He could do any accent.

He was doing, "Waiting for
Godot" at one rehearsal

and I was allowed in to watch.

This man was overpoweringly
tense, spellbindingly powerful.

Everyone dwarfed, disappeared,

when he appeared on stage.

He was like a, he was like
a wolf, foxy or a wolf,

like there was something,
he was a canine.

He's been described as a wolf.

Well, he had that
look about him,

that sort of hungry
kind of thing he did.

Well, we met on a pavement,
the very first time.

I went to Goodge Street
for lunch one day,

which was an unusual thing,

'cause we, we didn't have
any money, any of us.

It was outside the
Spaghetti House,

where I was a student at RADA,

And O'Toole was a,
was a leading young,

tearaway leading man
at Bristol Old Vic.

And his fame had
arrived back at RADA

and I was very impressed,
'cause there he was,

I came out of lunch and there
he was with a few friends,

and I was with friends,

they knew each other
and they introduced us.

And he looked to me like
that character in Pinocchio,

you know, the, was
it a wolf or a,

there was a man who led
the children astray,

I haven't seen the film
for a very long time,

and he looked like that to me.

Kind of wolf-like creature

in a green jacket
and curly hair.

And we were introduced and
we passed a few pleasantries

and off I went back
to be a student,

and he went off to
Bristol Old Vic.

And, and I thought,

as I was walking
back, I thought,

"Well, I'll marry him
one day, I suppose".

And I thought no more about it,

I didn't meet him
again for three years.

And we did in fact marry
in five years time.

I just remember my
grandmother, Mamgee,

she lived in South
Wales most of her life.

She said, she said, when my
parents were getting married,

she said she did have
reservations because she'd seen,

you know, she said,
"Oh, the marriages

between the Irish and the Welsh,

it's like oil and water,

they never mix".

When we got married,
he still had brown,

black, curly hair, and he
looked completely different.

He looked very Irish, you know.

People gave him a really
bad time in the press,

and his friends, about the
nose, which was so ridiculous.

And his nose had been broken
in a match with the rugby,

Swedish police,
that his submarine

had docked somewhere in Sweden,

and they'd played a rugby match

and he'd been
kicked in the nose.

So it, nothing was
added to the nose,

but it went sideways
at the bottom,

and lighting men had
a terrible problem

with this curvature of the nose.

So all they ever did,

'cause I was there at the time,

was straighten it and
put it back straight.

And you would've thought
that he'd had major surgery,

you know, the way
people went on about it,

it was really bad, the
way to they treated him,

and he was very, very
mortified about that,

but he didn't complain.

He said, "Well, when I was doing

"The Day they Robbed
the Bank of England",

I said, you know,
'I want a car'".

They said, oh no,
no, Mr. O'Toole,

this is your first film,
your first big film, no car.

Oh, how am I supposed
to get there?

Well, there's public transport,
you know, you'll be fine.

First day of filming,
he didn't turn up.

Where's Peter?
Where's Mr. O'Toole?

Not there.

They rang, "Where are you?"

He said, "Well,
where's the car?"

He said, "No car, no me".

And that was it.

So from then on, he
always got his car.

Well, "Lawrence of
Arabia" came along

after he'd had a misstep
in his career, actually.

Things did not go
well for him after

"The Long and the
Short and the Tall".

The movies that he made
were not successful,

though it was wonderful to be
paid a little bit of money.

We had a talk about
it and, and I said,

"Look, I think you
should go back to basics

and start again in the
theatre if you can".

So he said yes, and
Stratford came up,

"Merchant of Venice" and
"Taming of the Shrew"

and "Troilus and Cressida".

So I thought, we both thought,

this would be a
wonderful thing for him.

And we went back and it was
a wonderful thing for him,

he was a magnificent Shylock

and he was a
wonderful Petruchio.

And Peggy Ashcroft adored him
in that particular season.

They were doing
"Taming of the Shrew",

and she didn't know
how to do the business.

"Sit here, Peggy",

"Stand there, Peggy",

"Put your leg there, Peggy",

"Kick there, I won't fall down".

So, that's what the comedy,

it's circus, it's slapstick.

"Come here, Peggy, come here".

And he taught her all the
movements of the whole play.

They still have those
movements at Stratford.

They still have them
in the curriculum.

They refer to
O'Toole's movements

for "The Taming of the Shrew".

And then Peggy adored him
for his greatness and talent.

When he had made one film
that was kind of okay

for his new business
manager, who happened to be

an American film producer,

and he, it was "The Day They
Robbed the Bank of England".

And he played an Englishman,
a very clipped officer.

And that was the film
that David Lean saw.

An assistant of David
Lean spotted O'Toole in

"The Day they Robbed
the Bank of England"

and got David Lean to see it,

and then took David Lean up
to Stratford to see him play

either Petruchio or Shylock,

and he said "He's the man".

And David wanted
him for "Lawrence",

and Sam Spiegel did
not want him at all,

'cause he'd just
finished doing a film,

I think with Monty Clift,

and he'd had enough
of the drinkers,

he didn't want
another one.

This has three
keys, so I'm told,

each kept by a
different official

on the person, as it were.

There had apparently been
a meeting with Sam Spiegel

and Peter O'Toole previously
about something else,

and O'Toole had referred
to him as Mrs. Spiegel,

which rankled with Sam Spiegel,

who didn't think that
was funny at all,

and was very much against it.

And I think David
Lean, rumour has it,

had to fight a
bit to get O'Toole

into playing Lawrence because

Spiegel was not very pleased.

Also, he knew of a reputation
of being a wild boy.

'Cause Albert was gonna
play it, you know,

Well, it's very interesting
about Albert, and,

you know Albert and Peter
were at drama school together.

So in the end, David prevailed.

But the film helped a
lot, helped enormously.

It was huge, it was
absolutely huge.

Every, it was undeniable.

We all knew that we were in
the presence of, of stardom.

And David Lean, probably
his finest picture.

I think that's where
he was so sharp.

He knew how he wanted to look.

It's called the, Stanislavsky
calls it "The Mask".

Where you, you know,
you put on the clothes,

or you put on this, and suddenly

you become the part.

And I think O'Toole did that.

I don't know, so I
can't say it precisely,

but I suspect that's
it, he knew how to look,

he knew how to shape himself.

What Peter did was he
found the core of the man.

That was the great thing,

I mean, I'll never
forget that performance.

I think it's one
of the truly great

film performances,
actually, I really do.

What is your name?

My name is for my friends.

None of my friends
is a murderer.

My name is for my friends

and none of my
friends are murderers.

You know, I mean I was just,
it was electric, doing that.

And he had this kind of,

there was something
about Peter, he had this,

in that role, he
had this sort of

thwarted spirituality about him.

He looked sensational.

He had this wonderful ability.

He was, he was
also a great actor,

and he was mesmeric on screen.

Two large glasses of lemonade.

In "Lawrence of Arabia",
Peter O'Toole speaks slow,

and you feel that he
doesn't speak much,

but when he asks, when
he walks into that club,

for "Two glasses of lemonade".

It's for him.

It's for him, it's for him.

You think, well you
can't say "It's for him"

any slower than that,

but frankly, the "It's for him"

has underneath it
hand grenades, mines,

a minefield of, you feel as
though he's gonna reach across

and pull that barman the
other side of the bar.

And that and that
sense, you know,

O'Toole's performances of,

and maybe it seems
a bit clichéd,

but this sort of contained rage.

Not a club boy at all,

all that stuff when he
goes to the Officer's Mess,

it was clearly, he
did all of that,

and that's all Peter.

That's all of him, you know,

I mean Lean, of course,
director, was brilliant.

And then the
wonderful thing when

he has the dagger and
he sees his own image

and he does that
incredible, his vanity.

And then he gets shot and
he goes, "Good, good, good",

you know, I mean, yeah, it's
a great, great performance,

it's a really great performance.

The quietest of pieces in
something like "Lawrence",

to use that as an example,

that the sense of
an inner turbulence

that either, I dunno,

maybe he's just the
greatest actor in the world

and he could flick it on,

or he opened up his own
access to something truly,

yeah, turbulent is
the impression I have.

And it made you feel uneasy.

His performances made
you feel unsettled,

and it made you generally
feel that he was dangerous.

And in the presence of
an O'Toole performance,

what you were aware of was that

the unexpected was
possible at any time.

Never seen a man killed
with a sword before.

Why don't you take a picture?

It was in his contract that
I would fly out every month.

Well, I couldn't
fly out every month,

it was impossible
over two years.

So I used to, sort of,
put the time together

and go and live
there in the desert.

And David was such
a perfectionist,

he would look through his,
whatever you look through,

you know, and say, "No, not
quite right, we'll wait a bit",

wait a bit, he could wait a
day, he could wait two days,

he could wait a week.

But then he, he liked to become,

to break actors down completely

and then rebuild them completely

so that he was
responsible for them

and he would be
wonderful to them.

Well, I can't see anyone
breaking Peter,

I think anyone
trying to break Peter

would just, he'd
go the other way.

And one day he tried
that with O'Toole,

it was the day they,
that O'Toole sang

"The Man Who Robbed the
Bank at Monte Carlo",

it was a long tracking shot,

and they started first
thing in the morning,

127 degrees, no shade,

O'Toole in khaki up to there
with a hat and everything,

and he would sing the song
and ride along, very slowly,

until he was out of shot.

And David just said,
"Mm, another one".

And they did it all day.

The crew were dropping
'cause there was no shade,

it was intolerably hot.

I was miles away,
sitting on a box,

watching in horror,
you know, at this,

and I realised this was the day

that Lean was going
to break Peter down

and he was going to
build him up again.

And I looked and I thought,
this is never gonna happen,

he's not gonna break down,
he's not gonna do it.

So, and he didn't.

I don't know why a
man like David Lean

or any other man or any
other woman for that,

has this, this desire
to break people down.

Lean wouldn't break him down

'cause he wouldn't put up
with that English bollocks.

That's what, you
know, his Celtic soul

would not put up with
that English imperialism.

So I suspect that was
a real clash of wills.

If a director knows what
he's about, then do 50 takes.

And someone like John
Huston would do two takes,

or David Lean would do 25.

* I'm the man who broke
the bank at Monte Carlo. *

It was a wonderful, wonderful
period in our lives.

We'd not been getting along
very well before that.

And the birth of my
first daughter seemed to

trigger off something
horrible in him.

I don't know, it was
some huge crisis,

although he was the one that
was keen to have a child.

It, he wasn't ready for it
at all, he wasn't prepared.

So he was insistent
that life should go on

exactly the same as when
we didn't have a child.

Well, that is very,
very difficult.

Some of our great
contemporary filmmakers,

Scorsese and Spielberg
and those sort of figures,

the very famous directors
of the last 30 or 40 years,

all rate "Lawrence" as
one of the great movies

of the 20th century, one
of the very, very best.

He got paid £19,000
for doing "Lawrence".

And Jules advised
him to take it,

because he said
it'll be worth it.

And it clearly was, of
course, because the next,

then he went into
the big paycheck.

He did it for very, he was
the lowest paid actor on the,

on the whole picture,
I would think.

It didn't change him
fundamentally, no.

He was exactly the same O'Toole

that he'd been before, you know,

at home, he was just the same.

And he didn't really buy
into the stardom business,

for instance, he would never
travel with an entourage.

You know, everybody, every movie
star like Harris or Burton,

they had people, you
know, secretaries,

hairdressers, people
who fixed things.

O'Toole, never.

He would travel
with a stunt man,

usually made friends
with the stunt man

and they would
shack up together.

And that was his
team, as it were.

And that's remained so
all the time I knew him.

And I think he deeply
respected David Lean,

perhaps more than almost
any other director,

and later turned
down "Dr. Zhivago",

which rankled with Lean,

but O'Toole said, "It
didn't speak to me,

it didn't say anything.

I couldn't get my head
into this character".

In later years they
became friends again,

and he was with Lean
when Lean passed away.

I don't think there can be
people like him anymore.

I mean, it used to, I remember
doing a film years ago,

the first film I
did virtually with,

which Kenneth Branagh directed.

And I remember we were sitting
around at the time saying,

no one is ever going to
tell stories about us

in 50 years' time.

"Oh, and do you remember
that was the time

that Ken Branagh
dropped his teaspoon?".

I mean that's about
all that happens.

We are so bloody
ordinary, our generation,

compared to that
remarkable group of people

who were not only just more
daring as actors and performers,

who were more, more
sort of prepared to,

to strip themselves
of any dignity

and to throw
themselves into a role,

and yet annoyingly
retain that sexiness

and that extraordinary charisma.

But they also lived a
life that was richer

and more careless.

We were in Arles one day,

and I used to go to a little
restaurant up the hill there,

quite simply
to avoid the bar,

because when we got
together it was chaos.

And I sneaking in one night
and he was being helped out.

He was fine, he wasn't too
drunk, but he was, you know,

he liked to drink and so on.

But next day on
set, I'd never seen

a blistering performance,
a great performance,

and nothing seemed
to affect him.

And he was, he had
tremendous recovery in him,

because he was dedicated
and he was focused.

And we Celts have been
buggered for so long.

We really have, we've
been treated so badly.

I mean, the Irish,
don't get me started.

I mean, we were
treated like shit,

I mean, and, and that's a
thing that, it's in our DNA.

We carry this sense of defeat,
we have to get over it.

But it's a tough one.

But that's what's so
extraordinary about that,

that the Irish have learned,

that it's about how do
I deal with control?

I'll get pissed,
'cause I don't wanna be

controlled by anybody,
I'll just get pissed.

I'll, I'll drink.

And Richard had
it, Peter had it.

Albert never had it, you know.

Donal McCann had it.

Donal McCann was one
of the great actors,

really another great actor.

He had it, and it,
it destroyed him.

And that's, that's
a historical thing

that's happened again and again

and again and again and again.

And I think Peter was
walking a tightrope

through all of
that in order to be

the classical actor that I
think he really wanted to be,

and he certainly was
and certainly could be.

Because I find when I play it,

and I don't want to
talk about it, really,

I am most moved in the
play with the ghost.

Because the ghost is
the key to that play.

I've often felt that the
best actor in the company

ought play it, and
the up-and-comer

ought to be Hamlet, you know.

And people like
O'Toole, I think,

and Welles always brought
to any kind of story,

any sort of genre story,
including a revenge story,

including their dalliances with

something like "Hamlet",
this complexity.

I was playing Laertes,
he was Hamlet,

our relationship was purely
professional to start with,

and then we, we became friends.

I was in awe of
him, I admired him.

He had the pzazz
that I didn't have.

I can't tell you what
pleasure it was to me

to hear that from Peter O'Toole,

because people always talk about

what Hamlet is, as though
he were a universal man,

or as though he were a figure
in a 19th century novel.

I mean as a young actor, I'd
never seen anything like it.

I just thought,
this man is amazing.

And I remember
seeing the "Hamlet",

the dress rehearsal of "Hamlet",

which was pretty
chaotic actually.

Sure, I think he's
perfectly capable of murder.

What he's not capable
of is performing

a lead role in a
revenge tragedy.

I remember when we rehearsed

the fight scene, for
instance, in "Hamlet",

an Olympic swordsman
teaching us this routine.

And then one day
Peter said to me,

"Look, let's go up
to the rehearsal room

and work out another routine,

because the routine he's
given us isn't gutsy enough,

you know, it's not spectacular,
not swashbuckling enough".

So we went up to
the rehearsal room,

and worked out a much
more swash and buckle.

But then we opened the show
and it got reasonable reviews,

but not spectacularly
good reviews.

And Peter, who'd been on the
waggon all through rehearsals,

he'd been such a good boy,

because it wasn't hailed as
the great, the great "Hamlet",

he went back on the booze a bit.

And so sometimes, not always,

but often, when we got to the
duel at the end of the show,

he would wink at me
across the stage,

which meant, "Fight for
your life tonight, Sam,

because I'm not sticking
to any routine".

And he used to swish at the
front row, you know, and,

but it ended up with
him getting hurt,

because I cut his finger and
he had a scar on it for life.

And every time we met, he would
do that to me to remind me.

I mean, after
"Lawrence of Arabia",

he goes back on the stage
to be in Brecht's "Baal",

he does "Ride a Cock
Horse" on stage,

with Siân Phillips at
the Piccadilly Theatre,

the David Mercer play.

So he constantly goes
back to the stage after,

and I think he admired actors,

this is why he didn't
like the Peter Halls

and the John Bartons of the
Royal Shakespeare Company,

because that was the director's
theatre running the company.

And with Keep Films he can
well, a, keep all the money,

that's what what it
was about, as a joke.

Jules Buck, Jules
and Joyce Buck became

very important figures
in our lives, obviously.

And we used to love
to listen to Jules

talking about Hollywood.

He was, he knew the
great days of Hollywood

and he'd worked
there all his life.

One night we were
there for dinner

at Jules and Joyce's lovely
new house in Belgravia,

and I fell asleep, of course,
on the couch, eventually,

round about four in the morning.

And I woke and they said,

"We formed a company, a
film company, Keep Films".

But he can have
greater influence

on which material will he pick.

This is why we have
"The Ruling Class",

"Country Dance",
"The Lion in Winter",

is all the choices of things
that he wants to make.

We were four directors,
George Buck and his wife

and myself and O'Toole.

He was an American producer.

You know, he was,
he was a nice man.

They fell out in the end,
but that was after I'd left.

I remember Richard Burton,
he was around all the time.

I remember having to step
over his drunken corpse

to get my school
bags in the morning,

creeping around with,
the record player

would still be
playing at the end.

Remember?

When they'd just
go, tch-ch, tch-ch,

there'd be that sound and
the air in the sitting room

would be full of smoke
from the cigarettes

and dead people all
over the floor, snoring.

Produced all of this,
produced "Becket" as well.

He got Burton and the
whole cast together.

Yeah, it was quite a remarkable,

well, he was a genius.

It happened
in Canterbury, England,

eight centuries ago.

A story is ageless
as time itself.

The immortal story of
a man called Becket

who earned a king's
most trusted friendship.

Business, My Lord.

Who shared
his most intimate secrets.

I must say, I
adore my French possessions,

they're certainly
worth recapturing.

Then I saw "Becket" just
after "Lawrence of Arabia",

I hadn't, still hadn't met him.

And that was another
extraordinary performance.

The end of it, of that
film is extraordinary,

he and Burton
together, wonderful
performance, wonderful.

And I think that's
what O'Toole did,

that he hit the ceiling, bam!

And he did it.

I would've gone to war

with all England's
might behind me

and even against England's
interest, to defend you, Thomas.

I would've given away my
life, laughingly, for you.

Only I loved you and
you didn't love me.

That's the difference.

And again, beautifully shot,

Peter Glenville, an
actor's director.

And you can see Burton

holding back a lot
in his performance.

Gentlemen, it is a supreme
irony that the worldly Becket,

the profligate and libertine,

could find himself standing
here at this moment.

The two of them going out there,

and he's sometimes again,
almost electrifying in energy.

And then also the vulnerability.

Get out, the pair of you!

I'm actually bored
with the sight of you!

'Cause I'm bored with my
whole family, he can have you.

It was very gritty,
it was very dark.

And all of the Hollywood
tinsel, if I may,

no disrespect to Hollywood,

but it was polished away,

so we could see the
real characters.

And I think Peter, on that
film, said "No drinking".

Him and Burton had to come
up to an agreement and say,

"Look, no drinking,
let's get through this".

The story
of Becket is recorded here,

right up to the last,
brutal, bloody act.

A curse and a blessing, the
alcohol and all that stuff.

That's a big blessing and a
curse as well, it'll kill you.

Or it'll make you
survive and it gives you

the drive and the
danger to move on,

gives you a sort
of false courage.

And for a while, it works.

And then you get
to a point when,

it'll take you down.

And I think that's what
happens to many people,

you know, no one's perfect.

But what was
extraordinary about him

was that he was
that magic person.

He had that muscle inside him,

which was part of his
drinking and his passion.

I would label Peter as a man
who enjoyed having a drink.

He really liked it, and he
had a good time drinking.

That's how I would label him.

I would never have, I wouldn't
have said he was an alcoholic

because he could, I mean,
he apparently could stop.

He did stop through
most of "Lion in Winter"

because of what Kate
had said to him.

There's a story of the,
of the pub in Dublin

where he and Peter
Finch buy the bar,

because the barman wants
to close up and they say,

"Come on we've gotta
stay, gotta drink more.

Well, how much?

We'll buy the bar off
you", they said,

buy it, and then the
next day they rush over

to try and get that check back.

It was a generation
that had grown up

at the very end of the war,

Peter used to say, he
used to say, you know,

"As soon as the war ended,

we just thought, we
are gonna have fun now!

And of course there was
rationing for another 15 years,

but we could drink".

And he said, that's why our
generation drank in public

and in pubs and in the open

because it was
something to celebrate.

And it was a, a pub, an act.

He said, "Your generation,
you go and you drink

in private bars and in
private clubs and at home,

you're ashamed, aren't you?"

And was so right.

I mean, yeah, he, he'd say
in the middle of the day,

"Oh, it was an easy day".

There were maybe not
a lot of dialogue,

"Let's have a
bottle of shampoo!"

He'd call champagne "shampoo",

so he'd call up for a bottle of,

but it wasn't because he
was sitting there thinking,

"Oh God, I've gotta have a
drink, I've gotta have a drink".

He could take it or
leave it as he wanted to.

Boozing like that,
and the thing was

that going out with Peter,

I would always finish up tiddly,

not drunk, but quite tiddly.

I think he was a tormented man.

Yeah, he was that.

I didn't know him that
well in those post years.

But whenever I saw
him, I remembered

what a great
tempestuous man he was.

He had packed up drinking

because of an
operation he'd had,

and he wasn't on, he stopped
taking cocaine and stuff,

which I think had
ruined most of his nose.

But he was quite a character.

Crazy, yeah.

And when he stopped
drinking as much in the 70s,

he did become a
bit of a cokehead,

which is quite surprising
for his generation.

Dear oh dear, as if
he needed it, I mean,

good lord, but then
who am I to speak?

So he didn't live like a
rockstar in his private life,

but yes, in his public life
he had to a bit, you know,

people would be
too disappointed.

I think it's that he
never really felt alive

unless he was on a tightrope.

And that's what made his
theatre acting so exciting,

was that, this sense that
it could fail at any minute,

that he was pushing it and
that it was an adventure

and he wanted you all to be
a part of that adventure.

And that's quite hard for
other actors to cope with,

because how do they
live up to that?

Peter O'Toole, going out
with a friend of his,

having a few drinks and
going to the theatre

and saying to him, "This
should be interesting,

this is where I come on".

All right?

It's funny,

I'd heard that 50 years ago,

attributed to Wilfrid Lawson,

and some old actor said it could
even have been Edmund Kean,

like in 1800s or something.

So the agent gave me
the script and said,

"There's a good part
for you in this film".

O'Toole's manager sort
of saw it and said,

"What is this?"

And I said, "Well,
it's this film

they think I'd be right for,"

and I was to play
Capucine's part in it.

And, and he said, "Could
I have a look at it?"

And he had a look at
it and I didn't hear

anything about it for a few
weeks until I discovered

that O'Toole was
going to make it

and Capucine was going to
play her part.

Love scene 2A, take 4,

Peter Sellers, Peter
O'Toole, Capucine.

Action!

Hello, good morning!

Hello!

Can't you knock?

Knock? But I'm in dire need!

So am I.

What do you think I am, human?

Bring it up at the next
group analysis meeting.

Something like that.

Not, not now!

Cut, cut!

Print it!

"How to Steal a Million".

Ah, tall and slender
Audrey Hepburn, beautiful.

Tall and slender,
beautiful Peter O'Toole.

And they're great together.

A heist.

A heist?

Oh, you mean a burglary?

What's the score, baby?

The Cellini Venus.

Working with Audrey Hepburn,

the chemistry is perfect,
it's a gentle comedy

directed by William
Wyler who did "Ben Hur".

Why not?

Henry?

Madam?

Did you ever love me?

No.

Good.

That will make this pleasanter.

And "Lion in Winter",
"Lion in Winter"

it's a great, great movie,

and it's a wonderful
performance.

And the chemistry between
them both is just amazing.

Hepburn is wonderful
and iconic, as is Peter.

And he, he just
blossomed on film.

The thing about Peter
was that on stage,

his personality was big,
and theater-filling,

in films, with the
camera able to get there,

he could pull it
all back, all back,

and still be
sensationally powerful.

I taught you prancing, lamb,

and lute and flute.

That's marvellous.

It's absolutely me.

In "Lion in Winter",
he didn't overact,

but he was big, I mean,
he he filled that space.

I don't have to fight to win.

Take all your want,
this county, that one,

you won't keep it long.

What kind of courage
have you got?

One night on the
dress room door,

knock on the door, it's
Peter O'Toole.

And he'd done a
few little tipples,

and he was wearing his green
cap, green Irish jacket,

and he said, "I want
you to do a film test".

so I did the scene.

"It's alright", he said,
"ah, do that improvisation

I've heard about".

So I gave some improvisation,

which had shocked
people, I guess.

He said, "Right,
you've got the part".

So they sent me the script,

and I read the
script, and I thought,

"If I don't get this part,
I'm gonna kill myself".

It was such a,
such an extraordinary script.

Where have you been all night?

Making us an entourage.

What for?

We're off to Rome
to see the Pope.

He's excommunicated you again?

No, he's going to set me free.

I'm having Eleanor annulled.

The nation will be
shocked to learn

our marriage wasn't consummated.

And Peter was
there, and I met him

and "How do you do?"

and all of that,
nice man, et cetera.

He said, "Well let's do a little
scene from "Country Dance".

He said, "Let's do
a little of that".

I said, "Oh, that's
gonna be easy,

because I'm doing
it every night".

So we started into the scene,

and he said, "Stop, stop, stop!"

I thought, "Oh God,
what's going on?"

He said, "I don't believe a
fucking word you're saying".

And I, I froze.

I thought, "Oh God,
I've blown this".

You know, there's no way
I'm gonna get this part.

You mean it?

Shall I kneel?

It's not another trick?

The bridal party's drilling
on the cobblestones.

I thought this, if
I get this part,

this is gonna be the
thrill of my life.

Would you like a
formal declaration?

There, my finest angle,
it's on all the coins.

He was really a force
to be reckoned with.

And I really don't
remember very much else

about anything except him.

And then with Katharine Hepburn,

who was a legend at that
time as a film actress.

Execute him.

They're assassins, aren't they?

It was called presence.

And he always had
that dangerous quality

and that's what made him
the great star that he was.

If you want to know my
plans, just to ask me.

Conquer China, sack the
Vatican, or take the veil.

I'm not among the
ones who give a damn.

It's theatricality
is probably the thing

that drew it back
from the Oscars.

You don't?

Dear God, the
pleasure I still get

from goading you.

He was quite extraordinary.

Yes, he controlled
that whole film.

And Spencer Tracy just
died and Katharine Hepburn,

he got her out of retirement,

she didn't wanna work anymore.

So he cast her, he
managed to cast her.

And I think he may have
come in for some criticism,

but he encouraged us,

and that's what I will
never forget about him.

Beautiful.

Don't know how I did it.

No! It wasn't like that!

But it was.

But at the same time, you know,

in terms of O'Toole,
Hepburn, of course,

and John Barry for the score,

brilliant score,
that got the Oscar,

one of three of the
five nominations.

So it did get recognised.

And she was pretty
formidable as well,

but also, like O'Toole,
a great egalitarian.

They knew the crew's names,

she was always
wonderful with the crew.

And there's the family there,

Timothy Dalton, John
Castle, Nigel Terry,

Katharine Hepburn and O'Toole.

and I had a little,
little speech too,

an angry speech, and I
did it and I had no fear.

The arrogance of youth.

I'll have the Aquitaine

and Alais and the crown.

I'll not give up one
to get the other.

I won't trade off Alais or the

Aquitaine to that
walking pustule!

And he came over, and
he said, "That's it!"

He gave me such
encouragement, he said

"That's, that's
Richard the Lionheart".

What's wrong?

You're Richard, aren't you?

But you're Henry.

Kate would not have any
visitors on the set at all

from outside unless they had
something to do with the film,

because she said
they're bringing

the wrong energy onto the set,

they're not part of the family.

She wouldn't have it.

Did your father sleep
with me or didn't he?

But they both said, if you
want to come on and watch,

well I did, I wanted to watch,

'cause I knew I
could learn a lot.

Ask for something.

Eleanor, we're past it,

-years past.
-Test me, name an act.

There isn't one!

About my fornication
with your father.

Yes, there is, you can expire.

You first, old man.

I only hope I'm there to watch.

You're so afraid of dying,
you're so scared of it.

And there was this
one scene that

O'Toole has with
Katharine Hepburn,

where she's goading
him and teasing him

and taunting him
and everything else,

and it's just driving
him completely mad.

I loved your father's
body, he was beautiful.

-It never happened.
-I can see his body now,

shall I describe it?

-Eleanor, I hope you die!
-His arms were rough,

-with scars here.
-No!

I can feel his arms.

The scene was so intense,

I mean it was just,
it was so raw.

And when it was over
and there's "Cut!",

Peter turned around to side
of the bed and vomited.

For my first film to
be the film with him,

a great star like
that was, you know,

that was a red
letter day for me.

Oh, he hated working
with me, he hated it.

If someone gave me a part,

so I got, I got a part at
"Goodbye, Mr. Chips" because

I was in Paris when the
student revolution was on.

And I got stranded with
the director and he said,

"You know, you'd be perfect
for the, the actress

in "Goodbye, Mr. Chips".

And I said, "Oh, would I?"

And he said, "Yes, come
down to the studio".

So I went to the
studio and he said,

"Yeah, yeah, you've
got it", he said,

"that's it, you do it".

I said, "Wonderful!"

I went home and I didn't
say anything to O'Toole,

'cause we were
also the producers.

And then one day he found
out and he was furious.

He said, "No, you've
got to sack her".

They said, "But
she's got a contact".

He said, "I don't care,

I don't want to work with her".

He didn't tell me that, but
they said there's a problem.

I said, "Well look, if it's
a problem, then let it go,

that's all right".

And they said, "No, no, it
won't be that bad, just come".

So I went to work and
he wouldn't speak to me

and he wouldn't
rehearse with me.

Three times you've
made me laugh.

And only this morning
I really did think

I'd never laugh again.

I suppose it's your
being a school master.

I fail to see what's so
laughable about that.

Well,

Of course he's very tall,
and I'm, I'm sort of petite,

but that didn't
seem to bother him.

And he was lovely and generous

right from the first
moment I met him.

He wasn't sort of like the
great actor, or, you know,

I know when we were doing
"Goodbye, Mr. Chips" in Italy,

he used to have every
morning a Fernet Branca.

He had to have it every morning
to cope with the hangover.

* Step on up, the
question is how *

* I can feel it but
you know I don't... *

She well, had been George
Jamieson in the Navy,

and she was the most
beautiful girl, I mean,

she was just, she was tall
and statuesque, and gorgeous.

And she had a very deep voice
and she dressed beautifully.

She became a top model
and she worked at the club

of transvestites in Paris,

a very famous one where the
girls were so beautiful.

And April turned up
in Spain at one point,

and that was where she
met Omar and O'Toole.

O'Toole knew she
was George Jamieson.

April Ashley, one of the
very first transgender,

but I think she was
visiting the, she was in,

they were shooting
"Lawrence of Arabia"

and Peter set her
up with Omar Sharif,

and Omar Sharif got quite
a long way with her,

was very entranced, and
then when he discovered

he chased Peter with a knife

round and round the
hotel, he was furious.

There's a place called Lebeaux.

We were drinking Vinyac.

I dunno what the
hell we were drinking,

we were drinking something.

Oh, I was with them, it was
the three boys and Peter,

and we were all
out and drinking,

and they were,
they were drinking.

And he got into an
argument with Nigel Stock,

and Nigel had been
in the Chindits

in Malaya, during the
war with Colonel Wingate.

He was stalwart, whatever
he was, a military man.

But he was very proud
of his army background,

'cause he'd seen
a lot of action.

And O'Toole started
needling him.

And Peter, frankly, you
know, I don't think,

no surprise, secret,
he was very left wing.

So, you know, army, all of
that, that establishment stuff,

he didn't like any of it.

And plus, he was Irish.

And I can't remember
the words he used,

but he used something
that really got Nigel.

And he started to goad
Nigel about Wingate.

And there was a big fight,
a big threat of a fight.

I thought, "What are we into?"

But the two stuntmen that were
with him, grabbed him back.

But O'Toole like to provoke,
he was a provocateur,

he was, he loved to provoke
you, get the best outta you.

Both O'Toole and Brando, what
you learn at drama school,

the first thing, is to
do animal impressions,

and learn to take away all
the inhibitions we have,

to be naked as an actor
and express, yeah.

And I think they
had this innately,

almost childlike quality
of curiosity about life.

Ruling class is astonishing
film. I absolutely love that.

"The Ruling Class" is
an astonishing film,

I absolutely love that.

He plays an English aristocrat

who thinks he's Jesus Christ,

but I mean, really
thinks it, he lives it.

And he's a beautiful Jesus,

I mean in a Holman Hunt, sort
of auburn-haired kind of,

almost blonde, and just his
family are brilliant as well.

And there's sexual depredation,

there's all kinds
of weird things.

He allowed me to play and
be free and to do things,

and I thought, "Oh my God,
this is such a huge part,

this is going to be just
lovely to work with".

Darling, I'm waiting.

Why, it's ridiculous!
It's not dignified!

Dignity has nothing
to do with divinity.

O no, not here, not now!

A bike? You're mad.

Don't be frightened.

I'm not frightened.

I just didn't expect
to see my husband

riding a three-wheeled
bike on his wedding night.

It's the only way to travel.

I think Peter was
used to getting perks

with his leading ladies,
and I was with the director,

so I wasn't interested
in, you know, part.

So I didn't, and we didn't.

And I think he went into
a big snitch about it.

Come to me.

Because he never looked
at me in the eyes again.

Every scene that we
did was on an angle

so we could pretend he was
looking at me, but he wasn't.

Eventually I dragged Peter

to see "Ruling Class", the play.

I think it was at Cambridge
theatre in London, to matinee.

And we went in, but Jules
Buck and Peter O'Toole,

Jules Buck was Peter's
agent, manager, producer,

father-confessor everything,

anyhow, and to matinee
because he was already doing

"Country Dance" in Ireland
with Susanna York and all that.

Anyhow, so he had
only little time,

so we see the play.

And before the play
finished, Peter leaned over,

I just bought this
fucking play for you

to direct it and
it's my gift to you.

And he basically
gave me the film.

I think he's incredibly
good in "The Ruling Class"

because again, he's dangerous.

He plays this wacky guy,
I mean he was really,

I mean I saw the
stage version of that

and it wasn't nearly as
good as what Peter did.

And Peter also had
great supporting actors,

and Harry Andrews, you know,
I mean all of them were great.

He was, you know, he had
incredible, he had great taste.

And Alistair Sim as the bishop,

is one of the funniest things
you will ever see in history.

And it's no accident that
he played these roles

that were very close to him,

slightly debauched,
over the hill,

lunatics, in some cases.

And "Ruling Class" is a lunatic,

it's close to the
edge of normal,

of, you know, normal behaviour.

You wouldn't want to
live with that character.

Happy to watch them
for 100 minutes,

but you wouldn't want to
go on holiday with them.

I wanted to apologise

for not being at my
son's christening,

The little devil stole the show.

Must be sure before I make
my first public appearance.

He never directed
a question to me

and he just redid the scenes,
you know, and he left.

Important to leave
the right impression.

Ignoring me, he was
making it very clear

that he hadn't got his toy,
he wanted his plaything,

and he hadn't got one.

Re-re-re-re relax, don't!

Overall impression of
superiority, and volatile,

farts! Whoredoms!
Bloody network!

That performance in
"The Ruling Class",

which I think was a very
brave choice, you know,

it's a dangerous character,
unpleasant character,

the tone of the movie
goes all over the place.

But he does that fantastic

soft shoe shuffle
dance number in there,

and then he turns
into Jack the Ripper.

It's, you know,
pretty extraordinary.

Lover.

The sword of the Lord
is filled with blood.

There was something, I don't
know what it was about Peter,

but there was something where,

I'll say it, but
it was something,

there was sometimes in
the middle of performance,

he'd just say, "Fuck it"
and went, "Okay, fuck it",

and then go off on something.

I mean, still like,
electric as an actor,

but he had that sort of, kind
of consistent inconsistency,

but he was unpredictable.

And that's of course
what made him great,

'cause he was really
very unpredictable.

Stanislavsky always
said with actors,

they need plasticity,
the great teacher said.

O'Toole had that quality,
he's like treble-jointed.

He could bend his arms here and

make his eyes move
there, and so forth.

* Dem bones, dem
bones, gonna walk around, *

* Dem bones, dem bones,
gonna walk around *

* Dem bones, dem bones,
gonna walk around *

* I hear the word of the Lord! *

Now you also see
the tension between

a fellow with great
intelligence, great charisma,

who is, if not trapped,
at least he's the bearer

of this weird body that
doesn't seem to want it to do

all the things he wants to do.

So you sometimes see the
rage about his bloody limbs

are not in the, in the way he
wants them to, sort of work.

But for us, of course
it's, it's fascinating.

And he, he seemed
to begin to realise,

"Oh no, this is gold".

All of this, all
of this mixture,

nobody's got this mixture.

He's so impressive,
Your Ladyship, isn't he?

For a few bob, we raced
across the suspension bridge

into Leigh Woods, then back
again over the suspension bridge

and then up into Clifton.

And we came across
two professors,

Professor Joseph and
Professor Murray,

Legends!

They would come and
lecture at the school,

and they were crying
their eyes out.

And O'Toole said, "What's
the matter?" said O'Toole.

"We've just been to
see Sir John Gielgud

in 'The Seven Ages of
Man', he's amazing.

Yes, a phenomenal grasp
of the verse, huh?

You must go and see it",
and they walked off.

And O'Toole said to me,
"It's amazing, isn't it?

They're so enamoured of Sir
John, they failed to realise

that both you and I
are bollock naked".

I was invited to speak at
Spike Milligan's Memorial

at St. Martin-in-the-Fields,
off Trafalgar Square in London.

There was some, oh, Sykes
and, and Eddie Izzard and,

and Peter with his son Lorcan.

Now bear in mind,
this is a church,

and it's getting
more and more crowded

as actual guests
who are not speaking

turn up for the proper hour.

And he starts to
tell me, he says,

"You know, there's such
shit," he said, "such shit".

He said, "Did you know,
who's that awful old fraud?

That dreadful man?

Tolkien! Tolkien!

You know him, he wanted me
to play a fucking wizard.

A wizard!

I don't wanna play
a fucking wizard.

And they said, you'll
love the script.

I said, I won't love it
'cause I won't read it".

He said, "And one day this boy
comes around on a motorbike

and he's got these scripts".

He said, "What are you doing?"

He said, "Well, I'm told
that I have to give you

the scripts and and wait here,

and that when you've read them,

you'll so love them".

And Peter said,

"I'm not gonna
fucking read them,

by the way, they're blue,
why're are they on blue paper?"

And the boy biker said,
"Well, I think it's

so you don't photocopy them."

"Photocopy them!

Why would I photocopy them?

Pompous cunt!"

And this, this was ringing
around the church.

And then he said,
with a fabulous wave
of the hand, he said,

"Anyway, I think they've
offered it to Ian,

he'll be brilliant".

And I remember my
father being like,

"This is all
fucking gobbledygook

and I'm not gonna spend four
years in fucking New Zealand,

and this is all
nonsense", et cetera.

So it was, it was
quite a funny moment.

Oh, Peter was born in Leeds

to Patrick and
Constance in 1932.

Well, he wasn't, I
don't believe he was Irish,

I mean, I would, it
never occurred to me

that he was actually Irish,

he just had an Irish name.

Well, because he was
so frightfully British.

I mean, it was an
accent he'd acquired.

I think his accent
would've been made in RADA,

because it wasn't
the RADA voice.

I mean, there's never
been a RADA voice,

but they definitely
did teach you to speak

standard English
clearly and loudly.

He was very proud
of the name O'Toole.

And he was very
happy with the fact

that his father had been a
bookmaker and was from Ireland.

I think it started
when he became famous.

It didn't start before,
he didn't, I mean,

everyone knew he came from Leeds

and it was when he made his name

in "The Long and the
Short and the Tall"

and then "Lawrence
of Arabia" happened.

But, you know, the minute
he became successful,

obviously the press
starts to make stories.

And somehow, I don't
know how it became known

that he was born in Ireland.

My father never claimed
to be born in Ireland

because he wasn't,
he was born in Leeds,

as the records show.

He was born in Leeds
in an Irish ghetto

to an Irish father
in an immigrant city.

So he was Irish
through and through.

Well, he certainly regarded
himself as Irish, didn't he?

And he was, he was, he
was Celtic of personality,

it would seem, a
lover of the romance

and the Celtic
twilight and the poets.

I have never revealed his
life before he met me,

although he did slowly and
painfully confide in me

bit by bit over the years.

And I've never been able
to repeat any of that

because it's his business.

I don't think he
understood it even.

But I imagine, like you, that
it was a traumatic childhood.

I don't know if
Siân feels the same,

but that's what I've
certainly felt coming off him.

That there was this
real conflict that,

that had never been resolved,

between his roots and
his Anglophile element.

He had a bully of a father.

Yes, he did, he did.

His father said, "Jump
off the mantelpiece".

And he had no trust,
you know, he didn't know

what was gonna happen to him.

He said, I've got to
have a place in Ireland.

So, I was delighted.

And we found a place in
Renvyle, on the clifftop,

and that fell through
for some reason.

And we found a place somewhere
else, and that fell through.

And then suddenly somebody said,

"There's a little place
going on the Sky road".

And I didn't know
what the Sky road was,

so we said we'd buy it.

So we bought it and then
we went to look at it

and it was lovely.

It was a little cottage
with a lot of land.

It's, I think, about
70 acres of land

and a little forest
and a little beach.

And it was just lovely.

One of the earliest
memories of mine is

being with him in Clifton
and Connemara in Ireland

and him walking me to the sea,

and putting me
into the cold water

and giving myself a wild
experience of nature.

To actually walk
out onto a stage

in front of 1,000 people,
you have to be a bit crazy.

So the kind of wild
guys, they weren't real,

except O'Toole, he
was the real McCoy.

He was wild, he was dangerous.

He could fight, he
had imagination.

So I did this film and
when I arrived in Ireland,

Lee J Thompson directing,
the film "Country Dance",

and when I got there,
there's O'Toole in a ditch,

and he'd got manacles
marks bleeding on each arm,

he'd been fighting
the police all night

and they'd had him in cells.

When O'Toole saw me
arrive on the set,

"Ah, ya big boy! God!"

He charged at me and I had to
kind of do a cross-buttock,

bring him down, onto his
back, and pin him down.

And Lee J Thompson
thought, "What, who in hell

have I bloody employed?

He's worse than O'Toole!"

And we had a little clash
over now and again,

I was in a restaurant
in Carcassonne,

we wrapping up the
film, and he came in,

and he wanted to start trouble.

I mean, without making,
the Welsh and all that,

"You devious Welshman!"

And I suddenly, I'd had a
couple, I said "Come on!

Let's go outside
and fight, right?"

Went outside the back,
I was gonna deck him.

I said, "Give us
a kiss".

And before we started filming,

dear Boris Sagal and
his lady companion,

well, Boris decided that they
should have a readthrough,

just Peter O'Toole
and Peter Strauss,

and they would do it calmly,

just go through the
script and so on.

Peter O'Toole arrived absolutely
dead punctual on time,

but Boris and his lady
were a little alarmed

that he did not have
a script with him.

And Boris said, "Peter,
we we were going

to do a read through".

And Peter said, "Oh,
do I have to read?"

And Boris said, "Well of
course, unless you know it all".

And he said, "Well,
I hope I do".

And I said, "Do you know it?"

He said, "Well, I hope so".

"Are you sure?"

He said, "Well, we'll see.

Shall we start?"

And he knew all the
lines as they went along,

he knew them all.

And his memory was formidable.

His memory was
absolutely terrifying.

Once he'd learned something,
it was there forever.

And O'Toole said, "No, you've
got to know your lines.

If you don't know your
lines, you can't even start".

And he said to me once,
"It's like learning to dance.

If you don't know the
dance steps, you can't go".

Yes, you can improvise,
but it all falls apart.

And I think what O'Toole did,

he would examine
underneath each line.

And I learned that from him,

and to dig under the text,

dig under it to find
new meanings in it.

He could remember poetry that
he learned when he was five,

little pantomimes that
he might have been in

at school when he was
six, every single line.

And you cover the first line,

"Hail Alexander,
when do we meet?"

And you say, "Hail
Alexander, when do we meet?"

Hail Alexander, when do we meet?

Hail Alexander,
when do we meet?"

And then you move it over
the next line, and so on,

all through the script.

And they looked at him and said,

"Learn the whole
script like that?"

"Yes", he said, "it is
a very boring process,

but I mean, you have to
know the lines, don't you?"

But there was, yes,
there was a sort of

desperation in that
sense, I think,

and I know Siân Phillips
still speaks of him

with enormous love
and affection.

And there was clearly,
it was a marriage

that was impossible for her,

and on many occasions.

But you know, he
was, as charismatic

as a figure within
a family as he was,

as a figure on a
stage or on a screen.

He was the love of my life
and I was of his, I know.

And we had a wonderful
relationship.

You know, it was difficult
from time to time as well,

but it was, it was
also wonderful.

* If I gave a thought
to fascination *

* I would know it
wasn't right to care *

* Logic doesn't seem
to mind to die *

* I'm fascinated
by a love affair. *

* Still my heart would benefit *

* From a little tenderness
from time to time *

* But never mind,
cause baby I'm a fool *

* Who thinks it's
cool to fall in love *

He had been on a bender with,

with a journalist
friend of ours,

and they came back and he said,

"I don't feel good".

And he went to bed and, and
they diagnosed pancreatitis.

So it was the Royal Free in
Hampstead, down the road,

that was able to take
him in, an NHS hospital,

and they had all
the equipment there,

they told me to
expect the worst.

And there was nobody there,

my mother and the
children were on holiday,

nobody knew that
he was in there,

but the press gradually
got hold of it

and they would ring up
and, to check the obit.

And one day he opened his
eyes and he was better.

And it was against all the odds.

And we went home
and he went to bed

and the children came back, my
mother came back from holiday

and everything went on as though

it had not happened, almost.

But I had nearly died myself

when I mourned him
for four weeks.

I was heartbroken
for four weeks.

And he said, "We
must go on holiday".

So we went, we could
only find, out of season,

one hotel in Italy.

We had the best, we
were there for a month

and then out of season
there was nobody else there.

And then we were there
for another few weeks

'cause we liked it so
much, it was wonderful.

And he recovered, and
we came back to England,

and I thought, I really did
think that our life had turned,

taken a turn for
the better somehow,

that we, I felt I was different,

having lived through his death.

And I thought he must
feel different as well.

But he didn't, he nearly died,

but he wasn't aware
that he'd nearly died.

So to him, he was just better.

So he said, "No,
no, no, we'll go on

just as we did before, I'll
go away and I'll come back,

you come out with
me and settle me in

and then fetch me back".

And I said, "No, I have to be,

I have to travel with you",

'cause he was frail still.

He said, "No, no,
no, not at all".

So I'd realised actually
that we'd reached

the end of the road.

After this idyllically
happy time, this awful time,

and then this wonderful time.

And then it couldn't
go back to square one.

So whenever the buzzer went,

it was always a bit
of a tense moment.

So the buzzer went,
"eeh", and it was,

"Could you please come
down to the living room,

we need to have a family talk".

And I knew in my
bones what it was.

I'd tried to help my sister
by preparing her for it,

but she didn't want
to hear it, really.

She was just that bit too
young, I think, at the time.

And I said, "But
I want to leave,

I want to start my life again".

I don't know
about the speech

having been written
for my mother,

but she did announce
that she was leaving.

And she said, "Does anybody
have anything to say?"

And of course, Mamgee was
there, my, our grandmother.

And she said, "I
have plenty to say

and I am not going to say it".

It is one of the more
mighty and vehement

and sublime vehicles

that Shakespeare wrote.

I dragged him onto the stage.

Silence, shock,
couldn't believe it.

Terrible. Horror.

They thought they
were being conned.

It was sad really, because

he should have been,
could have been,

ought to have been
a wonderful Macbeth,

but something went wrong,
and I think, dare I say it?

I think it was the
drink, you know,

there was always drink
in the dressing room,

and so when Peter came on,

he thought he was going
at the speed of light,

but actually he was going
so slowly that "Macbeth",

which is a fairly short
play, became endless.

And that's what the
critics picked up on.

Speak if your can.

What are you?

All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee,

-Thane of Glamis!
-All hail Macbeth,

hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!

All hail Macbeth, that
shalt be king hereafter!

On the front page of
"The Sun" newspaper,

the most popular tabloid,

the least associated
with Shakespeare

of any of our
national newspapers,

on the front page the next day
the headline was, "Macflop".

On the front page of "The Sun".

If chance will have me king,

why, chance may crown
me, without my stir.

And he completed
the performance,

which lasts for
probably six hours.

And I stayed on the stage
after I was dead, as Banquo,

holding onto him,
waiting for him to die.

Well, he didn't die.

And he completed
the performance, he
completed the tour,

he saw the job through.

I said to my dad, the
coal miner, my dad,

I have never seen
courage like that.

Whatever he did worked,

the only time it didn't
work was the "Macbeth".

And I think that was because
he wasn't in control.

He was half Scots, half Irish.

So there was a, there was
a unity and a conflict

at the same time, you know,

and I think that
was what was really,

that was really
what his skill was.

But he also had
this sort of very,

he could do the British
thing very well.

He could do it much better
than any of the others.

He could do it much
better than Albert,

much better than Tom or Alan,

or even Richard.

He could do that.

Rugby may make more row,

but we'll row, row, row forever,

steady from stroke to bow,

and nothing in life
will sever the chain

that is round us now.

O'Toole, in this total
way, somehow understands

that it's about a whole period
in Hollywood filmmaking,

that that performance
is embodying,

as well as a kind
of down and dirty

sort of comic ruthlessness
about what gets a laugh.

He had a great
comic skill as well,

he was a very, his timing
was pretty amazing at times.

And that was one of the
things that was kind of,

again, compelling
about him, really.

* Others may fill our places *

* Dressed in the
old light blue *

* We'll recollect our races. *

Winning an Oscar
is very much about

what campaign are you running
in Hollywood to win this?

And what interviews are
you doing, what chat shows?

I don't think he
cared about that.

I went to the Oscars
twice with him,

once when he was
nominated for "Venus",

I think it was 2007, and
the other time in 2004

when he was nominated
for his, not nominated,

he was given his Lifetime
Achievement Award,

which he highly
resented to begin with,

and actually turned
it down to the Academy

and said, "You know,
you're retiring me.

I don't want any
of this at all".

And they said, "Well,
it's a miscommunication.

We really want you to
accept this award".

And after a little
bit of debate,

he decided to go for it.

He hated all that, he
he called the Oscars,

"The dog and pony show".

And he didn't want to go
and he certainly didn't want

an honorary Oscar,
which is what he got.

And he objected to that, he
wanted to win one outright.

you want to have an Oscar,
you have to go to LA,

and you have to do a
lot of publicity work,

a lot, you have to
campaign for it, you know,

it takes months
out of your life.

And he was never
prepared to do that.

He wouldn't go, he
never went to Hollywood.

And seeing him in
"Jeffrey Bernard",

on stage this 16 times,
couldn't take my eyes off him,

because you need to
follow every move.

Has he forgotten his line now?

Is he just wobbling
or no, no, no.

This one man holds the
entire 1,100 audience

at the Old Vic in a vice.

But I saw "Jeffrey Bernard
is Unwell" many times.

That was fantastic.

Some, I mean really fantastic.

Some people say the
greatest comic performance

of the 20th century, and
I'd be inclined to agree.

It really was spectacular.

I had highlights as well.

I remember going to
the theatre one night

and Jeff was actually
there, Jeffrey,

he was still alive at the time

and he was absolutely
drunk out of his mind,

and he was at the bar
refusing to leave.

And the bar staff
didn't know what to do

'cause the curtain was going up.

And so I was telling
my dad about this

and he said, "Oh,
what they should have

just put a velvet rope around
him and charged tickets".

Couldn't
you have telephoned?

Now, if I
put you in a cab,

will you promise not to
fall out the other door?

You only get out of
life what you put into it.

Fancy a spot
of cat racing, Jeff?

You're a mean, alcoholic
diabetic prick.

And?

You make me sick!

But you're never snide

and you never hurt and
you wouldn't wanna win

on a doctored beast, and anyway,

the least of your pleasures
resides in paltry measures.

So God, great joker God, please
guard this great Bernard,

let him be known for
the prince of men he is.

A master, at taking out of
himself, and us, the piss.

He knew this was the last,

this was the one of
the greatest parts

you could ever have in theatre.

And he knew it was his.

The people who'd taken over
from him knew it was his.

They couldn't manage it.

It was Peter's and lots of
people have played it since.

But nah, it was Peter's
part and he knew it.

And I think taking
it to the old Vic

must have been balm to the soul.

And it was an
unofficial farewell to

theatre that he really loved.

I don't have the right to
be calling him O'Toole,

except he is a legend,
but I saw him in

"Jeffrey Barnard is Unwell",

the story of a Soho
literary bohemian drunk

of brilliance and
comic kind of delight.

People are always
surprised to learn

that I'm a domestic animal.

Peter did not have
his script with him.

He already knew it by heart.

It was a huge part,
he had it down,

I think he had in
three weeks' rehearsal,

he maybe had two prompts.

He knew exactly
what he was doing

and he spent rehearsals
doing something

I've never seen anyone doing.

He was working out,
he had to do a lot of

lighting of cigarettes,

lot of smoking of them,
stubbing them out.

He had two pour
soda into his glass

and find tomato
ketchup, and the vodka,

he had to stagger
about the stage,

he had to look in things,
and he worked everything out,

even to, when do I
take a breath in.

Comic timing,
including working this,

this now this sort of,
almost like a mime's body,

a long stringy Marcel Marceau

of slightly gangly
stuff that he could do.

And he became the master of it.

Who the hell do they
think washes my glass up

every morning if there's
no one else to do it?

I cook.

I sow, I reap.

And there's an egg trick,

there's a trick, a
magic trick in the show,

which he did, two runs of it,

that went on forever, months
and months and months.

I think the egg trick
only went wrong once.

And the egg trick is a strange
one, I don't understand,

but it involves a shoe,
a biscuit tin lid,

a pint mug, a
matchbox and an egg.

You need a good and
steady hand, Keith said.

Here goes.

One, two.

And the idea is you tap
with the heel of your shoe,

some bit of this when it's
all been set up in a tower

and the egg plops into
the glass of water

when you've done it right,

Peter did it right
every single night.

Now, I once went to an
evening meeting at Windsor,

got absolutely asshole, lost
every penny in my pocket

and no idea how to get back
to London after the last race.

I was practically the only
person left on the racetrack.

And as I stood desolate
in the car park,

I suddenly saw this
beautiful white Rolls Royce

heading for the gate.

I stood in its path and
signalled it to stop.

The owner, suave as
any film star said,

Yes, what can I do for you?

I said,

He said, I'm pissed and potless,

please take me to the
Dorchester immediately

and buy me a drink.

I'd never seen him before,
and I've never seen him since,

but he was absolutely charming,

he recognised someone
who'd done their bollocks

and was feeling thirsty.

His last night, well
we were all in tears,

and the audience were,
as always, on their feet.

And he turned
around and he went,

having taken the curtain call,

he went, and Charlie came
on with a tray of glasses,

with champagne, and Peter then
proceeded to make a speech.

And spoke about each one of
us and what we had contributed

and how, and how well
he thought of us,

I mean, and, and
basically wished us luck.

And it was, he gave us
a handover like that,

which was so wonderful.

Last week I had an erection.

I was so amazed.

I took its photograph.

Life after death!

What more do you want?

Go on, Norman!

As O'Toole himself
described it, at the end,

he said he has been
fortunate enough

to have a standing ovation.

But he called this, and I
was there when it happened,

a jumping ovation.

He was so fantastic that
people didn't just stand up,

when the lights
went out at the end,

the whole audience jumped up

because they knew they'd
seen something which was,

I would say, sublime.

Oh, I was so proud of him.

I mean, he was just brilliant.

He was marvellous.

And his physical
dexterity, you know,

he was, he was a wonderful
Falseur, apart from anything,

he could do anything.

And his elegance and his
comic effects, and he could,

I just loved everything
he did, it was wonderful.

She doesn't belong
here, she never did.

I find it most odd.

Odd?

What she says about you,
despite your hatred towards me.

Which is?

Nothing.

He made a dried eyed
farewell to acting.

But as far as I know, I mean,

there were films coming
out with Peter O'Toole,

even after his death
that, you know,

so it didn't look
like he stopped,

and I wondered,
could he ever stop?

Katherine speaks the truth.

I thought, well, see if I
can get a script together,

and do this film
from some documents,

an ancient diary
they had discovered,

and we'd had for years.

To cut a long story short,

the diary seemed to
be quite important

and seemed, allegedly,
was written by

St. Katherine or
Katherine of Sinai.

And so I formed a
script from there,

and on a gamble sent it
to every actor I could.

Joss Acklin, Peter
O'Toole, Steven Burkoff,

Edward Fox, and so on, Brian
Blessed and Freddy Jones,

the great, great actors.

And it was just a, a gamble.

And then all the actors came
back and said an immediate yes,

which I didn't have
the budget for,

and Peter was the
last to come back.

Now I'd just assumed
that he wouldn't do it

because he'd retired.

And on the notion that
he wouldn't do it,

I then sent the
script to Herbert Lom,

and said, "Please
do this, this film".

And then Peter suddenly, I
think it was a phone call

to the studio and it was Peter,

and I said, "Oh, I'm
really sorry Peter,

I just assumed you
wouldn't be interested,

and I gave the part away".

And then another call
came and it was Peter,

and he said, "Well,
write me a fucking part".

And I, that was it, so I did.

Peter visits this girl
in the prison cell,

and I think it's a
lovely performance.

Beautiful, harmless child.

I knew then damnation
would follow,

having lived most of my
pitiful existence by extremes,

which would sicken
the learned heart.

He's a a Roman senator,

he's embarrassed by the
wealth that he's lived under.

And I now take my place
alongside other greedy,

pitiful souls in Maxentius's
great hall of shame.

The absolute
embarrassments on his face

with this young
girl, he doesn't know

how to approach this young girl.

I wrote you a cowardly letter.

Should you have
refused to see me?

Do you wonder where
the dead and buried go?

Does it fear you to know
nothing of all whereabouts

and including all spirits?

Their ultimate distinction?

And for me it's a very,
very moving scene.

Feel more at ease,

in this reckoning
of eventual death.

I want to go to the
pictures to see something

I don't see in the
rest of my life.

Well, I ain't seen Pete O'Toole
at the end of my street,

and I'm not seeing him on
the telly, I'm seeing him

60 foot across at the
Empire Leicester Square,

in parts that that unusual
poetic sensibility,

which you know is there,

you read his autobiography

and it's neo- Joyce-ean stream
of consciousness that is,

and that completely infuses
what you see on screen,

you know, you feel it's
a Yates-ean, Joyce-ean,

Wilde-ean kind of
Irish braggadaccio,

which is unique.

* I wish I was *

* In Carrickfergus *

* Only for nights
in Ballygrand *

* I would swim over *

* The deepest ocean *

* The deepest ocean *

* My love to find *

* But the sea is wide *

* And I can't swim over *

* I need a light *

* The wings to fly *

* I wish I knew *

* The handsome boatman *

* To ferry me over *

* To my love then die *

* Ah, but in Kilkenny *

* It is reported *

* They have marble
stones there *

* That's black as ink *

* With gold and silver *

* I did support her *

* But I'll sing no more *

* Till I get a drink *