PETER O'TOOLE: A Biography

by Nicholas Wapshott ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 11, 1984

Less admiring but also less sleazy than Michael Freedland's Peter O'Toole (1983), this serviceable celeb bio covers very much the same ground--with a bit more emphasis on the O'Toole stage career. Casting O'Toole as ""a full-scale tragic figure,"" Wapshott follows him from poor-Irish roots (with rather too much ethnic stereotyping) to rocky journalism/Navy stints. . . to RADA in the mid-1950s, ""not a star pupil exactly,"" but an eager, ambitious learner. Then came 73 roles in Bristol rep, including an ""exceptional Hamlet""--bringing O'Toole to London and Stratford, where his unlikely triumph as Shylock made him (along with Albert Finney) that generation's major heir to the Olivier/Gielgud tradition. Next, of course: Lawrence of Arabia, an un-refusable offer (though Finney refused it)--followed by film-stardom, a few great movie roles, many poor ones, a weak Hamlet at the National. (""The rapport between Olivier and O'Toole was never established, partly because O'Toole was so capable of remaining cool and arrogantly unaffected by the power of others?') Meanwhile, O'Toole's private life deteriorated: infidelities, painful estrangement from longtime wife Sian Phillips; the fabled carousing (""He sees life very clearly without the hindrance of alcohol and it gives him little pleasure""); constant health problems. Exhausted, in a rut (confined to stereotypical roles), he tried a major comeback on the stage--with the legendary disaster of the Old Vic Macbeth as a result. But, though ""humiliated and reviled,"" the catastrophe ""proved to be a good thing for O'Toole's state of mind"": he has since given up booze (after nearly dying), made the likable My Favorite Year, and returned to the theater with dignity and modest acclaim in Man and Superman. ""It is impossible not to come to the sorry judgment that a lack of self-discipline has led him to squander his early promise."" Aside from that, Wapshott has little to add to the familiar story--but his version offers a few fresh interview-sources; and it's slightly less gossipy-and-gnshy than Freedland's.

Pub Date: April 11, 1984

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Beaufort

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1984

Categories: NONFICTION