An Orchestra in One
Instrument
Peter O'Toole's life showed that a great
artist can come from anywhere.
By Joe Morgenstern in
the Wall Street Journal
Peter O'Toole is gone,
and I do a quick cortical search for my most vivid memory of him. The first hit
is, to my surprise, not his face but his inimitable voice. Specifically, his
voice as it emanates from the mouth of Anton Ego, the food critic in 2007's
"Ratatouille"—expansive, even airy; elegant with that
characteristically delicious tinge of insouciance and, as always, blithely
musical, an orchestra of feelings within a single instrument. "Not
everyone can become a great artist," Anton intones warmly, "but a
great artist can come from anywhere." It's the story of O'Toole's life.
Born in 1932 to Irish parents—his father, Patrick, was an itinerant bookie
known as "Spats"—he became a great artist who behaved like one when
the script called for it. By his own lights he was a working stiff with a
penchant for hard living that buoyed him up while it was wearing him down.
When the first of his
screen faces comes to mind, it is, of course, the supernally beautiful and
mysteriously epicene visage of T.E. Lawrence in " Lawrence of Arabia.
" There's little in the history of cinema to match the grandeur of that
film—if only all our lives could be lived in 70mm—and nothing to match the
sight of its star begowned in white, arms upstretched to the heavens like a
latter-day Moses parting the Arabian sands. One of the movie's enduring
fascinations is that there's a piece missing in Lawrence's psyche, as the
script evokes him, but O'Toole's portrayal, which fills the vast screen to its
four corners, turns that negative emotional space into a spiritual positive.
David Lean's 1962 epic
turned a young unknown into an international icon, but it's not my favorite
O'Toole film. What he does in "The Stunt Man" (1980) puts his desert
legend in the shade. In recommending the DVD of Richard Rush's surreal
extravaganza over the years, I've used the term "lordly" to describe
O'Toole's performance as the megalomaniacal movie director Eli Cross. But
"magisterial" is equally apt.
As a working stiff
with a regal lifestyle to support, O'Toole made his share of oddities and
stinkers. (He played a Kryptonian scientist in the 1984 sci-fi fantasy
"Supergirl," which falls somewhere between those two categories.)
Grievous health problems laid him low in the late 1970s, not just the toll taken
by boozing and smoking but a misdiagnosed stomach cancer. Yet he came back from
the almost-dead for a string of appearances that included a matchlessly funny
star turn in "My Favorite Year" (1982). The film is a fictionalized
version of backstage life during Sid Caesar's reign as the pre-eminent comic on
live TV in the 1950s. O'Toole plays Alan Swann, a guest star from Hollywood and
a womanizing drunk who is part John Barrymore and part Errol Flynn, plus the
raffish essence of O'Toole himself.
By the time he did
"Venus," in 2006, he was alarmingly frail as Maurice, an aged actor
with a haunted mien, a reedy voice, a watery gaze, a lurching gait and a
precarious lease on life. Part of that frailty was acting, to be sure, and he
was wonderful in the movie, a love story of sorts between Maurice and a trashy
young woman working as a caregiver. But I prefer, for my very last memory of
Peter O'Toole on screen, a moment in another sci-fi adventure, Ridley Scott's
" Prometheus " (2012). It's when David, a robot played by Michael
Fassbender, studies a video clip from "Lawrence of Arabia."
Lawrence has
intentionally burned his finger, with no evidence of pain. An army corporal
does the same thing, discovers it hurts and asks what the trick is. "The
trick, William Potter, " Lawrence replies grandly, "is not minding
that it hurts." David repeats the line, enthralled, and no wonder. The
robot sees what we saw over the course of half a century—a mortal actor with
every evidence of superhuman power.
Mr. Morgenstern is the
Journal's film critic.
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