Peter O’Toole, the British acting legend best known for his piercing blue eyes and role in the 1962 epic “Lawrence of Arabia,” died in a London Hospital it was announced yesterday.
The 81-year-old star had been ill for some time.
“His family are very appreciative and completely overwhelmed by the outpouring of real love and affection being expressed towards him, and to us, during this unhappy time,” daughter Kate O’Toole said.
She promised the family would stage an upbeat memorial, paying tribute to the “My Favorite Year” actor.
O’Toole’s passing Saturday night was noted by film lovers everywhere.
“Those who saw him play leading roles on the screen from Lawrence in 1962, through the role of Henry II in ‘Becket,’ and ‘The Lion in Winter,’ or through the dozens of films, will recognize a lifetime devoted to the art form of the camera,” Irish President Michael Higgins said.
When O’Toole got an honorary Oscar in 2003, he was the actor with the most nominations without a win — eventually eight spanning from 1962’s “Lawrence of Arabia” to 2006’s “Venus.”
O’Toole enjoyed a laugh at his Oscar frustration at the 2003 ceremony, when he was finally able to grasp a gold statuette for lifetime achievement.
“Always a bridesmaid, never a bride, my foot,” O’Toole said that night in Tinseltown.
“I have my very own Oscar now to be with me until death do us part. I am as delighted as I am honored, and I am honored.’’
O’Toole had better luck at the Golden Globes.
He took home Globes for “Goodbye, Mr. Chips” “The Lion in Winter” and “Becket.” O’Toole also won a BAFTA, Britain’s equivalent of an Academy Award, for “Lawrence of Arabia.”
“He was one of a kind, in the very best sense, and a giant in his field,” O’Toole’s agent Steve Kenis said.
O’Toole — who famously played an old Errol Flynn-like drunk in “My Favorite Year” — was also known as much for his off-screen partying as his on-screen greatness.
But O’Toole finally kicked the bottle, or at least started putting it aside, in the early ’80s, leading to a solid second act of his great career.
He won rave reviews as a bemused English teacher in the 1987 Oscar winner “The Last Emperor.”
O’Toole in 1987 had a Broadway stint in “Pygmalion,” and worked consistently until retiring only recently.
“It is time for me to chuck in the sponge. To retire from films and stage. The heart for it has gone out of me: it won’t come back,” O’Toole said last year. “It’s my belief that one should decide for oneself when it is time to end one’s stay.”