My Favorite O’Toole

The legendary Peter O’Toole passed away on Saturday. When I first heard the news, I was reminded of a question Looking Closer’s Jeffrey Overstreet asked his readers last year: Which is your favorite O’Toole performance?

At the time, I remember being grateful that he didn’t say “best performance,” because I’m not sure I could answer that question. “Favorite,” though? That’s actually pretty easy for me: Simon Dermott, from How to Steal a Million.

It’s a wonderful, hilarious film, and one that I can vividly remember watching for the first time, primarily because I was so surprised by how much funnier O’Toole was than I was expecting him to be. It remains remains near the top of my “favorite comedies” list in large part because of that unexpected humor, and because of his extraordinary chemistry with Audrey Hepburn. (It also has Eli Wallach, which bolsters its “Must See” status, at least in my book.  And did I mention that its really, really hilarious?)

See for yourself.

He will be missed.

Digging about just now in search of Jeff’s original post, I was reminded of another interesting O’Toole tidbit: He is one of only a quartet of actors to receive Oscar nominations for playing the same character in two separate films: Bing Crosby’s Father O’Malley in Going My Way and The Bells of St. Mary’s; Paul Newman’s Fast Eddie Felson in The Hustler and The Color of Money; Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone in The Godfather and The Godfather, Part II; and, of course, O’Toole’s King Henry II, from Becket and The Lion in Winter. (Along those lines, here’s a piece from Filmchat’s Peter Chattaway discussing those two O’Toole performances. And let’s not forget that our own Frank Weathers is himself a big Becket fan.)