Born in Ireland, O'Toole made his film debut as Rob Roy in Disney's
Kidnapped (1960). One of the new wave of actors to emerge in British
theatre in the late 1950s, O'Toole came to critical attention in The
Long and the Short and the Tall (1959), though the more bankable Laurence
Harvey played the part in the film version. O'Toole leapt to fame
in the title role of Lawrence
of Arabia (1962), for which he won a British Academy award and an
Oscar nomination, followed by starring roles in Becket (1964) and Lord
Jim (1965).
He has always been attracted to eccentric roles, and the eccentricity
began to express itself in the 1970s, outrageously in The
Ruling Class (1972), and in a public persona which moved from star
acting to scandalous celebrity. He received a US Film Critics award
for The Stunt Man (1979), and gave a restrained performance as the tutor
in Bertolucci's The Last Emperor (1987).
