Movie Stars: December 2013

Before there were just "actors" there were actors and actresses. Before there were actors and actresses there were movie stars.

Peter O'Toole, one of those movie stars, died recently.

I was particularly saddened to hear about O'Toole's death. His remarkable portrayal of the enigmatic T.E. Lawrence remains one of my all time favorite performances.Even though it was 50 years ago, I remember vividly how I felt the first time I saw David Lean's masterpiece on the big screen in Boston.

"Man, am I thirsty!" I said to Ada.

Granted, this was not any kind of profound film criticism, but what do you expect after spending four hours in the desert?

I also remember being completely mesmerized by O'Toole's physical appearance. Those incredible pale blue eyes, made that much more striking because we viewed them against that white hot desert. And that hair! That full head of perfectly blond hair. I couldn't get enough of that hair.

I've seen the film at least a dozen times. On four of those occasions, I only watched O'Toole's hair. I watched his hair act. In my opinion, O'Toole's hair gave a better performance in that film than English actor Jack Hawkins, who played Lawrence's commanding officer. As a matter of fact, I would rate O'Toole's hair as the third best performance in the film, just behind those of O'Toole and Omar Sharif.

One man's opinion.

From all I've read, Peter O'Toole was an unapologetic scoundrel, a hard drinker, a womanizer, a gambler, in other words, a movie star. I don't know about you, but I give permission to my movie stars to be different kinds of people. I don't want my movie stars sitting around the kitchen table looking at health plan brochures. I want them driving recklessly, spending lavishly, and, if need be, dying young.

While I am happy O'Toole lived a long life, it wasn't for lack of trying.

It seems to me that in general our bright young modern actors are a bit too "corporate" to be called movie stars the way we called Marlon Brando, Anthony Quinn, or Robert Mitchum movie stars. Possibly Ryan Gosling has it in him to be a little James Dean-ish, and certainly poor Heath Ledger did, but I don't think of Matt Damon, Ben Affleck or Tom Cruise in that same way.

Of course not all of the old time movie stars were as wild and crazy as O'Toole. Jimmy Stewart was as All-American normal as you could get and Paul Newman spent most of his non-movie time in Westport, Connecticut doing what suburban people do (with the possible exception of racing cars).

It occurs to me I haven't mentioned any actresses in this piece. That might be because the only real bad female behavior that I know about these days comes from the Kardashian family and I just can't force myself to refer to any of that sad crew as actresses. I assume in the golden days of Hollywood there was more than enough bad behavior to go around (Judy Garland comes to mind), but the studios were more protective of their "property" in those days.

Among modern actresses I just don't see Jennifer Lawrence, Anne Hathaway, Keira Knightley, or Amy Adams going all O'Toole-Burton at a Hollywood bar, as lovely as that is to contemplate.

So requiescant in pace Peter O'Toole, you magnificent scoundrel. You are frozen in my memory bank standing atop that ruined Turkish train, with your blond hair and white robes flowing, your blue eyes blazing, waiting for David Lean to yell, "Cut," so you can begin another night's round of mayhem.

I hope they let you run a tab up there.

Ain't life grand?
J