By: debbie lynn elias
I last spoke with Peter O’Toole at the 2011 TCM Film Festival. It was the morning of his hand/foot print ceremony at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. It was also the same morning – and time – as my interview with Angela Lansbury. Juggling the two was not logistically easy as both can quite simply be defined as legends whose interviews and events my heart would never let me miss.
As to be expected, there were many delays with O’Toole’s ceremony. He was rather frail that day and only briefly appeared in the rising warmth of the morning sun, being aided to a regal seat just inside the Chinese doors before and after the ceremony proper. Missing the actual imprinting due to my Lansbury interview, I was thereafter in the Chinese lobby with the sequestered Mr. O’Toole. Aides were putting slippers on his feet, bringing him water to stay hydrated and he was sitting quietly with his eyes drifting closed. My intent was merely to leave the lobby, but as I neared his chair, he opened his eyes and called me over. He took my hand within both of his and his clear eyes looked me squarely in the eye as we talked about the ceremony as well as some of his films, including “Becket”, “Lion In Winter” and “The Stunt Man” and the importance of the TCM film Festival and “classic films”. He even recited some Shakespeare to me during our conversation.
He laughed a belly laugh with a huge smile when I could recite chapter and verse my fave performance of his as Sir Cedric Willingham to John Goodman’s “King Ralph” noting “Now THAT is a surprise as a favorite film!” As I apologetically admitted to missing the actual “cementing” because of interviewing Angela Lansbury, he laughed and said, “I don’t mind playing second fiddle to ‘Lady’ Angela.”
Sir Peter O’Toole….. you will always be “Sir Ced” to me.
