Peter O’Toole retires from acting

by Naman Ramachandran

11/07/2012 - Irish and British screen legend Peter O’Toole has retired from acting. He said, “I bid the profession a dry-eyed and profoundly grateful farewell. My professional acting life, stage and screen, has brought me public support, emotional fulfilment and material comfort. It has brought me together with fine people, good companions with whom I’ve shared the inevitable lot of all actors: flops and hits. However, it’s my belief that one should decide for oneself when it is time to end one’s stay. 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.” The veteran star, 79, is now working on the third volume of his memoirs.

O’Toole trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and honed his craft for a few years in the theatre before making his film debut with Kidnapped in 1962. His big break came two years later with David Lean’s epic Lawrence of Arabia where O’Toole played the titular T.E. Lawrence and won the BAFTA for Best British Actor. He was nominated seven times for a Best Actor Oscar but did not win. He was awarded an honorary Oscar in 2003. Following that, he won his eighth Oscar nomination in 2006 for Venus [trailer].

O’Toole’s last release will be Michael Redwood’s Katherine Of Alexandria where he plays Gallus to Nicole Madjarov’s Saint Katherine. It is not clear whether his retirement will impact his role in Alister Grierson’s Mary Mother Of Christ that is in pre-production.