I will always remember him as one of his generation’s best actors. Few others moved me with a performance quite like Peter. I’d also put him in the Top 5 for most interesting actors to interview. I once sat down in a coffee shop in Oregon and picked up a magazine nearby that contained an interview with Peter in his home. I don’t recall anything at all going on around me for the next hour or so. I don’t even remember what town we were in. I put down the magazine at the end and said to my husband, who had been left to entertain himself, ‘That was simply one of the best interviews with an actor I’ve ever read.’ It helped that the interviewer was someone Peter knew, and was close to Peter’s age; they had history between them. Mr. O’Toole had a long and remarkable life.
I most recently saw him in a magical little film titled ‘Dean Spanley’. I highly recommend this film; I don’t use the word ‘magical’ in reference to a film very often. It wasn’t magical because of Peter’s performance, although he was in a key role and very good. It was magical because Sam Neill plays a character who when he imbibes a particular rare liquor, recalls memories from a previous incarnation of when he was dog, and I totally believed him. I had been standing in the living room doing the ironing while watching the film stream on Netflix, and about halfway through the film was so caught up in the story, I had to sit down and give it my full attention. That is almost always the case in films that contain a performance with O’Toole. Magic.
