Whipped Cream Difficulties

Peter O’Toole may have been one of the unluckiest men in movies.

This came up last night, and I’m not sure why. For some reason, Lawrence and I got into a discussion of O’Toole. (Last night’s movie was “United 93”, which, while fitting, does not have Mr. O’Toole in it.)

I would have sworn he’d won an Oscar for “My Favorite Year”, but Lawrence correctly pointed out he didn’t. His only Oscar was a honorary one in 2002 (and, according to Wikipedia, his family had a king-size job persuading him to accept it, as he felt like he wasn’t done acting yet).

But why unlucky? He was nominated eight times, which is a record for nominations without a win. But worse yet, a lot of his nominations were for fantastic roles…that just happened to go up against someone else who had a career defining role that year.

• 1962: He was nominated for “Lawrence of Arabia”. Fantastic performance, Oscar worthy, should have won, right? Except he was up against Gregory Peck for “To Kill a Mockingbird”. This is one of those times where I honestly think it should have been called a tie.
• 1964: Nominated for “Becket”. Haven’t seen that (but would like to, as it is in my wheelhouse). But he was up against Rex Harrison in “My Fair Lady”. The other nominees were Richard Burton, also for “Becket”, Anthony Quinn for “Zorba the Greek”, and Peter Sellers for “Doctor Strangelove”. I see “Strangelove” as being another one of those defining roles that in another year, O’Toole would have lost honorably to. I figure Burton and O’Toole split the “Becket” vote, and folks were probably suckers for an old-style movie musical. (Short shameful confession: while it has been a while since I’ve seen it, I like “My Fair Lady”.)
• 1968: “The Lion in Winter”. Lost to Cliff Robertson in “Charly”.
• 1969: “Goodbye Mr. Chips”. Lost to John Freakin’ Wayne in “True Grit”. Lawrence thinks that’s a career award: I’d have to see “True Grit” again.
• 1972: “The Ruling Class”. Haven’t seen that in ages, but I have fond memories of it. (Last time I saw it, I think UT still had a film program.) But comedy gets no respect from the Academy. Plus…that was the year of Marlon Brando and “The Godfather”. As you may remember, Brando sent Sacheen Littlefeather to refuse the award for him, so this was a complete waste of a good Oscar.
• 1980: “The Stunt Man”. Lost to Robert De Niro in “Raging Bull”. John Hurt was also nominated for “The Elephant Man”.
• 1982: “My Favorite Year”. Lost to Ben Kingsley for “Gandhi”, which I have not seen in many years but have fond (personal) memories of.
• 2006: “Venus“, a movie I’d never heard of until I started looking at his nominations. Frankly, this sounds like a well intentioned makeup nomination, but he lost to Forest Whitaker for “The Last King of Scotland”.

See what I mean, Vern?

Side note for Dave: the TV series in which Cloris Leachman played a Pilgrim was “Thanks“. It lasted for six episodes in 1999.

Leachman, by far the best known member of the cast, has to get off the chamber pot to deliver her first bit of dialogue, which could’ve been written for any sitcom granny in the last 10 years.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 12th, 2021 at 5:48 pm and is filed under History, Movies, TV. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.