1.
Barbara Hershey
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Barbara Hershey, once known as Barbara Seagull, is an American actress. In a career spanning nearly 50 years, she has played a variety of roles on television and in cinema in several genres, including Westerns and she began acting at age 17 in 1965, but did not achieve much critical acclaim until the latter half of the 1980s. By that time, the Chicago Tribune referred to her as one of Americas finest actresses, Hershey won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries/TV Film for her role in A Killing in a Small Town. For the latter film, she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. In addition, she has won two Best Actress awards at the Cannes Film Festival for her roles in Shy People and A World Apart, establishing a reputation early in her career as a hippie, Hershey experienced conflict between her personal life and her acting goals. Her career suffered a decline during a relationship with actor David Carradine. She experimented with a change in name that she later regretted. During this time, her life was highly publicized and ridiculed. Her acting career was not well established until she separated from Carradine, later in her career, she began to keep her personal life private. Barbara Herzstein was born in Hollywood, the daughter of Arnold Nathan Herzstein, a horse-racing columnist and her fathers parents were Jews who had emigrated from Hungary and Russia respectively, while her mother, a native of Arkansas, was a Presbyterian of Irish descent. The youngest of three children, Barbara always wanted to be an actress, and her family nicknamed her Sarah Bernhardt and she was shy in school and so quiet that people thought she was deaf. By the age of 10, she proved herself to be an A student and her high-school drama coach helped her find an agent, and in 1965, at age 17, she landed a role on Sally Fields television series Gidget. Barbara said that she found Field to be supportive of her in her first acting role. Barbaras acting debut, three episodes of Gidget, was followed by the television series The Monroes, which also featured Michael Anderson. By this point, she had adopted the stage name Barbara Hershey, although Hershey said the series helped her career, she expressed some frustration with her role, saying, One week I was strong, the next, weak. While on the series, Hershey garnered several other roles, including one in Doris Days final feature film, in 1969, Hershey co-starred in the Glenn Ford Western Heaven with a Gun. On the set, she met and began a relationship with actor David Carradine. In the same year, she acted in the controversial drama Last Summer, in this film, Hershey played Sandy, the heavy who influences two young men to rape another girl, Rhoda
2.
20th Century Fox
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Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation is an American film studio currently owned by 21st Century Fox. It is one of the Big Six major American film studios and is located in the Century City area of Los Angeles, the studio was formerly owned by News Corporation. 20th Century Fox is a member of the Motion Picture Association of America, in 2015, 20th Century Fox celebrated its 80th anniversary as a studio. Spyros Skouras, then manager of the Fox West Coast Theaters, the studios biggest star, Will Rogers, died in a plane crash weeks after the merger. Its leading female star, Janet Gaynor, was fading in popularity and promising leading men James Dunn, at first, it was expected that the new company was originally to be called Fox-20th Century, even though 20th Century was the senior partner in the merger. However, 20th Century brought more to the bargaining table besides Schenck and Zanuck, the new company, 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation, began trading on May 31,1935, the hyphen was dropped in 1985. Schenck became Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, while Kent remained as President, Zanuck became Vice President in Charge of Production, replacing Foxs longtime production chief Winfield Sheehan. The company established a training school. The contracts included an option for renewal for as long as seven years. For many years, 20th Century Fox claimed to have founded in 1915. For instance, it marked 1945 as its 30th anniversary, however, in recent years it has claimed the 1935 merger as its founding, even though most film historians agree it was founded in 1915. The companys films retained the 20th Century Pictures searchlight logo on their credits as well as its opening fanfare. Also on the Fox payroll he found two players who he built up into the studios leading assets, Alice Faye and seven-year-old Shirley Temple, favoring popular biographies and musicals, Zanuck built Fox back to profitability. Thanks to record attendance during World War II, Fox overtook RKO, while Zanuck went off for eighteen months war service, junior partner William Goetz kept profits high by going for light entertainment. The studios—indeed the industrys—biggest star was creamy blonde Betty Grable, in 1942, Spyros Skouras succeeded Kent as president of the studio. Together with Zanuck, who returned in 1943, they intended to make Foxs output more serious-minded. During the next few years, with pictures like The Razors Edge, Wilson, Gentlemans Agreement, The Snake Pit, Boomerang, and Pinky, Zanuck established a reputation for provocative, adult films. Fox also specialized in adaptations of best-selling books such as Ben Ames Williams Leave Her to Heaven, starring Gene Tierney and they also made the 1958 film version of South Pacific
3.
Academy Awards
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The various category winners are awarded a copy of a golden statuette, officially called the Academy Award of Merit, which has become commonly known by its nickname Oscar. The awards, first presented in 1929 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, are overseen by AMPAS, the awards ceremony was first broadcast on radio in 1930 and televised for the first time in 1953. It is now live in more than 200 countries and can be streamed live online. The Academy Awards ceremony is the oldest worldwide entertainment awards ceremony and its equivalents – the Emmy Awards for television, the Tony Awards for theater, and the Grammy Awards for music and recording – are modeled after the Academy Awards. The 89th Academy Awards ceremony, honoring the best films of 2016, were held on February 26,2017, at the Dolby Theatre, in Los Angeles, the ceremony was hosted by Jimmy Kimmel and was broadcast on ABC. A total of 3,048 Oscars have been awarded from the inception of the award through the 88th, the first Academy Awards presentation was held on May 16,1929, at a private dinner function at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel with an audience of about 270 people. The post-awards party was held at the Mayfair Hotel, the cost of guest tickets for that nights ceremony was $5. Fifteen statuettes were awarded, honoring artists, directors and other participants in the industry of the time. The ceremony ran for 15 minutes, winners were announced to media three months earlier, however, that was changed for the second ceremony in 1930. Since then, for the rest of the first decade, the results were given to newspapers for publication at 11,00 pm on the night of the awards. The first Best Actor awarded was Emil Jannings, for his performances in The Last Command and he had to return to Europe before the ceremony, so the Academy agreed to give him the prize earlier, this made him the first Academy Award winner in history. With the fourth ceremony, however, the system changed, for the first six ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned two calendar years. At the 29th ceremony, held on March 27,1957, until then, foreign-language films had been honored with the Special Achievement Award. The 74th Academy Awards, held in 2002, presented the first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, since 1973, all Academy Awards ceremonies always end with the Academy Award for Best Picture. The Academy also awards Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting, see also § Awards of Merit categories The best known award is the Academy Award of Merit, more popularly known as the Oscar statuette. The five spokes represent the branches of the Academy, Actors, Writers, Directors, Producers. The model for the statuette is said to be Mexican actor Emilio El Indio Fernández, sculptor George Stanley sculpted Cedric Gibbons design. The statuettes presented at the ceremonies were gold-plated solid bronze
4.
Academy Award for Best Actor
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The Academy Award for Best Actor is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It is given in honor of an actor who has delivered a performance in a leading role while working within the film industry. The 1st Academy Awards ceremony was held in 1929 with Emil Jannings receiving the award for his roles in The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh. Currently, nominees are determined by single transferable vote within the branch of AMPAS. In the first three years of the awards, actors were nominated as the best in their categories, at that time, all of their work during the qualifying period was listed after the award. The following year, this unwieldy and confusing system was replaced by the current system in which an actor is nominated for a performance in a single film. Starting with the 9th ceremony held in 1937, the category was officially limited to five nominations per year, since its inception, the award has been given to 79 actors. Daniel Day-Lewis has received the most awards in this category with three Oscars, spencer Tracy and Laurence Olivier were nominated on nine occasions, more than any other actor. As of the 2017 ceremony, Casey Affleck is the most recent winner in category for his role as Lee Chandler in Manchester by the Sea. In the following table, the years are listed as per Academy convention, and generally correspond to the year of release in Los Angeles County. For the first five ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned twelve months from August 1 to July 31, for the 6th ceremony held in 1934, the eligibility period lasted from August 1,1932 to December 31,1933
5.
Academy Award for Best Director
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The Academy Award for Best Director is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It is given in honor of a director who has exhibited outstanding directing while working in the film industry. However, these categories were merged for all subsequent ceremonies, nominees are determined by single transferable vote within the directors branch of AMPAS, winners are selected by a plurality vote from the entire eligible voting members of the Academy. For the first eleven years of the Academy Awards, directors were allowed to be nominated for multiple films in the same year, the Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture have been very closely linked throughout their history. Of the 89 films that have been awarded Best Picture,63 have also been awarded Best Director, since its inception, the award has been given to 69 directors or directing teams. John Ford has received the most awards in this category with four, william Wyler was nominated on twelve occasions, more than any other individual. As of the 2017 ceremony, Damien Chazelle is the most recent winner in category for his work on La La Land. Chazelle also became the youngest director in history to receive this award, two directing teams have shared the award, Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins for West Side Story in 1961 and Joel and Ethan Coen for No Country for Old Men in 2007. The Coen brothers are the siblings to have won the award. For the first five ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned twelve months from August 1 to July 31, for the 6th ceremony held in 1934, the eligibility period lasted from August 1,1932 to December 31,1933. Since the 7th ceremony held in 1935, the period of eligibility became the full calendar year from January 1 to December 31. org The Academy Awards Database Oscar. com
6.
World War I
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World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history and it was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved. The war drew in all the worlds great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances, the Allies versus the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. These alliances were reorganised and expanded as more nations entered the war, Italy, Japan, the trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. This set off a crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia. Within weeks, the powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world. On 25 July Russia began mobilisation and on 28 July, the Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia, Germany presented an ultimatum to Russia to demobilise, and when this was refused, declared war on Russia on 1 August. Germany then invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg before moving towards France, after the German march on Paris was halted, what became known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that changed little until 1917. On the Eastern Front, the Russian army was successful against the Austro-Hungarians, in November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, opening fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and the Sinai. In 1915, Italy joined the Allies and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, Romania joined the Allies in 1916, after a stunning German offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives. By the end of the war or soon after, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, national borders were redrawn, with several independent nations restored or created, and Germanys colonies were parceled out among the victors. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Big Four imposed their terms in a series of treaties, the League of Nations was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a conflict. This effort failed, and economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation eventually contributed to World War II. From the time of its start until the approach of World War II, at the time, it was also sometimes called the war to end war or the war to end all wars due to its then-unparalleled scale and devastation. In Canada, Macleans magazine in October 1914 wrote, Some wars name themselves, during the interwar period, the war was most often called the World War and the Great War in English-speaking countries. Will become the first world war in the sense of the word. These began in 1815, with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria, when Germany was united in 1871, Prussia became part of the new German nation. Soon after, in October 1873, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany
7.
Duesenberg
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Duesenberg Motors Company was an American manufacturer of race cars and luxury automobiles. It was founded by brothers August and Frederick Duesenberg in 1913 in Saint Paul, Minnesota, the brothers moved their operations to Elizabeth, New Jersey in 1916 to manufacture engines for World War I. Cord added Duesenberg to his Auburn Automobile Company, with the market for expensive luxury cars severely undercut by the Depression, Duesenberg folded in 1937. In 1913, brothers Fred and Augie Duesenberg founded Duesenberg Motors Company, Inc. on University Avenue in St. Paul, Minnesota, to build engines, the brothers were self-taught engineers and built many experimental cars. Duesenberg cars were considered some of the best cars of the time, in 1914, Eddie Rickenbacker drove a Duesy to finish in 10th place at the Indianapolis 500, and Duesenberg won the race in 1924,1925, and 1927. The fledgling company sidestepped into aviation engine manufacturing when Colonel R. C. Bolling, the end of World War I stopped this project before it could ever mature. In 1921, Duesenberg provided the car for the Indy 500. In 1923, Jimmy Murphy became the first American to win the French Grand Prix when he drove a Duesenberg to victory at Le Mans. At the end of World War I, they ceased building aviation and marine engines in Elizabeth, New Jersey at the corner of Newark Avenue, was established in 1920 to begin production of passenger cars. The plant was located on a 17-acre site on West Washington street at Harding street until 1937, although the Duesenberg brothers were world-class engineers, they were neither good businessmen nor administrators, they were unable to sell all the units of their first passenger car, the Model A. This had the Duesenberg Straight-8 engine, the first mass-produced straight eight engine in the U. S, the Model A was a lighter and smaller vehicle than the competition. It was among the most powerful and the fastest cars of its time, among the celebrities who purchased this model were Tom Mix and Rudolph Valentino. The model experienced various delays going from prototype to production, deliveries to dealers did not start until December 1921. Sales lagged and the goal of building 100 Duesenbergs each month proved far too high, in 1922 no more than 150 cars were manufactured, and only 650 Model As were sold over a period of six years. The brothers continued to create excellent engines for cars, boats, on March 8,1920, these men became president and vice president of the Duesenberg Automobile and Motors Corporation of Indianapolis. Fred was chief engineer and Augie his assistant, and both were salaried as employees, van Zandt quit after a year, and business went from bad to worse in 1923. In 1924 the company went into receivership, but somehow it survived that year, in 1925, the firms name was changed to Duesenberg Motors Corporation and Fred assumed the title of president. Fred and August struggled to keep the company, but to no avail, Model X Duesenbergs are very rare
8.
Hotel del Coronado
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Hotel del Coronado is a historic beachfront hotel in the city of Coronado, just across the San Diego Bay from San Diego, California. It is one of the few surviving examples of an American architectural genre and it is the second largest wooden structure in the United States and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1977 and a California Historical Landmark in 1970. When it opened in 1888, it was the largest resort hotel in the world and it has hosted presidents, royalty, and celebrities through the years. The hotel has featured in numerous movies and books. In the mid-1880s, the San Diego region was in the midst of one of its first real estate booms, at that time, it was common for a developer to build a grand hotel as a draw for what would otherwise be a barren landscape. In November 1885, five investors went together to buy all of Coronado and North Island, approximately 4,000 acres, in April 1886, Babcock and Story created the Coronado Beach Company, after which they established a number of additional enterprises to support the development of Coronado. Hotel del Coronado also boasted one of the largest electrical power plants in the state, the men hired architect James W. Reid, a native of New Brunswick, Canada, who first practiced in Evansville and Terre Haute. His younger brother Merritt Reid, a partner in Reid Brothers, the Evansville firm, stayed in Indiana, babcocks visions for the hotel were grand, It would be built around a court. a garden of tropical trees, shrubs and flowers. From the south end, the foyer should open to Glorietta Bay with verandas for rest, on the ocean corner, there should be a pavilion tower, and northward along the ocean, a colonnade, terraced in grass to the beach. The dining wing should project at an angle from the southeast corner of the court and be almost detached, to full value to the view of the ocean, bay. Construction of the began in March 1887, on a sandspit populated by jack rabbits. If the hotel were ever to be built, one of problems to overcome was the absence of lumber. The lumber problem was solved with contracts for exclusive rights to all raw lumber production of the Dolbeer & Carson Lumber Company of Eureka, California, which was one of the Wests largest. Planing mills were built on site to finish raw lumber shipped directly from the Dolbeer & Carson lumber yards, to obtain brick and concrete, Reid built his own kilns. He also constructed a metal shop and iron works, labor was provided largely by Chinese immigrants from San Francisco and Oakland. The Crown Room was Reids masterpiece and its wooden ceiling was installed with pegs and glue. Not a single nail was used, landscaping for the hotel was completed by Kate Sessions. Reids plans were being revised and added to constantly, to deal with fire hazards, a freshwater pipeline was run under San Diego Bay
9.
Coronado, California
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Coronado, since the 1980s also mistakenly known as Coronado Island, is a resort city located in San Diego County, California, across and around San Diego Bay from downtown San Diego. Its population was 24,697 at the 2010 census, up from 24,100 at the 2000 census and it is part of San Diego County, California. Coronado lies on the combination of an island and a tombolo connected to the mainland called the Silver Strand. Coronado is an island, connected by a tombolo. In 2012, Dr. Stephen Leatherman, Director of the Laboratory for Coastal Research, Coronado is Spanish for crowned one, and thus it is nicknamed The Crown City. Three ships of the United States Navy have been named after the city, Coronado was incorporated as a town on December 11,1890. The land was purchased by Elisha Spurr Babcock, along with Hampton L. Story and their intention was to create a resort community, and in 1886, the Coronado Beach Company was organized. By 1888, they had built the Hotel del Coronado, and they also built a schoolhouse, and formed athletic, boating, and baseball clubs. In 1900, an area just south of the Hotel del Coronado was established by John D. Spreckels. Over the years the tents gave way to cottages, the last of which was torn down in late 1940 or early 1941 and these streetcars became a fixture of the city until their retirement in 1939. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 32.7 square miles,20.5 km² of the city is land and 24.7 square miles of it is water. Geographically, Cornado is not an island and it is a tied island, connected to the mainland by a strip of land called the Silver Strand. This tombolo, along with Coronado and North Island, forms San Diego Bay, originally, Coronado was mostly separated from North Island by a shallow inlet of water called the Spanish Bight, but just like Coronado, North Island was never completely surrounded by water. The development of North Island by the United States Navy prior to and during World War II led to the filling of the bight by July 1944, the Navy still operates Naval Air Station North Island on Coronado. On the southern side of the town is Naval Amphibious Base Coronado, both facilities are part of the larger Naval Base Coronado complex. Though there has been localized development of the coastline, including some minor landfill, in 1969, the San Diego–Coronado Bridge was opened, allowing much faster transit between the cities than bay ferries or driving via State Route 75 along the Silver Strand. The city is currently weighing the options of additional construction on Highway 75 to alleviate congestion as traffic flows to and from San Diego, according to the Köppen climate classification system, Coronado has a semi-arid climate, abbreviated BSk on climate maps. The 2010 United States Census reported that Coronado city had a population of 24,697
10.
Roger Ebert
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Roger Joseph Ebert was an American film critic and historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a critic for the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert became the first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, the two verbally sparred and traded humorous barbs while discussing films. They created and trademarked the phrase Two Thumbs Up, used when both hosts gave the film a positive review. After Siskel died in 1999, Ebert continued hosting the show with various co-hosts and then, starting in 2000, Ebert lived with cancer of the thyroid and salivary glands from 2002. This required treatments necessitating the removal of his jaw, which cost him the ability to speak or eat normally. His ability to write remained unimpaired, however, and he continued to publish frequently both online and in print until his death on April 4,2013. Roger Joseph Ebert was born in Urbana, Illinois, the child of Annabel, a bookkeeper, and Walter Harry Ebert. He was raised Roman Catholic, attending St. Marys elementary school and his paternal grandparents were German immigrants and his maternal ancestry was Irish and Dutch. In his senior year, he was president and editor-in-chief of his high school newspaper. In 1958, he won the Illinois High School Association state speech championship in radio speaking, regarding his early influences in film criticism, Ebert wrote in the 1998 parody collection Mad About the Movies, I learned to be a movie critic by reading Mad magazine. Mads parodies made me aware of the machine inside the skin – of the way a movie might look original on the outside, I did not read the magazine, I plundered it for clues to the universe. Pauline Kael lost it at the movies, I lost it at Mad magazine, Ebert began taking classes at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as an early-entrance student, completing his high-school courses while also taking his first university class. After graduating from Urbana High School in 1960, Ebert then attended and received his degree in 1964. As an undergraduate, he was a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity, One of the first movie reviews he ever wrote was a review of La Dolce Vita, published in The Daily Illini in October 1961. Ebert spent a semester as a student in the department of English there before attending the University of Cape Town on a Rotary fellowship for a year. He returned from Cape Town to his studies at Illinois for two more semesters and then, after being accepted as a PhD candidate at the University of Chicago. Instead Kogan referred Ebert to the city editor at the Chicago Sun-Times, Jim Hoge and he attended doctoral classes at the University of Chicago while working as a general reporter at the Sun-Times for a year
11.
The New York Times
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The New York Times is an American daily newspaper, founded and continuously published in New York City since September 18,1851, by The New York Times Company. The New York Times has won 119 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other newspaper, the papers print version in 2013 had the second-largest circulation, behind The Wall Street Journal, and the largest circulation among the metropolitan newspapers in the US. The New York Times is ranked 18th in the world by circulation, following industry trends, its weekday circulation had fallen in 2009 to fewer than one million. Nicknamed The Gray Lady, The New York Times has long been regarded within the industry as a newspaper of record. The New York Times international version, formerly the International Herald Tribune, is now called the New York Times International Edition, the papers motto, All the News Thats Fit to Print, appears in the upper left-hand corner of the front page. On Sunday, The New York Times is supplemented by the Sunday Review, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times Magazine and T, some other early investors of the company were Edwin B. Morgan and Edward B. We do not believe that everything in Society is either right or exactly wrong, —what is good we desire to preserve and improve, —what is evil, to exterminate. In 1852, the started a western division, The Times of California that arrived whenever a mail boat got to California. However, when local California newspapers came into prominence, the effort failed, the newspaper shortened its name to The New-York Times in 1857. It dropped the hyphen in the city name in the 1890s, One of the earliest public controversies it was involved with was the Mortara Affair, the subject of twenty editorials it published alone. At Newspaper Row, across from City Hall, Henry Raymond, owner and editor of The New York Times, averted the rioters with Gatling guns, in 1869, Raymond died, and George Jones took over as publisher. Tweed offered The New York Times five million dollars to not publish the story, in the 1880s, The New York Times transitioned gradually from editorially supporting Republican Party candidates to becoming more politically independent and analytical. In 1884, the paper supported Democrat Grover Cleveland in his first presidential campaign, while this move cost The New York Times readership among its more progressive and Republican readers, the paper eventually regained most of its lost ground within a few years. However, the newspaper was financially crippled by the Panic of 1893, the paper slowly acquired a reputation for even-handedness and accurate modern reporting, especially by the 1890s under the guidance of Ochs. Under Ochs guidance, continuing and expanding upon the Henry Raymond tradition, The New York Times achieved international scope, circulation, in 1910, the first air delivery of The New York Times to Philadelphia began. The New York Times first trans-Atlantic delivery by air to London occurred in 1919 by dirigible, airplane Edition was sent by plane to Chicago so it could be in the hands of Republican convention delegates by evening. In the 1940s, the extended its breadth and reach. The crossword began appearing regularly in 1942, and the section in 1946
12.
Peter O'Toole
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Peter Seamus OToole was a British-Irish stage and film actor. He achieved international recognition playing T. E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia for which he received his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor, in 2002, OToole was awarded the Academy Honorary Award for his career achievements. He was additionally the recipient of four Golden Globe Awards, one British Academy Film Award, some sources give his birthplace as Connemara, County Galway, Ireland, while others cite St James University Hospital, Leeds, England. Peter had a sister, Patricia. He grew up in the Hunslet, south Leeds, son of Constance Jane Eliot, a Scottish nurse, and Patrick Joseph Spats OToole, when OToole was one year old, his family began a five-year tour of major racecourse towns in Northern England. He was brought up as a Catholic, I used to be scared stiff of the nuns, their whole denial of womanhood – the black dresses and the shaving of the hair – was so horrible, so terrifying. Of course, thats all been stopped, theyre sipping gin and tonic in the Dublin pubs now, and a couple of them flashed their pretty ankles at me just the other day, he said. Upon leaving school OToole obtained employment as a trainee journalist and photographer on the Yorkshire Evening Post, as reported in a radio interview in 2006 on NPR, he was asked by an officer whether he had something he had always wanted to do. His reply was that he had wanted to try being either a poet or an actor. At RADA, he was in the class as Albert Finney, Alan Bates. OToole described this as the most remarkable class the academy ever had, OToole began working in the theatre, gaining recognition as a Shakespearean actor at the Bristol Old Vic and with the English Stage Company, before making his television debut in 1954. He first appeared on film in 1959 in a role in The Day They Robbed the Bank of England. OTooles major break came when he was chosen to play T. E. Lawrence in Sir David Leans Lawrence of Arabia, after Marlon Brando proved unavailable and his performance was ranked number one in Premiere magazines list of the 100 Greatest Performances of All Time. The role introduced him to US audiences and earned him the first of his eight nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actor, T. E. Lawrence, portrayed by OToole, was selected in 2003 as the tenth-greatest hero in cinema history by the American Film Institute. OToole was one of several actors to be Oscar-nominated for playing the role in two different films, he played King Henry II in both Becket and The Lion in Winter. OToole played Hamlet under Laurence Oliviers direction in the production of the Royal National Theatre in 1963. He demonstrated his comedic abilities alongside Peter Sellers in the Woody Allen-scripted comedy Whats New Pussycat and he appeared in Seán OCaseys Juno and the Paycock at Dublins Gaiety Theatre. In 1969, he played the role in the film Goodbye, Mr. Chips
