Peter O'Toole as British Army officer T E Lawrence in 'Lawrence Of Arabia'
LAWRENCE of Arabia heart-throb Peter O’Toole was known as much for his outrageous drinking habits as his Hollywood roles.
But the rabblerouser’s inner circle was all too aware of his other passion — seducing gorgeous women, allegedly some 1,033 of them (the same number as Don Juan).
In the early 1960s, a pal bet O’Toole $150 he couldn’t sleep with three blond bombshells of the moment — Diana Dors, Jayne Mansfield and Anita Ekberg. It’s unclear how long it took him, but O’Toole won the wager with ease.
Once asked which of his leading ladies he had not beguiled, he replied, “Katharine Hepburn called me a pig and a drunkard, but I can’t think of any other ladies I missed.”
In the new biography Peter O’Toole: Hellraiser, Sexual Outlaw, Irish Rebel (Blood Moon Productions), authors Darwin Porter and Danforth Prince serve up an epic account of the late actor’s carnal experiences.
“Off-screen, [O’Toole] starred in weeklong binges and sex orgies of near-biblical proportions,” Prince says.
Here’s a selection of the book’s most rip-roaring revelations about the lustful life of the actor, who died in 2013 at age 81.
Peter O'Toole holds the record for the most Academy Award acting nominations without a win.Source:Getty Images
He lost his virginity to a stripper called Bubble LaRue
In 1945, at age 13, a virginal O’Toole was accosted in his home city of Leeds, England, by a big-bosomed, Spanish-speaking widow in her 50s with dyed blond hair. She told him how she was brought to Leeds by her late husband, whom she had met while working as a cabaret entertainer and lady of the night in a bar in Barcelona.
Over the next five months, O’Toole visited Bubbles at her apartment every afternoon after school. “She taught me every sexual trick I’ve known in my life,” he said.
Their romance foundered after she asked her boy toy to join in a threesome with a paying male customer.
He had an eight-year, on-off affair with Princess Margaret
O’Toole, who met Queen Elizabeth II’s extroverted little sister in 1963 at a Royal Command Performance of his film Lord Jim, repeatedly bedded the princess as her marriage to Lord Snowdon collapsed, the book claims.
Margaret would invite him back to her apartments at Kensington Palace. The day after their first dalliance, O’Toole was seen driving around London in her old Rolls-Royce Phantom, which she had discarded for a new model.
They would slip away to her hideaway on the Caribbean island of Mustique, and she twice took him to the private villa in the Moroccan city of Marrakech where Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill retreated during the January 1943 Casablanca Conference.
After one trip, O’Toole described to a pal how he joined the princess in a giant bathtub. “We floated around in scented water with flower blossoms on the surface,” he said. “For the next three days, I smelled like an overperfumed whore.”
Princess Margaret meeting actors Peter O'Toole and Daliah Lavi, in 1965.Source:Getty Images
He slept with a transgender woman
During the making of Lawrence of Arabia in 1961, O’Toole was the toast of European society as excitement grew about the epic movie. The cast and crew moved to Seville, Spain, for the shooting of final scenes.
At a party at the home of Gen. Francisco Franco’s daughter, Carmen, O’Toole met April Ashley, a model and fashion icon who, unbeknown to him, was transgender. She invited him back to her villa. At a climactic moment in the early hours, she whispered in O’Toole’s ear, “I was born a boy.” She later claimed, “Peter was too far gone at that point to worry about what sex I had been born.”
He may have impregnated Audrey Hepburn
O’Toole met the gamine star Hepburn shortly before they filmed the romantic comedy How to Steal a Million in 1965. At the time, she was married to the actor Mel Ferrer. They quickly fell into bed. “I believe that an actress has to be at least a little bit in love with her leading man and vice versa,” Hepburn told him during the first meeting at The Ritz in Paris.
Their passionate affair continued during filming, and Hepburn found she was pregnant — either by O’Toole or Ferrer — in December 1965. She miscarried within a month of sharing the news with O’Toole.
The actor, who had fallen in love with her, was devastated. He held out the prospect of their making another film together and continuing their affair — but it didn’t happen.
Audrey Hepburn and Peter O'Toole in 'How To Steal A Million', in 1966.Source:Getty Images
Elizabeth Taylor wanted him as her leading man
In 1960, O’Toole caught the eye of Taylor, then married to singer Eddie Fisher. She wanted to check their on-screen chemistry with a view to him becoming her leading man: a Spencer Tracy to her Katharine Hepburn. But the chemistry spilt off screen.
They first slept together when she invited to him to her suite at London’s Dorchester hotel to discuss him playing Marc Antony in her 1963 vehicle, Cleopatra. (The role went to Richard Burton.)
O’Toole, then married to actress Siân Phillips, recalled to his friend that he was terrified. “I was going to fu*k Elizabeth Taylor, something at least half the men on the planet wanted to do,” he said. “For the first time in my life with a woman, I was nervous, fearing she might critique my performance.”
She must have liked it. They continued a decade-long fling that culminated in a final romp while making the panned 1972 film Under Milk Wood with her then-husband, Burton.
Elizabeth Taylor played Cleopatra in 1963.Source:Getty Images
He taunted Burton about Taylor
O’Toole’s favourite drinking buddy was the Welsh thespian Burton, with whom he starred in 1964’s Becket.
Before they became pals, O’Toole had embarked on his on-and-off affair with Taylor, Burton’s wife.
In 1967, six years after O’Toole first slept with her, his friendship with Burton was severely tested. The two got into a drunken brawl at a party abroad a yacht in Sardinia during filming of Taylor and Burton’s movie Boom! O’Toole and Burton often argued about who was the greater actor but, this time, the row spilt over into who was the better lover. The spat got violent, and O’Toole confessed to Burton his long-held secret.
“I’ve been boffing your wife for years, and she tells me I’m much better in the sack,” he declared.
Burton stormed off the yacht and disappeared for a week, shutting down production of Boom! while he went “wenching.” O’Toole kept Taylor company, staying in her suite during her husband’s absence.
Richard Burton surprises co-stars Elizabeth Taylor and Peter O'Toole by joining them in bed for a photo opportunity, during the filming of a love scene for 'Under Milk Wood', in 1972.Source:Getty Images
He was seduced by Ava Gardner and later shared her with Burton
O’Toole and man-eater Ava Gardner first got together when they were introduced by director John Huston in February 1960. “I have nothing but praise for the woman,” O’Toole told an associate after their three-night tryst at London’s Savoy Hotel. “She told me I was 10 times the lover that [Clark] Gable was, but not quite the equal of Robert Mitchum.”
They reunited a few years later in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where O’Toole had bought a vacation villa near Burton and Taylor’s. Gardner was filming 1964’s Night of the Iguana with Burton when she engaged in a ménage à trois with the two men. The trio had a night of drinking “cactus piss” at the city’s Cactus Bar, ending with them retiring to a cabin.
“There’s a fire raging inside me,” Gardner told them. “And I think that it will take two stout-hearted men, a Welshman and an Irishman, to extinguish the flame.” O’Toole later told his business partner, Jules Buck: “She was right. It took the both of us to satisfy her that night.”
American actress Ava Gardner, circa 1950. The actress died in 1990.Source:Getty Images
He comforted Vivien Leigh during her divorce from Laurence Olivier
In 1958, fabled beauty Leigh confided in O’Toole about her crumbling 20-year marriage to Shakespearean actor Laurence Olivier. Their friendship quickly developed into romance after dinner at London’s Ivy restaurant when the brunette asked him to stay the night.
Shortly after Leigh’s 50th birthday in 1963, O’Toole told his friend Kenneth Griffin that he had sex with her in a room that was a shrine to Olivier, who scandalously left her for the younger actress Joan Plowright.
“It was a bit off-putting to make love to Vivien in a room with nine photographs of Larry Olivier,” he said. “But nevertheless, I rose to the occasion.” Their involvement continued up until Leigh’s death at age 53 of tuberculosis in 1967.
Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh after visiting a London theatre to see a revival of 'Dear Brutus'.Source:Getty Images
He had a fling with a horror-movie queen and ended up in jail
While in Rome filming Huston’s 1966 epic, The Bible, O’Toole romanced English actress Barbara Steele, who had a cult following in Italy for her schlocky horror flicks. The duo was hounded by the paparazzi.
Early one morning, after leaving a cafe, O’Toole got into a scuffle with a photographer who snapped a flash photo in Steele’s face, blinding her. O’Toole, not usually violent, punched the man, who fell back onto the sidewalk, injuring his head. O’Toole was slapped in handcuffs and put in jail. He was released after a few hours, ordered not to leave Rome, and informed that officials would soon come to his hotel to confiscate his passport and luggage.
Ever the quick thinker, O’Toole called his stunt double, Peter Perkins, who checked out of the hotel pretending to be him. Meanwhile, the actor slipped out of the rear entrance and made a run for the airport with Steele. To disguise himself, he put on the fake beard he had worn for The Bible.
On the flight to Paris, O’Toole concocted a plan to boycott any film that required shooting in Rome, recruiting other A-listers to his cause such as Taylor, Burton and Gardner. “We’ll cost the fu*kers millions of dollars for treating me like this,” he said to anyone who would listen.
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