In pictures: Peter O'Toole
- Published
Peter O'Toole was relatively unknown when he was cast as Lawrence of Arabia. Here he is having a goodbye chat at the airport with his wife, the Welsh actress Sian Philips, before leaving to work on the film.
O'Toole was 30 when he played Lawrence of Arabia, the hero of David Lean's Oscar-winning epic that thrust him into the superstar bracket in 1962.
Shot in the Jordanian desert, it was his fourth film. O'Toole, who won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (Rada), said his career began "quite by chance... not out of burning ambition but because of all the wonderful looking birds".
The success of Lawrence of Arabia saw O'Toole feature alongside some of Hollywood's biggest stars. He filmed How to Steal a Million with Audrey Hepburn in 1965.
O'Toole won earlier acclaim for his role as Hamlet at the Bristol Old Vic in 1955. Here he sits in the dressing room before a National Theatre production of the play in London in 1963.
O'Toole had two daughters with Sian Philips, before the breakdown of their 16-year marriage in the 1970s. The decade also saw an end to his excessive drinking when he was diagnosed with pancreatitis.
He returned to the stage in a blaze of publicity in 1980 to play Shakespeare's Macbeth. Crowds flocked to see him, making it a great financial success, despite being panned by critics.
He was nominated for an Academy Award on eight occasions, most recently for Venus in 2007. But O'Toole did not take home an Oscar until 2003 - when the actress Meryl Streep presented him with an honorary lifetime achievement award.
After immortalising his handprints in cement at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles in 2011, he celebrated with his eldest daughter Kate and his son Lorcan, who was born in 1983 after he had a relationship with the US model Karen Somerville.
In his final years, O'Toole bowed out of acting, announcing in the summer of 2012 that "it was time to chuck in the sponge".
With a career spanning 50 years, tributes poured in following the death of O'Toole, whose agent said he was "one of a kind in the very best sense and a giant in his field".