As well as sweeping the boards at the Oscars, 1962’s Lawrence of Arabia also made an overnight star of its leading actor, Peter O’Toole.
O’Toole is one of cinema’s biggest stars, nominated for a record eight Academy Awards (though sadly, never winning one) in a career spanning five decades. But O’Toole was also a notorious hell-raiser, known as much for his outrageous behavior off-screen as he was for his impeccable performances on it. And few tales of O’Toole’s drunkenness at the height of his fame match something that he and his friend—the fellow actor Peter Finch—did while in Dublin in the mid-1960s.
The pair had been carousing around the city, drinking and dining, all day. Finally, walking back to Finch’s apartment in the early hours of the morning, they stopped by a tiny pub for one last drink. By then, of course, the bar was closed, and the landlord was already preparing to lock the pub for the evening. Keen to have another tipple, however, O’Toole and Finch were forced to take matters into their own hands. They made the landlord an offer, signed a check, and bought the bar outright. Now its legal owners, they could drink as much as they wished—and happily proceeded to precisely do that.
The following morning, the reality of what they had done soon dawned on them, and O’Toole was left to frantically phone his accountant to stop the check he had unwisely signed the day before. The pair then sheepishly made their way to the bar and were met by the landlord. Happily, he hadn’t yet cashed the check, but was instead willing to give them their money back on one condition: That the pair promised to behave themselves from then on.
Whether they were true to their promise or not is unclear, but reportedly the pair became good friends with the landlord and remained a regular at his bar for the rest of his life.