O'Toole started his training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London and began working in the theatre, gaining recognition as a Shakespearean actor at the Bristol Old Vic and with the English Stage Company.

In 1959, he made his West End debut in The Long and the Short and the Tall, and played the title role in Hamlet in the National Theatre's first production in 1963.

(1965), How to Steal a Million (1966), Man of La Mancha (1972), Caligula (1979), Zulu Dawn (1979), and Supergirl (1984), with supporting roles in The Last Emperor (1987), Bright Young Things (2003), Troy (2004), Stardust (2007), and Dean Spanley (2008).

On television, he received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for his portrayal of Bishop Pierre Cauchon in the CBS miniseries Joan of Arc (1999).

"[12] Upon leaving school, O'Toole obtained employment as a trainee journalist and photographer on the Yorkshire Evening Post,[13] until he was called up for national service as a signaller in the Royal Navy.

"[18] O'Toole 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 was based at the Bristol Old Vic from 1956 to 1958, appearing in productions of King Lear, The Recruiting Officer, Major Barbara, Othello, and The Slave of Truth (all 1956).

He hoped The Holiday would take him to the West End but it ultimately folded in the provinces; during that show he met Siân Phillips who became his first wife.

In 1960 he had a nine-month season at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford, appearing in The Taming of the Shrew (as Petruchio), The Merchant of Venice (as Shylock) and Troilus and Cressida (as Thersites).

[30] Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote in 1989 "The then unknown Peter O'Toole, with his charmingly diffident manner and his hair and eyes looking unnaturally gold and blue, accounted for no small part of this film's appeal to impressionable young fans".

The Times wrote, "Mr O'Toole, like Olivier, is an electrifyingly outgoing actor, and it is a surprise to see him make his first appearance...with his features twisted into melancholy"[33] He performed in Baal (1963) at the Phoenix Theatre.

(1965), a comedy based on a script by Woody Allen, taking over a role originally meant for Warren Beatty and starring alongside Peter Sellers.

[20] Sam Spiegel, producer of Lawrence of Arabia, reunited O'Toole with Omar Sharif in The Night of the Generals (1967), which was a box office disappointment.

[25][42] In 1969, he played the title role in the film Goodbye, Mr. Chips, a musical adaptation of James Hilton's novella, starring opposite Petula Clark.

O'Toole fulfilled a lifetime ambition in 1970 when he performed on stage in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, alongside Donal McCann, at Dublin's Abbey Theatre.

He was reunited with Richard Burton in a film version of Under Milk Wood (1972) by Dylan Thomas, produced by himself and Buck; Elizabeth Taylor co-starred.

[25][20] In 1972, he played both Miguel de Cervantes and his fictional creation Don Quixote in Man of La Mancha, the motion picture adaptation of the 1965 hit Broadway musical, opposite Sophia Loren.

O'Toole and co-star James Coco, who played both Cervantes's manservant and Sancho Panza, both received Golden Globe nominations for their performances.

In 1979, O'Toole starred as Tiberius in the controversial Penthouse-funded biopic Caligula acting alongside Malcolm McDowell, Helen Mirren and John Gielgud.

[52] He focused on television, doing an adaptation of Man and Superman (1983), Svengali (1983), Pygmalion (1984), and Kim (1984), and providing the voice of Sherlock Holmes for a series of animated TV movies.

[53] O'Toole returned to feature films in Supergirl (1984), Creator (1985), Club Paradise (1986), The Last Emperor (1987) as Sir Reginald Johnston, and High Spirits (1988).

The younger Casanova, seen for most of the action, was played by David Tennant, who had to wear contact lenses to match his brown eyes to O'Toole's blue.

He also appeared in the second season of Showtime's drama series The Tudors (2008), portraying Pope Paul III, who excommunicates King Henry VIII from the church; an act which leads to a showdown between the two men in seven of the ten episodes.

He played a role in the creation of the current form of the well-known Irish folk song "Carrickfergus" which he related to Dominic Behan, who put it in print and made a recording in the mid-1960s.

[74] The actor in a later interview expressed that he no longer considered himself as much of a fan following the demolition of Roker Park and the subsequent move to the Stadium of Light.

He resided on the Sky Road, just outside Clifden, Connemara, County Galway, from 1963, and at the height of his career maintained homes in Dublin, London, and Paris (at the Ritz, which was where his character supposedly lived in the film How to Steal a Million).

[citation needed] On 21 April 2017, the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin announced that Kate O'Toole had placed her father's archive at the Humanities Research Centre.

It joins the archives of several of O'Toole's collaborators and friends, including Donald Wolfit, Eli Wallach, Peter Glenville, Sir Tom Stoppard, and Dame Edith Evans.

O'Toole initially balked about accepting, and wrote the Academy a letter saying that he was "still in the game" and would like more time to "win the lovely bugger outright".

He joked with Robert Osborne, during an interview at Turner Classic Movies' film festival that he's the "Biggest Loser of All Time", due to his lack of an Academy Award, after many nominations.