Peter O'Toole

From The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia
Peter O'Toole as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the movie FairyTale: A True Story (1997)

Peter O'Toole (born 2 august 1932) is an Irish producer and actor who played the role of Sherlock Holmes on stage and TV and Conan Doyle on cinema.

In 1976, he played 3 different detectives (Sherlock Holmes, Lord Peter Wimsey, Philip Marlowe) on stage in the Peter King's play: Dead Eyed Dicks [1] with John Standing as Dr. Watson.

He also lent his voice to Sherlock Holmes in 1983 and 1984 in four cartoons, adaptations of the original novels: The Sign of Four, The Baskerville Curse, A Study in Scarlet and Valley of Fear.

In 1997, he played the role of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in FairyTale: A True Story.

The more remarkable in the career of Peter O'Toole, from a sherlockian perspective, are the films in which he should have played the role of Sherlock Holmes. In 1970, Billy Wilder had thought to entrust him the lead role in The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, alongside a Watson played by Peter Sellers. But he chose the lesser known actors (Robert Stephens and Colin Blakely). In 1979, a new opportunity occured with the filming of Murder by Decree. Bob Clark think Peter O'Toole could play Holmes with Laurence Olivier as Watson, but the two actors could not get along since a few years so it was Christopher Plummer who played Sherlock Holmes.


Theatre


TV


Cinema