1.21.2011

guess who?

His father was a bookie.

He was good friends with Richard Harris.

He was almost cast as Professor Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady due to concerns that Rex Harrison was too old for the part, but his salary demands were more than producer Jack L. Warner was willing to pay.

In 1997, he was coaching cricket professionally in England.

He said, “The only exercise I take is walking behind the coffins of friends who took exercise.”

The DVD of one of his more recent movies includes a two page biography which includes the following conclusion: “He died in 2003 after a long illness”. Whoever entered that erroneous fact must have been very surprised to see him show up at the Academy Awards after the DVD was released.

When he was named the recipient of a Special Oscar for lifetime achievement in 2003, he originally intended to turn it down feeling that the lifetime award signaled the end of his career. He wrote the Academy a letter stating that he was "still in the game" and would like more time to "win the lovely bugger outright." It was only after the Academy informed him that they were bestowing the award on him whether he came to collect it or not that he relented.

3 comments:

Erika said...

Wow. I just can't really picture him as Henry Higgins. He's great as Simon Dermott, though! ;D

Laney said...

I actually knew most of the info and didn't have to guess off the photo. Not even he could make "Troy" watchable.

Millie Motts said...

Correct - Peter O'Toole.