PETER O'TOOLE ON VANITY, ROMANCE AND THAT EVER-ELUSIVE OSCAR.

Byline: Bob Strauss

Film Writer

Peter O'Toole paid a rare visit to L.A. from his London home this week, receiving a standing ovation at the Academy Award nominees luncheon Monday and proving, during an interview the following day that rumors he's unwell are wildly exaggerated.

His handshake like an iron clamp and pale blue eyes flickering with mischief, the 74-year-old Irish actor was full of laughs, droll banter and energetic enthusiasm as he looked back on his career and talked about his latest film, "Venus," which has earned him his eighth best actor Oscar nomination. The others were for "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962), "Becket" (1964), "The Lion in Winter" (1968), "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" (1969), "The Ruling Class" (1972), "The Stunt Man" (1980) and "My Favorite Year" (1982).

O'Toole has yet to win one of the statuettes, although he did receive an honorary Oscar in 2003. And while one doesn't want to go the cliched "If there's any justice ..." route, his work in "Venus" may well be the richest, most complete characterization he's ever put on film. His elderly journeyman actor Maurice, though in fragile health, exudes a fun-loving lifetime's worth of sophistication, passion and irresponsible self-centeredness as he lusts after a colleague's uncouth grand-niece, played by talented newcomer Jodie Whittaker. Pervy as that may sound, O'Toole brings such tenderness, understanding and self-effacing hilarity to the role that you can't help but feel for the naughty old geezer.

Whatever you do, though, don't call it the crowning achievement of O'Toole's own, indulgently celebrated life in the theater and cinema.

It would be foolish to say he's just getting started. Never much of an egotist, he has no problem acknowledging the limitations of age.

But as he said when they first offered him that honorary Oscar, O'Toole is still in the game, and it would be even more foolish to bet that there isn't a lot of great work to come.

Q: Maurice is such a wonderfully detailed character. Was it all on the page, or did you bring a lot of your own ideas to the piece?

A: For me, now as it was in the beginning, everything is the script. Good parts make good actors. If you find a good part that's also in a very good script, then you've struck gold, and it needs (to) be done -- done as well as possible. The fact that we have the same job, Maurice and me, that's about all. There are no other connections that I can see. But then again, I never can.

Q: Nevertheless, many people are interpreting the film as a kind of summing up of Peter O'Toole's life and work.

A: Well, it's inevitable. And I'm delighted that people do. In my view, our business is about that kind of pretending. Other than people in the profession who would know that there's such a thing as a part and me, and the two aren't related; isn't that the whole point of fiction? I mean, it's life imitating art and all that.

Q: Could you see yourself ending up as an actor scraping by from job to job like Maurice, though, if David Lean hadn't tapped you to play T.E. Lawrence?

A: No. I was doing very well, thank you, before "Lawrence of Arabia." I'd made a few movies. I was leading the company at Stratford. I was only 27 -- I was playing Shylock, Petruchio. I was doing all right. And if that sounds in any way dismissive, I don't mean it to. "Lawrence of Arabia" was a once-in-a-lifetime, great experience.

Q: Do tell.

A: I loved doing it, tough as it was. And it was tough. Sometimes the heat hurt. But we were a wonderful company -- and in the hardest possible conditions. We did film in Arabia, and we were at one point 400 miles away from the nearest water, to give you an idea.

But David Lean had said to me on the very first day, "Well Pete, off you go on a great adventure." And I had not done that many movies, so I did look upon it that way, and all the hardships and various difficulties of filming in the desert did make it an adventure.

Q: There was so much comment back then about your looks. You were called beautiful at least as often as handsome. A young photo of you is even referenced that way in "Venus." So how do you get through all that without ending up totally vain?

A: Have you ever known anybody who thought they were beautiful? I've worked with some of the most beautiful women in the world, and they have no confidence in their looks at all. My dresser goes potty because I never look at myself in the mirror, and I am a slob. He's always having to wipe cream off my cheek as we tramp along the corridor.

Q: In "Venus," were you freaked out to play a frail old bloke who's facing his own mortality?

A: On the contrary, it rejuvenates. Good work, doing a good job with it -- I was like a child. "Venus" doesn't meditate on mortality, it expresses it, you see it in action. And another thing is, it is terribly funny.

Q: We know you broke a hip during the production's 2005 Christmas hiatus. But you're obviously healthy enough to have recovered quickly.

A: It's very funny, actually. About 18 months ago, a doctor gave me a bit of a lecture about cigarettes and drinking -- the usual. Then he said, "What do you do for exercise?"

Well, I've never exercised in my life. I've often said that the only exercise I take is following the coffins of friends who took exercise.

So he said, "Well, exercise." So I went to an indoor school of cricket and joined in with international pros. I did all their routines for six weeks and came out feeling wonderful.

Anyway, we were filming away and came Boxing Day. Now, normally on Boxing Day or any day I'm not working -- or any day at all, for that matter -- it takes me a long time to wake up. It takes me an hour to get one foot out of the covers. I have an enormous, good cough, feel dreadful, then slowly but surely putter toward the bathroom. So came this Boxing Day morning. I woke up and went, "Oh, we're not shooting. How lovely!" Popped out of bed and tripped over a pair of shoes, busted my hip. But it was OK. I was walking in 48 hours.

Q: And now you're running your eighth Oscar race. Do you feel like you've proven something after receiving that honorary award that you thought you were too young for?

A: Well, I thought it was a bit premature. But there's no sense of vindication now, not at all.

Q: How do you like your chances this year?

A: Well, my expectations are low, so I can hardly be disappointed too much. I've learned the hard way.

Q: As long as we're considering past lessons, is there anything you wish you'd done differently? Or hadn't done, perhaps involving too much liquor?

A: No. Look, I do have the odd thing that is regrettable. But I don't regret one drop. People get it wrong, you know. They think you're some sort of dreary drunk, hanging around bars. It was merely a fuel for what we were doing. Solitary drinking doesn't interest me, it never has done, and it never will. Give me a dance, or give me some fun or whatever.

I've finally learned, though, in my septuagenarian wisdom, to pace myself. Ha ha ha ha ha!

Q: What about women these days? Seeing anyone steadily?

A: No I'm not. I'm footloose and fancy free.

Q: So you're playing the field?

A: Should the field open up in my direction, I might just gently tiptoe through the clover.

Q: Beside, um, that, is there anything that you haven't accomplished that you would have liked to, or might still do?

A: As a young man, I wanted to play King Lear. But King Lear takes a lot of puff, and if you don't play him before you're 45, 50, you're never going to get through it. But that's about the only thing I've wanted to do that I haven't. The rest? Listen, I've done it, and I'm very, very pleased. I've been enormously fortunate, and I've enjoyed a great deal of it.

And I continue to enjoy it. My best years may be yet to come!

Bob Strauss, [phone]

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CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) Coming of Age

With 'Venus' his eight nomination, Peter O'Toole could finally bring home a best actor Oscar

(2) no caption (Peter O'Toole)

(3) Oscar nominee Peter O'Toole and Jodie Whittaker star in "Venus."