Peter O'Toole and Joan Fontaine RIP -- December 16, 2013

I was sad to learn of the deaths of Peter O'Toole and Joan Fontaine. 

It is a wonder that Peter O'Toole lived as long as he did, because he had been a hard drinker.  I loved almost everything I saw or heard him in, from Lawrence of Arabia to Ratatouille.

One summer I took a Joseph Conrad summer class from a favorite professor who wanted to do something out of his usual area, which was Old and Middle English.  No one else knew how to work a 16mm projector, so I ran Lord Jim, with an anamorphic lens, which I had never before touched. 

I still hear people quote lines from My Favorite Year.  "Ladies are unwell. Gentlemen vomit."

He played Sherlock Holmes in a series of animated adaptions. 

The image shows him with Audrey Hepburn on the set of How to Steal a Million, which was released in 1965.

Joan Fontaine and her sister, Olivia De Havilland were Hollywood stars and cousins of aircraft designer Sir Geoffrey de Havilland.  Joan Fontaine appeared in Hitchcock's Rebecca, his first movie in America, and Suspicion. 

I hope that Miss Fontaine and her sister spoke to each other before it was too late.