Peter O'Toole Oscar Nomination Number Two: An Analysis

PETER O'TOOLE OSCAR NOMINATION NUMBER TWO: AN ANALYSIS

It is a curious thing that Peter O'Toole's second Oscar nomination would feature not one, not two, but three great actors who would never win an Oscar. O'Toole would also face off against his costar for the prize neither ultimately ever won. 

The 37th Academy Awards were in great tune as two musicals dominated the nominations. The original musical Mary Poppins was the frontrunner at 13 Oscar nominations, one shy of the all-time record. Its closest rival was the film version of My Fair Lady at 12 nominations. That year, another film had 12 nominations. That other film was the historical epic Becket. 

Not one but two of those 12 nominations belong to our perennial Oscar bridesmaids. As stated, this was Peter O'Toole's second nomination for Best Actor. This was Richard Burton's third overall Oscar nomination. Like O'Toole, Becket was the second nomination for Burton in Best Actor. Unlike O'Toole, Burton's first nomination had been as Supporting Actor for My Cousin Rachel. 

Out of the three other nominated men, only one was a previous winner. Anthony Quinn had won twice in the Supporting Actor category for Viva Zapata! and Lust for Life. His nomination for Zorba the Greek was his first in the Leading Actor category. 

The others were still on the hunt for their first competitive win. My Fair Lady's Rex Harrison, like O'Toole, was on his second nomination. He had been nominated the year before for Cleopatra. Peter Sellers, the final nominee, is a curious case. This is technically his second Oscar nomination but his first acting nomination. Sellers had a previous nomination for Best Live-Action Short Film for The Running Jumping and Standing Still Film.

In terms of this Best Actor race, Peter O'Toole faced good though not great odds to win on his second nomination. There were some hurdles. All of his fellow Best Actor nominees were in Best Picture contenders. Therefore, the competition was strong overall. There was nothing, however, that could break O'Toole out from the pack.

The biggest hurdle this time around was Richard Burton. It is almost always the case that when two actors from the same film are nominated in the same category, they cancel each other out. That is not always the case. The Godfather Part II had three actors nominated for Best Supporting Actor (Robert De Niro, Michael V. Gazzo and Lee Strasberg). Despite having three performances from the same film, De Niro won over his costars. More recently, both Jamie Lee Curtis and Stephanie Hsu were nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Everything Everywhere All at Once. Curtis managed to beat out her costar. Those however are the exceptions rather than the rule.

Up to this point, only once had someone won Best Actor over his costar/fellow Best Actor nominee. That had happened three years earlier to this year when Maximillian Schell beat his Judgement at Nuremberg costar Spencer Tracy. The other four times when two or even three actors from the same film had been nominated, they all lost. 

Technically, Bing Crosby managed to beat his fellow Going My Way Best Actor nominee Barry Fitzgerald the second time that costars faced off against each other in this category. However, Fitzgerald had been nominated in both Lead and Supporting Actor for the same role in the same film. Making things more bizarre, Fitzgerald won Best Supporting Actor for Going My Way. As such, he both won and lost for playing the same role in the same movie! There could have been a curious situation where Barry Fitzgerald could have won two Oscars for the same role in the same film. 

In short, history was very much against Peter O'Toole and Richard Burton winning Best Actor for Becket. O'Toole and Burton's chances to win this time were hampered by having to compete with his Becket costar. O'Toole also faced surprisingly strong competition from the other nominees. No one was a frontrunner nor completely out of the running. It would be a fight to the finish to see who would walk off with the Oscar.

And now, let us look at the five men vying for this prize. The nominees for Best Actor in a Leading Role of 1964 were:

Richard Burton in Becket

Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady

Peter O'Toole in Becket

Anthony Quinn in Zorba the Greek

Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove 

O'Toole's first turn as the mischievous monarch Henry II was no match for the elocution professor. He would have no luck the second time he was nominated as this lusty Plantagenet king.

As stated, it is more than probable that Peter O'Toole and Richard Burton knocked each other out of contention. This would happen five years later to two of his rivals when Midnight Cowboy's Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight both lost Best Actor to John Wayne in True Grit. 

That would leave three men in contention: Rex Harrison, Anthony Quinn and Peter Sellers. How did Harrison end up triumphing over everyone?

I think we can put that down to two numbers. Twelve and eight. 

Zorba the Greek had seven nominations. Dr. Strangelove had four. My Fair Lady had twelve. Zorba the Greek won three Oscars: Best Supporting Actress, Best Black-and-White Cinematography and Best Art Direction. Dr. Strangelove won none. Curiously, My Fair Lady also won Cinematography and Art Direction but in the Color category when the Academy split them into two separate categories. One wonders which would have won had Cinematography and Art Direction been combined.

My guess is that Zorba the Greek would have received only Best Supporting Actress, curiously enough beating out My Fair Lady. Interestingly enough, Becket won only one of its twelve nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay. More interestingly, Becket's sole Oscar win came by beating Dr. Strangelove, My Fair Lady and Zorba the Greek.

This 1-12 record, one of the lowest in Oscar history, is important to see how Peter O'Toole and Richard Burton lost while Rex Harrison won. Becket was highly appreciated. However, it was almost totally rejected. Prestige could not beat out popular. 

Out of the ten categories where they were in direct competition, My Fair Lady cleaned out Becket's clock, beating it in seven out of those ten. As stated, Becket won over My Fair Lady in only Adapted Screenplay (Becket's sole Oscar win). In the remaining two categories, both Becket and My Fair Lady lost to another film. One was when Topkapi's Peter Ustinov won Best Supporting Actor over Becket's John Gielgud and My Fair Lady's Stanley Holloway. The other was Film Editing, where Mary Poppins triumphed over them.

Becket, and to a lesser extent Mary Poppins, were swamped by My Fair Lady. Mary Poppins had the most overall nominations at 13. It did walk away with a respectable five. However, My Fair Lady had a better record: eight out of twelve. With My Fair Lady dominating so much, Rex Harrison's win seems all but certain. However, while the dual nominations knocked Peter O'Toole and Richard Burton out, what about the other two nominees?

Anthony Quinn already had two Oscars. Would they give him a third? At that time, it would have been almost impossible to have one actor winning three Oscars. I think Walter Brennan had been the only one to do so, all for Supporting Actor. The rarity of having one actor take three Oscars knocks Quinn out. What then about Sellers? Dr. Strangelove was less popular with Academy members. It had a mere four nominations. It was not well-supported by Columbia Studios, certainly less so than Warner Brothers supported My Fair Lady. The latter was a prestige production, opulent, the film version of a wildly popular Broadway hit. The former was a Cold War comedy about the end of the world.

Seller gave a bravura performance. Unfortunately, he did not have Lerner & Lowe songs to talk in pitch to. The mad scientist, egghead President and stiff upper lipped British officer were also no match for the elocution professor.

And now, for my ranking from Best to Worst:

Peter Sellers

Richard Burton

Peter O'Toole

Anthony Quinn

Rex Harrison

Will Rex Harrison rank among my worst Best Actor Winners whenever I opt to do that retrospective? He's teetering on the edge of being on that list. I figure that people do remember Harrison's recreation of his Broadway performance. However, I think more people remember Sellers' triple turn in Dr. Strangelove.

Peter Sellers did not falter in any of his three performances in Dr. Strangelove. Each of them was true to the character. I figure that perhaps Sellers' final scene where the mad scientist really goes all out in the cray-cray might have put some Academy voters off. However, I think that Dr. Strangelove himself was supposed to be so insane. That scene, that performance, has become iconic. One need only say, "MEIN FUHRER, I CAN WALK!" and know you what you mean. I do not think that the same can be said about Rex Harrison's poor, fussy, misogynist Professor Higgins.

I put Richard Burton second because I found the transformation of St. Thomas Becket to be well-acted and quite moving. Burton's character was something of a libertine who had a religious conversion. Burton was not grandiose or over-the-top. Instead, he was remarkably quiet and still for almost all of the film. I will concede that his death scene was slightly over-the-top. However, it is a minor detail to the overall performance. 

He edged out Peter O'Toole, who was brilliant in the role. His Henry II was conflicted, sometimes crazed, even contradictory. This was a man unapologetic about the delights of power. He also was someone who genuinely loved Thomas Becket until he stopped being his drinking buddy and started being a moral adversary. In his rages both for and against Becket, Peter O'Toole showed himself a powerful but flawed figure.

Putting Anthony Quinn low does not mean that I thought he did not merit the nomination. I would have been fine if Quinn had won that third Oscar as the lusty Hellenist. Zorba is now one of Anthony Quinn's most iconic roles. It is more impressive when you think that the embodiment of Greek exuberance was in real life of Mexican and Irish ancestry. 

Now, we come to Rex Harrison. His performance as the pompous, arrogant Professor Henry Higgins was...fine. It is not terrible. It is correct. It is exactly what the role was supposed to be. However, is it really the best out of the five? I figure that it is probable that most people remember Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady than they do either Peter O'Toole or Richard Burton in Becket. I do not think, however, that being remembered makes one better. Moreover, I think more people do remember Peter Sellers and Anthony Quinn in Dr. Strangelove and Zorba the Greek respectively than they do Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady. 

I do not think that Rex Harrison was terrible or that his win was a travesty. I just think that all four of his fellow nominees that year were better. 

Peter Sellers should have won Best Actor for Dr. Strangelove over Rex Harrison for My Fair Lady.

In conclusion, the Academy made the right choice in not awarding Peter O'Toole the Best Actor Oscar on his second nomination.