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50 free Peter O'Toole trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Peter O'Toole trivia quiz covers the blue-eyed hellraiser from his disputed birth in Leeds or Connemara to his final roles. The easy questions ask which desert epic made him a star, which English king he played in two different films, how many competitive Oscars he won, which Pixar villain he voiced and who presented him with his honorary Academy Award. From there it moves through the classics: Becket, The Lion in Winter, Goodbye Mr Chips, The Ruling Class, The Stunt Man, My Favorite Year and Venus. The hard end is for people who have read both volumes of Loitering with Intent: the RADA classmates he called 'dotty', the actor who turned down Lawrence before him, Noël Coward's 'Florence of Arabia' quip, the Macbeth that drew the worst reviews of his career, the football club he supported, the reason he refused a knighthood, the sonnets he read every day and the letter he wrote asking the Academy to wait so he could 'win the lovely bugger outright'. Every answer was checked against the encyclopaedia entries on Peter O'Toole, Lawrence of Arabia, Becket, The Lion in Winter, The Ruling Class, The Stunt Man, My Favorite Year, Venus, Ratatouille, How to Steal a Million, Man of La Mancha and Siân Phillips before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. Our Lawrence of Arabia, Richard Burton and classic British actors quizzes are natural next stops.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Peter O'Toole shot to international fame playing which real-life figure in David Lean's 1962 epic?
T. E. Lawrence
Premiere magazine later ranked it the greatest screen performance of all time, and it earned the first of his eight Best Actor nominations.
Q 02O'Toole was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar eight times. How many competitive Oscars did he win?
None
He holds the record for most acting nominations without a win, tied with Glenn Close, and called himself the 'Biggest Loser of All Time'.
Q 03Which English king did O'Toole play in both Becket (1964) and The Lion in Winter (1968)?
Henry II
It made him only the second actor after Bing Crosby to be Oscar-nominated twice for the same character in different films.
Q 04In Pixar's Ratatouille (2007) O'Toole voiced which character?
Anton Ego, the food critic
Animator Jan Pinkava designed the critic to resemble a vulture.
Q 05Who presented O'Toole with his Academy Honorary Award in 2003?
Meryl Streep
He had written asking the Academy to wait, saying he was 'still in the game' and hoped to 'win the lovely bugger outright'.
Q 06O'Toole's birth certificate from Leeds says he was born there in 1932, but he believed he might have been born where?
Connemara
He claimed to have birth certificates from both England and Ireland, and later owned a house at Clifden in County Galway.
Q 07Before acting, O'Toole worked as a trainee journalist and photographer on which newspaper?
Yorkshire Evening Post
He was then called up for national service as a signaller in the Royal Navy.
Q 08Why was O'Toole rejected by the Abbey Theatre's drama school in Dublin before winning a RADA scholarship?
He could not speak Irish
Director Ernest Blythe turned him down; at RADA his classmates included Albert Finney and Alan Bates.
Q 09Which two future stars were in O'Toole's RADA class, which he called 'the most remarkable class the academy ever had'?
Albert Finney and Alan Bates
'We were all considered dotty,' he said; Brian Bedford was there too.
Q 10O'Toole got his star-making desert role in November 1960 after which actor reportedly turned it down?
Albert Finney
Finney passed a screen test but refused to sign a long-term contract with producer Sam Spiegel.
Q 11After the 1962 epic's premiere, Noël Coward joked that if O'Toole had been any prettier the picture would have had what title?
Florence of Arabia
Coward was struck by the star's dyed golden hair and startlingly blue eyes.
Q 12O'Toole's 1962 desert epic won seven Oscars from ten nominations. What unusual distinction does it hold regarding its cast?
Possibly the longest movie with no female speaking roles
O'Toole lost Best Actor to Gregory Peck for To Kill a Mockingbird.
Q 13Which actor played Thomas Becket opposite O'Toole's Henry II in Becket (1964)?
Q 21In The Stunt Man (1980), O'Toole was Oscar-nominated for playing what kind of character?
A ruthless film director
His Eli Cross descends from the sky on a camera crane; Steve Railsback played the fugitive he hires.
Q 22In My Favorite Year (1982), O'Toole's drunken swashbuckling star Alan Swann is modelled on which real actor?
Errol Flynn
The film is set backstage at a 1950s TV variety show in 1954, and earned him his seventh nomination.
Q 23O'Toole's eighth and final Oscar nomination came for Venus (2006), directed by Roger Michell. Who wrote the screenplay?
Hanif Kureishi
Richard Burton
Gielgud played Louis VII; the film was the first production of O'Toole's company Keep Films, formed with Jules Buck.
Q 14Who played Eleanor of Aquitaine opposite O'Toole in The Lion in Winter, winning a record third Best Actress Oscar?
Katharine Hepburn
Anthony Hopkins made his big-screen debut in the film as Richard, and Timothy Dalton played Philip II.
Q 15O'Toole's 1969 Oscar-nominated role in Goodbye, Mr. Chips was in a musical adaptation co-starring which singer?
Petula Clark
He won a Golden Globe for it, playing a shy public-school master based on James Hilton's novella.
Q 16In The Ruling Class (1972), O'Toole's paranoid schizophrenic Earl of Gurney first believes he is whom?
Jesus Christ
He sleeps upright on a cross; when 'cured' he secretly comes to believe he is Jack the Ripper instead.
Q 17In Man of La Mancha (1972), O'Toole played Don Quixote and which other role, opposite Sophia Loren?
Miguel de Cervantes
His singing was dubbed by tenor Simon Gilbert, and the film flopped, criticised for casting non-singers.
Q 18In the 1966 heist comedy How to Steal a Million, O'Toole and Audrey Hepburn plot to steal a forged statuette attributed to which artist?
Cellini
Directed by William Wyler, it was set in Paris, where O'Toole himself kept a home at the Ritz.
Q 19What's New Pussycat? (1965) starred O'Toole and Peter Sellers in a script by which comedian, taking a role first meant for Warren Beatty?
Woody Allen
Tom Jones sang the Bacharach-David title song, and the film was a huge hit.
Q 20In the notorious Penthouse-funded Caligula (1979), O'Toole played which Roman emperor?
Tiberius
Malcolm McDowell, Helen Mirren and John Gielgud were also in the cast; O'Toole later played Augustus for TV in 2004.
He plays Maurice, an ageing actor smitten with a friend's grand-niece, played by Jodie Whittaker.
Q 24In Venus, O'Toole recites which numbered Shakespeare poem, beginning 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?'?
Sonnet 18
He told NPR he knew all 154 sonnets and read them daily.
Q 25In The Last Emperor (1987), O'Toole played Reginald Johnston, who was what to the young Puyi?
His Scottish tutor
Johnston gave the emperor a Western education that fed his desire to leave the Forbidden City.
Q 26In Troy (2004), O'Toole played which Trojan king, father of Hector and Paris?
Priam
His scene begging Achilles for Hector's body was widely singled out for praise.
Q 27O'Toole won a Primetime Emmy for playing Bishop Pierre Cauchon in a 1999 CBS miniseries about whom?
Joan of Arc
He was also Emmy-nominated for Masada and for playing Hindenburg in Hitler: The Rise of Evil.
Q 28In the 2005 BBC serial Casanova, O'Toole played the older Casanova. Which actor played the young one and wore contact lenses to match his eyes?
David Tennant
Tennant's brown eyes had to become O'Toole's famous blue.
Q 29In Showtime's The Tudors, O'Toole played which pope, who excommunicates Henry VIII?
Paul III
The confrontation runs through seven of the second season's ten episodes.
Q 30O'Toole played the title role in the National Theatre's very first production in 1963. Which play?
Hamlet
Laurence Olivier directed; O'Toole said 'if you want to know what it's like to be lonely, really lonely, try playing Hamlet'.