Please don't make O'Toole do this

Last month, Peter O'Toole made the round of talk shows in New York to promote "Venus," for which he received his eighth best actor Oscar nomination.

Nattily dressed and wearing what can be best described as a bemused expression, the 74-year-old thespian appeared on, among other things, "The View."

"Can you believe that?" O'Toole quipped about his "View" tour. "It was extraordinary and a bit alarming."

"When the world was young, actors didn't do interviews," O'Toole said. "We didn't open our months except when we were doing some author's words. We were required to turn up and put on a pretty frock and a dinner jacket [for the Oscars] and that was it. But now things have changed utterly. We are supposed to be the salesman and woman of the piece."

So does he feel awkward becoming a pitchman?

"Let me put it this way," said the veteran actor. "I confess I have done so much, I am running out of things to say."

— Susan King


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