history

company called Keep Films (also known as Tricolor Productions).

Their first film Operation Snatch starred Terry Thomas. They also planned to produce Waiting for Godot, but the film was never made.

Instead, their first production was Becket in 1964, where O’Toole played King Henry II opposite Richard Burton.

The film was a financial success, and it was followed by Lord Jim (1965) based on the Joseph Conrad novel, directed by Richard Brooks. Plans did not always work out, for example The Charge of the Light Brigade, but they did produce What’s New Pussycat? (1965), starring Peter Sellers which went on to be an enormous success.

O’Toole and Buck helped produce The Party’s Over (1965) before he returned to the stage with Ride a Cock Horse at the Piccadilly Theatre in 1965 – which didn’t get good reviews. He then made a charming film How to Steal a Million with Audrey Hepburn (1966) – a heist film directed by William Wyler; followed by The Bible: In the Beginning directed by John Huston.

That year he also acted in the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin: Juno and the Paycock and Shaw’s Man and Superman, and the next year filmed The Night of the Generals (1967) – a box office disappointment.

He joked: “I am human, all too bloody human.”