Peter O'Toole played characters searching for greatness. He had that early Orson Welles quality to him. A great quality.
But what people forget about Marlon Brando is that he was NOTHING like that.
He invented the kind of everyday loser that actors STILL emulate.
Brando and O'Toole were as different as you can get, and comparing them is just stupid.
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O'Toole took to acting his role instantly after only a brief understanding of the character. Brando has to contemplate, analyze, restructure himself and develop new quirks the character may tend to have. All that and he still looks and sounds like Brando.
Further O'Toole accepts accolades with humble thanks and smiles. Brando sits like a we've just watched a Lourds miracle putting on an Olympian posture and mentally saying to himself "I'm a geniusI'm worth 10 million for 6 minutes in a flick!"

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Olivier is a joke of a ham. Watch his performance in Spartacus and fall on the floor laughing, it's dreadful.
For my money, the three greatest English speaking screen actors were Charles Laughton, O'Toole and Spencer Tracy.

amen to thatfor evidence, check out Po'T's in-cred-i-ble performance in The Ruling Class and compare it to the Great White Whale's turn in the Godfather, released the same year. Brando on screen for about 19 minutes and he wins the Oscar for best actor instead of Sir Peter. What's wrong with this picture???

Paul Scofield is better but i think mr o toole is great !

Laurence Olivier has to be the most overrated actor on the planet. His overacting is truly hideous. Just watch Spartacus, where even Kirk Douglas steals the show from him (and I despise Kirk Douglas).
Peter was perfect. He never overacted and was able to show pathos and emotion2000. Just watch when he finds out his wife was killed by a buzz bomb in Googbye Mr. Chips. Olivier would have mangled that scene to death.

No he WAS the greatest..then a distant number two, possibly Richard Harris. In my opinion.

Peter was better than everyone. Full stop.
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I totally agree!

Exactly. O'Toole was really an actor's actor, a real genius who mastered both stage and film acting. I would say he was better than Olivier, since he did both so awesomely well!!

Peter vs. Marlon is kind of an apple vs. orange question. Personally, I'm not a big Brando fan and only thought a couple of his performances were excellent. On the other hand I thought O'Toole was marvelous in many roles. I guess it is a matter of taste and the passage of the decades. Today, there is so much crap brought to the screen. Poor performances, poor scripts, etc. The average "young person" today has little knowledge of and little appreciation for the first 50 years of the film industry.

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Yup
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