LAWRENCE OF ARABIA hellion PETER O’TOOLE’s wildest night of debauchery!
After spending six months in the desert shooting the classic film, the legendary boozer and new BFF Omar Sharif took off to Hollywood for some stateside mayhem.
Their boozing and orgies were already the stuff of legend and, reportedly, the friendship might have ended when O’Toole supplied Sharif with a woman for the night. Except she had recently had a sex change operation, a discovery Omar made only after he’d had sex with “her”.
“I woke up one morning to find I was famous,” says O’Toole. “I bought a white Rolls-Royce and drove down Sunset Boulevard wearing dark specs and a white suit, waving like the Queen Mum. Nobody took any f****** notice but I enjoyed it.”
Peter also enjoyed a friendship with controversial comic satirist LENNY BRUCE who was a junkie.
One night O’Toole and Sharif saw Bruce perform. In the wee hours, they staggered back to Bruce’s pad where the comic shot up heroin in front of his guests.
Suddenly, the living room was full of cops as all three were cuffed and bundled into a police van
Evidently, the vice squad had Lenny under surveillance for some time.
With his lone dime, Omar put in a call to "Lawrence of Arabia" producer Sam Spiegel. The producer sent lawyers to bail the pair out but O’Toole was so taken with new BFF Lenny he refused to leave without him.
“Sam was going OUT of his mind,” Sharif recalled. “(But) finally we got Lenny Bruce released with us.”
