"...Another back seat, another day. Peter O'Toole has sent a car to bring Gino [Empry] to the Robert S. McLaughlin mansion in Oshawa, where he's shooting a film called Global Heresy. Gino climbs into the Lincoln and plops down with a thud...there are reminiscences of O'Toole.

In the early 80's, the star of Lawrence of Arabia came to Toronto for a production of Uncle Vanya, which the Mirvishes took to Washington. Gino went along, and on opening night he asked Ed Mirvish for $500. "I said, don't ask me what it's for--I just need it. It's important, and it's for Peter." O'Toole, who'd had half his stomach removed and couldn't drink alcohol, needed something in order to go on stage. Mirvish forked over the money, and Gino went off to buy some hash. When he tells this story, he's quick to point out that O'Toole has since given up drugs. "He was going through a rough time. I helped him out." Would he ever get women for stars?" "Oh, no," he replied calmly. "Everyone knows where to get girls if they want them."

When Gino arrives at the mansion, O'Toole--tall, rakish, impossibly grand--pulls him to his chest like a forgotten favourite teddy bear. "Gino," he says fondly, in his rich, dramatic voice. Gino says O'Toole has been on the phone to him just about every day. The shoot, which is nearing its end, is tiring him. Too much travel. He's asked Gino if he can arrange a helicopter to take him and his co-star Joan Plowright to another set in Hamilton the next day. Gino has been making calls, seeing what's available. (In the end, it doesn't work out.) But why is he doing it? O'Toole isn't paying him. Neither is the film company....What he gets in return are fresh anecdotes, which he feeds to newspaper columnists, who don't pay him, either. He's letting the word know he's still at the party."

Toronto Life March 2001 - pp72-73 (article by Sarah Hampson) Picture on p75