“I do recall one particular night shoot… We were called to the set at four o'clock in the afternoon. As usual, nothing was ready. They'd built a set of Tiberius's grotto, on three acres, and were assembling all of the extras and background. The producers worriedly asked if I would go into Peter's trailer (he was playing Tiberius) and go through the lines with him, which we did few times.
And then he told me the most remarkable story – whether it is true or not I have no idea – about his grave-robbing Etruscan tombs. He said the best way to find Etruscan jewellery and artefacts was to find the drains in the tombs, and very gingerly sift through them with your fingers because, as the bodies decompose, all of the artifacts deposit themselves into the channels. The thought of Peter O'Toole on his hands and knees in an Etruscan catacomb makes for a lovely image.
We spent hours and hours in this trailer. He was smoking … it certainly wasn't tobacco. By the time we got onto the set, 12 hours had passed. We couldn't believe our eyes: the set was covered with people engaging in every sexual perversion in the book. We were totally bemused.
Peter would start off his speech, "Rome was but a city…" then pause, look around, and say to me: "Are they doing the Irish jig over there?"”

— Malcolm McDowell

I'd look over and there would be two dwarves and an amputee dancing around some girls splayed out on a giant dildo. This went on quite a few times.
As quoted in "Malcolm McDowell on Peter O'Toole: Caligula, catacombs and chicken gizzards" https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2013/dec/17/malcolm-mcdowell-peter-otoole-caligula-graves, The Guardian (17 December, 2013)

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Malcolm McDowell 3

English actor 1943

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“The histories of Tiberius, Caius, Claudius, and Nero, while they were in power, were falsified through terror, and after their death were written under the irritation of a recent hatred. Hence my purpose is to relate a few facts about Augustus - more particularly his last acts, then the reign of Tiberius, and all which follows, without either bitterness or partiality, from any motives to which I am far removed.”
Tiberii Gaique et Claudii ac Neronis res florentibus ipsis ob metum falsae, postquam occiderant, recentibus odiis compositae sunt. inde consilium mihi pauca de Augusto et extrema tradere, mox Tiberii principatum et cetera, sine ira et studio, quorum causas procul habeo.

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Context: The major suggested we go down a gully, but I knew that was the wrong way. And I told him we were not going down any gully. We were going straight through the German front line trenches back to the American lines.
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“I was on the set of Tree of Life. He was with me, and he asked me [if I] would play Eleanor Rigby in his film.”

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Context: I was on the set of Tree of Life. He was with me, and he asked me [if I] would play Eleanor Rigby in his film. And I said, “Yes, but it’s so much the male perspective,” [whispers] like the majority of films that are made. I said, “I’d like to know more about the woman. I’d like to know her perspective as well.” So he went and he wrote Her. And it was very collaborative because every day as he’d write, I’d be working, and I’d come back and he’d ask me questions about sisters or whatnot and how women talk with each other, and I found that to be really exciting. … he was the full writer. I was his bounce board. Not story things, because that’s the main part of the film, but just things like, you know, cutting the hair. You know, because girls, we all tell each other, “Don’t cut your hair when you’re pregnant, don’t cut your hair when you have a breakup or when a tragedy happens.” It’s something that we like to do when we’re in an emotional place for some reason. Right? But that’s something that a man may not know, that’s inherently female. And so it was my idea, I wanted Eleanor to cut her hair off, because then it connects to then her disappearing herself as well.

“Good-looking and amiable as he was, however, he did not strike one as remarkable. People usually told him the same joke two or three times.”

Walker Percy book The Last Gentleman

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“I programmed all the drums and synths, while he played all the guitars. The initial plan was just to demo his songs because he was out of his UA deal, so we pumped it to people like Island and Virgin and they loved it. It was signed to Island, but Simon Draper of Virgin heard it and called me to talk about their band, the Human League. They'd done demos of The Sound of the Crowd and Love Action in a Sheffield studio, but Simon didn't think they were getting the punch they needed. He loved the drums on Homosapien and asked me to do a track. So the band turned up at Genetic with their multi-track for The Sound of the Crowd. Simon had conned them and told them that I'd mix it! I said, 'We're going to start again and do it better'. There were a few grumbles, but by the time we'd finished, they were really pleased.”

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The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (1887)

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