So farewell Peter O’Toole.

The actor, raconteur and sometime hellraiser has shuffled off this mortal coil aged 81.

Not a bad age for a man who crammed a lot into his life.

As well as on screen and stage O’Toole also delivered virtuoso performances in pubs, bars and clubs up and down the country delighting colleagues and fans alike.

And in some cases getting them so drunk that they woke up in strange places with no idea what day it was.

O’Toole was a class act. Talented, charismatic, magnetic.

His drinking buddies Richard Burton, Richard Harris and the monster that was Oliver Reed.

That would have been a weekend.

They used to appear on chat shows and have something to say. And a way of saying it.

Now we have a conveyor belt of anodyne ‘celebrities’ who really haven’t achieved all that much and don’t have a personality, therefore have all the story-telling ability of a length of wood.

We have fawning hosts who aren’t allowed to ask the questions we all want to know by stage managed and preened self-interested ‘celebs’.

They are the antithesis of the young men who made the 1960s and 1970s an entertaining place to be – and remember.

My favourite O’Toole story is when he was shooting The Lion in Winter, a I presume heavily refreshed Peter chopped off the top of his finger in a boating accident.

He plopped it into a nearby glass of brandy before sticking it back on and winding a bandage around it.

A few weeks later he came to remove the grimy bandage – and realised he’d put the finger top on back to front.

Raise a glass to that man!