Public Places: My Life in the Theater, with Peter O'Toole and Beyond [Hardcover]

Sian Phillips (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 29, 2003

“Magnificent” (The Sunday Times)—a fascinating portrait of one of the great love affairs of show business and a compelling account of a woman coming into her own

Siân Phillips and Peter O’Toole were one of the theater’s most fabulous couples—a marriage perhaps rivaled only by that of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in terms of glamour, power, and public fascination. In her exceptional memoir, Phillips reveals in thoughtful detail their tumultuous life together. She describes the mad and impulsive times with the infamous hellraiser alongside the tempestuous, insecure, and often lonely periods in their marriage. When O’Toole’s career took off with Lawrence of Arabia, Siân found life increasingly difficult in her parallel roles as wife, mother, and actress, and watched as her own career became progressively sidelined. Against all expectations, though, their union endured for twenty years. When it ended, incredibly, even to herself, Siân plunged straight into another marriage, to a much younger man. Ultimately she emerges alone—triumphant and unrepentant—and the story she recounts here ranks alongside the very best in show business.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"After a roller-coaster life of much happiness and many troubles, a woman of a certain age makes a break for freedom," writes noted actor Phillips at the end of this honest, heartfelt and often witty memoir. Indeed, when the author takes a younger lover as an alternative to her marriage, readers will feel great relief. Phillips, a critically praised and popular performer, charts her professional, domestic and familial lives. Even though she has her own theater career, the bulk of the book chronicles her decades-long, volatile-but at times very satisfying-marriage to Peter O'Toole. As O'Toole becomes increasingly famous in the 1960s, his histrionics, caused mostly by excessive alcohol consumption, balloon out of control. By 1975, O'Toole's drinking has brought him close to death (a situation shockingly told in the book's opening chapters) and Phillips has to seriously examine her life. While there's plenty of theater lore and gossip here-much of it quite wonderful, such as Katharine Hepburn calling Liz Taylor and Richard Burton "those fat pigs"-this memoir is really a frightening, potently written "scenes from a marriage" and a story of how the author finds her own way. B&w photos.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

In Phillips' 20-year marriage to famous actor Peter O'Toole, his career took center stage. But now it's her turn to stand in the spotlight--on her own. More than just an autobiography, Phillips' book describes her adventures traveling the world and maintaining an acting career along with having two marriages (she was also married to English actor Robin Sachs) and two children. With a tremendous love of literature and an adventurous spirit, Phillips even led a domestic life in London that was spontaneous and exciting. Peter Sellers became a last-minute houseguest, requiring vegetarian meals, and Maggie Smith arrived to rehearse with O'Toole; but fellow cast member Marie Kean was still asleep in a gold-lame gown. The author explores her many roles: the passion and commitment as an actress, her love affair with O'Toole, her journeys through remote areas of the world (meeting Bedouin nomads in the Jordan desert and indigenous tribes in Venezuela), and juggling all that with motherhood. Through working in television, radio, and theatre for more than 40 years, and being surrounded by famous names and talents, Phillips remains down-to-earth, expressive, and insightful. As the book progresses, Phillips' writing becomes more intimate as she builds a life of her own, but work is still the constant; work may keep her in public places with public people but she clearly understands and admires private people. Michelle Kaske
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 456 pages
• Publisher: Faber & Faber (May 29, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0571211283
• ISBN-13: 978-0571211289
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.9 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,220,313 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #88 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Arts & Literature > Theatre

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating!, December 28, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Public Places: My Life in the Theater, with Peter O'Toole and Beyond (Hardcover)

I loved this book! First of all because I think that Sian Phillips is an amazing actress who is terribly underappreciated -at least in this country. (I can't help but wonder what she would have achieved had Peter O'Toole allowed her to work more often.) I think her book is an honest, insightful picture of what her life was like - being married to a superstar, trying to juggle a career and a family, with less than no support from a husband who felt her only place was in the home - or at his beck and call - all pretty standard views at that time. Certainly the frustration she felt comes through very clearly, as does the turmoil she felt when she had to make the choice whether to stay in the marriage and go on the way they had been, or leave and find her own life. Obviously the success she has had (in Britain, anyway) since the marriage ended would indicate she made the right choice. But the stories of their life and adventures make for a fascinating and enjoyable read.

As for the reviewer who complained that there was nothing about her childhood in Wales - the reason is simple. This is the second part of her autobiography. Her life in Wales and her early days in London - up to the time she met Peter O'Toole - was beautifully told in the first book - "Private Faces" which was never released in this country, but which you can get through amazon.co.uk. It too is a fascinating story, since I doubt very many of us can even imagine what it would be like growing up in a very rural part of Wales.

I can't recommend this book highly enough - if only for more people to discover this amazinglybeautiful and talented woman.

5.0 out of 5 stars Delicious Stories of an Adventurous Life, December 8, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Public Places: My Life in the Theater, with Peter O'Toole and Beyond (Hardcover)

I loved reading this book. Sian Phillips took me places I wouldn't dream of venturing. One ride with O'Toole as driver and I would have said, "Enough already!" But she seems to adore a daring life -- and it takes her places. I was thrilled to go along, sinking ever deeper into my armchair. I'm reading to others at a Christmas party for booklovers the sequence that starts with her arrival in Cambodia in a "little girl" Mary Quant outfit that enrages her husband through the Hong Kong roaming in a neighborhood too dangerous for the police to enter.

8 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing Bio, September 10, 2003

By 

Quarter Irish "4irish" (Rockville MD) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Public Places: My Life in the Theater, with Peter O'Toole and Beyond (Hardcover)

I was really looking forward to reading this book, but I'm severely underwhelmed by it on a number of levels.

First of all, there's practically nothing about her childhood. Her mother does have a part to play in the book, and there is a peek into a complicated and interesting relationship there, but the dearth of detail about her early life is odd. I wanted to learn about what it was like to grow up in Wales, speaking Welsh, and what that contributed to her identity, but she hardly touched on that. (Interesting that her ex-husband managed to mine an entire book, and an interesting one at that, just from his childhood.)

Other reviewers have complained of the lack of depth in discussing her most famous roles, especially the utterly fascinating Livia, whom Sian Phillips practically dismisses in a few sentences. That landmark role deserves much more!!

Phillips does prattle on a bit about her daughters, but I got absolutely no sense of them as personalities or real people.

There's way too much about what a heartless cold person her first ex-husband was capable of being. Sure, I was disappointed to learn that my favorite actor could be so cruel and unsentimental, not to mention apparently having an obsession with his wife's lack of virginity, but Phillips really went on and on about those things too much, to the point of overkill.

I still admire the woman for her acting talent, but she has no aptitude for writing a memoir.