One of our favorite actors has died. Peter O’Toole has died at age 81, according to early online reports.

O’Toole was best known, of course, for essaying the title role in David Lean’s 1962 epic “Lawrence of Arabia.”

O’Toole was famously a carouser and hellraiser. Here’s a quote from an obituary by The Guardian:

“We heralded the ’60s,” he once said. “Me, [Richard] Burton, Richard Harris; we did in public what everyone else did in private then, and does for show now. We drank in public, we knew about pot.”

Although he’s justifiably famous for “Lawrence of Arabia,” I think most fondly of O’Toole in “My Favorite Year.” the 1982 comedy classic about the early days of American live TV sketch shows and the chaos that arose when a great Brit actor – by that time better known for his drinking and womanizing – appears as a guest star.

I’m startled to realize now that O’Toole was younger at the time he was playing a nearly washed-up actor for “My Favorite Year” than I am now.

We’ll miss him.