Peter O’Toole’s unusual nickname for Audrey Hepburn: “I don’t know why”
Peter O’Toole and Audrey Hepburn were movie stars during the same period, but they could hardly have been more different. He was a notorious man-about-town, a social gadfly who drank and slept his way through most of the major cities in the world, and a large percentage of the smaller ones, too. He was a famous hellraiser and good-time gentleman who excelled at having fun. Hepburn, in contrast, was known for being quiet and private. She left Hollywood after only about a decade to live in seclusion in Europe, and she seemed to like it that way.
However, when they worked together on the underrated 1966 caper How to Steal a Million, they became fast friends. Apparently, they were so aligned on humour that it caused some delays in production because of their habit of cracking each other up during scenes. William Wyler, who had directed Hepburn in her breakthrough role in Roman Holiday, recognised flawless chemistry when he saw it and didn’t try to get in the way.
Set in Paris, the film stars Hepburn as the daughter of a famous art collector who also happens to be a first-class forger. When one of his fake sculptures is set for an exhibition at a renowned gallery, Hepburn’s character teams up with an art thief (O’Toole) to steal it from the gallery before it can be appraised. Their chemistry is off the charts, and although the plot might not hold water, everything else about the film is so delightful that it doesn’t matter.
At some point during filming, O’Toole started referring to Hepburn by an unusual nickname. She didn’t mind, but she also had no idea what it meant. Years later, when his name came up during an interview, she exclaimed, “My friend! He was very dear and very funny. I don’t know why, but he used to call me the Duke of Buckingham.”
If you had no other context, you might assume that this name had something to do with Hepburn’s singular accent. Although it didn’t belong to any particular region, it sounded aristocratic, especially when coupled with her effortless poise. In truth, she was vaguely related to Dutch nobility. Her great-grandfather was a count, and her grandfather was a baron. However, her accent most likely came from her early childhood spent between Belgium, the Netherlands, and England.
None of that, it turned out, had anything to do with O’Toole’s nickname. He might never have explained it to Hepburn, but he called her the Duke of Buckingham for a very specific reason. During an interview years later, he recounted a story about how the 19th-century actor Edmund Kean and a friend were playing Richard III and the Duke of Buckingham, respectively, in a production of Richard III. After a heavy afternoon of drinking, Kean was heckled by the audience for being drunk on stage, only to turn to the audience and retort, “If you think I am drunk, wait till you see the Duke of Buckingham.” There, waiting in the wings, was his friend, whose inebriation had left him on all fours.
Apparently, O’Toole felt that he had had a similar experience with Hepburn. During the filming of one scene in which she had to get into a car and drive away, she had gotten so cold that she had practically turned blue. Concerned for her well-being, O’Toole offered her the only medicine he knew – a shot of brandy.
“She went all roses and cream, bounced out of the caravan, [and] radiated towards the motor car,” he recalled. Hopping into the driver’s seat, she sped off, taking the lighting equipment with her. O’Toole might have been in his usual state of tipsiness at the time, but Hepburn was Duke of Buckingham drunk.
