While Lawrence of Arabia has become an enduring classic almost 60 years after winning six Golden Globes, the film could have looked very different if director David Lean had gotten one of his first choices for the starring role.

Marlon Brando passed on the movie in order to make Mutiny on the Bounty, leaving English actor Peter O’Toole to play Thomas Edward Lawrence, a British officer during the first World War who reportedly led the Arab Revolt, fighting in the desert.
Lawrence of Arabia received a warm reception at the Golden Globes ceremony held on March 5, 1963, at the Cocoanut Grove in the Ambassador Hotel. The epic sandy drama was nominated for eight Golden Globes and won a half dozen, including Best Picture Drama; Best Director, for Lean; and Best Supporting Actor, for Omar Sharif. O’Toole won the Most Promising Newcomer Golden Globe but lost in the Best Actor Drama category to Gregory Peck for To Kill a Mockingbird.

For Lean, it was his second Golden Globe after The Bridge on the River Kwai, and he’d eventually get a third in 1965, for Doctor Zhivago. O’Toole never won an Oscar, but he was nominated for 11 Golden Globes and won four (Lawrence of Arabia, 1963; Becket, 1965; The Lion in Winter, 1969; and Goodbye, Mr. Chips, 1970).
Lawrence of Arabia is still regarded as one of Hollywood’s biggest gambles that paid off, with a then-huge budget of $15 million spent shooting over six months in the desert with an unknown cast, making a film with a runtime of more than three-and-a-half hours.

O’Toole recalled in one interview, “We shot six months in North Africa and Saudi Arabia, then a very nice three months in Seville, then three more months in the Sahara desert. Do I love the desert? No, I loathe the desert,” he mused.
But we’re betting O’Toole loved the career he was given thanks to his time in the desert — a celebrated career that spanned six decades, until his death in 2013.