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UPI: 'Venus' may give O'Toole an Oscar shot

"LOS ANGELES, Oct. 8 (UPI) -- The new film "Venus" may give legendary Irish actor Peter O'Toole another shot at winning the Oscar that has eluded him throughout his career.The 74-year-old actor, who has been nominated for an Oscar seven times but has never won, plays an aging actor in the new Disney film. The studio is banking on his "codger power" to garner him the elusive award, said the Sunday Times of London."We shall be getting out the old codger vote for Peter this time around," one Disney exec said. "Peter does not star in many films these days, but everyone remembers him as a glorious roaring boy who has been criminally overlooked. It's time to put that right."Three years ago, the famed Irish actor was to be presented with a lifetime Oscar, but asked the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to defer the honor until he was 80, because he is "still in the game and might win the lovely bugger outright."O'Toole eventually decided to attend the awards ceremony and receive his honorary award.Disney plans to release "Venus" two weeks prior to the Oscar nomination deadline in December."

Mickey News: Disney goes grey to win Oscar for O'Toole

"DISNEY is turning to "codger power" in an attempt to win an Oscar for Peter O'Toole, the 74-year-old actor who has been nominated seven times and has yet to pick up a best actor statuette.O'Toole, the star of classics such as Lawrence of Arabia, The Lion in Winter and The Ruling Class, has received critical plaudits for his latest film, Venus, in which he plays an ageing thespian besotted with a young visitor, played by newcomer Jodie Whittaker.Three years ago the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences decided to give the Irish actor a lifetime Oscar. Although "enchanted", he asked them to defer it until he was past 80, adding: "I am still in the game and may still win the lovely bugger outright."O'Toole's failure to win after so many nominations, a record shared with his old drinking buddy Richard Burton, remains as embarrassing to the academy as its failure to hand the trophy to directors such as Alfred Hitchcock and Martin Scorsese."We shall be getting out the old codger vote for Peter this time around," said a Disney executive last week. "Peter does not star in many films these days, but everyone remembers him as a glorious roaring boy who has been criminally overlooked. It's time to put that right."Fine acting is not enough. Disney-owned Miramax, which will release Venus in the United States two weeks before the Oscar nomination deadline at the end of December, is planning "something special" to reach a third of the 6,000 Oscar voters estimated to be of pensionable age.This will include screenings at the Motion Picture Country House in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, an academy-financed retirement home where dozens of O'Toole's contemporaries live.O'Toole, a notorious womaniser when in his prime, has praised the "wonderful role" he plays in Venus. "Four years ago I said out loud I wished someone would be brave enough to write such a politically incorrect role for me, about an older man and a younger woman, because I know such things happen all the time. It makes such a change from being the token geriatric," he said.O'Toole remains determined to grow old in his own inimitable style. "The only exercise I get is following the coffins of friends who exercised," he said recently."