LOS ANGELES — Peter O’Toole is retiring from show business, saying he no longer has the heart for it and that it’s time to “chuck in the sponge.”

O’Toole, who turns 80 on Aug. 2, said Tuesday that his career on stage and screen fulfilled him emotionally and financially, bringing “me together with fine people, good companions with whom I’ve shared the inevitable lot of all actors: flops and hits.”

“However, it’s my belief that one should decide for oneself when it is time to end one’s stay,” he said in a statement. “So I bid the profession a dry-eyed and profoundly grateful farewell.”

In retirement, O’Toole said he will focus on the third volume of his memoirs.

O’Toole shot to screen stardom 50 years ago in the title role of “Lawrence of Arabia,” which earned seven Oscars, including best picture and director for David Lean.

O’Toole’s grand performance as British adventurer T.E. Lawrence brought him his first best-actor nomination but set him on an unenviable path of Oscar futility. His eight losses without a win is a record among actors.

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O’Toole also received Oscar nominations for 1964’s “Becket,” 1968’s “The Lion in Winter,” 1969’s “Goodbye, Mr. Chips,” 1972’s “The Ruling Class,” 1980’s “The Stunt Man” and 1982’s “My Favorite Year.”

In the latter film, O’Toole played a dissolute actor preoccupied with drink and debauchery, seemingly a tailor-made role for a star known in his early years for epic carousing with such fellow partiers as Richard Burton, Richard Harris and Peter Finch.

O’Toole went into acting after serving in the Royal Navy, studying at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. His early stage successes included the lead in “Hamlet” and Shylock in “The Merchant of Venice.”

He was among a new breed of young British stage actors who’d rise to Hollywood stardom.

“There was a group of us working-class actors, Peter O’Toole, Albert Finney, everybody, and we changed the way things were,” Michael Caine said last weekend in an interview for his latest film, “The Dark Knight Rises.”

Last ‘Hunger Games’ book split up for film version

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LOS ANGELES — The final book in “The Hunger Games” trilogy is coming to the big screen in two parts starting in 2014.

Lionsgate Films announced Tuesday that “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1” will be released Nov. 21, 2014, and “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2” will follow Nov. 20, 2015.

The filmmakers are following the lead of two other teen-based literary franchises, “Harry Potter” and “Twilight,” whose final books were broken into two parts for film.

Starring Jennifer Lawrence, “The Hunger Games” debuted last March and has taken in nearly $700 million worldwide.

‘Breaking Bad’ star to direct one last episode

NEW YORK — Bryan Cranston will sit in the director’s chair one last time for his AMC drama “Breaking Bad.”

On Tuesday, Cranston said he’ll direct the ninth episode of the show’s fifth and final season, which begins July 15 and will air split over two summers. That break in filming gives the actor time to put on his directing hat before the second half airs in 2013.

Cranston, who won three mmys for “Breaking Bad,” also directed the first episodes of seasons one and three of the dark series about chemistry teacher Walter White, who turns to cooking meth to help support his family after he’s diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.

Cranston says in season five, White will complete his journey from hapless teacher to full-fledged drug lord. “He’s feeling very basic things: control, power, dominance. Those things and those ugly factors have come to the surface.”


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