Priam was the son of Laomedon and was
the king of Troy.
He became king after Laomedon and all of Priam's brothers were killed by Heracles
in the first sack of Troy. Priam himself was the father, by his wife Hecuba
and other women, of fifty sons and many daughters, including Hector, Paris,
and Cassandra. He unsuccessfully defended his city during the Trojan War,
at the end of which Troy was sacked a second time and was finally destroyed.
During the Trojan War, Priam's son Hector was killed by the Greek hero Achilles.
In one of the most moving scenes of the Iliad, Priam courageously entered
the Greek camp by night and pleaded with Achilles to return Hector's body
for burial. Priam himself was finally killed by Achilles' son, Neoptolemus,
upon an altar of Zeus in the center of Troy.
Peter
Seamus O'Toole was born on 2nd August 1932 in Connemara, County Galway, Ireland.
He was the son of a bookmaker and when Peter was one his family moved to a tiny,
two-bedroom terraced house in Leeds where he was raised. He used to tag along
to the local racetracks and pubs with his father, Patrick, and it was from him
that Peter learned the importance of appearing to be more than you really are.
He also learned to take pride in his Irish upbringing, despite the fact that
he has spent less than a year living there, even to the point of always wearing
at least one item of green clothing - usually his socks.
He left school at 14 and joined the Yorkshire Evening News, running errands
for the copy editors and photographers, and slipping into cinema and theatre
matinees to write short notices for the paper, but by the time he was 18 he
had decided that career in journalist was beneath him. After serving as a
signalman in the Navy in the early 1950's, he used his demob money to embark
on a grand tour of the nation's theatres. He wound up in Stratford-upon-Avon
where he say Michael Redgrave perform King Lear. Peter realised that he was
destined for a life on stage and hitched to London, calling in at the Royal
Academy of Dramatic Arts. Although he had none of the qualifications for entry
to RADA, his intelligence and acting ability were enough to convince the entrance
panel to grant him an audition, which won him a scholarship. The class that
he enrolled in included Albert Finney, Alan Bates and Richard Harris. He spent
several years with the Bristol Old Vic where he became a first rate actor.
