LAWRENCE OF ARABIA 209
Rattigan revived his Lawrence proj ect. This time he won backing from the Rank
Organisation, hired Anthony Asquith as director, and cast Dirk Bogarde in the lead
role, but the proj ect was derailed in pre- production by the Iraqi Revolution
( July 1958) that made filming in Iraq impossible. Having worked together on The
Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), producer Sam Spiegel (Columbia Pictures) and David
Lean deci ded to collaborate again. After 25 years of unrealized hopes, a T. E. Law-
rence film proj ect fi nally got underway on 11 February 1960, when A. W. Lawrence
sold the rights to Seven Pillars of Wisdom to Sam Spiegel for £22,500 ($63,000). At a
press conference at Claridge’s six days later Spiegel launched the film and announced
that Marlon Brando would play Lawrence. Having written Bridge on the River Kwai
with Carl Foreman, blacklisted American screenwriter Michael Wilson was hired
(for $100,000) to adapt Seven Pillars to the screen but, unable to satisfy Lean, he
quit a year later. Playwright Beverley Cross did some uncredited revision work
until Lean hired British TV writer Robert Bolt to rewrite the script as a character
study of Lawrence. Many of the characters and scenes were contrived by Wilson
but virtually all of the dialogue in the film’s final cut was written by Bolt. Mean-
while, Marlon Brando changed his mind about playing Lawrence, opting instead
to go to Tahiti and play Fletcher Christian in Lewis Milestone’s Mutiny on the
Bounty (1962). Lean considered Anthony Perkins and Montgomery Clift but hired
British Captain T. E. Lawrence (Peter O’Toole) leads Arab forces against the Ottoman
Turks in David Lean’s World War I epic, Lawrence of Arabia (1962). (Columbia P ictures /
Photofest)