Stanley O'Toole entered the film industry, accidentally, in 1959, as a payroll clerk for the Rank Organisation. He had travelled to Pinewood Studios with a friend who was applying for a job[2] He climbed the studio wall and saw a job advertised in the Rank Payroll Department.
Stanley was installed as chief cost accountant for Paramount Pictures Europe division in 1966. In 1967, he was promoted to Head of Production for Paramount Pictures in Europe. He oversaw European production of various films including Downhill Racer and The Italian Job. During his tenure at Paramount, he reported to Charles Bludhorn, and worked closely with Robert Evans.[3]
Stanley prepared a Warner Bros. project about the Entebbe Raid in Israel,[6] but the project ended up being shelved and was never made. Stanley was quoted as saying:
As filmmakers, we were committed to producing the most definitive version of the Entebbe raid, and Israel was committed to protecting state secrets. We couldn't go on.[7]
An Israeli government spokesperson said this was not the case, and that they helped as much as possible. It was on this project that Stanley first met Franklin J. Schaffner, whom he would go on to work with on three other films, including The Boys from Brazil and Sphinx.[8]
A close friend of Stanley's was Sir Laurence Olivier, who appeared in two of his films. On 5 December 1977, Franklin J. Schaffner, Sir Laurence Olivier and Gregory Peck were each awarded an honorary degree, Doctor of Humane Letters from Franklin & Marshall College. Due to illness Sir Laurence was unable to accept his award, so, with permission of Queen Elizabeth II and the British Embassy, Stanley represented Sir Laurence in accepting his award.[12]
Remembering their partnership on The Boys from Brazil and the aborted Entebbe project, Franklin J. Schaffner and Stanley O'Toole bought the rights to Robin Cook's The Sphinx.[13] Being one of the first producers to see the benefits of shooting films in Eastern European countries, Stanley decided they would shoot most of the film in Budapest, Hungary. Having shot Nijinsky and numerous other films there, this was an area he knew well. There were also filming locations in Egypt.[14][15] Sphinx was not received well by critics, however, but made its budget back and was the number one film in Japan, the second largest market in the world at the time.[16]
In 1981, Stanley worked with Barbra Streisand on Yentl, Streisand's directorial debut, though he has no producer credit on the film.[17]
In the late 1980s, Stanley was made managing director of Village Roadshow, based in Australia.[18] He took over from Dino De Laurentiis, who almost brought the studio to an early end.[19] During his time at Village Roadshow, Stanley oversaw the production of numerous films, including The Delinquents, Quigley Down Under, Hurricane Smith, Bloodmoon and Dead Sleep.
^"Chronology". Archived from the original on 26 August 2009. Retrieved 17 July 2010.
^Miller, Toby; Govil, Nitin; McMurria, John; Maxwell, Richard; Wang, Ting (25 August 2005). Global Hollywood 2. British Film Institute. ISBN9781844570492. Archived from the original on 25 August 2022. Retrieved 25 August 2022 – via Google Books.
