My Favorite Line

December 17, 2013
Posted by Jay Livingston

Peter O’Toole died on Saturday.  His line that I most remember is from “My Favorite Year.” (For a plot summary, see the trailer here .)

The film is set in the live-TV era of the 1950s. Peter O’Toole is Alan Swann, an Errol-Flynn-style actor (“I’m not an actor, I’m a movie star”). When he’s not buckling swashes on screen, he is seducing women.  Swann is charming when he’s sober, which is not often.  He has come to New York for a week to appear on a live comedy show (all TV was live), and the film tracks that week.

In this scene, the TV writers are reading in the newspaper about Swann’s exploits of the previous night, which ended up with Swann more or less unclad in Central Park’s Bethesda Fountain.  The writers are looking at the newspaper or at each other and do not notice that Swann has just entered. 

Here is a partial transcript:

Sy [unaware the Swann has just walked in] : Leo, it gets me sick to think we gotta put up with some washed-up jaboni who’s gonna be running around Central Park with his schlong hangin’ out!

Swann: My dear fellow, it’s my schlong and what I choose to do with it is my business.

Sy: So how’s business?

Swann: Never better.

Never better indeed.