49 Fun Facts About Lawrence of Arabia

Who directed the 1962 epic Lawrence of Arabia?

David Lean. He had scouted locations in India for a film about Gandhi with the same producer, Sam Spiegel, then dropped it and turned to T. E. Lawrence instead.

Which actor plays Prince Faisal in Lawrence of Arabia?

Alec Guinness. He had just played T. E. Lawrence himself on the London stage, in the 1960 play Ross, before taking the part of the prince.

Lawrence of Arabia is based on T. E. Lawrence's life and which 1926 book?

Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Lawrence said he lost most of the first draft while changing trains at Reading station in 1919 and had to rewrite it from memory.

Who beat Lawrence of Arabia's Peter O'Toole to the 1963 Best Actor Oscar?

Gregory Peck won for playing Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, so Lawrence of Arabia took seven Oscars, Best Picture among them, without one for its acting.

Who composed the famous score for Lawrence of Arabia?

Maurice Jarre got the job only after William Walton and Malcolm Arnold fell through, and the score won him the first of his three Oscars.

Which cinematographer shot Lawrence of Arabia in Super Panavision 70?

Freddie Young. To film a rider emerging from a mirage, he brought back from Panavision an extra-long telephoto lens that could shoot the shimmer in close-up.

Which playwright was hired to rewrite Michael Wilson's first draft of Lawrence of Arabia as a character study?

Robert Bolt. Midway through the script he was jailed over an anti-nuclear protest, and producer Sam Spiegel pressed him to sign his way out and finish it.

Lawrence of Arabia opens in 1935 with T. E. Lawrence dying how?

In a motorcycle accident. One of the doctors who treated him, Hugh Cairns, was so affected that he began the research that led to crash helmets for riders.

The memorial service that opens Lawrence of Arabia takes place at which building?

St Paul's Cathedral. On its steps the reporter Bentley praises Lawrence for the record, then mutters that he was the most shameless exhibitionist since Barnum and Bailey.

In Lawrence of Arabia, Sherif Ali shoots Lawrence's guide Tafas for doing what?

Drinking from his well. The actor playing Ali had first screen-tested as Tafas, the guide his character guns down.

In Lawrence of Arabia, which desert must Lawrence's force cross to attack Aqaba from the landward side?

The Nefud. Aqaba's guns face the sea and cannot be turned round, Lawrence argues, so nobody will be watching the desert behind the town.

Lawrence of Arabia's most famous edit cuts from Lawrence blowing out what to a desert sunrise?

A match. Moments earlier Lawrence snuffs one out with his bare fingers and tells a soldier who copies him that the trick is not minding that it hurts.

In Lawrence of Arabia, what does Lawrence promise the Howeitat leader Auda to bring him into the attack on Aqaba?

A Turkish gold hoard. Auda finds only paper money in the captured garrison, so Lawrence writes him a promissory note and rides to Cairo to fetch real gold.

In Lawrence of Arabia, how does Daud, one of Lawrence's two young servants, die?

Drowned in quicksand. Lawrence tells Allenby he killed the boy by leading him into it, and later shoots the other servant, Farraj, himself to spare him capture.

In Lawrence of Arabia, the American journalist Jackson Bentley is based on which real reporter?

Lowell Thomas. His films and lectures made Lawrence world famous, and he is often credited with the barb that Lawrence had a genius for backing into the limelight.

In Lawrence of Arabia, Dryden reveals which secret Anglo-French agreement to carve up the Middle East?

Sykes-Picot. The film has Lawrence learn of it late and feel betrayed, but his authorised biographer argues he knew its terms by early 1917, before Aqaba fell.

Which actor plays the Howeitat chief Auda Abu Tayi in Lawrence of Arabia?

Anthony Quinn. His Auda fights for whoever pays, a portrait the real chief's descendants resented enough to sue Columbia Pictures.

Which actor makes his entrance in Lawrence of Arabia riding out of a mirage?

Omar Sharif. Already a star of Arabic-language cinema, he had never made an English-language film; this one brought him an Oscar nomination and the lead in Doctor Zhivago.

In Lawrence of Arabia, which actor plays the Turkish Bey who has Lawrence beaten at Deraa?

José Ferrer. The scene follows Lawrence's own account of being captured and beaten at Deraa, which some of his biographers accept and others say never happened.

In Lawrence of Arabia, which veteran of Casablanca plays Mr Dryden of the Arab Bureau?

Claude Rains. Dryden never existed: the screenplay rolls several real British officials and scholars into one smooth civilian who speaks for the politicians.

Which then little-known actor passed an elaborate screen test to play Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia but turned the part down?

Albert Finney. He shone in a lavish screen test, then walked away rather than sign the multi-year contract that producer Sam Spiegel wanted.

Noël Coward quipped that if Peter O'Toole were any prettier, Lawrence of Arabia would have been called what?

Florence of Arabia. Coward said it to O'Toole after the premiere; the director had been just as taken, settling on the little-known actor after a single screen test.

Which actor was first sought for Prince Faisal in Lawrence of Arabia but never played the part?

Laurence Olivier. The producer announced he was negotiating with him for the prince, but in 1962 Olivier instead opened the Chichester Festival Theatre as its first director.

Which blue-eyed French star tested for Sherif Ali in Lawrence of Arabia but balked at wearing brown contact lenses?

Alain Delon. With Horst Buchholz already committed to a Billy Wilder comedy and Delon out, the part went to a newcomer to English-language film.

Lawrence of Arabia reunited the director and producer of which earlier Best Picture winner?

The Bridge on the River Kwai. Both films won seven Oscars, and blacklisted writer Michael Wilson worked on both without screen credit; the Academy recognised him for each decades later.

The real Prince Faisal of Lawrence of Arabia, driven from Syria by France, became the first king of which modern country?

Iraq. To ease resistance to its rule there, Britain sponsored Faisal for the new throne, and he was crowned in Baghdad in 1921.

Lawrence of Arabia runs nearly four hours without a single speaking part for whom?

Women. They are glimpsed only as extras in crowd scenes, since the script never leaves the soldiers, tribesmen and officials fighting the desert war.

In Lawrence of Arabia, Lawrence's desert trek to Cairo ends when a ship seems to glide through the dunes on what?

The Suez Canal. A rider on the far bank shouts 'Who are you?' across the water, and Lawrence, still in his Arab robes, stands silent.

Before shooting Lawrence of Arabia, its director reportedly studied which John Ford western for ideas?

The Searchers. Ethan Edwards riding in across the prairie is echoed in Sherif Ali's long ride in across the desert, and the film uses its red-rock valley much as Ford used Monument Valley.

Lawrence of Arabia was first meant to be shot entirely in which country, whose king visited the set several times?

Jordan. King Hussein let his soldiers work as extras and in 1961 married Toni Gardiner, who had run the production's switchboard.

Which Spanish city stood in for Cairo and Jerusalem in Lawrence of Arabia?

Seville. Its sweeping Plaza de España plays the British headquarters in Cairo, where Lawrence marches into the officers' bar in Arab robes and orders lemonade for his servant.

The massacre sequence of Lawrence of Arabia was filmed around Ouarzazate, in which country?

Morocco. Ouarzazate was the production's last big location, and the desert town has since become a film-making hub that hosted Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven.

Bedouin extras on Lawrence of Arabia nicknamed Peter O'Toole 'Father of the Sponge' after he padded what?

His camel saddle. Bruised by the riding, O'Toole cushioned it with foam rubber, and the idea spread until other riders on the shoot were doing the same.

Which city do Lawrence's Arab forces reach ahead of the British army at the climax of Lawrence of Arabia?

Damascus. The tribes take the city a day ahead of Allenby but cannot run it: their council collapses into feuding, and they drift back to the desert.

The producer wanted a two-composer score: Aram Khachaturian for the 'Eastern' half and which Briton for the other?

The idea was to sound out the Arab and British sides of the story separately; in the end one composer did it all.

The actor playing Sherif Ali in Lawrence of Arabia was already a film star in which country?

Egypt. Born Michel Chalhoub to a Catholic family, he had converted to Islam to marry his co-star Faten Hamama.

As of 2025, which earlier epic is Lawrence of Arabia's only rival as the longest film to win Best Picture?

Gone With the Wind. Which film is longer depends on whether overtures, intermissions and exit music are counted, so each gets called the record holder.

For the 1989 restoration of Lawrence of Arabia, Charles Gray dubbed the missing lines of which actor, the film's General Allenby?

Jack Hawkins. Throat cancer had cost him his voice in the 1960s and he died in 1973; Gray, who had dubbed his later films, stood in again while the surviving cast re-recorded their own lines.

Which two directors lobbied Columbia to back the 1989 restoration of Lawrence of Arabia?

Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg. When the studio's support for rescuing the decaying negative stalled, the two stepped in with Columbia's chief and got the work moving again.

Sony's 8K scan of Lawrence of Arabia showed fingerprint-like ripples where the film's emulsion had cracked from what on location?

Desert heat. It melted the emulsion in the camera, which cracked and healed over; the flaw had always been in the negative, but only the 8K scan showed it clearly enough to repair.

In Lawrence of Arabia, told that a man lost in the desert is fated to die, Lawrence replies that nothing is what?

Written. Lawrence rides back and saves the man, Gasim, then has to execute him himself to stop a tribal feud, and Auda remarks that it was written after all.

Which director calls Lawrence of Arabia a favourite film that helped decide where she shot her bomb-disposal war drama?

Kathryn Bigelow. She marvels that its director hauled arc lights and a full crew into so forbidding a desert in the 1960s, and visited the spot herself when she made The Hurt Locker.

Which actor, then little known, played T. E. Lawrence in the television film A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia?

Ralph Fiennes. The drama picks up at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, where Lawrence tries in vain to win his ally Faisal the throne of Syria.

Who won the Academy Award for Best Film Editing for Lawrence of Arabia?

Anne V. Coates. She had only months to cut the miles of footage in time for a royal premiere, and came back 27 years later to edit the 1989 restoration.

As of 2026, Peter O'Toole's record of eight acting Oscar nominations without a win is shared with which actress?

Glenn Close. When the Academy offered O'Toole an honorary Oscar instead, he first asked it to wait, saying he was still in the game and might yet win one outright.

T. E. Lawrence grew up in Oxford, but he was born in the village of Tremadog in which country?

Wales. His parents, an Anglo-Irish landowner and his daughters' governess, had run away together from Ireland and kept moving, through Scotland, Jersey and Brittany, before settling in Oxford.

The RAF recruiter who rejected T. E. Lawrence's 1922 enlistment as 'John Hume Ross' later wrote which books?

Biggles. Flying Officer W. E. Johns turned 'Ross' away, suspecting a false name, only to be ordered by his superiors to accept him: the recruit was Lawrence of Arabia.

Which future prime minister took T. E. Lawrence on as his adviser on Arab affairs at the Colonial Office in 1921?

Winston Churchill. Lawrence advised him at the 1921 Cairo Conference that settled who would rule Britain's new Arab territories, then quit to enlist in the ranks under a false name.

Lawrence of Arabia filmed desert scenes in which valley of red cliffs, later used as Mars in The Martian?

Wadi Rum. The real Lawrence rode through it during the Arab Revolt and called its cliffs 'vast, echoing and God-like'.