Everyone Loves a Hollywood Bad Boy but Especially when He’s Irish

Peter O’Toole announced his retirement yesterday after a long and successful career on stage and in film. The Irish actor set the bar high for classic celebrity bad boys and his career has been speckled with Oscar nominations, womanising and trouble making with fellow Hollywood dwellers Richard Burton, Oliver Reed and Richard Harris. The actor who will celebrate his eightieth birthday next month has inspired our list of our favourite Irish bad boys.

Colin Farrell

Although the In Bruges actor has calmed down since the birth of his son James in 2003, we can’t help but miss the days when Farrell was an infamous Hollywood party guest. Farrell’s life consisted of sex tape scandals, week-long sessions and the odd movie role and we loved it. We at Her.ie love Colin’s rugged good looks and we can’t wait for his return to the big screen in the remake of Total Recall next month.

Jonathon Rhys Meyers

The Irish actor is known for his role in the Tudors where he played temperamental Henry VIII.  However, the Cork man is better known for his crazy antics than his acting. In 2009, Rhys Meyers punched a Charles De Gaulle airport lounge employee and a year later her was arrested in Mew York’s JFK airport on similar charges.

Richard Harris

The late Limerick born actor was a great friend of Peter O’Toole and is most famous for his roles Wrestling Ernest Hemingway and the earlier Harry Potter movies. The rogue once went on a three-week session with an Irish rugby team after popping out to the shops for some milk… and did not tell his wife! Harris once said: "I don't drink because I have problems or I want to escape. I just love drinking and being drunk."

Michael Gambon

Gambon’s personal life took a crazy turn a few years ago when he left his wife whom he had been married to for over forty-five years for Phillipa Hart. a woman who fell pregnant with his child. The actor who is nearly seventy, welcomed his second child almost forty years after his first. Gambon moved into a £500,000 home in Chiswick with Hart after Phillipa revealed her pregnancy.

George Best

The late footballer’s party loving lifestyle was highlighted throughout his long and boozy career. The Belfast-born lad said that he: “spent 90% of my money on women, drink and fast cars.” Sadly though, Best’s problems with alcohol caused his early death in 2005 at the age of fifty nine.