An Actor’s Actor
His work on screen and stage spanned generations
LOS ANGELES Albert Finney, one of the leading actors of the postwar period, died Feb. 7 after a short illness. He was 82.
The robust British performer began as a stage actor before transitioning to film. With his gravelly voice and riveting stare he brought an intense realism to his work, rising to fame in such 1960s classics as Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and Tom Jones. He later memorably played Agatha Christie’s legendary sleuth Hercule Poirot in Murder on the Orient Express and impressed critics and audiences with towering performances in The Dresser and Under the Volcano. Finney was nominated for five Oscars but never won the prize.
In 1963, Finney played the foundling hero in Tony Richardson’s Oscar best picture winner Tom Jones. The role made Finney an international movie star and earned him the first of four best actor Oscar nominations. A year earlier, Finney had turned down the title role in Lawrence of Arabia because he didn’t want to commit to a multi-picture deal and, he said, stardom frightened him.
Along with his contemporaries Peter O’Toole, Richard Burton and Richard Harris, Finney helped define a period where the movie business’s cultural axis shifted in the direction of the U.K. He was part of a new wave of British talent that offered an enticing brand of hellraising sex appeal.
Finney’s first major screen role was as Arthur Seaton, a machinist in 1960’s Karel Reisz-helmed Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. With his restless charm and undeniable charisma, Finney seemed to be speaking for a generation when his character says, “All I’m out for is a good time. The rest is propaganda.”
As his film career unfolded, Finney began portraying a variety of larger-than-life characters. He earned a second best actor Oscar nominations for one of his most popular roles, as Poirot in 1974’s Murder on the Orient Express. Author Christie reportedly thought Finney’s the best portrayal of her detective hero, but the actor declined an invitation to continue the franchise as Poirot in Death on the Nile.
In 1983’s The Dresser, adapted from Ronald Harwood’s play, Finney plays an aging actor-manager of a small British touring company during the Second World War.
The next year Finney gave one of his most controlled performances as the alcoholic consul in John Huston’s adaptation of Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano.
“His words come out with a peculiar intensity of focus,” critic Roger Ebert wrote, “pulled out of the small hidden core of sobriety deep inside his confusion.”
The part earned Finney a fourth Oscar nomination as best actor. Nicolas Cage later studied the performance for his Oscar-winning role as an alcoholic in Leaving Las Vegas (1995).
Other roles displayed Finney’s range as a mature man fighting to stay afloat in deteriorating marriages. He teamed with Audrey Hepburn in Stanley Donen’s Two for the Road (1967), an uneven if ambitious attempt to show the vicissitudes of marriage at three different stages.
In one of his rawest performances, the actor played Diane Keaton’s husband in 1982’s Shoot the Moon, a blistering look at a disintegrating marriage. That same year, he shaved his head to play Daddy Warbucks in John Huston’s leaden Annie, modelling his manner of speech in affectionate imitation of Huston’s resonant voice.
In 1968, Finney directed and acted in Charlie Bubbles, playing a famous married writer from a working-class background who has an affair. The film is notable for being Liza Minnelli’s screen debut.
Finney chewed the scenery as the lead in 1970’s Scrooge, a musical version of A Christmas Carol. He also had a good time in 1971’s quirky Gumshoe, where he played a bingo tournament host who dreams of being Sam Spade. For his small part in Ridley Scott’s 1977 The Duellists, he was reportedly paid with a case of champagne.
Another career high point came in the Coen brothers’ Miller’s Crossing, in which Finney portrays a stubborn, big-hearted crime boss. After assassins try to burn down his house, Finney’s character goes after them in spectacular fashion, jumping out a bedroom window before unloading on them with his submachine-gun. Danny Boy plays throughout the onscreen carnage.
In 2000, Finney earned a fifth and final Oscar nomination, this time for supporting actor for his performance as Julia Roberts’ boss, a gruff lawyer, in Erin Brockovich.
Finney plays a dying patriarch in 2004’s Tim Burton-helmed Big Fish. He had a minuscule part in the Bourne franchise, appearing as an unethical doctor in 2007’s The Bourne Ultimatum and very briefly in 2012’s The Bourne Legacy. Finney is more memorable in 2012’s Skyfall, his final role, as a groundskeeper playing a surrogate father to Daniel Craig’s James Bond.
Finney also played larger-thanlife characters on television, including Winston Churchill in the 2002 biopic The Gathering Storm (BBC-HBO), for which he won an Emmy as lead actor.
In 1996-97, Finney was the lead in Dennis Potter’s last television plays, Karaoke and Cold Lazarus.
Finney was born May 9, 1936 in Salford, Greater Manchester, England, and was a graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He made major Broadway successes of roles he created in John Osborne’s historical play Luther in 1964 and in Peter Nichols’ A Day in the Life of Joe Egg in 1968. Both earned him Tony nominations as best actor. He also originated the lead in Billy Liar. Other actors took over these roles in later film adaptations.
Finney was married three times, the first time to British actress Jane Wenham, the second to French actress Anouk Aimée. Survivors include Finney’s third wife Pene Delmage, whom he married in 2006; son Simon Finney, a film technician from his marriage to Wenham; and son Declan from his relationship with Katherine Attson.