- Born
- Died
- Birth nameFrancis Finlay
- Height5′ 8″ (1.73 m)
- One of Britain's finest products of the stage, film and TV, actor Frank Finlay, he with the dark and handsomely serious-to-mordant looks, was born on August 6, 1926, in Farnworth, England, the son of Josiah, a butcher, and Margaret Finlay. Of English, Irish and Scottish descent, Frank attended St. Gregory the Great School and then was actually training to follow in his father's footsteps as a butcher himself when his side interest in acting eventually won out. He became a member of the Farnworth Little Theatre and met his future wife, Doreen Shepherd, a fellow member at the same time. They married in 1954, had three children (two sons, one daughter) and were married for over 50 years until her death in 2005.
Finlay began his professional career on the repertory stage with roles in The Guilford Theatre Company's 1957 productions of "Jessica" and "The Telescope". Graduating from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), he built up a strong and sturdy theatrical reputation at the Royal Court Theatre between 1958 and 1960 where he was seen to good advantage in such plays as "Chicken Soup and Barley", "Sugar in the Morning", "Sergeant Musgrave's Dance", "Roots", "I'm Talking About Jerusalem", "The Happy Haven" and "Platonov". Making his Broadway debut in "The Epitaph of George Dillon" in 1959, he also sparked a noteworthy professional association with Laurence Olivier at the National Theatre, the highlight being his intense but subtle portrayal of "Iago" to Olivier's "Othello" in 1964.
Marking his film debut in a bit role in The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962), Finlay sandwiched in a steady stream of British film parts (including Private Potter (1963), Doctor in Distress (1963), Agent 8 3/4 (1964), The Comedy Man (1964), A Study in Terror (1965) (as "Jack the Ripper" Inspector Lestrade), The Jokers (1967), The Deadly Bees (1966) and Robbery (1967)) in between theatre assignments. His greatest film opportunity occurred when he was given the right by Olivier to recreate his Iago role opposite the legendary actor in the masterful film adaptation of Othello (1965). Finlay, Maggie Smith (as "Desdemona") and Joyce Redman (as "Emilia") all received Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for their illustrious "supporting" work of Olivier (who was also Oscar nominated). Frank went on to nab a "Most Promising Newcomer" nomination from the BAFTA committee as well. To date, this has been the actor's only Oscar recognition.
Frank, who had a dashing role as "Porthos" for director Richard Lester in the ripe Dumas adaptation of The Three Musketeers (1973) (and its sequels The Four Musketeers: Milady's Revenge (1974) and The Return of the Musketeers (1989)), has had primarily an international cinematic career. Films include The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968), Cromwell (1970), The Molly Maguires (1970), Shaft in Africa (1973), The Wild Geese (1978), Murder by Decree (1979) (again as "Inspector Lestrade"), The Return of the Soldier (1982), The Key (1983) [The Key], Lifeforce (1985), La montagna dei diamanti (1991), So This Is Romance? (1997), Silent Cry (2002) and, most notably, the Oscar-winning WWII picture The Pianist (2002), directed by Roman Polanski, in which he portrayed the patriarch of a displaced Jewish family that included "Best Actor" son Adrien Brody.
Classical television notice came in middle age with Frank's strong performances as "Jean Valjean" in the British TV mini-series Les Misérables (1967) and the title role in Casanova (1971). He also went on to win stellar praise and a BAFTA award for his chilling portrayal of "Adolf Hitler" in The Death of Adolf Hitler (1973). Finlay and Susan Penhaligon courted controversy in the drama series Bouquet of Barbed Wire (1976) and were reunited in further controversy the following year with its follow-up Another Bouquet (1977). More plentiful and prestigious BBC-TV work came with his roles as Shakespeare's "Brutus" and "Shylock", not to mention his award-winning performances as "Voltaire" and "Sancho Panza".
In Count Dracula (1977), Finlay played "Van Helsing" to nemesis Louis Jourdan's velvety-voiced vampire; in A Christmas Carol (1984), he was the dour, shackled "Jacob Marley", who pays a ghostly visit to George C. Scott's crusty "Ebenezer Scrooge"; and in Eroica (2003), he portrayed composer "Franz Josef Haydn" alongside Ian Hart's "Beethoven" in the mini-series Eroica (2003). Frank ended his on-camera career gracing such programs as the mini-series Johnny and the Bomb (2006), Prime Suspect 7: The Final Act (2006) and Four Seasons (2008) and the TV series Life Begins (2004).
Throughout his prolific career on TV and film, Frank has maintained on the stage giving sterling performances in classic and contemporary plays as in with "Much Ado About Nothing (as "Dogberry"), "The Crucible", "Saturday Sunday Monday", "Filumena", "Amadeus" (a most affecting Salieri), "Mutiny" (as "Captain Bligh"), "Beyond Reasonable Doubt" and as the rigid father in the 1992 period production of "The Heiress." On January 30, 2016, Finlay died of heart failure in Surrey, England, at the age of 89.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net - Before turning to acting he worked as a butcher and earned 3 guineas a week doing monologues at weddings. He got a scholarship to RADA and established himself in the play Roots with Joan Plowright. His big break came when Laurence Olivier asked him to play Iago to his Othello. After playing Saliers in Amadeus in the West End of London he was disappointed in not repeating the role in the film version. He was married to Doreen who he met at a local dance and they had 2 sons and a daughter.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Tonyman 5
- Born in Farnworth near Bolton he left school at 14 and became a butcher's boy obtaining a City and Guilds diploma for butchery while spending his spare time in amateur drama groups and weekends entertaining at weddings as a stand up comic and games organiser. At 25 he was as a stage hand and juvenile lead at Halifax repertory company and 2 years later won a scholarship to RADA in London where his fellow students included Peter O'Toole Albert Finney and Alan Bates This was followed in around 1957.by an out of work period, when he and his friend Edward Woodward could be found every Wednesday and Friday afternoon in the eventually got work at Guilford Repertory from where he worked his way into London dole queue at Chiswick labour exchange signing on for unemployment pay and having to bed down on a friend's living room floor before eventually getting work at Guilford Repertory from where he worked his way into London in 1955 Some 20 years down the line his life changed around, being a well known name on the stage and face on television thanks to the series of A Bouquet of Barb Wire. Married to Doreen, who was once an actress they have three children, Stephen Cathy and Daniel- IMDb Mini Biography By: Tonyman 5
- SpouseDoreen Joan Shepherd(1954 - June 1, 2005) (her death, 3 children)
- Children
- ParentsJosiah FinlayMargaret Finlay
- Prematurely grey hair (later white).
- Resonant voice.
- A devout Catholic, he belonged to the British Catholic Stage Guild.
- He was made a CBE (Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) in the 1984 Queens New Year's Honours List for services to drama.
- He is buried next to his wife Doreen at Weybridge Cemetery.
- He has two roles in common with Gérard Depardieu: (1) Finlay played Jean Valjean in Les Misérables (1967) while Depardieu played him in Les misérables (2000) and (2) Finlay played Porthos in The Three Musketeers (1973), The Four Musketeers: Milady's Revenge (1974) and The Return of the Musketeers (1989) while Depardieu played him in The Man in the Iron Mask (1998).
- He played Inspector Lestrade in two unrelated films which featured Sherlock Holmes attempting to solve the Jack the Ripper murders: A Study in Terror (1965) and Murder by Decree (1979). Both films featured Anthony Quayle in a supporting role.
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