Frank Finlay
Born	6 August 1926 (1926-08-06) (age 81) Farnworth, England
Spouse(s)	Doreen Shepherd
Official website

Francis "Frank" Finlay, CBE (born 6 August 1926) is a British stage, film and television actor. If you hold the copyright to an image (e. ... is the 218th day of the year (219th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1926 (MCMXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... For other uses, see England (disambiguation). ... The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by King George V. The Order includes five classes in civil and military divisions; in decreasing order of seniority, these are Knight Grand Cross or Dame Grand Cross (GBE) Knight Commander... is the 218th day of the year (219th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1926 (MCMXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... For other uses, see Actor (disambiguation). ...

Biography

Personal life

Finlay was born in Farnworth, near Bolton, Lancashire, England, the son of Margaret and Josiah Finlay.^[1] A devout Catholic,^{[citation needed]} educated at St. Gregory the Great School, he belongs to the British Catholic Stage Guild. He met his future wife, Doreen Shepherd, when they were both members of the Farnworth Little Theatre. They lived in Weybridge, Surrey. They were married until her death in 2005.^[2] This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... For the larger local government district, see Metropolitan Borough of Bolton. ... Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England, bounded to the west by the Irish Sea. ... For other uses, see England (disambiguation). ... Saint Gregory I, or Gregory the Great (called the Dialogist in Eastern Orthodoxy) (circa 540 - March 12, 604) was pope of the Catholic Church from September 3, 590 until his death. ... The British Catholic Stage Guild is the main organisation for Roman Catholics in British entertainment. ... Weybridge is a town in Surrey, England. ...

Stage career

Finlay began his stage career in rep before graduating from RADA. There followed several appearances at the Royal Court Theatre, notably in the Arnold Wesker trilogy. He is particularly associated with the National Theatre, especially during the Olivier years and its predecessor, the Chichester Festival Theatre, where he played a wide variety of roles ranging from the First Gravedigger in Hamlet to Saint Joan, Hobson's Choice, Much Ado About Nothing, The Dutch Courtesan, The Crucible, Mother Courage, Juno and the Paycock and culminating in his controversial Iago to Lord Olivier's title character in the film Othello. Repertory or rep, called stock in the U.S., is a term from Western theatre. ... Rada is the term for council or assembly borrowed by Polish from Middle High German Rat (council) and later passed into Czech, Ukrainian, and Belarusian languages. ... The Royal Court Theatre is a non-commercial theatre in Sloane Square, in the Chelsea area of London noted for its contributions to modern theatre. ... Arnold Wesker (born 24 May 1932) is considered one of the key figures in 20th Century drama. ... The Royal National Theatre from Waterloo Bridge The Royal National Theatre is a building complex and theatre company located on the South Bank in London, England immediately east of the southern end of Waterloo Bridge. ... Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM, (IPA: ; 22 May 1907 – 11 July 1989) was an Academy Award, Golden Globe, BAFTA and four-time Emmy winning English actor, director, and producer. ... Chichester Festival Theatre is one of the UKs flagship theatres with an international reputation for creating magical live performances. ... For other uses, see Hamlet (disambiguation). ... Saint Joan is a 1923 play by G. Bernard Shaw that he wrote shortly after the Roman Catholic Church canonized Joan of Arc. ... For other uses, see Hobsons choice (disambiguation). ... Title page of the first quarto (1600) Much Ado About Nothing is a comedy by William Shakespeare. ... The Dutch Courtesan is a play written by the playwright and satirist John Marston in around 1604-5. ... For other uses, see Crucible (disambiguation). ... Mother Courage and Her Children (German: Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder) was a play written in 1939 by the German dramatist and poet Bertolt Brecht (1898 - 1956) with significant contributions from his mistress at the time, Margarete Steffin. ... Juno and the Paycock is a play by Sean OCasey, the second of his well-known Dublin Trilogy. It was first staged at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 1924. ... For other uses, see Iago (disambiguation). ... Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM (22 May 1907–11 July 1989) was an Academy Award, Golden Globe, BAFTA and four-time Emmy winning English actor, director, and producer. ... Othello is a 1965 movie based on the Shakespeare play Othello; starring Laurence Olivier, Maggie Smith, Frank Finlay, and Joyce Redman. ...

Finlay's original stage performance of Iago as an NCO left critics unmoved, but later received high praise when the play was filmed and earned him an Academy Award nomination. He was also seen on Broadway in Epitaph for George Dillon (1958-59), and, also, in the National Theatre and Broadway productions of Filumena (opposite Olivier's wife, Joan Plowright) in 1980. For other uses, see Iago (disambiguation). ... A non-commissioned officer (sometimes noncommissioned officer), also known as an NCO or Noncom, is an enlisted member of an armed force who has been given authority by a commissioned officer. ... Although he never won an Oscar for any of his movie performances, the comedian Bob Hope received two honorary Oscars for his contributions to cinema. ... For other uses of Broadway, see Broadway. ... Poster for the 2005 production of Epitaph for George Dillon Epitaph for George Dillon is an early John Osborne play, one of two he wrote in collaboration with Anthony Creighton (the other is Personal Enemy). ... Joan Ann Olivier, Baroness Olivier DBE, née Plowright (born October 28, 1929), known professionally as Dame Joan Plowright is a British actress and widow of Laurence Olivier. ...

Television and film

His first major success on television was in the title role of Casanova in Dennis Potter's BBC2 series of the same name. Following which in 1972, he won perhaps the greatest praise of his career for his chilling portrayal of the Nazi dictator in his last days in The Death Of Adolf Hitler. Many critics said he was "the most frightening" Hitler of all. Casanova is a British television drama serial, written by the acclaimed television playwright Dennis Potter. ... Liber Amoris Dennis Christopher George Potter (17 May 1935—7 June 1994) was a controversial British dramatist who is best known for several widely acclaimed television dramas which mixed fantasy and reality, the personal and the social. ... BBC Two (or BBC2 as it was formerly styled) was the second UK television station to be aired by the BBC. History The channel was scheduled to begin at 7:20pm on April 20, 1964 and show an evening of light entertainment, starting with the comedy show The Alberts and...

He portrayed Richard Roundtree's nemesis Amafi in the third Shaft film Shaft in Africa (1973) before playing Porthos for director Richard Lester in The Three Musketeers (1973), The Four Musketeers (1975) and The Return of the Musketeers (1989). He has also appeared several other films, including The Wild Geese (1978). Richard Roundtree Richard Roundtree (born July 9, 1942 in New Rochelle, New York) is an African American actor and hero famous for portraying John Shaft in the film Shaft (1971) and in its two sequels: Shafts Big Score in 1972, and Shaft in Africa in 1973. ... Shaft is a 1971 Academy Award winning film directed by Gordon Parks. ... Shaft in Africa, released in 1973, is the third film in the trilogy of films that starred actor Richard Roundtree as John Shaft. ... Richard Lester (born January 19, 1932 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is a UK based film director famous for his work with The Beatles. ... The Three Musketeers is a 1973 film based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas, père. ... The Four Musketeers is the title of a 1974 Richard Lester film, which follows upon his film of the previous year, The Three Musketeers, and covers the second half of Dumass novel. ... The Return of the Musketeers is a 1989 film based on the novel Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas, père. ... The Wild Geese is a 1978 film about a group of mercenaries in Africa. ...

He went on to star as the father in the controversial Bouquet of Barbed Wire and he was reunited with his Bouquet of Barbed Wire co-star, Susan Penhaligon, when he played Van Helsing in the BBC Count Dracula with Louis Jourdan (1977). Bouquet of Barbed Wire was a British television mini-series made by LWT for ITV in 1976. ... Susan Penhaligon in Doctor Who Susan Penhaligon was one of the most notable British television actresses of the 1970s, and continues to make stage and screen appearances today. ... Helsing and Van Helsing redirect here. ... Count Dracula (1977) was a television adaptation of the famous novel by Bram Stoker. ... Louis Jourdan (born June 19, 1919, 1920, or 1921[1]) is a French film actor. ...

He appeared in two Sherlock Holmes films as Inspector Lestrade, solving the Jack the Ripper murders (A Study in Terror and Murder by Decree). In 1984, Finlay appeared on American television in A Christmas Carol. He played Marley's Ghost opposite George C. Scott's Ebenezer Scrooge. A portrait of Sherlock Holmes by Sidney Paget from the Strand Magazine, 1891 Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who first appeared in publication in 1887. ... Inspector Lestrade arresting a suspect, by Sidney Paget Inspector Lestrade in the Granada television series Inspector Lestrade is a Scotland Yard detective appearing in several of the Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. ... Jack the Ripper is the pseudonym given to an unidentified serial killer active in the largely impoverished Whitechapel area of London, England in the second half of 1888. ... A Study in Terror is a 1965 Sherlock Holmes film in which the detective goes on the trail of Jack the Ripper. ... A still from Murder by Decree showing the Goulston Street graffiti containing the word Juwes, which is portrayed erroneously as a Masonic term. ... A Christmas Carol is a 1984 television movie adaptation of Charles Dickens famous 1843 novella. ... Ebenezer Scrooge encounters Ignorance and Want in Dickenss novel, A Christmas Carol Ebenezer Scrooge is the main character in Charles Dickens 1843 novel, A Christmas Carol. ...

Finlay also played a rather slim Sancho Panza, opposite Rex Harrison's Don Quixote, in the 1973 British made-for-television film The Adventures of Don Quixote, for which he won a BAFTA award. He won another BAFTA award that year for his performance as Voltaire in a non-musical BBC TV production of Candide. To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Sir Reginald Rex Carey Harrison, KBE (5 March 1908 – 2 June 1990) was an Academy Award- and Tony Award-winning English theatre and film actor. ... This article is about the fictional character and novel. ... A television movie (also known as a TV film, TV movie, TV-movie, feature-length drama, made-for-TV movie, movie of the week (MOTW or MOW), single drama, telemovie, telefilm, or two-hour-long drama) is a film that is produced for and originally distributed by a television network. ... The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), is a British organization that hosts annual awards shows for film, television, childrens film and television, and interactive media. ... For the singer of the same name, see Voltaire (musician). ... For other uses, see BBC (disambiguation). ... For the Bernstein operetta based on the book, see Candide (operetta). ...

He also guest-starred as "The Witchsmeller Pursuivant" in an episode of the popular 1983 British sitcom Blackadder. A British sitcom is a situation comedy (sitcom) produced in the United Kingdom. ... For other uses, see Blackadder (disambiguation). ...

In 2002 Finlay portrayed Adrien Brody's character's father in the Roman Polanski film The Pianist (2002). His most recent appearances have been in the TV series Life Begins and as Jane Tennison's father in the last two stories of Prime Suspect (2006 and 2007). In 2007 he guest-starred in the Doctor Who audio adventure 100. Adrien Brody (born April 14, 1973) is an American actor known for his freakishly large nose. ... Roman Polanski (born August 18, 1933) is an Academy Award-winning film director, writer, actor, and producer. ... The Pianist is a 2002 film directed by Roman Polanski and starring Adrien Brody. ... Life Begins is a British television drama broadcast on ITV1, starring Caroline Quentin. ... Prime Suspect is a highly-acclaimed Granada Television police procedural television drama series of the decades of the 1990s and 2000s, which has been followed up by several sequels. ... This article is about the television series. ... 100 is a Big Finish Productions audio drama based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. ...

Filmography

Please help improve this article or section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (December 2007)

Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... // Events Top grossing films North America Mary Poppins The Sound of Music, starring Julie Andrews Goldfinger My Fair Lady Whats New Pussycat? Shenandoah The Sandpiper Father Goose Academy Awards Best Picture: The Sound of Music - Argyle, Twentieth Century-Fox Best Actor: Lee Marvin - Cat Ballou Best Actress: Julie Christie...

References

External links

• Frank Finlay at the Internet Movie Database
• Official website