Frederick George Peter Ingle Finch (28 September 1916 - 14 January 1977) was an English-born Australian actor. He is best remembered for his role as "crazed" television anchorman Howard Beale in the film Network, which earned him a posthumous Academy Award for Best Actor, his fifth Best Actor award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and a Best Actor award from the Golden Globes. He was the first person to win a posthumous Academy Award in an acting category.

Early life

Family

Finch was born as Frederick George Peter Ingle Finch in London to Alicia Gladys Fisher. At the time, Alicia was married to George Finch. George Finch was born in New South Wales, Australia, but was educated in Paris and Zürich. He was a research chemist when he moved to Britain in 1912 and later served during the First World War with the Royal Army Ordnance Depot and the Royal Field Artillery. In 1915, at Portsmouth, Hampshire, George married Alicia Fisher, the daughter of a Kent barrister. However, George Finch was not Peter Finch's biological father. He learned only in his mid-40s that his biological father was Wentworth Edward Dallas "Jock" Campbell, an Indian Army officer, whose adultery with Finch's mother was the cause of George and Alicia's divorce, when Peter was two years old. Alicia Finch married "Jock" Campbell in 1922.

Early childhood

George gained custody of Peter and he was taken from his mother and brought up by his paternal "grandmother" Laura Finch (formerly Black) in Vaucresson, France. In 1925 Laura took Peter with her to Adyar, a theosophical community near Madras, India, for a number of months, and the young boy lived for a time in a Buddhist monastery. Undoubtedly as a result of his childhood contact with Buddhism Finch always claimed to be a Buddhist. He is reported to have said: "I think a man dying on a cross is a ghastly symbol for a religion. And I think a man sitting under a bo tree and becoming enlightened is a beautiful one."

In 1926 he was sent to Australia to live with his great-uncle Edward Herbert Finch at Greenwich Point in Sydney. He attended the local school until 1929, then North Sydney Intermediate High School for three years.

Early career

After graduating, Finch went to work as a copy boy for the Sydney Sun and began writing. However he was more interested in acting, and in late 1933 appeared in a play, Caprice, at the Repertory Theatre. He started appearing in stage shows for Doris Fitton, worked as a sideshow spruiker at the Sydney Royal Easter Show, in vaudeville with Joe Cody and as a foil to American comedian Bert le Blanc.

At age 19 Finch toured Australia with George Sorlie's travelling troupe. He did radio acting work with Hugh Denison's BSA Players (for Broadcasting Service Association, later to become Macquarie Players). He came to the attention of Australian Broadcasting Commission radio drama producer Lawrence H. Cecil, who was to act as his coach and mentor throughout 1939 and 1940. He was "Chris" in the Children's Session and the first Muddle-Headed Wombat. He later starred with Neva Carr Glyn in an enormously popular series by Max Afford as husband-and-wife detectives Jeffery and Elizabeth Blackburn as well as other ABC radio plays.

First films

Finch's first screen performance was in the short film, The Magic Shoes (1935), an adaptation of the Cinderella fairy tale. He made his feature film debut with a supporting role in Dad and Dave Come to Town (1938) for director Ken G. Hall, who later cast Finch in a larger role in support to Cecil Kellaway in Mr. Chedworth Steps Out (1939).

War service

Finch enlisted in the Australian Army on 2 June 1941. He served in the Middle East and was an anti-aircraft gunner during the Bombing of Darwin. During his war service he was allowed to continue to act in radio, theatre and film, notably The Rats of Tobruk (1944). He produced and performed Army Concert Party work, and in 1945 toured bases and hospitals with two Terence Rattigan plays he directed, French Without Tears and While the Sun Shines. Finch was discharged from the army on 31 October 1945 at the rank of sergeant.

Australian career

After the war, Finch continued to work extensively in radio and established himself as Australia's leading actor in that medium, winning Macquarie Awards for best actor in 1946 and 1947. He also worked as a compere, producer and writer.

In 1946, Finch co-founded the Mercury Theatre Company, which put on a number of productions in Sydney over the next few years (initially in the diminutive St James' Hall), as well as running a theatre school. A 1948 performance of The Imaginary Invalid on the factory floor of O'Brien's Glass Factory in Sydney brought him to the attention of Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, then touring Australia with the Old Vic Company. Olivier encouraged Finch to move to London, and he left Australia in 1948.

British career

When Finch arrived in Britain, Olivier became his mentor and put him under long-term contract. His first big break was being cast in James Bridie's play Daphne Laureola at the Old Vic supporting Edith Evans. In 1952 he performed at St. James's Theatre, King Street, London, in Sir Laurence Olivier's and Gilbert Miller's The Happy Time a comedy by Samuel Taylor. He played the part of Papa He also received acclaim for his first role in a British film, Train of Events (1949), playing a murderous actor. Critic C. A. Lejeune praised his work in the London Observer commenting that he "adds good cheekbones to a quick intelligence and is likely to become a cult, I fear." The Scotsman said "he should be regarded as one of the most hopeful recruits to the British screen."

His performance as a Pole in Daphne Laureola led to his casting as a Polish soldier in The Miniver Story, the sequel to the wartime morale boosting film Mrs. Miniver; unlike its predecessor, it was poorly received critically. The same year he also appeared in the more successful The Wooden Horse playing an Australian prisoner of war.

During this time, Finch's closeness to the Olivier family led to an affair with Olivier's beautiful but increasingly unstable wife, Vivien Leigh, which began in 1948, and continued on and off for several years, ultimately falling apart due to her deteriorating mental condition.

Finch played Iago onstage in 1951 opposite Orson Welles as the lead in Othello. Despite his stage experience, Finch, like his mentor Olivier, suffered from stage fright, and as the 1950s progressed he worked increasingly in film. His roles increased in size and prestige, including being cast as the villain Flambeau in Father Brown (1954) and as the lead in the Hollywood film Elephant Walk (1954). However, he continued to appear on the stage, playing Trigorin in Chekhov's The Seagull opposite Peggy Ashcroft and Vanessa Redgrave in the West End in 1964/65.

Film stardom

Towards the end of 1954 Finch's contract with Laurence Olivier was about to expire and he instead signed a seven-year contract with the Rank Organisation worth £87,500 to make one film a year for them. "We are going to build Peter into a major British star", said Earl St. John, Rank's head of production, at the time.

Finch's first roles for Rank under the new arrangement were undistinguished: Make Me an Offer (1954), Simon and Laura (also 1954), Josephine and Men (1955), and Passage Home (also 1955). However, he was then cast in two major hits, A Town Like Alice (1956) and The Battle of the River Plate (1956), which saw exhibitors vote him the seventh most popular British star at the box office; the following year his ranking went up to third, being the fifth most popular regardless of nationality. He returned to Australia to make two films, Robbery Under Arms (1957) and The Shiralee (1957).

The success of The Nun's Story (1959) saw Finch become an international star, although he never worked in Hollywood for an extended period of time, preferring to base himself in London. He was originally chosen to play Julius Caesar in Cleopatra (1963) and filmed scenes in London, but when the film was postponed he withdrew; the role was recast with Rex Harrison. He won BAFTA Awards for his performances in The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960) (in the title role), No Love for Johnnie (1961) and Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971). His performance in the latter also earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role.

Other notable films included The Pumpkin Eater (1964) and Far from the Madding Crowd (1967). A profile of Finch on the British Film Institute's Screenonline website asserts that "it is arguable that no other actor ever chalked up such a rewarding CV in British films."

Posthumous Oscar

At the time of Finch's death, he was doing a promotional tour for the Sidney Lumet film Network (1976) in which he plays the television anchorman Howard Beale who develops messianic pretensions. He was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for that role, posthumously winning the award, which was accepted by his widow, Eletha Finch. Although James Dean, Spencer Tracy and Massimo Troisi were also posthumously nominated for a Best Actor Oscar, Peter Finch was the first actor to have won the award posthumously, as well as the first Australian actor to win a Best Actor award. He was the only posthumous winner of an Oscar in an acting category until Heath Ledger won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2009 (there were many earlier posthumous Oscar winners in non-acting categories; Ledger was also an Australian). Finch also won five Best Actor awards from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), including one for Network.

Shortly before he died he told a journalist:

We all say we're going to quit occasionally... I'd like to have been more adventurous in my career. But it's a fascinating and not ignoble profession. No one lives more lives than the actor. Movie making is like geometry and I hated maths. But this kind of jigsaw I relish. When I played Lord Nelson I worked the poop deck in his uniform. I got extraordinary shivers. Sometimes I felt like I was staring at my own coffin. I touched that character. There lies the madness. You can't fake it.

Death

After suffering a heart attack in the lobby of the Beverly Hills Hotel, Finch died on 14 January 1977, at the age of 60; he is interred in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

Personal life

Finch was married three times. In 1943, he married Romanian-born French ballerina Tamara Tchinarova; they worked together on a number of films. They had a daughter, Anita, born in 1950. They divorced in 1959, after she discovered his affair with actress Vivien Leigh in California. He then married South African-born actress Yolande Turner (née Yolande Eileen Turnbull); they had two children together, Samantha and Charles Peter. During their marriage, Finch had an affair with the singer Shirley Bassey. Bassey had a daughter, also called Samantha, born in 1963; Bassey's husband at the time, the openly gay film producer Kenneth Hume, believed that Finch was her biological father. Finch and Turner divorced in 1965. In 1972 Finch married Mavis "Eletha" Barrett, who was known as Eletha Finch. They had a daughter together, Diana.

Biographies

In 1954, the Australian journalist and author George Johnston wrote a well-researched series of biographical articles on Finch, his life, and his work, which appeared in the Sydney Sun-Herald on four consecutive Sundays, which were certainly the first detailed account of Finch's life to be published. Finch later provided the inspiration for the character Archie Calverton in Johnston's novel, Clean Straw for Nothing.

In 1980, American author Elaine Dundy published a biography of Finch titled Finch, Bloody Finch: A Biography of Peter Finch. That year, his second wife, Yolande Finch, also published a posthumous account of their life together, Finchy: My Life with Peter Finch. Another biography had previously been published by his friend and colleague Trader Faulkner, in 1979.

According to an entry in Brian McFarlane's The Encyclopedia of British Film, republished on the British Film Institute's Screenonline website, Finch "did not emerge unscathed from a life of well-publicised hell-raising, and several biographies chronicle the affairs and the booze, but a serious appraisal of a great actor remains to be written."

Filmography

Awards and Nominations

Theatre credits

Australia

• Caprice by Sil Vara - Repertory Theatre, Sydney, 1933
• The Ringer by Edgar Wallace as Samuel Hackett - Studio Theatre, Sydney, 1934
• Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie as a pirate - Savoy Theatre, Sydney, 1934 (later transferred by Ben Fuller to the Majestic Theatre, Newtown) - directed by Doris Fitton
• Counsellor at Law by Elmer Rice, as the Boot Black - Savoy Theatre, Sydney, 1934 - directed by Doris Fitton with Sumner Locke Elliott
• Richard of Bordeaux by Gordon Daviot, as the fair Page Maudelyn - Savoy Theatre, Sydney, 1935 - directed by Doris Fitton with Sumner Locke Elliott and John Wyndham
• Joe Coady's Vaudeville Show - Maccabean Hall, Sydney, 1935
• Bert le Blanc comedy show, as stooge to le Blanc - Sydney, 1935
• Jimmy Sharman's Boxing Tent, as spruiker - Royal Easter Show, Sydney, 1935
• Interference by Roland Pertwee and Harold Dearden, as Douglas Helder - St James' Hall, Sydney, 1935 - directed by Edward Howell with Howell, Rosalind Kennerdale and Therese Desmond
• False Colours by Frank Harvey - Independent Theatre, Sydney, 1935.
• So This is Hollywood - Apollo Theatre, Melbourne, 1935 - with Robert Capron, Lou Vernon and Thelma Scott
• Under the Big Top - touring show with George Sorlie, various Queensland towns, 1936, playing Herbert Hughes in Laughter of Fools by H.F. Maltby, Smithers in Married by Proxy by Avery Hopwood, Peter in Fair and Warmer by Avery Hopwood, Hunter in Ten Minute Alibi by William Armstrong - all directed by William McGowan with Murray Matheson, Rosalind Kennerdale, Leslie Crane, Eva Moss, Norman French, Julia Adair and George Douglas.
• White Cargo by Leon Gordon, as Ashley - Theatre Royal, Sydney, 1938 - directed by Ben Lewin with Mary MacGregr, James Raglan, Frank Bradley
• Personal Appearance by Laurence Riley as Clyde Pelton - Theatre Royal, Sydney and Comedy Theatre, Melbourne, 1938 - directed by Peter Dearing, with Betty Balfour, Frank Bradley, Cecil Perry
• Army Concert Party work 1941-1944
• Night of January 16th by Ayn Rand, as DA Flint - Minerva Theatre, Sydney, 1944 - directed by Frederick J Blackman with Lawrence H. Cecil and Thelma Grigg
• While the Sun Shines by Terence Rattigan, as the Earl of Harpenden - Minerva Theatre, Sydney 1944 - directed by Frederick J Blackman with Pat McDonald, Ron Randell, Roger Barry (later toured this production to army hospitals and bases in 1945)
• French Without Tears by Terence Rattigan - various army hospitals and bases, 1945 - Finch directed
• Diamond Cuts Diamond by Nicolai Gogol, as Ikharev - Conservatorium of Music, Sydney, 16-17 July 1946 - directed by Sydney John Kay
• The Pastry Baker by Lope de Vega - Conservatorium of Music, Sydney, 16-17 July 1946 - director only
• The Broken Pitcher by Heinrich von Kleist, as Adam - Conservatorium of Music, Sydney, 16-17 July 1946
• French Without Tears by Terence Rattigan - Killara Hall, Sydney and Sydney Radio Theatre, 1947 - Finch directed a cast including Leonard Thiele, Tom Lake, Alan White, Adele Brown, Ron Patten
• Midsummer Night by Lajos Bíró - touring production, Sydney 1948 - directed only
• Anatole's Wedding Morning by Arthur Schnitzler - touring production, Sydney 1948 - directed only
• The Imaginary Invalid by Molière, as Argan - O'Brien's Glass Factory and Sydney Town Hall, Sydney, 1948 - directed by Sydney John Kay with June Wimble, Elsie Dane, Al Thomas, John Faassen, Patricia Harrison, Allan Ashbolt, Tom Lake

Britain

• Daphne Laureola by James Bridie, as Ernest Piaste - Wyndham's Theatre, London, 1949 - directed by Murray MacDonald for Laurence Olivier Productions with Edith Evans and Felix Aylmer
• The Damascus Blade by Bridget Boland, as Henry Adams - provincial tour, 1950 - directed by Laurence Olivier for Laurence Olivier Productions with John Mills and Beatrix Lehmann
• The White Falcon - provincial tour, 1950 - starring Basil Radford and Sheila Burrel - Finch worked on this as a director only
• Captain Carvallo by Denis Cannan, as Professor Winke - St James Theatre, London, 1950 - directed by Laurence Olivier for Laurence Olivier Productions with Diana Wynyard and Jill Bennett
• Point of Departure by Jean Anouilh and Kitty Black, as Orpheus - Duke of York Theatre, London, 1951 - directed by Peter Ashmore for the Company of Four with Mai Zetterling and Stephen Murray (Finch replaced Dirk Bogarde for six weeks on 12 March 1951)
• Othello by William Shakespeare, as Iago - St James Theatre, London, 1951 - directed by Orson Welles for Laurence Olivier Productions with Orson Welles, Gudrun Ure, Maxine Audley and Edward Mulhare
• The Happy Time by Samuel Taylor, as Papa - St James Theatre, London, 1952 - directed by George Devine for Laurence Olivier Productions, with Geneviève Page, Ronald Squire, George Devine, Rachel Kempson
• Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, as Mercutio - Old Vic Theatre, London, 1952 - directed by Denis Carey with Claire Bloom, Athene Seyler, Lewis Casson and Alan Badel
• An Italian Straw Hat by Eugène Labiche and Marc Michel adapted by Thomas Walton, as Mons Beaujolais - Old Vic Theatre, London, 1953 - directed by Denis Carey with Laurence Payne, Paul Rogers, Jane Wenham, Gudrun Ure
• Two for the Seesaw by William Gibson, as Jerry Ryan - Theatre Royal, Brighton and Theatre Royal Haymarket, London, 1958-59 - directed by Arthur Penn for H. M. Tennent with Gerry Jedd
• The Seagull by Anton Chekhov translated by Ann Jellicoe, as Trigorin - Queen's Theatre, London, 1964 - directed by Tony Richardson with Peggy Ashcroft, Peter McEnery, Vanessa Redgrave, Paul Rogers and George Devine.

Select TV credits

• The Forgotten Elite (October 1949)

Select radio credits

• The Laughing Woman (1939)
• Interference (1939) - the first episode of Australia's version of Lux Theatre of the Air
• Men in White (1939)
• The Daughter of the Dragon (1939)
• Night Nurse (1939)
• Mutiny on the Bounty (1941)
• Mr Deeds Comes to Town (1941)
• The Laughing Woman (1946) - reprise of his performance for which Finch won the 1946 Macquarie Award for Best Male Actor on Australian radio
• Such Men Are Dangerous (1946) as Czar Paul I
• Crime and Punishment (1946) as Raskolnikov
• Redemption (1946) by Tolstoy - Finch won the 1947 Macquarie Award for Best Male Actor on Australian radio
• When You Come Home (1946)
• Big Sister (1946)
• Crossroads of Life (1946)
• Man of Destiny (1948)

[ Source: Wikipedia ]