Peter Finch(1916-1977)
- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Despite being one of the finest actors of his generation, Peter Finch
will be remembered as much for his reputation as a hard-drinking,
hell-raising womanizer as for his performances on the screen. He was
born in London in 1916 and went to live in Sydney, Australia, at the
age of ten. There, he worked in a series of dead-end jobs before taking
up acting, his film debut being in the mediocre comedy
The Farmer Goes to Town (1938).
He made his stage debut as a comedian's stooge in 1939.
Laurence Olivier spotted him and
persuaded him to return to Britain to perform classic roles on the
stage. Finch then had an affair with Olivier's wife,
Vivien Leigh. Despite being married three
times, Finch also had highly-publicized affairs with actresses
Kay Kendall and
Mai Zetterling. Finch soon switched to
film after suffering appalling stage fright. As a screen actor, he won
five BAFTA awards and his talent was beyond doubt. Two of his finest
roles, the only two for which he also received Oscar nominations, were as
the homosexual Jewish doctor in
Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971)
and as the "mad prophet of the air-waves" in
Network (1976). He died a couple of
months before being awarded the Oscar for Best Performance by an Actor
in a Leading Role in Network (1976) and
was the first actor to have won the award posthumously.
