Friday 8 February 2019

ALBERT FINNEY: FROM 'THE ENTERTAINER' TO 'SKYFALL'

Albert Finney
Today, The Grandma wants to homage Albert Finney, one of the most wonderful and unforgettable English actors of the history, who died in London yesterday. 

Albert Finney is one of the greatest actors of the English theatre and cinema and his films will be remembered forever.

Before talking about Finney, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her Elementary Language Practice manual (Vocabulary 19).

More information: Vocabulary 19-Going Out

Albert Finney Jr. (9 May 1936-7 February 2019) was an English actor, producer and director of film, television and theatre. He attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and began to work in the theatre as a Shakespearean actor before attaining prominence on screen in the early 1960s, debuting with The Entertainer (1960), directed by Tony Richardson, who had previously directed him in the theatre. He maintained a successful career in theatre, film and television.

Albert Finney & Audrey Hepburn in Two for the Road
A recipient of BAFTA , Golden Globe, Emmy and Screen Actors Guild awards, Finney was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor four times, for Tom Jones (1963), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), The Dresser (1983), and Under the Volcano (1984); he was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Erin Brockovich (2000). His performance as Winston Churchill in the BBC–HBO television biographical film The Gathering Storm (2002) saw him receive a number of accolades.

Finney was born in Salford, Lancashire, the son of Alice (née Hobson) and Albert Finney, a bookmaker. He was educated at Tootal Drive Primary School, Salford Grammar School and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), from which he graduated in 1956.

More information: BBC

In February 1956 John Fernald, principal of RADA, gave Finney his first major role in the Vanbrugh Theatre's student production of Ian Dallas' play The Face of Love, as Shakespeare's Troilus. Finney graduated from RADA and became a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Albert Finney in Murder on the Orient Express
His career began in the theatre, and he made his first appearance on the London stage in 1958, in Jane Arden's The Party, directed by Charles Laughton, who starred in the production along with his wife, Elsa Lanchester. Then, in 1959, he appeared at Stratford in the title role in Coriolanus, replacing an ill Laurence Olivier.

Finney created the title role in Luther, the 1961 play by John Osborne depicting the life of Martin Luther, one of the foremost instigators of the Protestant Reformation. He performed the role with the English Stage Company in London, Nottingham, Paris and New York.

His first film appearance was in Tony Richardson's The Entertainer (1960), with Laurence Olivier, and he made his breakthrough in the same year with his portrayal of a disillusioned factory worker in Karel Reisz's film version of Alan Sillitoe's Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, also 1960. This led to his starring in the Academy Award-winning 1963 film Tom Jones.

More information: The Guardian

Prior to this, Finney had been chosen to play T. E. Lawrence in David Lean's production of Lawrence of Arabia after a successful, and elaborate, screen-test that took four days to shoot.

After Charlie Bubbles (1968), which he also directed, his film appearances became less frequent as he focused more on acting on stage. During this period, one of his high-profile film roles was as Agatha Christie's Belgian master detective Hercule Poirot in the film Murder on the Orient Express (1974).

With Jessica Lange, Big Fish & Julia Roberts, Erin Brockovich
He continues working with acclaimed roles in Two for the Road (1967), Scrooge (1970), Annie (1982), The Dresser (1983), Miller's Crossing (1990), A Man of No Importance (1994), Erin Brockovich (2000), Big Fish (2003), The Bourne Ultimatum (2007), Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007), The Bourne Legacy (2012), and the James Bond film Skyfall (2012).

He received Tony Award nominations for Luther (1964) and A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (1968), and also starred on stage in Love for Love, Strindberg's Miss Julie, Black Comedy, The Country Wife, Alpha Beta, Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape, Tamburlaine the Great, Another Time and, his last stage appearance, in 1997, Art by Yasmina Reza, which preceded the 1998 Tony Award-winning Broadway run.

More information: Anglotopia

He won an Olivier Award for Orphans in 1986 and won three Evening Standard Theatre Awards for Best Actor. Finney also directed and played the lead role of Sidney Kentridge in The Biko Inquest, a 1984 dramatisation of the inquest into the death of Steve Biko which was filmed for TV following a London run. In 1994 he played a gay bus conductor in early 1960's Dublin in A Man of No Importance.

In 2002 his critically acclaimed portrayal of Winston Churchill in The Gathering Storm won him British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), Emmy and Golden Globe awards as Best Actor. He also played the title role in the television series My Uncle Silas, based on the short stories by H. E. Bates, about a roguish but lovable poacher-cum-farm labourer looking after his great-nephew. The show ran for two series broadcast in 2001 and 2003.

More information: CNN


To be a character who feels a deep emotion,
one must go into the memory's vault
and mix in a sad memory from one's own life.

Albert Finney

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