A leading member of the generation of northern actors which took the
British theatre by storm in the mid-1950s, and gained prominence in
cinema in the social realism of the British New Wave. Finney made
his film debut in 1960 in The
Entertainer. It was, however, the other role he created that year
- that of Arthur Seaton in Saturday
Night and Sunday Morning (1960) - which stamped a new image on
British cinema. A bookie's son from Salford, Finney's characterisation
seemed to come from inside the new, young, dissatisfied working class,
and with its insolent defiance, aggressive sexuality and self-absorbed
cockiness dispelled the dreams of a decent and contented class community
left over from Ealing. Finney's performance in the title role of Tom
Jones (1963) carried some of the same class insolence and a lot
of the sexuality, and the success of the film made him an international
star.
With hints of autobiography, in 1967 he directed and starred in Charlie
Bubbles, a film from a Shelagh Delaney script about the disenchantments
of success. The loss of youth was also at the centre of Stanley Donen's
Two for the Road (1967), in which he starred with Audrey Hepburn. His
career did indeed stall after Gumshoe
(1971), films like Murder
on the Orient Express (1974) added very little to his stature as
an actor. In the 1980s and 1990s, however, he has re-emerged, often
with a kind of dissipated grandeur, in Shoot the Moon (1982), The
Dresser (1984), Under the Volcano (1984), and Miller's Crossing
(1990). The role of attorney Ed Masry in Erin Brockovich (2000) brought
Finney back once again to the attention of audiences worldwide and earned
the actor an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor. His
biggest role after Erin Brockovich came in the Tim Burton fantasy Big
Fish (2003), in which Finney played an aging salesman who regales his
son with fantastical tales. He continues to work in theatre, film, and
on television.
