Frederick George Peter Ingle Finch (28 September 191614 January 1977) was an English-Australian actor of theatre, film and radio.
Born in London, he emigrated to Australia as a teenager and was raised in Sydney, where he worked in vaudeville and radio before becoming a star of Australian films. Joining the Old Vic Company after World War II, he achieved widespread critical success in Britain for both stage and screen performances. One of British cinema's most celebrated leading men of the time, Finch won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role five times, and won a posthumous Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of crazed television anchorman Howard Beale in the 1976 film Network.
According to the British Film Institute, "it is arguable that no other actor ever chalked up such a rewarding CV in British films, and he accumulated the awards to bolster this view". He died only two months before the 49th Academy Awards, making him the first person to win a posthumous Oscar in an acting category. As of 2023, the only other person to have done so was fellow Australian Heath Ledger.
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 to British parents 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, Peter only learned in his mid-40s that Wentworth Edward Dallas "Jock" Campbell, an Indian Army officer, not George Finch, was his biological father. George Finch divorced his wife in 1920 on the grounds of her adultery with Campbell. Alicia Finch married Jock Campbell in 1922.
Early childhood
George gained custody of Peter, who was taken from his biological mother and brought up by his adoptive 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. For three years he attended the local school, then North Sydney Intermediate High School, until 1929. RAF pilot and author Paul Brickhill was a school friend.
Early career in Australia
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.
In 1934–35 he appeared in a number of productions for Doris Fitton at the Savoy Theatre, some with a young Sumner Locke Elliott. He also 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.
Radio work
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, where Finch played Prince Charming.
He made his feature film debut in Ken G. Hall's Dad and Dave Come to Town (1938), playing a small comic role. His performance was well received and Hall subsequently cast Finch in a larger role in Mr. Chedworth Steps Out (1939), supporting Cecil Kellaway.
Finch appeared in a war propaganda film, The Power and the Glory (1941), playing a fifth columnist.