Albert Finney at age 82 from a chest infection.
The great British actor’s family to the Associated Press Friday morning, saying he “passed away peacefully after a short illness with those closest 🍌to him by his side.”
A graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (and born the same day, May 9, 1936, as fellow graduate Glenda Jacks♎on), Finney made his mark on cinema in the cla𒁏ssic Karel Reisz film “Saturday Night and Sunday Morning” (1960), a stellar example of kitchen-sink realism that portrayed the frustrations of British working-class youth facing a bleak future.
Finney also had an illustrious career in theꦐ theater, as evidenced by his inclusion in a postage-stamp series commemorating the 200th anniversary of London’s Old Vic theater (his stamp is for the John Osborne drama “Luther”).
Finney was nominated five times fo♑r the Academy Award and never attended the ceremon🌠y, saying it was a “waste of time” to sit at such a “long party” without a cigarette or a drink.
Although he’s best-known to American audiences for films such as “Annie” and “Erin Brockovich,” his body of work was about so much more than that. Here are some of his greatest roles to seek out on TV and streaming services:
“Saturday Night and Sunday Morning” (1960)
“I was the first man to be seen sleeping with another man’s wife in an English film,” said Finney of his role as Arthur, a hard-living factory worker juggling affairs with two women while living at home.
“Tom Jones” (1963)
Finney won his first Oscar nomination (and a New York Film Critics Circle award) in the title role of the uproarious film adaptation of Henry Fielding’s sprawling 18th-century picaresque novel about a young man who is the adopted bastard of a nobleman. The film൲’s justifiably famous eating scene is a potent visual on the role of food as seduction.
“Murder on the Orient Express” (1974)
Finney was the third choice, after Oscar winners Alec Guinness and Paul Scofield, to play scrupulously vain detective Hercule Poirot in Sidney Lumet’s sumptuous, all-sta🦄r adaptation of Agatha Christie’s novel based on the Lindbergh kidnapping, but playꦏed the role with such relish that he was nominated for Best Actor.
“Under the Volcano” (1984)
John Huston directed Finney as Geoffrey Firmin, a dꦕepressed British consul who is coming apart at the seams and losing his battle with the bottle. The role brought Finney his fourth Oscar nomination.
“The Gathering Storm” (2002)
Winston Churchill is a foolproof part for actors — just ask John Lithgow, w🎃ho won an Emm꧟y for playing the British statesman on Season 1 of “The Crown,” or Gary Oldman, who won an Oscar for playing him in “The Darkest Hour.” Finney won a Golden Globe for his turn as Churchill in this HBO movie about Churchill in the 1930s, when he was the first to recognize Hitler’s threat to the world.