Peter Finch (September 28, 1916 – January 14, 1977) was an English-born Australian actor. Born Frederick George Peter Ingle-Finch in London, he lived as a child in France and India, and finally in Australia, his parents' native country. There he grew up in Sydney.
After finishing school, he worked in several badly paid jobs until he tried acting. He began in 1935 playing theatre roles, and also working in radio. In 1938, he appeared in his first film, Dad and Dave Come to Town.
Thereafter he played again on stage, where he was noticed by Laurence Olivier and encouraged to return to London. During this time Finch had an affair with Olivier's wife, Vivien Leigh.
Despite his stage experience, Finch suffered from stage fright and turned to films. His first role in a British-made film was in Eureka Stockade (1949) (set in Australia).
Finch's Hollywood debut was in The Miniver Story in 1950, but his first major role was in 1956's A Town Like Alice.
In 1972, his role of the homosexual...
Created by dipity on Feb 7, 2008
Last updated: 11/18/09 at 04:03 AM
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Peter Finch died in Beverly Hills, California, Los Angeles County
Raid on Entebbe is a 1977 TV movie directed by Irvin Kershner. It is based on an actual event: Operation Entebbe and the freeing of hostages at Entebbe Airport in Entebbe, Uganda on july 4, 1976. It was the last movie to be released featuring Academy Award-winning actor Peter Finch.
The movie was released shortly after a more hastily released made-for-television version came out - Victory at Entebbe (1976).
This version of Operation Entebbe is believed to be fairly accurate, although some details of the actual raid remain unclear and somewhat controversial even today. The basic facts of the rescue of hostages held when hijackers working for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine boarded and hijacked an Air France plane recounts the events and response of the Israeli government and the controversy that the rescue stirred.
This version shows the difficult deliberations held by the Cabinet of Israel to decide on a top-secret military raid on the Jewish Sabbath by commandos;...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076594
Network is a 1976 satirical film about a fictional television network, Union Broadcasting System (UBS), and its struggle with poor TV ratings. It was written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Sidney Lumet, and stars Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch, Robert Duvall, Wesley Addy, Ned Beatty and Beatrice Straight. It won four Academy Awards, including both Best Actor and Best Actress.
The story opens with long-time UBS Evening News anchor Howard Beale (played by Peter Finch) being fired due to low ratings. His termination would be effective in two weeks. The following night, Beale announces on the air that he will commit suicide by getting a gun and "blowing his brains out" during an upcoming live broadcast. This was inspired in part by newscaster Christine Chubbuck's on-air suicide.
UBS immediately fires him after this incident, but they let him back on the air, ostensibly for a dignified farewell, with persuasion from Beale's producer and best friend, Max Schumacher (played...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074958
Lost Horizon is a 1973 musical film directed by Charles Jarrott and starring Peter Finch, John Gielgud, Liv Ullmann, Michael York, Sally Kellerman, Bobby Van, George Kennedy, Olivia Hussey, James Shigeta and Charles Boyer.
The film is a remake of Frank Capra's film of the same name, with screenplay by Larry Kramer. Both films are based on James Hilton's novel.
After derided preview screenings Columbia Pictures tried to re-cut the film, but to no avail. Critic John Simon remarked that it "must have arrived in garbage rather than in film cans". The songs are by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, whose long partnership hit rocky ground within months of this film's release.
In a motif similar to the use of Technicolor in The Wizard of Oz, the film only becomes a musical in the central Shangri-La sequence, with the framing 'civilization' sequences played as straight drama.
The film was not available on video for years until Pioneer Entertainment released a reconstructed version of the longer...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070337
Sunday Bloody Sunday is a 1971 film directed by John Schlesinger. It tells the story of a young bisexual designer (Murray Head) and his simultaneous relationships with a recruitment consultant (Glenda Jackson) and a Jewish doctor (Peter Finch). The movie also stars Dame Peggy Ashcroft and Jon Finch.
The film is noteworthy for being one of the first widely distributed major motion pictures to show two men making love[1].
A Jewish doctor, Daniel Hirsh (Finch) and a young woman, Alex Greville (Jackson) are both involved in a love triangle with the same person, Bob Elkin (Head). Not only are Hirsh and Greville aware that Elkin is seeing the other but they know each other through mutual friends. Despite this, they are willing to put up with the situation through fear of losing Elkin who switches freely between them.
For Greville, the relationship is bound up with a growing disillusionment about her life, failed marriage and uneasy childhood. For Hirsh, it represents an escape from the...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067805
Far from the Madding Crowd is a 1967 feature film directed by John Schlesinger, adapted from the book of the same name by Thomas Hardy. It was Schlesinger's fourth film and marked a stylistic shift away from his earlier works which explored contemporary urban mores. The cinematography was by Nicolas Roeg and the soundtrack was by Richard Rodney Bennett. Original folk songs were also used in various scenes throughout the film.It was nominated for one Oscar for best Original music score and two BAFTA's, Best British Cinematography (Colour) and Best British Costume (Colour).The story features Bathsheba Everdene (Julie Christie), an independently minded woman who inherits her uncle's farm, and her three suitors: the steadfast but luckless shepherd Gabriel Oak (Alan Bates), the lonely and repressed farmer William Boldwood (Peter Finch), and the charming but faithless Sergeant Troy (Terence Stamp).The film is faithful to the book but the choice of Christie attracted some criticism at the...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061648
Judith is a 1966 drama film made by Command Productions, Cumulus Productions and Paramount Pictures. It was directed by Daniel Mann, produced by Kurt Unger from a screenplay by John Michael Hayes based on the story by Lawrence Durrell. The music score was by Sol Kaplan and the cinematography by John Wilcox.The film stars Sophia Loren,Peter Finch and Jack Hawkins with Hans Verner, Frank Wolff, Shraga Friedman, André Morell, Zaharira Harifai, Terence Alexander and Daniel Ocko.The story is set in Palestine shortly before the end of the British mandate.The Haganah has learnt that a former German tank commander, General Gustav Schiller (Hans Verner), is teaching the Arabs battle tactics, but they are unable to locate him. Then they learn of the existence of his Jewish former wife, Judith Auerbach Schiller (Sophia Loren), and arrange for her to be smuggled into Palestine via the port of Haifa. She is placed in the care of Aaron Stein (Peter Finch), a Haganah commander, at a Kibbutz.It...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060568
The Pumpkin Eater is a 1964 British film which tells the story of a woman who finds herself with unfaithful husband number three and pregnant with child number seven, unsure of where life is taking her. It stars Anne Bancroft, Peter Finch and James Mason with Cedric Hardwicke, Richard Johnson, Maggie Smith, Eric Porter, Alan Webb and Yootha Joyce. The film was adapted by Harold Pinter from the novel by Penelope Mortimer. It was directed by Jack Clayton. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress (Anne Bancroft). ...,
The Battle of the River Plate is a 1956 film by the British-based director-writer team of Powell & Pressburger. In the United States the film was retitled Pursuit of the Graf Spee.The film portrays the Battle of the River Plate, a naval battle of 1939, between a Royal Navy force of three cruisers (HMS Exeter, HMS Ajax and HMS Achilles) and the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee.Unlike many British war movies of its time, The Battle of the River Plate treats the Germans as honourable opponents rather than as cardboard cut-out "Huns". This was a recurrent theme in Powell and Pressburger's films, including The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp.In the early months of WWII, the German Navy sent out various surface raiders to attack Allied merchant shipping. The Royal Navy sent out various hunting groups to find them. The group that found Admiral Graf Spee were very lightly armed in comparison, but went straight to the attack.The British were led by Commodore Harwood (Anthony...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048990
Elephant Walk is a 1954 Paramount Pictures film, directed by William Dieterle, and starring Elizabeth Taylor, Dana Andrews, Peter Finch and Abraham Sofaer.It is based upon the novel "Elephant Walk" by Robert Standish, the pseudonym of the English novelist Digby George Gerahty (1898-1981).It was originally intended to star Vivien Leigh but she was forced to withdraw from production shortly after filming began in Colombo, Ceylon, as a result of bipolar disorder. According to Leonard Maltin's annual Movie Guide book, Leigh can be seen in some long shots that were not re-filmed after Taylor replaced her.Maltin gave the film 2 stars out of 4, and made one of his pithier critiques: "Pachyderm stampede climax comes none too soon." A major plot element in the film is that the tea plantation's manor, where the film's action occurs, had been built in the middle of a path that migrating Indian elephants had previously used....,
The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men is a live action Disney version of the Robin Hood story. It was released in 1952.
It was written by Lawrence Edward Watkin and directed by Ken Annakin.
It stars:
...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045197
Peter Finch was born
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