Frank Finlay
Birthday: 1926-08-06 Place of Birth: Farnworth, Lancashire, UK
Synopsis
Frank received Academy Award, Golden Globe and BAFTA Award nominations for his performance as William Shakespeare’s Iago in Stuart Burge’s 1965 film of Laurence Olivier’s staging of Othello. He also won the Best Actor Award at the San Sebastian International Film Festival. He later essayed the definitive screen portrayal of Alexandre Dumas’ musketeer Porthos in three movies for director Richard Lester: The Three Musketeers (1974), The Four Musketeers (1975) and The Return of the Musketeers (1989). Frank’s many other films include The Longest Day; Tony Richardson’s The Lonliness of the Long Distance Runner; Martin Ritt’s The Molly Maguires; Bob Clark’s Murder by Decree; Alan Bridges’ The Return of the Soldier (for which he recieved a BAFTA Award nomination); Franco Zeffrelli’s Sparrow; and Eric Styles’ Dreaming of Joseph Lees; and most recently Roman Polanski’s multi-award winning The Pianist and Norma Jewison’s The Statement. His similarly extensive television projects have earned him two BAFTA Awards, for his performances in The Death of Adolf Hitler (starring as Hitler, with Rex Firkin directing); The Adventures of Don Quixote (as Sancho Panza, opposite Rex Harrison, for director Alvin Rakoff); the ground breaking Bouquet of Barbed Wire and Another Bouquet; 84 Charing Cross Road; and recently the critically acclaimed series The Sins. Born in Farnworth, Lancashire, Finlay had already begun performing on stage when he earned the Sir James Knott Scholarship at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). Since then he has led theatre companies in London and on Broadway. He was made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1984 New Year’s Honours List, and was presented with his CBE by the Queen in February1984.
Acting
Nothing Like a Dame
BBC Arena's documentary on the Dames of British Theatre and film featuring Maggie Smith, Elieen Atkins, Judi Dench and Joan Plowright on screen together for the first time as they reminisce over a long summer weekend in a house Joan once shared with Sir Laurence Olivier.
Four Seasons - Winter
Abby and Tom want to tie the knot, but the future bride soon has doubts. Does she really make her decision out of love or just out of desperation? Meanwhile, Julia travels to London inspired by a new hope to meet the pianist Lara Jones. This bears a breathtaking resemblance to her daughter Charlotte, who was believed to be dead ...
Four Seasons - Summer
After Julia was driven from the middle of the family because of her scheming ex-husband Stephen, she had to leave her daughter Charlotte and her life behind - not knowing that she will never see them again. But when her granddaughter Abby tries to contact her after years, her past catches up with her.
The Waiting Room
Two complete strangers, ANNA and STEPHEN, are brought together by chance by an elderly man who waits for his wife on a station platform. Their fateful meeting acts as a catalyst for them to examine and challenge what's going on in their different relationships, and make hard but positive decisions for themselves. If they can change their lives maybe they can meet again.
Prime Suspect: The Final Act
Helen Mirren returns for the final time as Jane Tennison in the long-awaited Prime Suspect 7. Retirement looms for Detective Superintendent Tennison, but as her career draws to a close, the body of a missing schoolgirl is found, and the hunt for her killer begins. However, as Jane and her colleagues work to identify their prime suspect, the emotional fallout from the murder begins to take its toll on the battle-scarred detective. As the investigation gets underway, Jane is not only dealing with the imminent death of her father, but also an addiction to alcohol which she is desperately trying to keep hidden. There are plenty of twists and turns as Jane confronts her toughest challenge yet: herself, as the popular award-winning series reaches its devastating finale.
Johnny and the Bomb
Johnny Maxwell stumbles upon a time machine when he helps an old woman, but little does he know that his journeys back to 1941 cause a chain of events which alter history. Johnny and his friends must go back in time to reverse the changes and save his own existence.
Lighthouse Hill
After his best friend dies, Charlie hits the road and stumbles into Lighthouse Hill, a village where residents seem to know a lot more about him than they should.
Prime Suspect 6: The Last Witness
Detective Superintendent Jane Tennison's investigation of the murder of a Bosnian refugee leads her to one, or possibly two, Serbian war criminals determined to silence the last witness to a massacre a decade before.
The Statement
The film is set in France in the 1990s, the French were defeated by the Germans early in World War II, an armistice was signed in 1940 which effectively split France into a German occupied part in the North and a semi-independent part in the south which became known as Vichy France. In reality the Vichy government was a puppet regime controlled by the Germans. Part of the agreement was that the Vichy Government would assist with the 'cleansing' of Jews from France. The Vichy government formed a police force called the Milice, who worked with the Germans...
Eroica
British filmmaker Simon Cellan Jones directs the BBC drama Eroica, starring Ian Hart as Ludwig van Beethoven. Shot on digital video, this TV film depicts the first performance of Beethoven's Third Symphony, June 9th, 1804, in Vienna, Austria. Prince Lobkowitz (Jack Davenport) has invited friends to listen to Beethoven conduct his new symphony for the first time. Among the aristocratic attendees are Count Dietrichstein (Tim Pigott-Smith), Countess Brunsvik (Claire Skinner), and composer Josef Haydn (Frank Finlay). The actual musical score is performed by the Orchestre Revolutionaire et Romantique, under the direction of John Eliot Gardiner.
The Pianist
The true story of pianist Władysław Szpilman's experiences in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation. When the Jews of the city find themselves forced into a ghetto, Szpilman finds work playing in a café; and when his family is deported in 1942, he stays behind, works for a while as a laborer, and eventually goes into hiding in the ruins of the war-torn city.
The Martins
Out of work, scrounger Robert Martin lives with his dysfunctional family - long suffering wife accident prone son and pregnant teenage daughter in a shabby house next door to a giant shopping center in the London suburbs. The Martins are the family from hell! Robert dreams if winning a dream holiday for his family, and when he fails to win yet another competition he flips, out tracks down the elderly winners, ties them up in the cellar and steals their tickets!
Station Jim
At a rural railway station in Victorian England, Jim is a spunky Jack Russell Terrier who escapes his mean master at the circus, and is soon befriended by station porter Bob and lonely orphan Henry. His performing feats soon become a local attraction, and before long he's in the middle of a battle to save the local orphanage.
Sins
Len Green is a former bank robber and getaway driver who has retired from the criminal life and joined the undertakers run by his uncle. However, his resolve to stay out of the criminal world is tested by temptations based on the seven deadly sins.
The Magical Legend of the Leprechauns
American businessman Jack Woods rents a cottage on the enchanted Emerald Isle which is occupied by a family of leprechauns. Leprechaun Seamus Muldoon's son and son's friends crash the fairies' costume ball and Muldoon's son falls in love with fairy Princess Jessica. Their love re-ignites a feud between the leprechauns and the fairies, which escalates into a war. The Grand Banshee warns of terrible consequences and Jack Woods is chosen to make peace. Woods interrupts his own romance with an Irish beauty to help, and becomes involved in a strange and wonderful magical adventure.
Charlemagne, le prince à cheval
Charlemagne, le prince à cheval is a 1993 television miniseries about the life of Charlemagne. It consists of five episodes and covers the period from the death of his father, Pepin the Short in AD 768 until Charlemagne's corronation as the first Holy Roman Emperor on Christmas Day, AD 800. However, there is a minor chronological anachronism: in an earlier episode, we see Widukind, the king of the Saxons surrender and convert to Christianity, which didn't happen until AD 803.
This program was directed by Clive Donner and based primarily on the contemporary biography of Charlemagne written by Einhard, who knew Charlemagne personally.
Cthulhu Mansion
After a drug deal gone wrong, a group of punks flee to a secluded mansion where the house itself begins to terrorize and kill the trespassers.
Stalin
The life and career of the brutal Soviet dictator, Josef Stalin.
King of the Wind
In 1727, an Arab colt is born with the signs of the wheat ear and the white spot on his heel: evil and good. And thus begins the life of Sham. He is a gift to the King of France, through a series of adventures with his faithful stable boy, Agba, he becomes the Godolphin Arabian, the founder of one of the greatest thoroughbred racing lines of all time.
Arch of Triumph
Arch of Triumph is a 1985 British made-for-television film based on the novel Arch of Triumph by Erich Maria Remarque, which was previously adapted in 1948 for a film of the same name with Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer. Dr. Ravic (Anthony Hopkins) is an Austrian doctor who helps Jews escape from the Nazis. In 1939, he meets Joan Madou (Lesley-Anne Down), a woman he saves from suicide, and their relationship flourishes until he is arrested as a refugee without documentation and realizes he has some unfinished business with the Nazis. After a prolonged separation, without explanation, the two are finally reunited and struggle to put their relationship back on the right course as mayhem breaks out all around them.
Lifeforce
A space shuttle mission investigating Halley's Comet brings back a malevolent race of space vampires who transform most of London's population into zombies. The only survivor of the expedition and British authorities attempt to capture a mysterious but beautiful alien woman who appears responsible.
Enigma
Five highly-trained KGB agents are sent to the west to assassinate several Soviet dissidents. In order to stop the diabolical plot, an American agent must infiltrate Soviet intelligence and obtain information from a Russian computer.
Murder by Decree
Sherlock Holmes is drawn into the case of Jack the Ripper who is killing prostitutes in London's East End. Assisted by Dr. Watson, and using information provided by a renowned psychic, Robert Lees, Holmes finds that the murders may have its roots in a Royal indiscretion and that a cover-up is being managed by politicians at the highest level, all of whom happen to be Masons.
Ring of Darkness
Once a Satanist who surrendered her soul and body to the devil himself, Carlotta Rhodes begins to regret her tryst with Lucifer when her teenage daughter, Daria, starts showing the evil influence of dear old Dad. Convinced that she can stop the devil's power on earth, Carlotta calls upon an exorcist for help.
The Wild Geese
A British multinational company seeks to overthrow a vicious dictator in central Africa. It hires a band of (largely aged) mercenaries in London and sends them in to save the virtuous but imprisoned opposition leader who is also critically ill and due for execution. Just when the team has performed a perfect rescue, the multinational does a deal with the vicious dictator leaving the mercenary band to escape under their own steam and exact revenge.
Count Dracula
For those familiar with Bram Stoker's novel, this adaptation follows the book quite closely in most respects. Jonathan Harker visits the Count in Transylvania to help him with preparations to move to England. Harker becomes Dracula's prisoner and discovers Dracula's true nature. After Dracula makes his way to England, Harker becomes involved in an effort to track down and destroy the Count, eventually chasing the vampire back to his castle.
Count Dracula
Count Dracula is a British television adaptation of the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker. It first aired 22 December 1977. It is among the more faithful of the many adaptations of the original book. Louis Jourdan played the title role.
The Three Musketeers
The young D'Artagnan arrives in Paris with dreams of becoming a King's musketeer. He meets and quarrels with three men, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, each of whom challenges him to a duel. D'Artagnan finds out they are musketeers and is invited to join them in their efforts to oppose Cardinal Richelieu, who wishes to increase his already considerable power over the King. D'Artagnan must also juggle affairs with the charming Constance Bonancieux and the passionate Lady De Winter, a secret agent for the Cardinal.
Shaft in Africa
Detective John Shaft travels incognito to Ethiopia, then France, to bust a human trafficking ring.
