Peter Finch

On August 15, 2018, he was honored with a day of his film work during the TCM Summer Under The Stars.

Three decades before the controversy over Brokeback Mountain (2005) failing to win the Best Picture Academy Award over Crash (2004), there was a similar controversy involving Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971), one of the first openly and unapologetically gay-themed motion pictures, and the macho police-thriller The French Connection (1971). Many at the time thought The French Connection (1971) was not a worthy winner, and that its victory came at the expense of A Clockwork Orange (1971), a highly controversial movie that was recognized as a masterpiece while simultaneously condemned for its depiction of "ultra-violence." It was the Best Actor Award, however, that was evocative of the Brokeback Mountain (2005) controversy. As one of the three stars of Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971), Finch won the first of his two Best Actor Academy Award nominations for playing a gay doctor involved in a love triangle with a bisexual man and a straight woman. Finch inherited the role from Alan Bates, who wanted to do it, but couldn't due to his being held up filming The Go-Between (1971); and after replacement, actor Ian Bannen was fired at the beginning of shooting for balking over a simulated sex sequence. This film brought Finch the best reviews of his film career up to that point. It has been revealed that "officially," Bannen was sacked due to his stated concern that portraying a homosexual engaged in the first screen kiss between two men might damage or destroy his career. Finch unhesitatingly threw himself into the role, kissed co-star Murray Head, and received an Oscar nomination for his performance. Many observers believe that Finch lost the Oscar to eventual winner Gene Hackman because of the gay kiss. For playing the role brilliantly, Finch won the BAFTA and National Society of Film Critics Awards prizes for Best Actor, though Hackman won the prestigious New York Film Critics Circle Award and beat Finch out for the Golden Globe.

Is portrayed by Jerome Ehlers in Darlings of the Gods (1989).

Suffered his fatal heart attack in the lobby of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel on January 14, 1977.

His performance as "Howard Beale" in Network (1976) is ranked #52 on Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time.

He made his film singing debut in the film Lost Horizon (1973).

His two finest roles, the only two for which he received Oscar nominations, were as the homosexual Jewish doctor in Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971) and as the "mad prophet of the air-waves" in Network (1976).

His uncredited appearance in First Men in the Moon (1964) came about when he was visiting the set and the actor for the scene didn't turn up.

Only one day before his death of a heart attack, he appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962) on U.S. network television NBC, entertaining the host and the audience with tales of his youth, his "psychic" grandmother and, eerily, a joke about dying from a heart attack. Carson closed his program the next evening with some words about Finch's passing.

He directed a 25 minute short film 'The Day' which was released in 1960.

Won a BAFTA for Best British Actor for A Town Like Alice (1956) and a Moscow Film Festival Award for The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960).

His first film in Britain was Train of Events (1949).

Was discovered by Laurence Olivier in 1948 when Olivier and his theatrical company, which included his wife Vivien Leigh, were conducting a tour of Australia, Olivier signed the young Aussie to a personal contract and Finch became part of Olivier's theatrical company, traveling back to London with his new employer. He then proceeded to cuckold his mentor and employer by bedding Olivier's wife. Olivier was personally humiliated but ever the trouper, he kept the talented Finch under contract. Finch, who had been born in London, flourished as an actor after the career break given him by Olivier. Finch and Leigh carried on a long affair, and since Leigh was bipolar, with her manic-depression frequently manifesting itself in nymphomania, some have speculated that Olivier subconsciously may have been grateful for Finch for occupying Leigh's hours, keeping her out of trouble, and Olivier from embarrassment.

He made his stage debut as a comedian's stooge in 1939. Laurence Olivier spotted him and persuaded him to return to Britain to perform classic roles on the stage. Finch then had an affair with Olivier's wife, Vivien Leigh. Despite being married three times, Finch also had highly-publicized affairs with actresses Kay Kendall and Mai Zetterling. Finch soon switched to film after suffering appalling stage fright. As a screen actor, he won five BAFTA awards and his talent was beyond doubt.

There, he worked in a series of dead-end jobs before taking up acting, his film debut being in the mediocre comedy The Farmer Goes to Town (1938).

Finch's first on-screen performance was in The Magic Shoes (1935), a 1935 Australian short film directed by Claude Fleming. The short was an adaptation of the Cinderella fairy-tale, and also starred Helen Hughes, the daughter of the Australian Prime Minister Morris Hughes. As the creators of the short were unsuccessful in finding a distributor for "The Magic Shoes," it never received a commercial release. It eventually faded into obscurity, and it is now officially classified as lost by the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (which cites the film as one of its most-wanted).In 2006, a roll of nitrate film, containing 33 production stills from the lost short, was discovered, an extraordinary find, in that photos of Helen Hughes had, up until that point, been extremely rare. As it stands, the photos are likely the only physical record that the film ever existed.Besides the aforementioned photographs, no other material from the film has surfaced, and no known copies of the film itself remain. Still, the National Film and Sound Archive remain optimistic that someone out there may be in possession of a copy, not yet having realized its immense rarity.

His 'father' George Ingle-Finch was a member of the Leigh Mallory Everest expedition of 1922.

Despite being one of the finest actors of his generation, Peter Finch will be remembered as much for his reputation as a hard-drinking, hell-raising womanizer as for his performances on the screen. He was born in London in 1916 and went to live in Sydney, Australia, at the age of ten.