The Telegraph (14/Jan/2013) - Obituaries: Jon Finch
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- article: Jon Finch
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- newspaper: The Telegraph (14/Jan/2013)
- keywords: Alfred Hitchcock, Anna Massey, Barbara Leigh-Hunt, Barry Foster, Frenzy (1972), Jon Finch, Roger Moore, Sean Connery
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Jon Finch
Jon Finch, the actor, who has died aged 71, took the title role in Roman Polanksi’s film The Tragedy of Macbeth (1971) then starred in Alfred Hitchcock’s Frenzy (1972); that those two films proved to be the high point of his film career was probably due to his self-proclaimed lack of appetite for stardom.
In Polanski's blood-spattered but intelligent version of the Scottish Play, Finch, a broodingly handsome former member of the SAS, was excellent as the ambitious young Thane of Cawdor who, with his wife (Francesca Annis), behaves like a child in a story which is going to have a triumphantly happy ending only to progress from innocent ambition to ruthless madness.
It was Polanski's first project after the murder of his wife Sharon Tate by the "Manson family", and some critics felt that Finch (chosen in preference to Nicol Williamson, whom Polanski felt lacked sex appeal) bore a creepy resemblance to Charles Manson himself. None the less, his performance won him an army of female admirers.
Finch's ability to convey moral ambiguity, with his voice saying one thing and his eyes another, commended him to Hitchcock for the role in Frenzy of Richard Blaney, a down-on-his-luck former RAF pilot who finds himself accused of being the "necktie strangler", a serial killer bumping off women in London — including his ex-wife (Barbara Leigh-Hunt) and his girlfriend (Anna Massey).
Desperate to prove his innocence, Blaney enlists his friend Robert Rusk (Barry Foster) to help him, as it slowly becomes clear that his smiling pal is the strangler who has framed him for the murder. In one of the most brutal sequences in the entire Hitchcock oeuvre, Finch's hapless Blaney smashes an iron bar into the skull of the sleeping Rusk — only to discover that it is the head of a murdered girl.
That Finch never achieved lasting stardom had a number of causes, including the diabetes from which he suffered for much of his life. Ridley Scott picked him to play Kane in the classic scene in Alien (1979), with a slimy extraterrestrial bursting from his chest, but a diabetic episode forced him out, and Scott had to persuade John Hurt to take the role.
But the main reason why Finch failed to become a household name seems to have been a lack of ambition which led to his turning down a number of roles — James Bond in Live and Let Die (1973) and Doyle in the television series The Professionals, roles that made the names of other actors.
"I never wanted to be a big star," Finch once observed: "I usually do one film a year, so I always have enough money to enjoy myself and keep myself out of the public eye. It's a very pleasant life, not one of great ambition."
The son of a merchant banker, Jon Finch was born at Caterham, Surrey, on March 2 1941, and started acting at school. After performing in amateur theatre groups and singing in a folk group, he did his National Service in a parachute regiment and stayed on as a member of an SAS reserve regiment, training at weekends and several nights a week. He resigned from the military as his acting commitments became more demanding.
As a professional actor Finch appeared with various repertory companies before landing a part in Crossroads for its first run in 1964. This led to parts in other television serials such as Z Cars, and in the Hammer horrors The Vampire Lovers and The Horror of Frankenstein (both 1970). The following year Polanski picked him to play Macbeth.
At about the same time he was chosen, somewhat incongruously, to play the Aboriginal Detective Inspector Bonaparte ("Boney") for an Australian television series, but pulled out two weeks before filming, having been picked to play the lead in Frenzy.
In 1972, to general amazement, Finch turned down the chance to replace Sean Connery as James Bond in Live and Let Die; the part went to Roger Moore. He also turned down an offer from Richard Lester to play Aramis in The Three Musketeers.
Finch continued to make occasional appearances as an actor while enjoying his hobbies of parachuting and motor racing. He was Lord Melbourne in Robert Bolt's Lady Caroline Lamb (1973), and was one of many suspects in Death on the Nile (1978).
Finch regarded as the crowning achievement of his career his portrayal of Henry Bolingbroke in Richard II (1978), and Henry IV (parts one and two) in 1979, in the BBC's Shakespeare History Cycle. In 1984 he was Don Pedro in the BBC's Much Ado About Nothing. Also on stage, he was the man inside the bandages in Ken Hill's 1991 production of The Invisible Man at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East. On film, he cut an impressive presence as a Welsh nationalist leader in Julian Richards's low-budget horror Darklands (1997). His last film role was in Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven (2005), in which he was almost unrecognisable as the white-haired Patriarch of Jerusalem.
Jon Finch was found dead in his flat in Hastings after friends and family became concerned for his welfare.
His marriage to the actress Catriona MacColl was dissolved. He is survived by a daughter.
Jon Finch, born March 2 1941, found dead December 28 2012
