Peter Finch

format_quote (When asked why he chose acting as a profession) "If I was going to be broke I decided I might as well be with actors as anyone else. They were cheerful idiots and seemed to take it better."

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

stars  Peter Finch's widow, Jamaican-born Eletha, accepted his Oscar posthumously before the Academy.

stars  He was the natural son of Major Jock Campbell, a Highlander in the Black Watch and Alicia Ingle-Finch, during her marriage to the notable mountaineer George Ingle-Finch. George was the son of an eminent lawyer from New South Wales.

stars  He was not originally signed to appear in director John Schlesinger masterpiece Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971). Oscar-nominee 'Alan Bates' had been hand-picked by the director to play the part of Dr. Daniel Hirsh, a youngish homosexual doctor, but was deemed unavailable due to other commitments, and then substituted by Ian Bannen was cast in his place. According to the late screenwriter Penelope Gilliatt In her introduction to the published screenplay, Bannen never felt comfortable with the part; she speculated that he was flustered by the fact that he would have to kiss the male actor Murray Head, who played his gay lover whom also had a sexual affair with another woman. His balking caused Schlesinger to fire him and replace him as a last-minute resource with Finch, with whom he had worked with on Far from the Madding Crowd (1967). Finch won the first of his two Best Actor Academy Award nominations for the role. Many observers believe that Finch lost the Oscar to Gene Hackman because of the gay kiss. Finch won the BAFTA and National Society of Film Critics Awards prizes for Best Actor for the role.

stars  Entombed at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Hollywood, California -- Cathedral Mausoleum, Corridor A, Crypt 1224 (Across From Rudolph Valentino).