Albert’s father was a bookmaker. Although this was not, strictly speaking, legal, it was a nonetheless tolerated profession. Finney always referred to him as a ‘commission agent’. Before betting was officially made legal at the turn of the sixties, bets and transactions were made in someone’s house.
It would be safe to assume that Albert Senior was never really short of money. ‘But there is a slight false illusion about bookmakers,’ Finney said in 1962. ‘They’re not all tremendously wealthy and own great yachts … which my father doesn’t do.’ But the excitement of betting intoxicated Finney. Later, he even installed a ‘blower’ – a phone link with betting information and racing commentaries – at his home.
His father’s occupation was a constant theme for interviewers and tabloid hacks. It was almost as though it had some unsavoury connotation. He’d joke that even as a child he, Albert Junior, had acquired the sobriquet of ‘Honest Albert’. And Finney, although careful in major business dealings, has always been quick to put his hand in his pocket throughout his life.
The Finney home was damaged by German bombs in 1941 while 5-year-old Albert lay in an air-raid shelter. The family then moved to 5 Gore Crescent, Weaste, a semi-detached house with a garden in an altogether more upmarket part of Salford. Today, the street looks much as it probably did back in 1941. Albert would watch rugby league at the Willows ground. He went to Manchester United’s Old Trafford Stadium to see Salford Schoolboys play and became a lifelong United fan.
Finney later described his background to John Freeman, ‘I suppose [it was] a lower middle-class home. We were always comfortable … I had a marvellous childhood. I was always very happy. I remember it with great joy.’ Finney attended Tootal Drive Primary School. By the age of 9 he was appearing in school plays, starring in such memorable productions as Belle the Cat, in which he played the Mayor of Ratville. The young Albert also appeared in puppet shows. ‘I didn’t do the puppets, I did the voices – and I discovered I had an ability to mimic rather well,’ he later recalled. Even at the age of 5, Finney once told Melvyn Bragg, he had developed a gift for mimicry – imitating his teacher as he arrived home for tea.
When he was just 10, Alice even took Albert to a BBC audition in Manchester. In 1947, Albert passed the 11-plus exam3 to attend Salford Grammar School, the school now known as Buile Hill High School. Yet he was too lazy to do well academically:
I was in the top grade when I went to the grammar school but that didn’t last because I wouldn’t work. I hated homework. I thought it was an imposition on my childhood. I didn’t like school very much and wasn’t particularly interested. Much of my energy was spent trying to avoid schoolwork rather than doing it. And I also found myself doing school plays.
At 16, Albert took the minimum of five subjects and failed all but geography. He only passed geography because many of the questions were about Australia, where England’s cricket and rugby teams often competed. He was kept back to repeat the classes. The next year he failed them again – and physics as well! In the meantime he had played Henry IV and Falstaff in school plays as well as Emperor Jones in the Eugene O’Neill play of the same name.
His other main interest at school seemed to be sport. Albert proved a fine athlete, an excellent rugby player and cricketer. And Finney loved going to the cinema. A particular favourite, he recalled, was the Stanley Donen classic On the Town with Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly. ‘I saw it four times in three days. I really wanted to believe you could sing in the streets of New York and not be told to keep off the grass.’
Though he failed all but one of his O level exams two years running, the talent Finney had shown acting in school plays caused headmaster Eric Simm to recommend he go to RADA. ‘There was no burning ambition to be an actor,’ Finney recalled. ‘I thought, this is fine, I enjoy it.’ But Finney later credited Simm with helping him to find his calling.4
So, warned by his father that ‘if anyone stops you on the street, say no’, 17-year-old Albert Finney left home for London. RADA,5 in London’s Bloomsbury, is the country’s most acclaimed drama school, so much so that even the least ‘arty’ of folk have heard of it. Recently, there has been a trend to address this venerable institution by its more (technically) correct title of the RADA to preserve its distinction. Not all RADA’s intake become stars. Yet a fair number become, if not stars, then at least minor household names. Once you gain a place you may not be guaranteed success, but you will be sufficiently respected to be considered a lifelong ‘luvvie’.
The year 1953, however, was Coronation year and the Finneys had trouble finding a room in London as Albert prepared for his audition. Mr Finney was leafing through a guidebook when he stumbled on a hotel called the Dorchester. They reckoned they could just about afford a few days there. Mrs Finney, who had come up with £37 – £10 of that in shillings rolled up in paper – sent Albert to ask what the rooms cost. It was £6.75 a night. So for dinner they sat in the lounge making do with crisps and nuts. By the third night the waiters had cottoned on and kept refilling the bowls for them. The Dorchester was, and still is, one of the grandest hotels in London, and was a home from home for the likes of Burton and Taylor. Two decades later, Finney, who liked to have dinner there, even moved in for a time when his second marriage to Anouk Aimée failed.
When Finney did his audition he managed to land the Lawrence Scholarship, one of a handful offered by RADA, which was then under the stewardship of Sir Kenneth Barnes. Two years into Finney’s course Sir Kenneth was succeeded by John Fernald. The aspiring actor who walked through the door at Bloomsbury was an ungainly 17-year-old with a broad Salford accent and a crew cut, emulating, he recalled, the American tennis player Vic Seixas, who had won Wimbledon that year. Most of the students at RADA were older than Finney, some by several years; many had already completed their national service.
No group of youngsters feels more insecure than first-day drama students. It’s not like freshers at university, preparing to knuckle down to a three-year English degree. For them it’s merely their knowledge under scrutiny. Acting, on the other hand, is uniquely holistic. You as a person are indivisible from your skill. Everything about you – your voice, face, posture, poise, presence, authority, forcefulness and sensitivity – is fair target. It’s no wonder that actors take rejection personally.
So we have young Albert Finney, just 17, away from home for the first time, in an atmosphere where acting was no longer just something to amuse himself and avoid homework but something requiring self-discipline and application. Finney had been a bit work-shy up to now, and young men tend to like playing around. If acting is just a way to attract attention and impress a few girls, it’s fun; but now he had to learn his craft seriously.
Finney’s time there was a vintage one. Some writers tend to overstate the star intake. Richard Harris was not at RADA, contrary to the opinion of certain biographers. But some of the greatest stars of British cinema of the sixties were. Peter O’Toole, four years older, was in the same class as Finney throughout and became a lifelong friend. He was the only one to outgun Finney in the fame stakes. O’Toole has said of this period:
Harris and Burton and Finney and all that mob, all my friends, we were disaffected by authority. There were too many people around with badges, and we were all determined to take life by the scruff of the bloody neck and live it … There was just this tremendous release of energy, this explosion of inhibited talent.
Frank Finlay, a decade older than Finney, and later a versatile Shakespearean actor and a well-known face on television, was also in the same class. So was Alan Bates, another ‘angry young man’ associated with the new wave, a performer of great range and sensitivity. John Stride was also there, a likeable face on the box and supporting player in films, with a personality similar to Finney: charming, forceful, authoritative but friendly (so much so that when I saw Stride as Alun Weaver in Kingsley Amis’s The Old Devils, I thought it could have been a great part for Finney). Roy Kinnear was another student, usually co
nfined to playing, by his own admission, ‘short, fat, sweaty types’, but a gifted comic actor of rare timing.
RADA students Ronald Fraser and James Villiers, although not exact contemporaries of Finney, became legends in their own lunchtime. Both were particularly friendly with O’Toole and formed a trio known for their carousing. Villiers carved out a little niche for himself as upper-class buffoons. He was one of the first to call other actors ‘luvvie’. So perhaps we can blame him for the over-effusiveness that later became so lampooned.
Among Finney’s other contemporaries, John Vernon played villains in Point Blank and Brannigan. Derren Nesbitt, who arrived in 1955, often stole films from under leading men’s noses, usually as a sadist. (Nesbitt also won the coveted Kendal and Forbes-Robertson Shakespearean awards.) James Booth, most famous for playing Hookie in Zulu, was also there and should have had a glitzier career; he ended up writing screenplays and taking bit parts.
Peter Bowles was a friend of Finney’s who became a household name on British TV in To the Manor Born. Richard Briers6 also became better known on the small screen, especially in The Good Life. He had a gentle, soothing, lightly pitched upper-class bark, vaguely reminiscent of his cousin Terry-Thomas. Briers was also close to O’Toole; in old age they could be seen helping each other up the stairs of the Garrick.
Bryan Pringle,7 who looked at least ten years older than Finney when he appeared with him in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, was also there, as were distinguished stage actors Brian Bedford, Keith Baxter and Gary Raymond. Even Ronald Allen, forever known as the suave David Hunter in the long-running British soap Crossroads, hit pay dirt. So did Nicholas Smith, a regular on the amusing comedy series Are You Being Served? Patrick Newell was another familiar face, in particular as roly-poly ‘mother’ in The Avengers.
Among the ladies were Virginia Maskell, who died in tragic circumstances in 1968,8 Gillian Martell, Valerie Singleton and Rosemary Leach. Fewer of the actresses became household names. Another student, Roy Maxwell, also from Salford Grammar School, believes some of them weren’t especially serious anyway: ‘Many of the younger Roedean College type females had no intention of going into the professional theatre but mummy and daddy thought they would benefit from the experience of RADA as a finishing school.’9 He then adds, somewhat mischievously, that ‘a fair number of them got a lot more experience than they had bargained for’. By 1955, however, some more famous ladies were making their entrance, notably Diana Rigg, Glenda Jackson and Siân Phillips and, the following year, Susannah York.
Such a great crop of actors fostered a competitive spirit. ‘[This] was quite good training, although not really what drama schools are meant to be about,’ Alan Bates said. ‘It got you quite used to the rat race of trying to get into the public show and trying to get jobs. I was the only one who was unemployed afterwards.’10
Finney, by his own account, started tentatively at RADA (Brian Bedford, in particular, recalled Finney’s ‘very flat north country accent’), yet he relished his independence, being let loose in London and responsible for himself. He had a fiver in his pocket and soon several girls were vying for his attention; they outnumbered boys by two to one.
In his first term, Finney said he felt ‘very unsophisticated, ungainly and clumsy and a bit uncouth’. Although he’d done plays at school, and been a keen cinemagoer, the nuts and bolt of stagecraft proved a hard grind. But he was always a keen observer. He later remembered being directed by an old Shakespearean actor named Ernest Milton. Finney recalled seeing Milton chase a tram, somewhat breathlessly, calling out, ‘Stop! Stop! You’re killing a genius!’ (Finney later used this incident for the famous train-stopping scene in The Dresser.)
It was only later in the first year that Finney started to feel comfortable:
In my third term it suddenly clicked, thanks to Wilfred Walter who was directing Twelfth Night. I was playing Toby Belch and when I asked him where I should stand he told me to stand wherever I liked as long as I felt relaxed. He didn’t mind untidy productions as long as his students were exploring the stage for themselves, and that gave me a tremendous release, a sense of being myself on the stage … you tend to be told how many steps to take by some of the teachers there. You’d got to control your breathing and use the pitch of your voice. But at the beginning of the third term it changed. I remember thinking almost deliberately. ‘I’m not going to go on at rehearsals saying the rest of the class is laughing at me. I’m going to say they’re learning from me.’ It was almost as deliberate a conceit as that. I realised that I had to take a positive step from feeling self-conscious with my classmates.11
By the end of the first year Finney was attracting positive attention. Peter O’Toole thought that Finney was special. He noted that his friend ‘buzzed with a confident energy’ when playing a scene from As You Like It.
Richard Briers described Finney and O’Toole as the undisputed stars of the intake. ‘I was in the same class with Peter O’Toole and Albert Finney, who didn’t need any lessons at all. I was painstakingly slow in my progress in comparison with them and as a result was always trying too hard,’ he recalled.
Elizabeth Rees-Williams, who later married Richard Harris, said, ‘when Peter or Albie were doing anything, we’d all go and watch’, and theatre director William Gaskill recalled that Finney and O’Toole had made a little name for themselves in the theatre world long before they graduated. But maybe some of this is with the benefit of hindsight, certainly John Stride and, later, Derren Nesbitt, received just as much recognition.
Perhaps we are not only talking of star quality and raw talent, although these were striking in both O’Toole and Finney, but also of sheer confidence, the kind of self-belief that says not only ‘I know where I’m going’ but ‘I’m going to make sure I’m noticed’. This was the key to Finney’s success.
And here the person best placed to observe Finney was his friend Peter Bowles with whom he shared a one-bedroom flat in London’s Hornsey Rise. There were three beds – one double, one single and a single folding one, Bowles recalled. ‘The agreement was that should either of us have a girl with us for the night, then that person would have the double bed and the other would unfold the zedbed and sleep in the kitchen.’ Bowles appreciated Finney’s no-nonsense attitude. One night they were discussing how to tackle Macbeth. Bowles started talking about motivation and demeanour:
‘How would you approach it, Albert?’ I asked.
‘I’d learn the fucking lines and walk on,’ said Finney.
That’s confidence – and from a boy of 18. You can’t beat it.
The lesson, concluded Bowles, was simple: ‘I realised many years later, after I’d acquired a certain amount of it, that confidence is almost 80 per cent of what’s needed for star quality, plus a bit of talent, of course.’12
Finney’s nonconformity showed in another incident recounted by Bowles:
My first experience of television casting was, in fact, at RADA … We had been asked by the Principal to come to RADA on this particular day in our ‘best’ clothes, with hair brushed and shoes shining, because the bosses of a new independent television company (Rediffusion, I think) were coming to cast the first closed-circuit TV play [ITV had not started at this time]. I think they may have used students from other drama schools, but we would play the leading parts; after all, we were the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts.
‘Bollocks,’ said Albert that morning as he put on his usual holed jumper. ‘Fuck ’em,’ as he ran his fingers through his tousled hair. Albert never washed his hair as he believed nature’s oils cleaned it ‘like a dog’s’, he said. Albert still has a magnificent head of thick hair, whilst my once magnificent head of thick, wavy, well-washed hair has all but disappeared! I got togged up as best I could, as I was on that best behaviour scholarship. No ‘bollocks’ or ‘fuck ’ems’ allowed.
The bosses of the new TV company, who all seemed to be ex-Royal navy commanders, were to watch us enact scenes from As You Like It and I was playi
ng Jaques. Poor Albert was only playing ‘a forester’. No wonder he said ‘fuck ’em,’ I thought. The scenes were to be played in a large rehearsal room and the distinguished guests sat on a raised stage at one end of the room.
The scenes ended.
‘Gather round, boys and girls,’ said the Principal. ‘Sit cross-legged here in front of our guests whilst they decide who they would like to cast in their play.’
It was to be She Stoops to Conquer. We were all very excited and I knew I had done the ‘All the world’s a stage’ speech rather well.
‘We would like to have that boy for a start,’ said one of the men, pointing towards a figure who had not joined us cross-legged, but had gone into a corner at the far end of the room, and was standing in the position of a dunce with his back towards us.
‘Albert, come here at once. What are you playing at?’
‘No, leave him where he is,’ said the ex-Naval Commander. ‘We want him to play the lead.’
I didn’t get a part of any kind. Well, that’s the mystique of star quality in an 18-year-old young man, who I think only had one line.
Bowles was a lifelong friend. And Finney was always generous to his pals. When Peter married in April 1961, Finney and Jimmy Villiers were the ushers. (Bryan Pringle was best man.) Finney gave Bowles a cheque for £250, equivalent to about £3,500 today. Bowles later said it served him in good stead because he had several months’ unemployment after his marriage. Finney, who was starring in Billy Liar at the time, arrived late to the wedding. The reception proved so enjoyable that Finney decided to feign illness and cancel his matinee, giving his understudy Trevor Bannister, later famous for Are You Being Served?, his break.
RADA students learnt movement, fencing and ballet but voice control and diction were pivotal. Staff could be carping. Keith Baxter recalled being told by voice teacher Mary Duff that his voice was ‘ugly’ and that he sounded ‘as if your mother dug coal with her fingernails’. Finney later told Roy Maxwell that the academy seemed to employ a deliberate ‘good cop, bad cop routine’, almost operating teachers alternately.
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