Strolling Player

by Hershman, Gabriel;

  Up until now Finney had acted in some heavy parts. Luther and Billy Liar required meticulous preparation and Finney later said that he sometimes felt he was taking himself a bit too seriously. So he and Tony Richardson thought it would be fun to do something completely lightweight and ‘without social significance’. This from the man who had directed Look Back in Anger, A Taste of Honey and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner!

  Tom Jones, the bawdy adventures of an eighteenth-century bastard who rises to become a country squire, became Finney’s most famous movie. It was certainly a big money earner, not only for Finney and Richardson but also for John Osborne, who wrote the screenplay. Ironically, it was shot at breakneck pace and wrapped on a tight budget in ten weeks. ‘The idea of spending, say, six months shooting a film would appall me,’ said Richardson later. Filming started at the end of June 1962 and had ended by mid-September.

  Yet, more than half a century on, Tom Jones has fared less well than Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. Once a film has been mercilessly satirised, people tend to forget its original appeal. Great comedy has been milked out of, for example, the famous eating scene with Joyce Redman (much of it apparently improvised) in which a gluttonous feast serves as extravagant sexual foreplay (comedian Dave Allen had a hilarious skit on this). And the film, one suspects, influenced other filmmakers to make imitative and derivative efforts, notably Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon.

  Luscious breasts, libidinous characters and rather hammy acting (especially from Wilfred Lawson and Hugh Griffith) all seem a little clichéd to present-day audiences. Likewise the filmmaking technique, replete with handheld camera shots, over-the-top narration (from Micheál Mac Liammóir), silent comedy scenes and long shots of Finney and English rose Susannah York riding through the West Country. But this was 1963. And Finney, with his flowing red locks, did look handsome; fantasy fodder for legions of cloistered young girls. And many of his subsequent female co-stars claimed to have developed a crush on him after seeing him in Tom Jones.

  At the time Finney described the film as a welcome change of pace. He told Clive Goodwin that he needed a lighter role: ‘It was good to do Tom Jones when instead of walking around the pool and considering what I did, I had to dive in and do things more spontaneously and not mind that the public would see a spontaneous reaction.’

  Spontaneity and improvisation were also Richardson’s credo. ‘Tony was in his element, picking, blending, substituting, rearranging – if a scene took two days to shoot, the odds were he would change it all on the second day,’ said Finney. Peter Bull also remembered Richardson telling him to ad-lib, ‘“Don’t think what you are saying now is very funny. Go off darlings and make up something and we’ll shoot it!”’.

  Later, much later, Finney, although pleased that the film was a box office hit, claimed the whole experience was demeaning. He saw himself as a character actor and felt he was just being used to ‘sell’ something. ‘Albert was bored by Tom Jones,’ Richardson later admitted:

  He thought it wasn’t an interesting part, it was reactive, and that all he had to use was his personality. And he found that frustrating. He wanted to tear into passion. The part didn’t give him the opportunities of Hamlet or Macbeth … he wanted something where he could rage and tear things in tatters, emote and be a big tragic actor.3

  Ironically, considering the film would be so successful, Finney took some convincing to accept it. He only agreed after securing the role of associate producer. Later, he traded this for a share of the profits. His first cheque made him a dollar millionaire.

  Susannah York was also unenthusiastic, declining the part five times. Tony Richardson and his then wife, Vanessa Redgrave, treated her to two expensive lunches at the Savoy. Yet she kept refusing, claiming that theatre was her real home. The 23-year-old only agreed after she had invited the Richardsons round to her flat for dinner and inadvertently put sugar in the casserole instead of salt. Guilt-stricken, she finally accepted.

  Tom Jones was tangibly a feel-good holiday film. The Times said as much, but then added a sting in the tail:

  There is, thank heavens, no law which says that ‘serious’ filmmakers should not make lightweight popular films from time to time. The only complaint one has against this particular example is just that popular though it may be, it just is not a very good film.

  Alexander Walker in London’s Evening Standard was particularly cutting, ‘Tony Richardson has proved himself a clever director in the past. It saddens me that this time he shows himself to be merely clever, however.’

  Yet none of that mattered. Finney and Richardson could do no wrong. Even The Times acknowledged that the film has ‘a first-rate star-hero, Mr Albert Finney, who may not have all the acting finesse in the world but slams his personality over with a vigour which is guaranteed to rock the women in the audience and incite the men to emulation’.

  Audiences loved the roustabout roaring, bottom pinching and Hogarthian high jinks. It had cost less than half a million pounds to make and went on to gross £25 million. Queues formed around the London Pavilion Cinema. It proved even more popular in the US. The New York Times wrote, ‘Prepare yourself for what is surely one of the wildest, bawdiest and funniest comedies that a refreshingly agile filmmaker has ever brought to the screen. Mr Richardson gives his film the speed and the character of a keystone comedy.’ So popular was it that a magazine cartoon in The New Yorker showed a patient moaning to his analyst, ‘Doctor, what’s my problem? Tom Jones depressed me.’

  Tom Jones was one of three British films, the others being Billy Liar (which had been Finney’s original role in the London play) and The Servant, shown at the Venice Film Festival in September 1963. In December, Tom Jones was voted best film of the year by the American National Board of Review of Motion Pictures. The same month, it won three honours in a ballot of New York film critics: best picture, best actor for Finney and best director for Richardson.

  Tom Jones was also one of the biggest money-makers at the British box office in 1963 along with From Russia with Love, Summer Holiday and The Great Escape. Finney came in as the eighth most popular star in Britain after Cliff Richard, Peter Sellers, Elvis Presley, Sean Connery, Hayley Mills, Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando. It was clear that both Finney and the film would be in the running for Oscars.

  Before the film’s release, Finney, in typical fashion, had decided to ‘disappear’ by directing some productions at Glasgow Citizens’ Theatre – Pinter’s The Birthday Party and Sheridan’s School for Scandal – and starring in Pirandello’s Henry IV. Finney simply wanted to direct but couldn’t find any major theatres ready to take him on.

  Interest in Glasgow Citizens’ Theatre soared. And this was before Tom Jones had been released. Finney’s Henry IV broke all box office records for the month that it played. The critics might not have been effusive – ‘What was lacking was a secure mental control of the character,’ said one reviewer – but the same critic then saluted Finney’s audacity in taking his talent to a relatively unknown theatre, ‘It’s an event of importance when a success-laden performer such as Albert Finney chooses to resist the haphazard careerism of the London theatre in favour of seeking out the experience he needs, even if it leads into semi-obscurity’.

  Perversely, throughout his life Finney sought insecurity. His life journey, at this point, seemed to be the opposite of most people’s. His warm, loving childhood had offered too much certainty. So now, in his mid-20s and fiercely independent, he had discarded possessions and permanent digs. Even before Tom Jones had appeared, Finney was making good money. Yet his biggest purchase was an inexpensive sports car. He wore turtleneck sweaters, dungarees and sneakers. And all his worldly goods fitted into one trunk and three suitcases.

  When Finney had attended a Variety Club dinner in London to collect his award for the most promising newcomer of 1960, he reportedly wore a green corduroy jacket, beige denim trousers and sandals over yellow socks. Other contemporary photographs show him in rumpled shirts,
scarves and a flat cap. All actors, and there’s no reason to believe that Finney was totally devoid of vanity, make a fashion statement of some kind through their appearance. Finney was projecting, consciously or not, a working-class image.

  To say that Finney had footloose connections was an understatement. Even friends, he once said, were something of a ‘liability’. But girls were different. They were vital. Finney’s regular girlfriend was now Samantha Eggar, a stunningly beautiful actress, then 23, who had been signed for her movie debut in The Wild and the Willing by producer Betty Box after she spotted her in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Twelfth Night at the Royal Court. Eggar remembers that she saw Luther almost every night. Then she would rush home to cook dinner at her flat behind the Dorchester in Park Lane.

  Finney’s divorce from Jane Wenham came through around this time. Wenham was granted custody of their 3-year-old son, Simon. Finney would have little contact with his son over the next few years.

  Eggar’s role in The Wild and the Willing cast her opposite Ian McShane, the son of a Manchester United footballer who followed the trail that Finney had blazed – liberating young working-class talent. McShane was playing another boozy, skirt-chasing character somewhat in the mould of Tom Jones. Finney visited Samantha in Lincoln, bringing her some fraises du bois to console her during a freezing shoot. On a whim, Betty Box decided to put Finney in the film. He is seen, uncredited, wearing a college scarf.

  Finney and Samantha particularly enjoyed holidaying in Greece, staying at the home of actor Peter Bull on the island of Paxos, just south of Corfu. Paxos, an hour’s speedboat or hydrofoil ride away from Corfu, is even now relatively quiet. ‘Bully’, as he was known to his friends, was a supporting actor and a genuine eccentric who had once written a book about teddy bears. Say no more! Finney enjoyed several trips to his home.

  Playwright Emlyn Williams was another early distinguished Corfu coloniser; likewise, Susannah York. In those days the island was undiscovered. Finney would ride into town on a donkey box trap. He enjoyed the anonymity, especially later when he became an international star. One story had Finney greeting locals warmly from his donkey and being unable to understand why they were all laughing at him. It turned out that Finney was saying ‘kalamares’ which means squid, instead of ‘kali mera’!

  Finney liked Greece so much that he and his second wife Anouk Aimée bought a home on Ipsos. One famous visitor, Tab Hunter, noting the ‘sleepy time down south’ nature of the place, referred to Finney’s entourage as ‘the hammock people’ because all they ever wanted to do was take turns lying in the hammock, watching the world go by.

  By 1963, Finney, who had been working constantly for almost a decade, was getting tired. The hammock was starting to look enticing. But he wanted to make another movie with Karel Reisz. They settled on the story of Ned Kelly, the legendary Australian outlaw. David Storey, who had written the script for Lindsay Anderson’s This Sporting Life (the film Finney had declined because he feared the character of Frank Machin was too similar to Arthur Seaton) was commissioned to write it. Filming would take place in Australia. Finney and Reisz flew there on a ten-week recce in October 1962.

  At a Sydney press conference, Finney seemed enthused. He said he had studied a Royal Commission report on the outlaw and had read ten books about him. ‘Ned Kelly was an extremely complex character,’ he told the gathering. ‘In the film we want to try to show what Ned Kelly did but we do not want to portray him as a hero or a rogue.’

  Filming was supposed to start in spring of 1963. But the project fell through because British labour regulations stipulated a British crew. This made the whole project unaffordable.4

  Instead, well, the publicity for the film they did make should tell the whole story. ‘The lusty brawling star of Tom Jones goes psycho!’ screamed the posters. Finney and Reisz settled on a remake of Emlyn Williams’s shocker, Night Must Fall, about a psychotic axe murderer on the loose in the English countryside. The movie has a particularly memorable scene in which the central character cuts off an elderly woman’s head and places it in a hat box.

  Reviews were also cutting. Here was The Times:

  Producers have followed the modern trend and used this film as a vehicle for examining what goes on in the mind of a homicidal maniac. But it is not easy to explain why anyone, even if he is as glib, persuasive, and unscrupulous as Mr Finney presents him in this new version, should undergo these particular brain storms and then find relief in this particular form of violent exertion.

  Reisz believed that the post-Tom Jones Finney was starting to view screen acting as dull, especially if all he had to do was project easygoing charm:

  He had begun to feel what many male actors often feel about acting. Is this a proper job for a man – to keep smiling for the big world out there? The result was, I think, that he resisted playing Danny’s charm and lightness and instead went for the pain and inwardness of the character.

  Finney’s fans from Tom Jones were disappointed. Reisz remembered showing a preview of the film. Apparently MGM wives laid into him, ‘What have you done to this beautiful man, Tom Jones?’

  For Finney, who wanted to be seen as a serious actor, it was just the kind of reaction he hated. Perhaps that’s why Finney chose to persevere with character leads, taking Luther to New York’s St James’s Theatre in 1963. Finney proved a hit with audiences, critics and the fairer sex. His first taste of Broadway was a rip-roaring success. The New York Times’s Howard Taubman hailed Luther as a landmark in theatre, ‘As drama, it has size and distinction. It is about matters worth thinking and talking about. It makes the theatre 10 feet tall.’ Taubman added, ‘Whatever your allegiance of faith may be, you owe it to yourself to rediscover the excitement that a vital play can deliver.’ Finney was ‘superb’, he said. The New York Daily News described it as a work of power and integrity in which Finney gave ‘a thoroughly splendid performance’.

  Finney thought that the Broadway production was an improvement on the original. ‘From the start, Tony [Richardson] and I admired the play so much and felt it was a holy grail. Now we are able to use it more.’

  Finney, still only 27 in 1963, was basking in twin applause for his performances in Luther and Tom Jones. He had conquered both London and Broadway and was an international star. About twenty national magazines and newspapers were clamouring for profiles by the time of the New York production of Luther. The nation’s largest weekly magazine asked for a cover portrait, and a leading women’s fashion magazine wanted him to be the first man to appear on its cover.

  Finney was part of a golden season on Broadway. Other acclaimed shows on at the time included One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest with Kirk Douglas, Barefoot in the Park with Robert Redford, Oliver! starring Clive Revill and Georgia Brown, and The Ballad of the Sad Café, based on Carson McCullers’ novella, which Edward Albee had turned into a play.

  Actor Michael Dunn5 appeared in the Albee play, and he and Finney would swap stories over beer and steak at various actors’ hangouts. Finney drank steadily yet seldom seemed drunk. But he knew how to have fun:

  Each Sunday morning a bunch of us would go over to Downey’s at eleven – it was before the legal opening, but we had friends – lunch there, go up to Yankee Stadium, see the Giants, have a few drinks from the flask. The trick then was to find some girls to come home and cook dinner, say, while we watched the West Coast game on the television and partied some more.

  The following spring, in 1964, Richard Burton would play Hamlet. New York theatregoers were treated to another British acting giant. And Michael Dunn was to have another seasoned drinker to keep him company.

  Finney invited his mother and father to New York the week before Thanksgiving in 1963. Early in the afternoon of Friday, 22 November, Finney and his parents climbed to the observation deck on the top of the Empire State Building. Finney had to be back at the theatre by early evening. As they were coming down, around 2 p.m., the elevator man told the party, ‘They’ve shot the president!’ I
t was an enormous shock for everyone, let alone first-time visitors to New York.6

  Finney later said he was struck by the solemnity and civility of New Yorkers, especially the driver of the Fifth Avenue bus who told him, ‘I didn’t like JFK’s politics, but this is no way to solve the problem.’ Rather typically of Finney, he keeps his own feelings close to his chest. Instead, he reports on the comportment of others. He’s not naturally effusive in his public comments. He ‘liked’ his father very much, he said, after he had died in 1975. When his son, Simon, was born, Finney admitted that he ‘was rather shocked that the sense of separateness was so strong’. This should not be taken for a lack of feeling. You could describe it as northern reserve or an English reluctance to gush.

  Finney, and other stars, were enlisted to pay tribute to President Kennedy. Two days after the assassination (and one day before the funeral), a special live television programme entitled A Tribute to John F. Kennedy from the Arts was broadcast by ABC on network television. The screening featured dramatic readings from Finney as well as Christopher Plummer, Sidney Blackmer, Florence Eldridge and Charlton Heston. Plummer and Finney performed Hamlet’s dying speech (‘I am dead, Horatio …’) with Finney taking the role of Horatio. The programme has never been repeated or released commercially.

  Luther continued its New York run until early in 1964. By then his performance had evolved. A critic wrote:

  He acknowledges now that in those early days of Luther he stood in awe of the great historical figure whom he was impersonating. Both he and his fellow actors seem now to have a fuller comprehension of their difficult roles and to have found the proper moments for irony and passion.

  Finney was rewarded with a Tony nomination for best actor. Finney loved New York. And the city’s ladies, including some illustrious names, reciprocated. One of his famous girlfriends in 1963 was Shelley Winters. The actress, sixteen years older than Finney, recalled in her autobiography how she and Finney consummated their relationship in a car she had expressly bought for the purpose. She notes: