Strolling Player

by Hershman, Gabriel;

  Perhaps the most charismatic actor on stage I saw was O’Toole. He had an intangible magic. With Finney, charismatic though he is, it is more presence that carries him through. Orphans was reminiscent of old-style gangster movies, and Finney’s brisk movements, pugnaciousness and quick wit evoked Cagney.

  Orphans’s opening scene saw Finney perform an extended drunk act. As usual he played pissed well, reminiscing about his time in an orphanage with an extended monologue about meat and potatoes (the passage became a favourite audition piece for aspiring actors). Even when trussed up and gagged, alone with Phillip the morning after his kidnapping, Finney commanded the stage with a mere grunt. His Harold was kindly and benevolent but also dangerous – pulling a gun on Treat, berating him for not frisking him beforehand, or besting him in a fight.

  Phillip’s transformation, under Harold’s tutelage, from punch bag to survivor, is handled touchingly. Harold shows him understanding and kindness, enticing him into the outside world by extolling everything from the convenience of loafers to the joy of women’s breasts. The play’s most memorable line – ‘It’s all right, Phillip, you just needed a little encouragement’ – was particularly moving in Finney’s hands as he gives his young protégé a tweak of the shoulder.

  Orphans quickly sold out. At the time critics enthused more about Finney than they did the play. Michael Billington noted, ‘The play itself may be only moderate shakes, but the Hampstead stage is currently vibrating with more energy than any other theatre in London’. Billington hailed Finney’s best performance in years, ‘compact in Celtic roguishness, paternal love and the kind of bull-like self-possession that bespeaks profound loneliness’. The Daily Telegraph’s John Barber also had praise for Finney but reservations about the play, ‘Exciting, marvellously acted and wholly meretricious … this is a typical transatlantic exercise in the art of trivialising by exaggeration.’

  The Daily Mail’s Jack Tinker homed in on Finney’s greatness:

  What gives the performance its stranglehold on the audience – and stamps the play with a hard credulity despite its soft centre – is the aura of bleak isolation in which he wraps himself. Behind his level, watchful gaze there is that strange sense of separation which sets the successful criminal or gambler apart from his fellow man.

  For Michael Attenborough it was the contrast between the acrobatic Fahey and Anderson, ‘like two monkeys in a cage’, and Finney, mostly sitting in a chair – with his ‘danger, magnetism and stillness’ – that made the play. ‘I felt that the production was bound to lead to some awards.’ It was, above all, what Attenborough describes as ‘the highly physical side of the production’ that would have shocked audiences thirty years ago.

  Like others, Attenborough fell in love with Finney. ‘He was there because he wanted to be. He was fortunate enough, having made some money, to be able to cherry-pick his roles. And he was fantastic in the play.’ Attenborough remembers Finney’s special way with people:

  He was the perfect example of how a well-known actor should behave. He was just impeccable and completely delightful. He was just there to do some work. And he was as interested in the assistant electrician as he was in the other actors. There was nothing flash about him.

  When Easter fell that year, a fortnight into the play’s run, every staff member at Hampstead Theatre received a large chocolate egg courtesy of Finney.

  Finney was in a great mood that March. He had scored a big hit – in racing! His horse, Synastry, son of Seattle Slew, had won his first major race as a 3-year-old with victory at Hialeah Park in Florida on 13 March. And, oh yes, he had triumphed in the Kessler play.

  Orphans quickly gained a West End transfer to the Apollo. And, surprisingly, Finney appeared on Terry Wogan’s weeknight live talk show. He had generally avoided the British chat show circuit, shunning even famous interviewers like Parkinson and Aspel. His rationale was simple. ‘If I’m trying to convince the audience I might be Tom, Dick or Harry, the less they see of Albert the better,’ he would say. He liked to preserve what he called his ‘scarcity value’ (he even declined an invitation to appear on Desert Island Discs). So he clearly intended to give Orphans a plug, not that he really needed to gild the lily. But, as he told Wogan, ‘you either get involved in hype or you don’t’. Cordial but a little cool, Finney spoke about his love of horses and the appeal of Orphans. Prompted by Wogan to utter a few lines in Harold’s gangster drawl, Finney politely declined. ‘Come and see the show,’ he told his host, who liked to get a laugh by asking a guest to do a funny voice. (In 1987, Wogan even asked Bette Davis to muster her best cockney accent.)

  Lyle Kessler, reflecting on the production thirty years later, thinks that only a great actor like Finney could have done justice to Harold:

  I met Albert when he came to New York to see the Steppenwolf production of Orphans. The play has attracted some world-class actors to play Harold. Al Pacino did it in LA along with Jesse Eisenberg as Phillip. Alec Baldwin did the Broadway revival. Anthony Hopkins was going to do it in LA but couldn’t because of the pending Broadway production. I did travel to London to see Albert in the play and I hung out with him at the time. He’s a great guy, told stories about his dad who was a bookie in England.3

  Kessler adored Finney’s performance and this, we must stress, not from a fellow backslapping ‘luvvie’ but from a seasoned writer who had seen Pacino play Harold:

  He was absolutely wonderful in the production … I cherish what Albert brought to the role. His relationship with Phillip was especially touching and moving as he guides him to step out into the world. When you write large epic characters like Harold there are maybe a half dozen world-class actors who can play them and capture every nuance of the role. Finney and Pacino are, of course, at the top of the list. I have a new play called The Great Divide with another marvellous role that Finney and Pacino would be wonderful in. Unfortunately, ‘time is the enemy of us all’, as Tennessee Williams’s character Chance Wayne says at the end of Sweet Bird of Youth. And the role needs to be played by a younger actor. But where are the Finneys and Pacinos of the younger generation?

  Offstage, Finney was conscious of his role in luring this brigade of hungry young talent to London. He was paterfamilias, a charming and generous host as he led his cast around town. Set designer Kevin Rigdon remembers how Finney secured Sinise’s entry into the UK. Sinise had, according to Rigdon, ‘just a one-way ticket with a pocketful of change,’ but Finney introduced all the gang to some of London finest drinking establishments and restaurants. Rigdon reflects in the present tense on the events of thirty years ago:

  One night, we have dinner at some chic Italian restaurant [probably San Lorenzo] where he was chums with the owner, alongside Ronald Harwood, Robert Fox, Maggie Smith, Gary [Sinise], Kevin [Anderson], Jeff [Fahey] and several others. We are treated like royalty. My dinner partner happens to be Maggie Smith – I am in heaven! Like many night time excursions with Albert, the details begin to glaze over. Much merriment and fellowship takes place, stories are told between courses of food and drink – the next day and even thirty years later, the love of life, profession, and friends, remains. Kind, loving, generous, and yes, living life like this could be your last day.4

  Rigdon also offered a behind-the-scenes insight into the problems facing a set designer:

  Walking to the Apollo one morning while the set is being loaded into the theatre, there is a crowd gathered outside the loading door staring into the theatre. I join them, they are looking into an empty stage, but we are hearing a Pat Metheny concert being played by an invisible Pat Metheny Group – it is sound check, First Circle at concert like sound level. The fire marshal makes his inspection touching flame to various pieces of scenery. The stage is littered with stash and copious amounts of wadded up newspaper, the accumulated mess that the orphans live in prior to Harold’s influence. As the fire marshal approaches the papers, which will go up in a ball of fire if he touches it with his lighter – none of this has been treated with fire r
etardant – I ask him to please not light the stage on fire, that none of this trash can be treated because Albert will crawl around in it and we don’t want him to break out in a rash from contact with the flame retardant chemicals. He accepts my explanation; we are permitted to go on. The truth is we had forgotten to treat the papers but the prospect of Albert Finney being covered in ash bought us the time to get everything treated.

  Rigdon describes Finney’s performance and the impact of his friendship:

  On stage Albert is a joy to watch. The love of life he shares offstage is channelled on stage through his character – Albert is Harold is Albert. Through Albert, I had the opportunity to meet and work with some of the finest artists and people in our business; Maggie Smith, Ronald Harwood, Michael Medwin, Lenny Tucker [head of the National Theatre’s lighting department], Cyril Griffiths [technical director of Stoll Moss Theatres], Robert Fox, Edward Fox – people I would work with again in my career. I owe a debt of gratitude for bringing these people into my life. The kindness that they extended to me helped to shape and informs the artist in me.

  Nan Cibula-Jenkins, costume designer, remembered Finney’s faith in her abilities and his professionalism, her inclusion of ‘Mr’ underlying her respect:

  We did all of our costume fittings in New York City, where there was a rehearsal period as well. My experience with Mr Finney resulted in an anecdote that I still share with my students. In the US [and particularly in Chicago, which is notable for ‘actor theatres’], the actor and the costume designer work closely as collaborators. Many actors have a significant say in the appropriateness of his or her costume. When working with Mr Finney, I asked him to indicate which of the suits he tried on at Barney’s he preferred for the character. He said, ‘Darling, you are the costume designer, so I trust you to make the right choice.’ So I did! He wore the one with the more significant stripe in the material to help underscore the mobster in him. I enjoy my collaboration with actors, but I also relished the acknowledgement from Mr Finney that he didn’t have to worry about making the choice because he had a professional to do it.5

  The Orphans ‘family’ clearly owed a great debt to Finney and everyone stayed friendly with him after the show ended. Finney deservedly won the Olivier award for best actor that year. His award, rather charmingly, was bestowed on him by the great Dame Athene Seyler, then 97 years old. He also won the Evening Standard Theatre Award for best actor.

  A solitary ‘orphan’ onstage he might have been, yet offstage Finney always seemed to have an attractive lady on his arm. By 1986, Finney and Cathryn Harrison had parted company and he was now seeing Susan Mason, his companion through to the end of the decade. In the mid-eighties Finney had also dated singer Carly Simon. ‘He makes you feel appreciated, even if you’re one woman among many,’ said the singer. If you could have bottled Finney’s sex appeal, you would have been on to a nice little earner. But, perhaps along with other men who are a hit with women, he appeared to be genuinely interested in them.

  Later the same year, 1986, a film was made of Orphans, wrapping in November. Kessler recalls, ‘A bunch of wonderful American actors were up for the role in the movie but the director Alan Pakula saw the London production and chose Finney.’ Matthew Modine played Treat in the film. ‘I just had such a great time working with him … he is such a gentleman and such a great actor,’ said Modine, who admits that he went on to appear in the 1994 film of The Browning Version solely because Finney starred in it.

  Orphans was essentially a theatrical experience. Perhaps its claustrophobia was part of its appeal. So the decision to film it was always risky, yet valuable for recording a great performance. Pakula’s version added some exterior scenes, notably Treat robbing a victim in the park. It also shows us how Treat entraps Harold. Yet it added little to the play and slumped at the box office. Given the acclaim surrounding the play, the reaction to the movie was surprising. Kevin Anderson reflected, ‘I received a lot of attention for Orphans onstage and really wanted the movie to be special. I was very disappointed; the studio kind of gave up on it.’6

  Nevertheless, the part of Harold revitalised Finney’s career. The 50-year-old Finney was at the top of his profession. Finney marked his half century with a magnificent party in May. He had come to enjoy the wealth offered by shrewd business and artistic choices. ‘One more King Lear won’t make any difference,’ he once told a local newspaper. Talking to John Freeman back in 1962, Finney had rather pooh-poohed talk of wealth. Perhaps Finney had simply changed. But, then again, doesn’t everyone between 25 and 50? It’s a celebrity’s misfortune to have his pronouncements scrutinised and forever regurgitated. He is not allowed the luxury of contradiction. This may explain why, although the Face to Face Finney interview was repeated on the BBC in the late eighties, it was excluded from a DVD compilation. Perhaps he no longer recognised the person in the 1962 interview?

  Around the mid-eighties he had sealed his reputation as a man about town – whether that town was New York or London. But he was more bon vivant than hell raiser, more of a restaurant man than a pub-goer, although the Star Tavern in Belgravia was a watering hole he frequented a lot in the sixties and seventies. Among his regular London restaurants – apart from San Lorenzo, which soon came to be dubbed ‘Trattoria Hysteria’, perhaps on account of its popularity with ‘luvvies’ – were Wilton’s in St James, the Ivy in Covent Garden, Hilaire in Kensington, the Wolseley on Piccadilly, 11 Park Walk in Chelsea and L’Escargot, La Trattoria Terrazza and Elena’s L’Etoile in Soho.

  In the sixties, the White Elephant Club on Curzon Street was a particular favourite, owned by television producer Stella Richman and her husband Victor Brusa. The White Elephant was the home of many great stars, both homegrown – the likes of Tony Newley and Stanley Baker – and American visitors such as Sammy Davis Junior.

  In New York Finney particularly liked Elaine’s (the restaurant where he performed his tap-dance routine) and Fromagerie, where he and Huston consumed some expensive wines. In the South of France he always visited La Columbe d’Or, where he had met Anouk.

  Finney always seemed to have a good life/work balance. And once he had found a talented collaborator – Anderson, Reisz, Richardson and Lumet – he tended to work with them more than once. Likewise, Finney’s successful collaboration with Ronald Harwood on The Dresser led him to star in three plays written by his new friend over the next five years.

  The first was JJ Farr, about a Catholic priest who had just been released from captivity and torture at the hands of Islamic fundamentalists in the Middle East. Staying at a kind of halfway house in Buckinghamshire, Farr rediscovers his faith, only to be goaded by another lapsed Catholic (played by Bob Peck). Ronald Eyre directed. Finney’s Farr brought to mind the then recent kidnapping of Terry Waite, but Finney dismissed the parallel:

  For a start Terry Waite is not Catholic and he is not a priest. He has nothing to do with the problems of JJ Farr. The similarities between the case of Terry Waite and JJ Farr are as strong as the physical similarity I have to Mickey Mouse.

  Finney, looking slimmer than in Orphans, and with closer cropped hair, played Farr to moderate reviews. As someone who saw the play – and I admit that some of its complexities may have eluded my 20-year-old self – I found the proceedings remote. Orphans and The Biko Inquest were plays that totally succeeded in bringing the audience into the experience; JJ Farr did not – one of those occasions where the audience seems full of tired middle-aged businessmen brought along by nagging wives to experience a little culture.

  ‘Finney is certainly affecting as Farr, tortured in mind and body, but is rendered almost inarticulate by Harwood’s illiterate script,’ wrote Maureen Paton in the Daily Express. Jack Tinker, who had loved Orphans, did not approve. ‘Even the sacrificed talents of Bob Peck and a hopelessly miscast Albert Finney cannot perform the miracle of making JJ Farr believable.’ Christopher Edwards in The Spectator was more positive:

  Finney certainly lives up to our expectations, when, a
s JJ, he finally arrives, disorientated and horribly branded by his captors. Finney exudes a massive authority coupled, at the start, with a troubled, half-understood inner torment. He gives an obvious but powerful performance, full of hesitations, interrupted sequences of thought and barely contained recollections of horror. It as an often riveting, dignified and convincing study of the character. Finney’s simple, matter-of-fact account of the sensational circumstances of his experience is beautifully delivered.

  It was not difficult to see what had attracted Finney to the work of Kessler or Harwood. Quite what he saw in Bryan Forbes’s The Endless Game (from the same film director’s novel) is another question. A sub-espionage tale, it saw Finney play a world-weary British agent caught up in European spying. An uncharitable person would say that it only seemed ‘endless’ to the viewer.

  Executive producer Graham Benson recalls the production as mediocre and also remembers a lack of connection between Finney and Forbes. Not that there were arguments or disagreements on set, but Finney expected more guidance from Forbes. Benson remembered:

  Albert was a total delight on The Endless Game and his participation was a highlight in my career on what was, to be candid, a bit of a run of the-mill thriller nowhere near the class of Le Carré or other more recent examples. However, as well as Albert we had a wonderful cast – Kristin Scott Thomas, Ian Holm, John Standing and Derek de Lint among them. Albert and Forbes, the originator of the material and the director, really didn’t gel from day one and although he kept his own counsel he used to confide in me after the wrap when a few of us used to congregate in the nearest pub. I think if you’d asked Forbes he’d have said he got on fine with Finney … which he did, there was absolutely zero problem on or off the set … but my feeling always was that Albert wanted more from the director.7

  The story became convoluted and, at times, impenetrable. Finney, who usually had a distant attitude to reviews and rarely sees either rushes or his own final performance, became concerned that Forbes had chopped an important scene. Benson recalls: