Albert Finney

1

FINDING HIS VOICE

I thought people from my background didn't become actors. I thought actors were bred in special places - a stud farm in Mayfair.

Albert Finney.

When Finney celebrated his 9th birthday, his home city of Salford, within the metropolitan borough of Manchester, was ablaze with bonfires and fireworks. The festivities were not to commemorate his birthday. Even Finney was not so precocious as to be feted at the age of 9 - although given his subsequent achievements nothing would surprise me! It was, of course, to mark VE Day, the end of the Second World War, 8 May 1945, which fell the day before his birthday.

Finney recalled:

I've always found light magical and still find fireworks magical because it seems to me that in many ways they're a bit like lives, about existence because the energy takes it somewhere and then it's gone. I think in some ways our lives are like that. There's hopefully a burst of something or an ascent in some way and, then, it's over. That had a big effect on my life.

Such a major event would have had a major impact on a young boy. And of course, so would the image of Churchill - whom Finney would portray so memorably more than half a century later - giving the crowds in London a victory salute. For Finney, the war years in Salford were sometimes scary and bleak and the blaze of colour that day proved unforgettable.

Yet Finney, unlike many other stars from the provinces, never lamented those days. He has said he always viewed his childhood in Salford with great affection. And Finney is very much a Salford lad, not a Mancunian, a distinction he and other Salfordians are always keen to stress.

Perhaps the most famous Old Salfordian was the painter L.S. Lowry (1887-1976), who lived and worked in Pendlebury for over forty years. Others include playwright Shelagh Delaney1 who wrote A Taste of Honey and the screenplay for Finney's later film Charlie Bubbles. Actors Ben Kingsley and Robert Powell2 were also born in the area, as was music hall star Pat Kirkwood (1921-2007).

Seven decades have passed since Finney's childhood. But he still counts several of his schoolmates - including artist Harold Riley and Derek Jackson - among his friends today. And he always loves going back. 'It's just part of you. It's in the blood really,' he'd say. Speaking in 1977, on one of his many visits home, he said his bond with Salford was still strong:

I didn't feel a sense that I wanted to get away from Salford at all. And I've never felt that I've got away. I've never got waylaid in my profession or lost in it because I've felt very connected to the area . there's something very practical and realistic about living in the area which is of great value.

The only reason he didn't live in Salford at that time, said Finney, was that his work dictated that he spent more time in London.

Albert Finney was born on 9 May 1936, the son of Albert and Alice Finney (née Hobson). His two elder sisters, Marie and Rose, were ten and five years older than him, respectively. The family home was at 53 Romney Street, Pendleton, a two-up, two-down red-bricked terraced house in an insalubrious, highly industrialised area about 2 miles from Manchester city centre.

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...