Albert Finney, a wonderful actor by any imaginable measure, has passed away. He was only 82 years old.
Finney often portrayed hard, sometimes angry men, although also ones whose hearts were more gettable than they wanted the world to know. He portrayed Daddy Warbucks and Ebeneezer Scrooge and James Bond’s gamekeeper, Kincade.
He played gangsters:
and ruthless administrators:
and cynical lawyers:
It was that last one – as Ed Masry in Erin Brockovich – that earned him his final Oscar nomination. He was nominated five times throughout his career although he never ended up winning one. He was nominated for plenty of other awards too and he won an awful lot of them. And, in his defense, he never seemed to care too much about having won or lost awards anyway, as evidenced by his response to his first nomination and having been overtaken by Sidney Poitier:
Albert Finney’s reaction to being upset in the best actor Oscar race by Sidney Poitier (Poitier became the first-ever black winner of that award) in 1964… pic.twitter.com/wMYUurw8om
— Scott Feinberg (@ScottFeinberg) February 8, 2019
Finney was more than a character actor and yet he maintained a low enough profile, particularly in his later life, that he will likely be remembered as one. In his time, he was a giant but now he will likely be that one guy from that other thing. This though is not disrespect. It is a reputation well deserved and absolutely earned.
According to a faithful reader, I'm Ordinary Times's "least thoughtful writer." So I've got that going for me, which is nice.
He had one other roll in Millers Crossing (by the way, this is actually the best Coen Brothers movie)
RIP.
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