Finlay Currie
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| Finlay Currie | |
|---|---|
| Born | Finlay Jefferson Currie 20 January 1878 Edinburgh, Scotland |
| Died | 9 May 1968 (aged 90) Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, England |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Spouse(s) | Maude Courtney (?-1959)(her death) |
Finlay Jefferson Currie (20 January 1878 – 9 May 1968) was a Scottish actor on stage, screen and television.
Born in Edinburgh, Currie's acting career began on the stage. He and his wife, Maude Courtney (1884 - 1959), did a song and dance act in the United States in the 1890s. He made his first film (The Old Man) in 1932. His most famous film role was as the convict Abel Magwitch in David Lean's Great Expectations (1946), based on the novel by Charles Dickens. He later began to appear in Hollywood film epics, including the 1951 Quo Vadis? (as Saint Peter), the multi-Oscar winning 1959 Ben-Hur, as Balthazar, one of the Three Wise Men, and The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) as an aged, wise senator. He also portrayed Robert Taylor's embittered father in MGM's Technicolor 1952 version of Ivanhoe. In 1962, he starred in an episode of The DuPont Show of the Week (NBC) entitled The Ordeal of Dr. Shannon, an adaptation of A. J. Cronin's novel, Shannon's Way. Currie's last role was as Mr. Lundie, the minister, in the 1966 television adaptation of the musical Brigadoon.
Later in life he became a much respected antiques dealer, specializing in coins and precious metals.
[edit] Selected filmography
- Rome Express (1932)
- The Edge of the World (1937)
- Forty-Ninth Parallel (1941)
- Thunder Rock (1942)
- I Know Where I'm Going! (1945)
- Great Expectations (1946)
- Sleeping Car to Trieste (1948)
- The History of Mr. Polly (1949)
- Whisky Galore! (1949)
- Treasure Island (1950)
- The Mudlark (1950)
- People Will Talk (1951)
- Quo Vadis (1951)
- Ivanhoe (1952)
- Footsteps in the Fog (1955)
- Around the World in Eighty Days (1956)
- Ben-Hur (1959)
- Solomon and Sheba (1959)
- Billy Liar (1963)
- Murder at the Gallop (1963)
- The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964)
- The Three Lives of Thomasina (1964)
- Danger Man - "That's Two of Us Sorry" (1965)
- Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965)
- The Prisoner - "The Chimes of Big Ben" (1967)
