Career
He is best remembered for his role as "crazed" television anchorman Howard Beale in the film Network, which earned him a posthumous Academy Award for Best Actor, his fifth Best Actor award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and a Best Actor award from the Golden Globes. He was the first of two people to win a posthumous Academy Award in an acting category; the other was fellow Australian Heath Ledger.
Finch went to work as a copy boy for the Sydney Sun and began writing. However he was more interested in acting, and in late 1933 appeared in a play, Caprice, at the Repertory Theatre.At aged 19 Finch toured Australia with George Sorlie's travelling troupe. This, along with continuous stage work, led to the attention of Australian Broadcasting Commission radio drama producer Lawrence H. Cecil, who was to act as his coach and mentor throughout 1939 and 1940. He was "Chris" in the Children's Session and the first Muddle-Headed Wombat.
Finch's first screen performance was in a 1935 short film, The Magic Shoes, an adaptation of the fairy tale Cinderella. He made his feature film debut in 1938 with a supporting role in Dad and Dave Come to Town for director Ken G. Hall, who went on to cast Finch in a larger role supporting Cecil Kellaway in Mr. Chedworth Steps Out (1939).
After the war, Finch continued to work heavily in radio and established himself as Australia's leading actor in that medium, winning Macquarie Awards for best actor in 1946 and 1947.
Finch's first roles for Rank under the new arrangement were undistinguished: Passage Home, Make Me an Offer, Josephine and Men, and Simon and Laura. However in 1956 he appeared in two major hits, A Town Like Alice (1956) and The Battle of the River Plate (1956), which saw exhibitors vote him the seventh most popular British star at the box office;[23] the following year his ranking went up to third, being the fifth most popular regardless of nationality.[24] He returned to Australia to make two films, Robbery Under Arms (1957) and The Shiralee (1957).
The success of The Nun's Story (1959) saw Finch become an international star, although he never worked in Hollywood for an extended period of time.
