1. Albert Finney attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and worked in the theatre before attaining fame for movie acting during the early 1960s, debuting with The Entertainer, directed by Tony Richardson, who had previously directed him in theatre.
Albert Finney maintained a successful career in theatre, film and television.
Albert Finney was educated at Tootal Drive Primary School, Salford Grammar School, and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, from which he graduated in 1956.
Albert Finney graduated from RADA and became a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Albert Finney was offered a contract by the Rank Organisation, but refused it to perform for the Birmingham Rep.
Albert Finney was in a production of The Miser for Birmingham Rep, which was filmed for the BBC in 1956.
In 1959, Albert Finney appeared at Stratford in the title role of Coriolanus, replacing an ill Laurence Olivier.
Albert Finney guest featured for several episodes of Emergency-Ward 10 and was Lysander in a TV version of A Midsummer Night's Dream directed by Peter Hall.
Albert Finney made his film breakthrough in the same year with his portrayal of a disillusioned factory worker in Karel Reisz's film version of Alan Sillitoe's Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, produced by Richardson.
Albert Finney then did Billy Liar on stage and for British television.
However, Albert Finney baulked at signing a multi-year contract for producer Sam Spiegel and chose to decline the role.
Albert Finney created the title role in Luther, the 1961 play by John Osborne depicting the life of Martin Luther.
Albert Finney performed the role with the English Stage Company in London, Nottingham, Paris and New York.
The original West End run at the Phoenix ended in March 1962, after 239 performances there, when Albert Finney had to quit the cast to fulfil a contractual obligation with a film company.
Albert Finney starred in the Academy Award-winning 1963 film Tom Jones, directed by Richardson and written by Osborne.
Albert Finney followed this with a small part in ensemble war film The Victors, which was a box-office failure.
Albert Finney then made his Broadway debut in Luther in 1963.
Albert Finney undertook a season of plays at the Royal National Theatre, including Miss Julie by August Strindberg in 1965.
Albert Finney continued acting on films with Two for the Road co-featuring Audrey Hepburn.
Albert Finney then made Gumshoe, the first feature film directed by Stephen Frears, for Memorial.
In 1972, Albert Finney returned to stage after a six-year absence with Alpha Beta, which he later filmed on television with Rachel Roberts.
Albert Finney played Agatha Christie's Belgian master detective Hercule Poirot in the film Murder on the Orient Express.
Albert Finney became so well known for the role that he complained that it typecast him for a number of years, "People really do think I am 300 pounds with a French accent", he said.
Albert Finney received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actor and the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role.
Albert Finney announced he intended to direct the film, The Girl in Melanie Klein, for Memorial, but it was not made.
Albert Finney decided to take time off from features and focus on stage acting, doing classics at the National Theatre in London.
Albert Finney was at the National for over three years during which he played in Hamlet, Macbeth, Tamburlaine, and plays by Anton Chekhov.
Albert Finney made a TV film Forget-Me-Not-Lane in 1975, which was written by Peter Nichols, and he performed a brief role in The Duellists, the first feature directed by Ridley Scott.
Albert Finney had not played a major role in a feature film in six years, and started to think about resuming work with cinema.
Albert Finney received excellent reviews for his performance in the drama Shoot the Moon.
Albert Finney featured in Peter Yates-directed movie The Dresser as Sir, a deteriorating veteran actor struggling through a difficult performance of King Lear.
Albert Finney then played the title role for the TV film Pope John Paul II, his American television debut.
Albert Finney played the lead role of Sydney Kentridge in The Biko Inquest, a 1984 dramatization of the inquest into the death of Steve Biko which was filmed for television after a London run.
Albert Finney had the lead in a television miniseries, The Endless Game, written and directed by Bryan Forbes.
Albert Finney began the 1990s with the lead role in a film for HBO, The Image.
Albert Finney received great acclaim playing the gangster boss in Miller's Crossing, replacing Trey Wilson shortly before filming.
Albert Finney featured in the BBC TV serial The Green Man, based on the Kingsley Amis novel.
Albert Finney followed it with The Playboys for Gillies MacKinnon; Rich in Love for Bruce Beresford; The Browning Version for Mike Figgis; A Man of No Importance, for Suri Krishnamma; and The Run of the Country for Peter Yates.
In 1994, Albert Finney played a gay bus conductor in early 1960s Dublin in A Man of No Importance.
Albert Finney had the main role in Dennis Potter's final two plays, Karaoke and Cold Lazarus.
Albert Finney did Nostromo for television, and Washington Square for Agnieszka Holland then made A Rather English Marriage with Tom Courtenay.
Albert Finney had supporting roles in Breakfast of Champions and Simpatico.
Albert Finney had his biggest success in several years with Erin Brockovich, alongside Julia Roberts for Steven Soderbergh.
Albert Finney had a cameo in Soderbergh's Traffic and played Ernest Hemingway in Hemingway, the Hunter of Death for TV.
Albert Finney had the main role in Delivering Milo and in 2002 his critically acclaimed portrayal of Winston Churchill in The Gathering Storm won him British Academy of Film and Television Arts, Emmy and Golden Globe awards as Best Actor.
Albert Finney played the title role of the television series My Uncle Silas, based on the short stories by H E Bates, about a roguish but lovable poacher-cum-farm labourer looking after his great-nephew.
Albert Finney had a major role in Big Fish directed by Tim Burton, and did another cameo for Soderbergh in Ocean's Twelve.
Albert Finney sang in Tim Burton's Corpse Bride and the film of Aspects of Love.
Albert Finney was reunited with Ridley Scott in A Good Year.
Albert Finney had support roles in Amazing Grace, The Bourne Ultimatum, and Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, which reunited him with Murder on the Orient Express director Sidney Lumet.
Albert Finney received Tony Award nominations for Luther and A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, and starred on stage in Love for Love, Strindberg's Miss Julie, Black Comedy, The Country Wife, Alpha Beta, Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape, Tamburlaine the Great, Another Time and, his last stage appearance, in 1997, "Art" by Yasmina Reza, which preceded the 1998 Tony Award-winning Broadway run.
Albert Finney won an Olivier Award for Orphans in 1986 and won three Evening Standard Theatre Awards for Best Actor.
Albert Finney never abandoned stage work and continued his association with the National Theatre Company in London, where he had performed during the mid-1960s in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing at the Old Vic and Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard during the 1970s at the National Theatre.
In 1957, Albert Finney married actress Jane Wenham; they had a son, Simon Albert Finney, who works in the movie industry as a camera operator.
In 1970, Albert Finney married French actress Nicole Dreyfus, a union that lasted eight years.
In May 2011, Albert Finney disclosed that he had been receiving treatment for kidney cancer.
Albert Finney died of a chest infection at the Royal Marsden Hospital on 7 February 2019; he was 82.
Albert Finney declined the offer of a CBE in 1980, as well as a knighthood in 2000.
Albert Finney was honoured by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association as Best Actor for Under the Volcano, the National Board of Review Best Actor award for Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, and the New York Film Critics Circle Best Actor award for Tom Jones.
Albert Finney won two Screen Actors Guild Awards, for Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role, for Erin Brockovich, and as a member of the acting ensemble in the film Traffic.
Albert Finney was nominated for The Gathering Storm, for Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries, but did not win.
Albert Finney won the Silver Berlin Bear award for Best Actor, for The Dresser, at the 34th Berlin International Film Festival in 1984.
Albert Finney won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor, for Tom Jones, at the Venice Film Festival.
In 2001, Albert Finney was awarded the BAFTA Fellowship for his achievements in film.