Finlay Currie
Known For
Acting
Born
1878-01-19 in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
Died
1968-05-09
Biography
Finlay Jefferson Currie (20 January 1878 – 9 May 1968) was a Scottish actor of stage, screen and television. Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Currie's acting career began on the stage. He and his wife Maude Courtney (1884–1959) did a song and dance act in the US in the 1890s. He made his first film (The Old Man) in 1931. He appeared as a priest in the 1943 Ealing World War II movie Undercover. His most famous film role was as the convict Abel Magwitch in David Lean's Great Expectations (1946), based on the novel, 'Great Expectations' 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 appeared in People Will Talk with Cary Grant; and 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. In one of his very last performances, Currie plays a dying mafioso boss in the two part "Vendetta For The Saint" (1968) starring Roger Moore. Later in life he became a much respected antiques dealer, specialising in coins and precious metals. He had been a long time collector of the works of Robert Burns. Description above from the Wikipedia article Finlay Currie, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Most Known For
The Saint
as Don Pasquale
Ben-Hur
as Balthasar
The Prisoner
as General
Cleopatra
as Titus (uncredited)
United!
Gay Love
as Highams
Gideon's Way
as General Sir Hector McGregor
Undercover
as Priest (uncredited)
The Count of Monte Cristo
Around the World in 80 Days
as Whist Partner
Man of the World
as Donald
Kangaroo
as Michael McGuire
Zarak
as The Mullah
Treasure Island
as Capt. Billy Bones
Solomon and Sheba
as David
Quo Vadis
as Peter
Great Expectations
as Abel Magwitch
The Fall of the Roman Empire
as Senator
49th Parallel
as The Factor
Little Friend
as Grove