Finlay Currie

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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. 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 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. 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, specializing in coins and precious metals.

Personal life

Finlay Currie was married to Maude Courtney. They had one son, George Francis Courtney Currie, born in Melbourne, Australia, on 26 September 1906. George was educated at Xavier College, Melbourne as a full time boarder while his parents continued to travel and perform. George Currie had 2 children.

Selected filmography

• Rome Express (1932)
• The Frightened Lady (1932)
• The Edge of the World (1937)
• 49th Parallel (1941)
• Thunder Rock (1942)
• Undercover (film) (1943)
• 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) - Billy Bones
• 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) - Balthasar
• Solomon and Sheba (1959) - King David
• Hand in Hand (1960)
• Go to Blazes (1962)
• 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)

External links

• Finlay Currie at the Internet Movie Database
• Finlay Currie at Find a Grave

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