Frank Finlay is Dead.

[Conchis]

The great actor has departed this realm - aged 89.

The general public will remember him for Bouquet Of Barbed Wire.

The cognoscienti will remember him as Iago to Olivier's Othello.

Those who had even a glancing acquaintance with him will remember an affable and modest man who also happened to be a great actor.

Very sad he's gone - but what a full life.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

[gurnemanz]

Verry good actor. I remember going to see Othello at the cinema when it first came out - 1966, so I would have beeen doing A Levels. I was more impressed by him as Iago than Olivier as Othello. The film was very long and had an intermission during which they played the Emperor Concerto, one of the few pieces of classical music I actually knew at the time.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Very good actor. I remember going to see Othello at the cinema when it first came out - 1966, so I would have been doing A Levels.

Ten years later for me.

I was more impressed by him as Iago than Olivier as Othello.

- Olivier's screen presence by that time seemed hammy and overacted: it was - unlike the earlier "Walton" Shakespeare films - a "straight" filming of the (???) Chichester stage production. Finlay's cold, understated performance of Iago's "motiveless malignity" by contrast was (in the best sense) repulsive.

[Rue Dubac]

Did he not also play a brilliant Salieri in the stage (film also?) version of Amadeus?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Did he not also play a brilliant Salieri in the stage (film also?) version of Amadeus?

On stage, certainly - the originator of the role, IIRC. (But in filmed adaptation, Salieri was played by F Murray Abraham - unless there's also a filmed version of the original stage run: something I'd be very interested in seeing!)

[Mary Chambers]

I saw the stage version of Othello in the 1960s, standing all the way through - don't think I could do that now! I remember it fairly well.

[Radio64]

Remember well A Bouquet of Barbed Wire ... one of those adult series we were allowed to watch! (Sunday nights?)

RIP

[gurnemanz]

On stage, certainly - the originator of the role, IIRC. (But in filmed adaptation, Salieri was played by F Murray Abraham - unless there's also a filmed version of the original stage run: something I'd be very interested in seeing!)

Just checked: We saw him in this production, but first performance was at the National Theatre in 1979 with Paul Scofield as Salieri, Felicity Kendal as Constanze and Simon Callow as Mozart.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Just checked: We saw him in this production, but first performance was at the National Theatre in 1979 with Paul Scofield as Salieri, Felicity Kendal as Constanze and Simon Callow as Mozart.

- Paul Scofield, of course <doh> (he's even on the cover of the Penguin edition of the script!)

[Rue Dubac]

Thanks, Gurnemanz, that must have been the one I saw also. Riveting.

[Conchis]

Amadeus is, I think, a very poor play but an excellent star vehicle for two leading actors.

Ot, but am I the only one who feels the film version was fatally compromised by the decision to have a largely American cast? There's a terrible disconnect between the wigs and perukes and the Brooklyn accents. I keep expecting someone to yell 'Yo! Mozart!'

I wish I'd seen Olivier's stage Othello - it really divided opinion, even at the time. The idea of a 'blacked up' Othello is unthinkable now (and I'm old enough to have seen Donald Sinden as my first Shakespearean outing - I was only 12 at the time - who may have been the last actor in a major production to use make-up). Olivier really went 'the whole hog' in attempting to transform himself into a member of a different race; whatever you might think of the results as captured on film (and, for myself, I can't really make up my mind), you have to admire his daring - a kind of daring that doesn't exist today, even if it were allowed.

Finlay's low key Iago (Olivier did not want to be upstaged) has worn very well indeed. His rationale for the 'motiveless malignity' was that Iago had been impotent for years and was bitterly jealous of his boss's supposed sexual athleticism.

[gurnemanz]

Amadeus is, I think, a very poor play but an excellent star vehicle for two leading actors.

As I remember (long time ago) it was good theatre if not a good play.

[Conchis]

As I remember (long time ago) it was good theatre if not a good play.

That's how I'd describe virtually all of Peter Shaffer's oeuvre (although I don't think Gift Of The Gorgon and Yonadab are good theatre); and that's why he's the world's most commercially successful dramatist and its least discussed.