
FILE – This is a Jan. 25, 2001 file photo of actor Frank Finlay at the South Bank Awards in London. British actor Frank Finlay, who was Academy Award-nominated for his work alongside Laurence Olivier in “Othello,” has died aged 89. Finlay’s family said he died of heart failure on Saturday Jan. 30, 2016 at his home in Weybridge, southern England. In a statement, they called him “a wonderful father, loving grandfather and a damn fine actor.”(PA. File via AP) UNITED KINGDOM OUT NO SALES NO ARCHIVE
LONDON (AP) — British actor Frank Finlay, who was Academy Award-nominated for his work alongside Laurence Olivier in “Othello,” has died aged 89.
Finlay’s family said he died of heart failure Saturday at his home in Weybridge, southern England. In a statement, they called him “a wonderful father, loving grandfather and a damn fine actor.”
Handsome, deep-voiced and capable of both charm and menace, Finlay was a founding member of Britain’s National Theatre company, played the lothario Casanova in a 1971 television series of the same name and starred in the TV miniseries “Bouquet of Barbed Wire,” a portrait of a damaged family that was a scandalous hit in 1976.
He played Iago, nemesis to Olivier’s Othello, onstage and in a 1965 film adaptation of the Shakespearean tragedy, for which he was Oscar-nominated as best supporting actor.
Other film roles included Porthos in Richard Lester’s big-budget 1973 take on “The Three Musketeers” — and two sequels — and the main character’s father in Roman Polanski’s “The Pianist.”
He is survived by a son, a daughter and several grandchildren.
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