How tall was Albert Finney?
Albert Finney, the son of a bookmaker from Lancashire, came to movie pictures through the cinema. He was given a scholarship to RADA in 1956 where his fellow alumni included Peter O'Toole and Alan Bates. He entered the Birmingham Repertory where William Shakespeare had excelled in plays.Finney, a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, knew Laurence Olivier at Stratford-upon-Avon and ultimately acquired a reputation as the 'new Olivier.' He first received public attention by establishing the title character in the London stage of Keith Waterhouse's "Billy Liar." His film debut quickly followed with Tony Richardson's The Entertainer (1960), with whom he had previously collaborated in the theatre. With the changing focus on grim realism and working-class milieus in British cinema in the 60s, Finney's traditional screen personae were good-looking, frequently brooding proletarian styles and defiant anti-heroes as personified by his Arthur Seaton in Karel Reisz's Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960).
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