Christine Finn

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Christine Finn is a British actress, now retired, known primarily for her work for the Thunderbirds television series of the 1960s, and the 1958–59 television serial Quatermass and the Pit. She also performed on radio, the stage and film during her career from the 1940s through the mid-1970s.

Contents 1 Life and Work 2 Television Work 3 Radio Work 4 Theatre Work 5 Filmography 6 References 7 Footnotes 8 External Links

[edit] Life and Work

Finn was born in India and grew up there. She moved to England in 1946, just before the end of the British Raj and worked for a while at a clerical job with the BBC. Noticed for a performance with the BBC Staff Amateur Company, she was then sent to LAMDA, the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Her first professional work was a part in Edmond T. Gréville's film The Romantic Age followed by a juvenile lead in a tour of the play Random Harvest. She joined the Birmingham Repertory Company for two years, ending with the role Lady Grey in Henry VI Part III at the Old Vic. A television role followed as Mrs Crichton in Larger Than Life, and at London's Arts Theatre she played Sybil Merton in Lord Arthur Saville's Crime. She returned to Birmingham to play David in The Boy David, then returned to London at the Central School of Speech and Drama's Embassy Theatre for Ophelia in Hamlet and Olivia in Twelfth Night.

A part in the film as May in The Large Rope and a tour of Angels in Love came before she joined the Bristol Old Vic. Her theatre work led to a role in the BBC Sunday Night Theatre production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by Rudolph Cartier, in which she played Hermia. Cartier then used her for the leading female role, Barbara Judd, in the science fiction horror serial Quatermass and the Pit.

Finn's career as a film actress, other than providing voices for two films based on the Thunderbirds television series, is not known to have gone further. When Hammer Film Productions came to make a film version of Quatermass and the Pit, they didn't feel that she was quite the actress that they wanted; she was a little too petite and perhaps her voice was a bit on the schoolgirlish side. Hammer chose an actress by the name of Barbara Shelley instead, who was much taller and more fitting in with the Hammer image. Nigel Kneale, writer of the Quatermass series, preferred Finn's performance.^[1]

Finn also performed as a voice actor, having supplied the voices for Tin-Tin, Grandma Tracy and other characters in the popular Thunderbirds television series.

Finn starred in a number of radio plays from the end of the 1950s to the middle of the 1970s. In some of these plays in the last several years of her known career she performed opposite renowned voice actor Peter Tuddenham, who was well known amongst many things for being the voice of Orac in Blake's 7.

[edit] Television Work

before 1954

• Larger Than Life

1958

• BBC Sunday Night Theatre: A Midsummer Night's Dream

• Quatermass and the Pit

1963

• For Tea on Sunday (aka The Sunday-Night Play: For Tea on Sunday)

• Marriage Lines : as Nora in the first year of this Richard Briers TV comedy

1965

• Gideon's Way (aka Gideon C.I.D., USA) — "The V Men"

• Night Train to Surbiton

• Scales of Justice — "The Hidden Face"

• Thunderbirds

1966

• Dixon of Dock Green — "You Can't Buy A Miracle"

• Adam Adamant Lives! — "Death by Appointment Only"

• Thunderbirds

1967

• Dr. Finlay's Casebook — season 6, episode 125: "The Emotional Factor", and 128: "Buy Now - Pay Later"

1968

• Detective — "The Beast Must Die"

1969

• Dr. Finlay's Casebook — Episode 175: "Opportunity And Inclination"

• Paul Temple — Season 1, Episode 4: "Missing Penny"

[edit] Radio Work

1959

• Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde, with Catherine Lacey, John Humphry, Sylvia Coleridge.

1963

• No Highway by Nevil Shute, with Nicolette Bernard and Virginia Winter.

1967

• Sort of Soufflé by Peter Bryant, with Peter Tuddenham

• That's Enough for the Present by John Hollis, with Peter Tuddenham and Sheila Grant

1970

• All Made Out of Ticky-Tacky by Gaie Houston, with Francis de Wolff and Peter Tuddenham

1971

• The Importance Of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, with Dorothy Lane, John Rye and Peter Tuddenham

1973

• A Way With Women by Michael Brett, with Peter Tuddenham and Jan Edwards

• The Bashful Canary by Sheila Hodgson, with Miriam Margoyles and Peter Tuddenham

1974

• Bang, Bang You're Dead adapted by Jill Hyem from a short story by Muriel Spark, with Jill Bennett Ella, Betty Huntley-Wright, Elizabeth Morgan, Alan Dudley, David Timson, Grizelda Harvey, Hector Ross, Carole Boyd, John Rye, Sean Arnold and Peter Jefferson

[edit] Theatre Work

1952

• Beauty and the Beast by Nicholas Gray (Opened December 22nd) played Mickey (Mercury Theatre, London)

1953

• Henry VI Part III as Lady Grey in from Shakespeare's Henry VI - Parts One, Two & Three (The Old Vic, London)

• Hamlet (March 26th) (Embassy, London)

1954

• Winter Journey (Tuesday, February, 23rd for three weeks) played Nancy Stoddard, an actress (Bristol, Theatre Royal)

• The Shoemakers Holiday (Tuesday, March 16th, 1954 to Saturday, April 3rd) played Rose, Sir Roger Oatley's daughter (Bristol, Theatre Royal)

• The School for Wives (Tuesday, April 6th 1954 to Saturday, May 1st ) played Agnes (Bristol, Theatre Royal)

• Murder in the Cathedral by T.S. Eliot. (Tuesday, May 11th to Saturday, May 29th) played one of the women of Canterbury (Bristol, Theatre Royal)

• Salad Days (Tuesday, June 1st to Saturday June 19th) played Fiona (Bristol, Theatre Royal)

• The Living Room by Graham Greene. Tuesday, June 22nd, 1954 to Saturday, July 10th) played Rose Pembertson (Bristol, Theatre Royal)

• Salad Days August 5th (Vaudeville Theatre, London)

1959

• Sganarelle and Tartuffe by Moliere, (Opened 18th March)(The Old Vic)

• The Importance of Being Earnest (The Old Vic)

• The Tempest or The Enchanted Isle(Opened 9th June) (The Old Vic)

[edit] Filmography

• The Romantic Age (AKA Naughty Arlette (USA)) 1949

• The Large Rope (AKA The Long Rope (USA) 1953

• Value For Money 1955

• Thunderbirds Are GO 1966

• Thunderbird 6 1968

[edit] References

The pamphlet for the production of The School For Wives at the Theatre Royal, Bristol, 1954.

[edit] Footnotes

[edit] External Links

• Christine Finn at the Internet Movie Database
• The Christine Finn Web Shrine