Albert Finney, star of Skyfall and Tom Jones, dies at 82

Albert Finney, one of the most respected and versatile actors of his generation and the star of films as diverse as Tom Jones and Sky Fall, is dead. He was 82 years old.

Since his debut as a beautifully striking and magnetic screen presence until his last acts as a brilliant character actor, Finney was a British treasure known for his charismatic work on stage and at the time. ;screen.

Finney's family said Friday that he "had died peacefully after a short illness with his loved ones at his side".

He died Thursday of a chest infection at London's Royal Marsden Hospital, a cancer treatment center.

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Finney broke into international fame in 1963 in the title role of Tom Jones, playing a vigorous humorous thug who captivated the audience with his charming and devilish antics.

He has excelled in many other roles, including Saturday night and Sunday morning, a 1960 drama that was part of the "angry young man" movie trend.

Finney was a rare star who managed to avoid the limelight in Hollywood despite more than five decades of world renown. He was known for skipping award ceremonies even when he had been nominated for an Oscar.

Tom Jones earned him the first of five Oscar nominations. Other appointments followed for Murder on the Orient Express, The dresser, Under the volcano and Erin Brockovich. Every time he fell short

In recent years, he has been a leader in the field of high-budget, high-budget action films, including the James Bond thriller. Sky Fall and two of the Bourne movies. He also won hearts as daddy Warbucks in Annie.

He has played many roles, including Winston Churchill, Pope John Paul II, a South American lawyer and an Irish gangster. There was no Albert Finney character on which he came back again and again.

In one of his last roles, as Scottish Scots, Kincade, in Sky FallHe shared a lot of screen time with Daniel Craig as Bond and Judi Dench as M, turning the last scenes of the movie into a character master clbad.

"The world has lost a giant," said Craig.

Although Finney rarely spoke about his personal life, he said in 2012 that he had been treated for kidney cancer for five years.

He also explained why he had not attended the Oscars in Los Angeles even though he had been nominated for the first world film award.

"It seems silly to go out there and beg for a price," he said.

Son of a bookmaker, Finney was born on May 9, 1936 and grew up in northern England, on the outskirts of Manchester. At a very young age, he went on stage on the stage and, despite his lack of connections and his roots in the working clbad, played for the prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London.

He congratulated the director of his local school, Eric Simms, for recommending that he attend the famous drama school.

"That's the reason I'm an actor," Finney said in 2012.

Finney made her first professional turn at age 19 and appeared in several TV movies.

Soon, some critics hailed him as "the next Laurence Olivier" – an imposing presence that would brighten the British scene. In London, Finney excelled both in Shakespeare's plays and in more contemporary offerings.

Nevertheless, the young man seemed determined not to pursue the celebrity in Hollywood. After a long test on the screen, he gave up playing the lead role in the epic filmmaker David Lean. Laurence of Arabia, Paving the way for Peter O 'Toole, another graduate of RADA, who will now badume the role of career determiner.

But the celebrity came to Finney anyway in Tom Jones.

It is this role that has allowed Finney to be presented to the American public, and few have forgotten the blue-eyed sensual man who made the film an Oscar for best film. Finney also won his first Best Actor nomination for his efforts and the resounding success has made him a major player in Hollywood.

Finney was fortunate to receive a good percentage of the profits from the surprise sale, which gave him financial security while he was still in his twenties.

"This is a very modest man who has enriched himself very young," said Quentin Falk, author of an unauthorized biography of Finney.

"That brought him a lot of side benefits.He's a man who likes to live and act.He loves his good wine and his cigars.It's his own man.I find this rather admirable. "

The actor maintained a healthy skepticism with regard to the British establishment and refused the offered knighthood title, refusing to become Sir Albert.

"Maybe Americans think that being a" Sir "is a big problem," he said.

"But I think we should all be together, we think the" Sir "slightly perpetuates one of our diseases in England, snobbery."

He said The Associated Press in 2000, he preferred to be a "gentleman" than a "gentleman".

Instead of cashing in taking lucrative movie roles after Tom JonesFinney took a long sabbatical, traveling slowly through the United States, Mexico and the Pacific Islands, then returned to the London scene to perform in Shakespeare productions and other plays.

He was very successful before returning to the cinema in 1967 alongside Audrey Hepburn Two for the road.

This was to be a familiar pattern, with Finney alternating film work and theatrical production in London and New York.

Finney's attacked Charles Dickens in Scrooge in 1970, Hercule Poirot, the sophisticated detective of Agatha Christie Murder on the Orient Express – Winning his second best actor nomination – and even played a werewolf hunter in the cult movie Wolfen in 1981.

In 1983, he found his counterpart of the "angry young man" movement, Tom Courtenay, at The dresser, a film that garnered both Oscar nominations.

Finney was again named for his self-destructive alcoholic role in director John Huston's 1984 film Under the volcano.

Even during this extraordinary series of big roles, Finney's life was not recounted in People or other magazines, although the British press was fascinated by his marriage to the sensual French film star Anouk Aimée.

He starred in a series of small independent films for several years before returning to fame in 2000 as a South Lawyer. Erin Brockovich, Who played Julia Roberts.

The film allowed Finney to meet a new generation of moviegoers, and the chemistry that united the senior jurist and his aggressive young badistant earned him a new Oscar nomination, this time for Best Supporting Actor.

His work also helped propel Roberts to his first Academy Award for Best Actress. Despite everything, Finney refused to attend the Oscars, thus risking compromising his chances of winning future victories by snubbing the Hollywood elite.

Finney also tried to direct and produce and played a vital role in maintaining British theater.

The Old Vic Theater has stated that "his performances in plays by Shakespeare, Chekhov and other iconic playwrights from the 60s, 70s and 80s were among the best of our 200-year history."

Finney is survived by his third wife, Pene Delmage, his son Simon and two grandchildren. Funeral arrangements were not known immediately.