Christine Finn

Christine Finn
Christine Finn as Barbara Judd in Quatermass and the Pit, BBC television, 1958–59.
Born	circa 1929 India
Died	5 December 2007 Guildford, Surrey, England, UK

Christine Finn (born circa 1929 – died 5 December 2007, Guildford, Surrey) was a British actress, 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 to the mid-1970s.

Life and work

Finn was born and raised in India; 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 (1949) followed by a juvenile lead in a tour of the play Random Harvest.

She joined the Birmingham Repertory Theatre 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 small part in the film The Large Rope (1953) 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 in November 1958, directed by Rudolph Cartier, in which she played Hermia. Cartier cast her shortly afterwards for the leading female role, Barbara Judd, in the science fiction horror serial Quatermass and the Pit (1958–59).

Finn's career as a film actress, other than providing voices for two films based on the Thunderbirds television series did not develop 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 and cast actress Barbara Shelley, who was taller and more fitting in with the Hammer image. Writer Nigel Kneale (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. She starred in a number of radio plays from the end of the 1950s to the middle of the 1970s. In the last several years of her career she performed with voice actor Peter Tuddenham.

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 Margolyes and Peter Tuddenham

1974

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

Theatre work

1952

• Beauty and the Beast by Nicholas Stuart Gray (Opened 22 December) 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 (26 March) (Embassy, London)

1954

• Winter Journey (Tuesday 23 February for three weeks) played Nancy Stoddard, an actress (Bristol, Theatre Royal)
• The Shoemakers Holiday (Tuesday 16 March 1954 to Saturday 3 April) played Rose, Sir Roger Oatley's daughter (Bristol, Theatre Royal)
• The School for Wives (Tuesday 6 April 1954 to Saturday 1 May) played Agnes (Bristol, Theatre Royal)
• Murder in the Cathedral by T.S. Eliot. (Tuesday 11 May to Saturday 29 May) played one of the women of Canterbury (Bristol, Theatre Royal)
• Salad Days (Tuesday 1 June to Saturday 19 June) played Fiona (Bristol, Theatre Royal)
• The Living Room by Graham Greene. Tuesday 22 June 1954 to Saturday 10 July) played Rose Pembertson (Bristol, Theatre Royal)
• Salad Days 5 August (Vaudeville Theatre, London)

1959

• Sganarelle and Tartuffe by Molière, (Opened 18 March) (The Old Vic)
• The Importance of Being Earnest (The Old Vic)
• The Tempest or The Enchanted Isle (Opened 9 June) (The Old Vic)

References

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

References

1. ^ "Barbara Shelley essays Judd, a role played on television by Christine Finn. Kneale wasn't entirely convinced by the new interpretation. 'I'd liked Christine very much', Kneale says, 'but she wasn't the kind of screen star that Hammer wanted. So we got Barbara Shelley, who was taller...'" Murray, Andy (2006) (paperback). Into the Unknown: The Fantastic Life of Nigel Kneale. London: Headpress. pp. page 95. ISBN 1-900486-50-4. 

External links

• Christine Finn at the Internet Movie Database
• Finn's fansite

Persondata
Name	Finn, Christine
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth
Place of birth	India
Date of death	5 December 2007
Place of death	Guildford, Surrey, England, UK