An ace actor and a veritable type who came along in an era of severe character-actor non-appreciation, alas. Like Robert Silverman in early David Cronenberg, Finley was a totemic figure in early DePalma and, if the Internet Movie Database is to be trusted, did his last work for the director, in the ultra-maudit 2006 The Black Dahlia. The above is from DePalma’s 1978 The Fury.
You should read director and fan Edgar Wright’s uncanny anecdote about a missed connection with Finley, here.
Re: BLACK DAHLIA, if memory serves, Finley is the Linscott family friend who [SPOILER] garrotes the Aaron Eckhart character…
Is there a sweeter scene than in PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE where William Finely teaches Jessica Harper the vocal inflections of his own cantata? Of course that’s before he’s thrown out of Swanage, has his teeth pulled and his head crushed in a record pressing machine.
Lesson to be learned in youth.
RIP William Finely.
Terrible news. Thanks for posting this, Glenn.
Finley really was versatile across an ample spectrum of weird–the characters he played in SISTERS, PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE and THE FURY are all bizarre, but in such different ways; and in THE BLACK DAHLIA, his expressionist silent film acting made for a wild contrast with Fiona Shaw’s histrionics. (And yes, Jaime, it is Finley who dispatches Eckhart’s cop so gruesomely.)
Re: Black Dahlia, IF I’m correct, William’s character of George Tilden was actually Scarlett Johanson’s actual dad, but had issues after the war, and so so called ‘friend’ took up with his wife but was sleeping with his daughter?! With ‘friends’ like that, who needs scuzzbag record producers!? What I don’t understand is WHY he helped his wife kill Elizabeth Short (Dahlia).
Thanks for the tribute post. I’m from Winnipeg, where Phantompalooza was hosted.