Sun-Herald (Sydney, NSW : 1953 - 1954), Sunday 29 August 1954, page 47


FUE THREAT AND THE!

PROMISE

By GEORGE H. JOHNSTON

i PETER FINCH has come to a point A of crucial decision in his theatre and a film career. He has arrived as a star, I and now two roads lie open to him.

George H. Johnston, in this ac-1 count of Finch's present manner of life,

I at home and at work, tells of the decision

he believes the actor has made . .

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WE Finches live to

5J- day in a flat on the ninth floor of Dolphin Square, the biggest aparta piece block in Europe, Their windows overlooking what wide and fascinating [reach of the Thames near Battersea which excited

Turner and Whistler and

I host of later and lesser

ly.

The flat itself is colourful and comfortable almost to the point of untidiness, the sort of flat that is always described as lived in" and was never photographed for the glossy magazines as an

illustration of the domestic background of a well-known

film star. What character it las is elusive.

There are many books, mostly dealing with the Aus-tralians which is Finch's lobby, and the furniture is almost entirely secondhand

b-the booty of innumerable

plundering forays on the local junk shops, re-uphols

offered skilfully by Tamara.

curled on the floor with scissors

and tack hammer while

her husband drinks wine and

talks.

^ Her own background is re-called by a portrait of herself in ballet costume, and a couple of William Constable originals. There are odd pieces of excellent glass and pottery, a bronze buddha to remind Finch of his childhood back-

ground in Madras. There

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are two framed paintings of the Thames Embankment

by Colin Colahan, the Australian painter who lives just down the street in Whistler's old house, and one framed watercolour of a Spanish town, painted by Finch himself. It is not easy to tell the professional paint-ing from the amateur, for Peter Finch is a tireless student who has brought his painting very close to exhibition standard.

The rest is confusion-a sofa piled with books and toys and papers and scripts waiting to be read; an un-tidy stack of unframed drawings and watercolours, ashtrays, wine bottles and guests spread around the carpet.

Friends are welcome and it is a friendly flat, but no-body is ever invited there just

The Success Story Of Peter Finch END OF SERIES

because he is a good con-duct" or might prove valu-

able."

Peter Finch basks and thrives in this atmosphere of easy-going companionship, and because he enjoys it so much his wife who would undoubtedly prefer a little more peace and quietness-states it without too much complaint.

GLAMOUR MAN? Finch got a light from Rosemary Clooney on the set of the Hollywood

Technicolor musical "Red Garters."

The relationship between Peter Finch and his wife has always intrigued those who know them. Both are temperamental, yet their temperaments are diametrically opposed: Gentle - natured and inclined to dark Slavonic melancholia, simple but inflexible in her emotions. Tamara Finch has known a good deal of suffering in the past and is obsessed with the wish that there shall be no more suffering in the

future.

Around her patient, quiet solidity, Peter Finch darts and flickers like an exuber-ant bluebottle. Reckless, fearless, he retains all the swaggering, brash insouciance of the strolling player. Fame and success, have not had the slightest effect on his character he is one of those rare creatures who could drop back into any point of his past life and be completely at home. He is no more conceited, not affected, than when he spruiked a hoop-la stall at Sydney's Easter Show or wagged his way around the Queensland canefields. Nor, it must be admitted, is he very much more stable!

When he has a job to do he works with tremendous and exhausting self-discipline and with complete and almost ascetic dedication to his art; when it is over he is Peter Pan. Boyish, im-pulsive, quivering with in-satiable curiosity about people and places and things, he reacts like a shearer down on the town to spend his pay cheque.

In this relationship it is Tamara who is the steady, stabilising force the woman who saved up the money to get him to London still represents the element of cau-tion and foresight, the rail of progress in his career.

The last few months have been very important for the Finches, for the last few months have contained both a threat and a promise.