GettyFinney and Pene Delmage pictured in 2003
Albert Finney is survived by his wife, Pene Delmage. Finney was married three times during his life. On February 8, Finney’s family announced the sad news that the Oscar-nominated actor had passed away after a battle with a short illness. He was 82 years old. At the time of his state, a statement said Finney was surrounded by family and friends as he passed.
Finney was first married first in 1957 to fellow actor Jane Wernham, with whom he had his only child, cameraman Simon Finney. That marriage lasted until 1961. In 1970, Finney would marry again, this time to Anouk Aimee. That marriage ended in divorce in 1978 when Aimee left him for Ryan O’Neal. In 2006, Finney married the woman he would spend the rest of his life with, Pene Delmage.
Here’s what you need to know:
1. Finney Credited Delmage With Nursing Him While He Was Treated for Kidney Cancer
In 2007, Finney was diagnosed with kidney cancer. He battled the disease until 2011, reported the Daily Telegraph. The Telegraph report detailed that Finney and Delmage were living in West Sussex. The article quoted Finney as saying of his marriage to Delmage, “I am exceptionally happy with Pene. I’m a born flirt, and that will never stop, but I would take things no further. I’m loyal and content.”
2. Delmage Convinced Finney to Take One of His Most Famous Roles
In 2001, Entertainment Weekly reported that Finney was reluctant to appear in Steven Soderbergh’s “Erin Brockovich.” Although he loved the role of real-life lawyer Ed Masry, he didn’t want to be in Los Angeles for the length of time required. The EW report says that Danny DeVito knew Delmage and “sweet-talked her into sweet-talking Finney, easing the decision by bunching Finney’s scenes closer together.”
3. Delmage Was an Accommodation Agent for the TV Show ‘Band of Brothers’
Prior to marrying Finney, Delmage worked as a travel agent. According to her IMDb page, Delmage worked as the accommodation agent for the television series “Band of Brothers” as well as the 1994 Sean Connery movie “A Good Man in Africa.”
4. Finney Used to Look for Girls to Make Him Dinner After Football Games in the 1970s
GettyFinney pictured in 1974.
In a 1982 Rolling Stone feature, Finney was described as retiring from Sunday dinner at his home to watch a soccer game between Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur. Finney then goes on to talk about going to watch the New York Giants playing in Yankee Stadium, the Giants played their last game in the Bronx in 1973. Finney was a lifelong fan of Manchester United.
Finney told the magazine, “I remember when I was playing Broadway, each Sunday morning a bunch of us would go over to Downey’s at eleven — it was before the legal opening, but we had friends — lunch there, go up to Yankee Stadium, see the Giants, have a few drinks from the flask. The trick then was to find some girls to come home and cook dinner, say, while we watched the West Coast game on the television and partied some more.”
5. Albert Finney Allegedly Had an Affair With Audrey Hepburn
Getty
In 1966, Finney filmed “Two for the Road” with Audrey Hepburn in the south of France. A 2006 Guardian article mentioned that Hepburn and Finney had been sleeping together while filming, even though she was married at the time. An Audrey Hepburn website says that Finney, who was seven year her junior, was one of the few actors she could “loosen up” with.
One passage reads, “She and Finney became extremely close, and were described by coworkers on the film as almost being like children, with their own personal world filled with in-jokes only they knew. They often went out to dinner together, hitting nightclubs afterward. Rumors flew about an on-set affair, but both Audrey and Albert stayed mum about it. To this day, Finney refuses to talk about what may or may not have happened between them.”
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