AustLit

Academy Award-winning actor, and five time recipient of Best Actor Awards from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, Peter Finch was a fifth generation Australian despite being born in England. After leaving school in the early 1930s he attempted (and was fired from) various jobs, including copyboy (at the Sydney Sun), waiter, delivery boy and jackaroo, before securing a job as a straightman opposite comedian Bert Le Blanc. He later appeared in revues for Ernest C. Rolls (notably This is Hollywood) before progressing to radio (as performer, writer and director), local theatre and international stardom as an legitimate actor and film star.

Finch also wrote a small amount of poetry and short fiction. His poem, 'Tell Them' was included in Angus & Robertson's Australian Poetry 1945 and fragments of other poems are extant in Finch's papers at the National Library of Australia. He also had short stories published in the ABC Weekly.

[Source: Australian Variety Theatre Archive]