Talk:Peter Finch

Year of Birth
Websites have stated 1916 for years. But, his grave does say 1912. Are sites just beginning to acknowledge this date or is 1916 actually correct?Hotwine8 02:49, 18 October 2006 (UTC)


 * The IMDb now says he was born in 1912. Previously they had it as 1916. I think that they were swayed by the date on the grave -- SteveCrook 13:34, 18 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, graves can be wrong. Joan Crawford's stone says she was born in 1908 when it seems 1905 was her birth year. Similarly, Irene Dunne's tombstone says she was born in 1901, but records show 1898 to be the year. Crisso 15:26, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Peter Finch's year of birth is 1916. (Source: The California Department of Health Services Office of Health Information and Research Vital Statistics Section) (See http://vitals.rootsweb.com/ca/death/search.cgi) (JosephASpadaro 05:28, 24 May 2007 (UTC))

I contacted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), which maintains a database of information on Academy Award winners and nominees. I contacted AMPAS to inquire about their official position regarding Peter Finch's year of birth in their database records. The response that I received from AMPAS is as follows: "We did some research into Peter Finch's birth date and do not find convincing evidence at this time to warrant a change to 1912.  His birth date has been consistently reported as September 28, 1916.  Recently (since 2005), the IMDb has changed the birth year to 1912, apparently to match the dates on Finch's grave marker, but no written documentation has been found to support this date.  The year is given as 1916 in the California Death Records and in a memorial advertisement in The Hollywood Reporter placed by his widow after his death.  Biographies by Trader Faulkner and Elaine Dundy, both published after his death, refer to the circumstances of his birth taking place during World War I.  Both authors interviewed Finch's mother, who survived him.  Dundy's "Finch, Bloody Finch" (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1980) cites marriage and birth records, as well as family correspondence, which all support the 1916 date." Although the opinion of AMPAS is not dispositive of this issue, I believe that their reasoning (combined with the records of The California Department of Health Services Office of Health Information and Research Vital Statistics Section) is sound. Thus, I propose that this article on Peter Finch should incorporate a birth year of 1916. (JosephASpadaro 18:00, 24 May 2007 (UTC))

I corrected the date of birth (year) from 1912 to 1916 throughout the article (as consistent also with the current category), and added related annotations to the two peer-edited websites with the incorrect dates of birth. --NYScholar (talk) 21:49, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I found another picture of Finch's grave on a different site and guess what? It says 1916! Crisso (talk) 20:34, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Apparently his grave used to say 1916, until it was changed about ten years ago (though with no known reason) to 1912. I have however just located a 'Frederick G P I Finch' on the Birth Index. This birth was registered in Kensington in the first quarter 1917 which confirms what Elaine Dundy says in her book about Finch's birth being registered on 5th February 1917. This should really leave no doubt as to his true birth year. Crisso (talk) 18:59, 4 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I suggest the use of a hidden comment on the page to prevent people from changing the date based on the grave marker again. Hidden comments are achieved with the html tag . Jabba the Hot (talk) 00:41, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Such a comment is . Still, for the benefit of the general reader, a footnote would be helpful. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 04:30, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Finchsm.jpg
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Needs expansion
This article is in need of expansion in all areas, but most particularly in the biography section. It's bare bones. Hopefully someone will work on this since it's been tagged for improved references and expansion. Wildhartlivie (talk) 20:05, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

William Mitchell
We state he was born Frederick George Peter Ingle-Finch, which is strongly supported, so any alternative suggestions as to his birth name - such as William Mitchell - should be downplayed. I put the information about this into a footnote, and massaged it a little. I've looked online for some authoritative debunking of this, but no luck so far. I am, however, absolutely convinced that he was never William Mitchell in real life, nor was it ever a stage name of his. Twenty years ago I read the story about how this came about, and I'll try to track it down again in a library. To the best of my memory: he was in Rome, on a film assignment; he was big drinker, and one night he was out on the town, had too many, caused some scene, and was arrested for drunkeness. In court, he was asked his name, and he had the presence of mind not to say "Peter Finch". Where "William Mitchell" came from I cannot remember, but that was the name he gave the judge. He was fined and let go, or might even have spent a night in the cells. Some reporter managed to find out about the matter, recognised him, and made the assumption that Finch was providing his legal name to the judge, when all he was doing was giving a fictitious name in order to avoid bad publicity for whatever movie he was making at the time. The name William Mitchell made its way into reference books, and it's still there today. It was never real. If anyone can find a good reference about this, I would be eternally grateful. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:54, 8 September 2008 (UTC)


 * OK, got it. The story's in the biography "Finch, Bloody Finch".  I had some of the details right, but not others.  It was in Rome (date or year not given).  Finch was there for some reason, and one night he was having a drink with his friend, a Canadian actor named William Mitchell.  Some altercation occurred in the bar and Mitchell got involved, but Finch didn't.  Mitchell was arrested and Finch went along to support him.  On the way to the police station, Finch asked Mitchell if he had his passport on him, because the police always asked for it. He didn't have it with him, so they decided Mitchell would use Finch's passport and claim to be "Peter Finch" (apparently they were sufficiently similar in appearance to get away with this).  Mitchell was processed as "Peter Finch".  Then, when asked who he was, Finch could hardly say he was also Peter Finch, so he assumed William Mitchell's identity and said he didn't have his passport to prove it.  That's all there was to it, but somehow, this got misinterpreted by the media that "William Mitchell" must have been Finch's legal name, and thus it got into reference books as a "fact".  --  JackofOz (talk) 01:47, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Birth name just Finch, not Ingle-Finch
Just for the record, his complete surname was simply "Finch". His father was George Finch (chemist). Ingle was George's middle name, and it was also the last of Peter's middle names. Some sources show Peter's surname as "Ingle-Finch", but that's an error. -- JackofOz (talk) 23:05, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

The War
Did he serve during the second world war? he was old enough, i've read that Ronald Fraser that played a Sargeant to his Captain in Flight of the Phoenix was a lieutenant and I wonder if he was ever in the military. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.104.83.102 (talk) 23:02, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Religious Beliefs
What was his religious background? 101.51.235.127 (talk) 00:49, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Posthumous Nonsense
Currently the article reads,

"[Finch] was the first of two persons to win a posthumous Academy Award in an acting category, and coincidentally also the first of the two Australian actors to have done so, the other being Heath Ledger."

According to List of posthumous Academy Award winners and nominees, Finch's posthumous acting win at the Oscars was preceded by Jeanne Eagels (1929), James Dean (both 1955 and 1956), and Spencer Tracy (1967). The nonsense of this claim is that it can only make sense if Heath Ledger and Finch are the only two posthumous winners of Oscars for acting, and if that was the case, this could be much better written than this.

Anyway, this is just so bad that I've decided that I must be missing something, and I'm reluctant to "fix" the article in case there is something about this that makes this make sense. Unschool 04:56, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

Eagels, Dean and Tracy were all posthumous nominees rather than winners (though Tracy had won Best Actor for 1937 and 1938). 2601:981:C200:62BE:3C1D:6CBA:10EB:DF42 (talk) 06:16, 1 February 2019 (UTC)