The Unluckiest Actor in the World

I watched the film Frenzy over the weekend. It’s an AlfredHitchcock and I admit to not having seen many of his films – not deliberately – I’ve just never got around to them. I do remember being scared to death as a kid watching The Birds but I don’t specifically remember it as being a Hitchcock film. It was just a film that scared the bejeesus out of me at the time.

Anyway, back to Frenzy. An interesting film made all the more interesting by it being filmed in London in an area that has been completely transformed since the film was made. As a longtime resident of London it was interesting just at that level.

One of the actors was called Jon Finch. He looked familiar but not familiar enough for me to know what other films he’d been in. A quick glance at his Wikipedia page led me to conclude he was the unluckiest actor in the world. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt in saying that it was misfortune and not down to poor judgement on his part.

This was the man that turned down the role of James Bond in Live and Let Die – it went to Roger Moore instead. 

This was the man who was taken ill shortly after accepting a role in Alien. He was replaced by John Hurt who went on to play one of the most memorable scenes in cinema history. 

This was the man who turned down the role of Doyle in TheProfessionals – an iconic 70s British TV show which, although it has dated rather badly has pretty much immortalised the actors who starred in it. He rejected the role because of a strange reluctance to portray a policeman. 

If he had completed just one of the above roles it would have meant we all knew who Jon Finch was. Sadly most of us don’t. Reading between the lines of his Wikipedia page, he died alone and in poor health.

I think he deserves some recognition. Poor bugger.