Veteran British actor known for his resonant voice and brooding presence

Frank Finlay, who has died aged 89, was an English actor who was routinely praised by critics for his resonant voice, physical grace and brooding, soulful mien.

He was nominated for a best supporting actor Oscar for playing Iago to Laurence Olivier’s Othello in the 1965 film version of Shakespeare’s play. He was also known to an international audience as Porthos, the lusty extrovert among the Three Musketeers, in the 1973 film of that name.

He played the title role in Denis Potter's TV Casanova in 1971 and the father of Adrien Brody's character in Roman Polanski's The Pianist in 2002. In the last two installments of Prime Suspect he played the father of police detective Jane Tennison (Helen Mirren).

Francis Finlay was born in Farnworth, Lancashire. He left school at 14 and became a butcher’s apprentice but found he could not resist the lure of the stage. He later won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where, bowing to the demands of the repertory theatres of the period, he took pains to cultivate a “received pronunciation” accent. “So we spent days trying to lose our North Country accents,” he later recalled.

National Theatre

Finlay went on to perform with the National Theatre, of which Olivier was an artistic director, and the

Royal Shakespeare Company

.

He appeared on Broadway in two short-lived plays, Epitaph for George Dillon by John Osborne and Anthony Creighton in 1958, and Filumena, by Eduardo De Filippo, in 1980.

Finlay was a devout Catholic, and a member of the Catholic Association of Performing Arts.

His wife, the former Doreen Shepherd, whom he married in 1954, died in 2005. A son, Stephen, died in 2004. His survivors include a daughter, Cathy, a son, Daniel, and several grandchildren.