Christine Finn

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Christine Finn
As Barbara Judd in Quatermass and the Pit (1958–59)
Born	1929 (1929) Wellington, Madras, India
Died	5 December 2007 (aged 77) Guildford, Surrey, England
Nationality	English
Alma mater	London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1940s–1970s
Organization(s)	Birmingham Repertory Theatre Bristol Old Vic
Television	Quatermass and the Pit Thunderbirds
Spouse	Alan Malcomson ​ (m. 1961)​

Christine L. T. Finn (1929 – 5 December 2007) was an English actress, known primarily for her role in the 1950s TV serial Quatermass and the Pit, and, after that, her voice work for the 1960s Thunderbirds television series. She also performed in film, radio and theatre in a career that started in the 1940s and lasted until the mid-1970s.

Life and work

Finn was born and brought up in

A small part in the film The Large Rope (1953) and a tour of the play Angels in Love followed, after which Finn joined the Bristol Old Vic. Her theatre work led to a role in the BBC Sunday Night Theatre production of A Midsummer Night's Dream in November 1958, in which she played Hermia. Soon afterwards, the director, Rudolph Cartier, cast her in the leading female role, Barbara Judd, in the science-fiction horror serial Quatermass and the Pit (1958–59).

Finn's career as a film actress, other than providing voices for two films based on Thunderbirds, did not develop further. During Hammer Films' preparations for a film version of Quatermass and the Pit, Barbara Shelley was cast as Judd, although Nigel Kneale, the writer of the Quatermass series, preferred Finn's performance. In a book about his work, written by Andy Murray, Kneale recalled: "I'd liked Christine very much ... but she wasn't the kind of screen star that Hammer wanted. So we got Barbara Shelley, who was taller".^[1]

Finn also performed as a voice actress, supplying the voices of Tin-Tin, Grandma Tracy and other characters in Thunderbirds (1965–66). She also starred in a number of radio plays from the end of the 1950s to the mid-1970s. During the final years of her career, she performed with voice actor Peter Tuddenham.

Radio work

1959

• Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde, with Catherine Lacey, John Humphry and Sylvia Coleridge.

1961

• The Sand Leopard by Berkely Mather with Neil McCallum^[2]

1963

• No Highway by Nevil Shute, with Nicolette Bernard and Virginia Winter.

1967

• Sort of Soufflé by Peter Bryant, with Peter Tuddenham
• That's Enough for the Present by John Hollis, with Peter Tuddenham and Sheila Grant

1970

• All Made Out of Ticky-Tacky by Gaie Houston, with Francis de Wolff and Peter Tuddenham

1971

• The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, with Dorothy Lane, John Rye and Peter Tuddenham

1973

• Michael Brett
  , with Peter Tuddenham and Jan Edwards
• The Bashful Canary by Sheila Hodgson, with Miriam Margolyes and Peter Tuddenham