When Mummy is Dame Judi Dench, comparisons can be tough for a young actress. But Finty Williams is secure in her talents- what she feels most keenly is the loss of her father.
Finty Williams views herself as her father's daughter. "I'm as emotional as he was, with a terrible temper," she reflects, feeling the lack of her mother's composure. The daughter of Dame Judi Dench and Michael Williams, Finty, 29, has been uncharacteristically introspective since her father's death from lung cancer in January. She is someone who has travelled from a cloudless hildhood -- "It was always summer; there was so much promise," -- to a bumpy adulthood. Her parents' distinguished acting careers inevitably cast a shadow over her own, while her personal life has been chequered. In June 1997 she gave birth to a son, Sam, after mystifyingly keeping her pregnancy secret from her beloved parents until almost the last moment. In 1999, her father's illness was diagnosed. The family maintained a united, cheery stance but, Finty now reveals, they knew the cancer was terminal from the outset.
When she is "resting", Finty, who moved back home three years ago, concentrates "on the role of mummy and daughter". Her last project was to be the voice of a dancing mouse in a charming new cartoon series, Angelina Ballerina, from the makers of the all conquering Bob the Builder. Dame Judi was cast in a supporting role. "And when Ma was there, it was like, for one of the first times, she was coming on to my turf." Back in Surrey, mother and daughter rub along together with occasional sparks. "We watched Hannibal the other night on DVD. If I had to explain the story to her once... Infuriating!" The family dynamics altered with Michael's death, Finty explains, "and we are still trying to find exactly how to go about it." She feels they were an equilateral triangle, and although she was a mediocre student at her convent school -- "I just didn't get it" -- she was trouble-free, the adored only child of two heroically nice people.
The stage -- "seeing my parents loving what they did" -- caught her imagination early. "I was obsessed. I can still tell my mother about people she worked with in the 1970's she can't remember. And the musicals! I went to see Sunset Boulevard 11 times in two weeks." The crazed pitch tallied with her romantic nature. Where other children invent imaginary friends, Finty invented an imaginary husband and children. Then, "between the ages of 14 and 17 I was in love with one man, never reciprocated. I even went to his wedding. Nearly slashed my wrists afterwards."
She attended the Central School of Drama, preferring the social side to classes. Since leaving she has focused on stage rather than film, although she joined her mother in Mrs Brown, which came out in 1997, and has recently filmed a "background" role in Robert Altman's costume drama "Gosford Park", due out next month.
She has received a single damning review during her career to date, but it is one ingrained in her memory. "Like her mother in looks if not in talent." There are certain roles she will never tackle because she will be compared to her incomparable mother. But Finty is uncomplaining.
"I can't pick and choose. I'm not in that position and I can't envisage a time when I will be. But some of the parts have been fantastic and every single one is different."
Her parents were anxiously supportive. "My dad would come out with criticisms sometimes. But they were always there at first nights; they'd always see the show five or six times." She says it has proved equally tricky living up to her mother's reputation for considerateness. "She's the kindest person. I might be growing into that... might be. I'd like to be as charismatic as her," she sighs.
In fact Finty is pithy and comical, poking fun at her pint sized (4 ft. 11 in.) figure and off-the-cuff ardours. Basking in reflected fame has been fun at times. "The big deal was when Ma was 'damed', as we call it in our house. And the Oscars. Antonio Banderas, my hero, knew who my mother was! But Melanie Griffith was hanging off his arm, right? 'Afraid so. Very tall woman. Great legs. I was level with her legs, which is why I know so much about them."
Finty is still reticent about why she kept her pregnancy secret from her parents (although Michael ascribed it to fear of hurting them) and has never named Sam's father. She says single motherhood was something "to accept and carry on as best you know how."
"I am bowled over by the amount of love I have for Sam," she says. "He's my angel. He's everything." Her parents were equally smitten. "My grandparents lived in the same house when I was growing up so it was history repeating itself." Michael's premature death fractured the family unit they agreed was all-important.
"I didn't cope very well when Daddy died," she blurts out. He had lapsed into a coma and Finty, who had been sitting with him, slipped downstairs for lunch. "That was when he died. I went back upstairs and I just lost the plot- my knees giving way, shaking uncontrollably, but not wanting to make a sound, out of respect."
It was Dame Judi who steadily arranged the funeral. "She was so strong. I couldn't have written my name down." Finty found the rituals of death barbaric -- "I looked down into that big black hole and said, 'No, no, he can't be all that way down there'" -- and the memorial service with it celebration of his life, unbearable.
"What I find weird is that nobody says to you, 'You will grieve for three months and then you will think you are getting better and then you will suddenly sink.' I haven't been to see his grave yet. I can't cope with the fact that somebody who was so alive, who had so much electricity... where's it gone?" As a result, she has found herself "massively doubting" the Christian beliefs encouraged by her father (a staunch Catholic) and her mother (a Quaker). Two nights after he died, somebody told her to visit an internet site where Michael's admirers were posting messages. "There were 175 messages," she says, "from New Zealand, from Ghana, from Los Angeles. And one of them, he just wrote, 'Bugger. I liked him.'
"So that did help," says Finty Williams.
Angelina Ballerina appears on CITV later this month (ITV childrens slot in UK). A video will be released on 29th October.
Thanks to Lynne Lewis for sending me this article which appeared in the Mail (UK) magazine insert You on October 7, 2001 and to Jan M for the picture of Finty in The Secret Life of Charlie Chaplin.
