Jack Finney

Jack Finney (October 2, 1911 – November 14, 1995) was an American author. His best-known works are science fiction and thrillers. Finney was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was given the name John Finney. After his father died when he was three years old, he was renamed Walter Braden Finney in honor of his father, but continued to be known as "Jack" throughout his life. He attended Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. He married Marguerite Guest and they had two children, Kenneth and Marguerite. After living in New York City and working for an advertising agency there, he moved with his family to California in the early 1950s. He lived in Mill Valley, California, and died of pneumonia and emphysema in Greenbrae, California.

Writing career

Finney's first short story, "The Widow's Walk", won a contest sponsored by Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine in 1946.^[1] His first novel, Five Against the House, was published in 1954. It was made into a movie the following year. Finney's novel The Body Snatchers (1955) was the basis for the 1956 movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers (and its remakes). It tells the story of aliens who invade Earth by emerging from pods and taking over the bodies of humans. Finney's greatest success came with his science fiction novel Time and Again (1970). Its protagonist, Simon Morley, is working in advertising in New York City when he is recruited for a secret government project trying to achieve time travel. Instead of using a physical machine, the participants steep themselves in the history and culture of a particular time and place, then travel there through hypnosis or self-hypnosis. Morley travels to the New York City of 1882. The novel is notable for Finney's vivid and detailed picture of life in the city at that time. Morley sees many actual historical sites, some now gone (e.g., the post office that, until 1939, stood in what is now the southern tip of City Hall Park) and some still existing (e.g., St. Patrick's Cathedral, then the tallest building in its Fifth Avenue neighborhood). In 1987, Finney was given the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement at the World Fantasy Convention, held in Nashville, Tennessee.^[2] Finney died at the age of 84, not long after finishing From Time to Time, the sequel to Time and Again. The 1998 television movie The Love Letter, starring Campbell Scott and Jennifer Jason Leigh, is based on Finney's short story of the same name, which appears in the collection I Love Galesburg in the Springtime. The Third Level, Knox College's science fiction and fantasy publication, is named for Finney's short story and collection.

Works

• "The Widow's Walk", Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (1946)
• I'm Scared (1950)
• The Third Level (1950)
• Such Interesting Neighbours (1951)
• Five Against the House (1954)
• Of Missing Persons (1955)
• The Body Snatchers (1955)
• Second Chance (1956)
• The House of Numbers (1957)
• The Third Level (1957) (short story collection)
• Assault on a Queen (1959)
• The Coin Collector (aka The Other Wife) (1960)
• Home Alone (1961)
• Hey, Look at Me! (1962)
• Lunch Hour Magic (1962)
• The Face in the Photo (aka Time Has No Boundaries) (1962)
• Where the Cluetts Are (1962)
• Good Neighbor Sam (1963)
• I Love Galesburg in the Springtime (1963)
• The Woodrow Wilson Dime (1968)
• Time and Again (1970)
• Marion's Wall (1973)
• The Night People (1977)
• Forgotten News: The Crime of the Century and Other Lost Stories (1983) (nonfiction)
• About Time (1986)
• Three by Finney (1987) (an omnibus edition of The Woodrow Wilson Dime, Marion's Wall, and The Night People)
• From Time to Time (1995)

Other films based on Finney's novels and stories

• 5 Against the House (1955 Phil Karlson film starring Guy Madison, Kim Novak, and Brian Keith)
• Assault on a Queen (1956 Jack Donohue film starring Frank Sinatra, Virna Lisi, and Anthony Franciosa)
• The House of Numbers (1957 Russell Rouse film noir starring Jack Palance)
• Good Neighbor Sam (1964 David Swift film starring Jack Lemmon, Romy Schneider, and Dorothy Provine)
• Maxie (1985 Paul Aaron film starring Glenn Close, Mandy Patinkin, and Ruth Gordon; based on Marion's Wall)
• The Love Letter (1998 Dan Curtis TV movie starring Campbell Scott, Jennifer Jason Leigh, David Dukes, and Estelle Parsons; based on the story of the same name in I Love Galesburg in the Springtime)

Notes and references

External links

• Jack Finney in the IMDb
• Little-Known Literaries - a fan site with additional information about Finney
• Sites in Time and Again, as they are today - photos from December 2003
• Obituary in The New York Times, November 17, 1995 ("Jack Finney, 84, Sci-Fi Author Of Time-Travel Tales, Dies")
• Obituaries from Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, San Francisco Examiner, Dayton Daily News, and The New York Times