Old Hollywood Stars Who Died Before Becoming Legends
Cultural memory is weird. You can spend your whole life appearing in decent pictures and leave no lasting impression on history, then you can go and bellow a single line and have people still talking about you 40 years later. Such was the fate of Peter Finch, an Australian-English actor who you've never heard of, who in 1976 played Howard Beale, a character you've also probably never heard of. But you've likely heard of the movie, Network, and you've definitely heard the line. Finch is the actor who shouted "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"
Somehow, that line did more than just strike a chord with audiences. It became a pre-internet meme, the sort of line that you can drop into any random conversation with any random group of people and they'll probably recognize it. It still appears in headlines, in reference to everything from reality TV, to government incompetence, to the election of a certain former reality TV star to the presidency. In 2015, it even showed up on signs at anti-austerity rallies across the UK (via BBC). Few single lines offer immortality, but this one did.
Sadly, it only offered immortality of the sucky, non-literal kind. Network premiered at the end of November 1976. On January 14, 1977, Finch was dead of a heart attack. As to how he'd feel about only being remembered for a single line, it's possible the answer begins with "mad as..."
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