Business

Greg Finley, a veteran actor who appeared and was heard in thousands of Hollywood movies and TV series, passed away peacefully while on vacation Feb. 1, according to his sons Guy and Garrett Finley. A performer and director with The Loop Group, he was essential to the founder, Barbara Harris, for decades.

Invited by his Beverly High School alum Paul Rabwin to provide ADR on the television series “CHiPs” and performing in his first blockbuster Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom, his voice over career started in the early 80s. His first animated series, where he contributed as a writer/director/lead characters was the syndicated anime classic, “Robotech.”
 
Throughout the 1990s he provided the sounds and realism to the actors creating iconic roles such as Cigarette Smoking Man on “The X-Files” or the unforgettable group of tiny aliens in the break room locker for Men in Black. In the 2000s he did the same for Tony Soprano and other indelible Hollywood characters. His body of work is truly astounding and shines a light on how important these actors are to creating global entertainment. Retired in 2018, but still worked occasionally and appeared as recently as last year on Netflix’s The King Who Never Was. 
 
In addition to his prolific voiceover work, Greg began his successful career in Hollywood as an on-camera actor in the late ’70s and early ’80s appearing as characters in series such as “The Dukes of Hazzard” and “Hill Street Blues.” His movie credits included Albert Brooks’s Defending Your Life, and Oliver Stone’s The Hand.
 
Greg was born in Los Angeles on May 8, 1947 to Venise and Larry Finley, who were Hollywood royalty at the time. Larry was a KTLA television and KFWB radio personality/pioneer and also cousin to writer/producer Rod Serling. Larry later went on to pioneer 8-track and cassette audio formats and is the father of the VHS videotape format and was honored with a CEA Hall of Fame award posthumously in 2012. 
 
After graduating from Beverly Hills High School in 1965, Finley went into the Army where he rose to the rank of Captain and spent eighteen months in Vietnam in the Special Forces. After his military service, he married a widow with four daughters and settled into his life supporting the family by selling automobiles in northern California. In 1970, his son Guy was born. After his marriage dissolved in 1975, he moved back to the Southland to pursue his dreams of becoming an actor.
 
He remarried in 1982 to Patricia Dinnell Middleton (Patti Finley), the love of his life and ex-wife to Broadway star Ray Middleton, who he met while doing dinner theater in Granada Hills. In 1983, their son, Garrett, was born. They moved to Santa Clarita in the mid-1990s and devoted themselves to their passion: Community Theater. 

Active as a past board member and president with the Canyon Theatre Guild their family produced, directed, and acted in hundreds of musicals, plays, workshops and fundraisers for that community. Greg and Patti are memorialized as statues in the foyer of the Canyon Theater in downtown Newhall. 
 
Greg and Patti moved to Boise in 2015 to be closer to their sons and grandchildren. They immediately immersed themselves in the local community theater scene and continued their work directing, acting, mentoring, and inspiring artists in Treasure Valley. 
 
Greg is predeceased by his mother and father and is survived by his three brothers, six children, nine grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren.
 
Memorial services, in Boise and Los Angeles, will be held in early Spring. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to the Wounded Veterans Relief Fund.
 
Family and friends will be notified via Facebook or through signing the guestbook maintained at his memorial website here.