[10] He appeared alongside actor John Mills as Watson, and the two were noted by critics for their strong chemistry and camaraderie. [18] In the autumn of 1946, after the war ended, Cushing unsuccessfully auditioned for the part of Paul Verrall in a stage production of the play Born Yesterday that was being staged by famed actor and director Laurence Olivier. [112] When Cushing smoked between shots, he wore a white glove so the make-up artists would not have to deal with nicotine stains on his fingers. Cushing was about twenty years older than Baron Frankenstein as he appeared in the original novel, but that did not deter the filmmakers. We've done enough of these now to know what we're doing. "[31] Nearing middle age and finding it increasingly harder to make a living in acting, Cushing began to consider himself a failure. It was his final stage performance for a decade, but he continued to stay active in film and television during this period. He achieved recognition in his home country for his leading performances in the Hammer Productions horror films from the 1950s to 1970s, while earning international prominence as Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars (1977). Peter Cushing was born on the 26th of May, 2013. Cushing and Lee did switch roles for one Hammer film . According to Peter Cushing's autobiography, he took a piece of silk that Helen's family had smuggled out of Russia. During his. [10], Cushing continued to work in a few Hollywood engagements, including an uncredited role in the war film They Dare Not Love (1941), which reunited him with director James Whale. His mother was the daughter of a carpet merchant and considered of a lower class than her husband. Cushing was just a fabulous actor. Study now. [67] Cushing and Lee appeared together in the Hammer horror The Mummy (1959), with Cushing as the archaeologist John Banning and Lee as the antagonist Kharis. [16][17] By the end of the summer of 1936, Cushing accepted a job with the repertory theatre company Southampton Rep, working as assistant stage manager and performing in bit roles at the Grand Theatre in the Hampshire city. Prone to homesickness, he was miserable at the boarding school and spent only one term there before returning home. Majendie, Paul (7 August 1986). [10] He did not enjoy the repetitive nature of stage performances, and once compared it to a painter being forced to paint the same picture every day. Peter Cushing was born in Surrey, England on May 26, 1913, to George Edward and Nellie Marie Cushing, and was younger of the two brothers. At the age of 82, Peter died at his Los Angeles, California home. Peter Wilton Cushing was born on May 26, 1913 in Kenley, Surrey, England, to Nellie Maria (King) and George Edward Cushing, a quantity surveyor. In an interview published in 1966, he added, "I do get terribly tired with the neighbourhood kids telling me 'My mum says she wouldn't want to meet you in a dark alley'." Cushing had recently undergone dental surgery and he was trying not to open his mouth widely for fear of spitting. [148] He was rushed to the Kent and Canterbury Hospital when his left eye had swollen to nearly three times its normal size, a side effect of the cancer. I shall remember you. [92] Cushing himself was not a particular fan of horror or science fiction films, but he tended to choose roles not based on whether he enjoyed them, but whether he felt his audience would enjoy him in them. [21] He once said that he learned his parts "from cover to cover" before filming began. Peter Cushing: A Life in Film Hardcover - April 16, 2013 by David Miller (Author) 24 ratings Hardcover $15.79 13 Used from $9.99 Peter Cushing was an unforgettable presence in cult cinema of the fifties, sixties and seventies, and remains one of Britain's best-loved film stars. [13][18] While he was in Southampton he met an 18 year old fellow actor Doreen Lawrence and they were engaged to be married. Peter Cushing - not for first nor the last time this week, we salute you. Cushing continued to make occasional cameos in the series over the next decade, portraying himself desperately attempting to collect a payment for his previous acting appearance on the show. A cinema idol for multiple generations of people, her inherent French mystique brought her from Paris and cast her into stardom at a young age. "It's very likely that [the filmmakers] secured permission from Cushing's estate or his direct heirs, because the laws regarding postmortem rights of publicity differ from state to state," Tyler. . Did Peter have any children. Story Saved You can find this story in My Bookmarks. [48] Screenwriter Jimmy Sangster wrote the protagonist as an ambitious, egotistical and coldly intellectual scientist who despised his contemporaries. In exchange, Hammer's James Carreras thanked Cushing by paying for extensive roofing repair work that had recently been done on Cushing's recently purchased Whitstable home. [99] Cushing and Lee made cameos as their old roles of Frankenstein and Dracula in the comedy One More Time (1970), which starred Peter Lawford and Sammy Davis Jr.[100] The single scene took only one morning of filming, which Cushing agreed to after Davis asked him to do it as a favour. However, when producer Anthony Hinds proposed removing the character's deerstalker, Cushing insisted they remain because audiences associated Holmes with his headgear and pipes. Christopher Lee has never captured my admiration the way Cushing did, but that is no slight to Lee. [136], Cushing wrote two autobiographies, Peter Cushing: An Autobiography (1986) and Past Forgetting: Memoirs of the Hammer Years (1988). This article incorporates text from a free content work. He performed in such plays as Robert E. Sherwood's The Petrified Forest, Arnold Ridley's The Ghost Train, S. N. Behrman's Biography and a modern dress version of William Shakespeare's Macbeth. Davies, the Purley County Grammar School physics teacher who produced all the school's plays, recognised some acting potential in him and encouraged him to participate in the theatre, even allowing Cushing to skip class to paint sets. "[77], Cushing and Lee appeared together in the horror film The Gorgon (1964), about the female snake-haired Gorgon character from Greek mythology and in She (1965), about a lost realm ruled by the immortal queen Ayesha, played by Ursula Andress. Although some childhood injuries prevented him from serving on active duty,[10] a friend suggested he entertain the troops by performing as part of the Entertainments National Service Association. In the film, Clive tries to shoot himself twice but the gun misfires, then he fires a third time at a pitcher of water and the gun works perfectly. [114] Cushing consciously attempted to define their characters as opposite representations of good and evil, and the actor purposely stood in the shadows so the light shone on Fisher's face. [14][28] They fell in love and were married on 10 April 1943. The person you saw has been dead for more than two centuries! [10] As a result, while the film did well at the box-office with its target audience, it drew mixed to negative reviews from the critics. [3] In his infancy, Cushing twice developed pneumonia and once what was then known as "double pneumonia". [10] Cinematic roles proved somewhat difficult to find, however, as film producers were often resentful of television stars for drawing audiences away from the cinema. In the following we list the major anecdotes which blend into an interesting story. They first met on the set of the film, where Lee was still wearing the monster make-up prepared by Phil Leakey. [10] She suggested he write to all the producers listed in the Radio Times magazine seeking work in the medium. He made me believe he was evil and cruel. Moorehead claimed she got the illness from a feature film she starred in, and she was not the only one. [10] While working, he actively provided feedback and suggestions on other elements beyond his performance, such as dialogue and wardrobe. Cushing won a BAFTA TV Award for Best Actor in 1956. [115][116][117][118][119] During rehearsals, Lucas originally planned for Tarkin and Vader to use a giant screen filled with computerised architectural representations of hallways to monitor the whereabouts of Skywalker, Solo and Organa. [63] Cushing appeared in Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972), a Hammer modernisation of the Dracula story set in the then-present day. [39] For that film, he travelled to Spain and filmed scenes on location in the castles of Manzanares el Real and El Escorial. A Tale of Two Cities. He moved to New York City in anticipation of his eventual return home, during which time he voiced a few radio commercials and joined a summer stock theatre company to raise money for his voyage back to England. They went on to make two other films together, Legend of the Werewolf (1975) and The Masks of Death (1984) with the actor playing Sherlock Holmes once more. Missing Helen To underscore just how difficult Helen's passing was for Peter Cushing, he ended his first autobiography, published in 1986, with her death: Peter felt his life effectively ended with Helen's passing. In the opening scene, Cushing portrays the nineteenth century Van Helsing as he did in the previous films, and the character is killed after battling Dracula. He regularly applied for auditions and openings for roles he found in the arts-oriented newspaper The Stage, but was turned down repeatedly due to his lack of professional experience in the theatre. [10] Far from being deterred by Cushing's unsuccessful audition the year before, Olivier remembered the actor well and was happy to cast him,[10][18] but the only character left unfilled was the relatively small part of the foppish courtier Osric. It'll be a glorious death, so long as I can hear what you're saying. Which means Cushing's career vampire kill count is - drum roll - fifteen - five of which were the same bloody vampire over and over. When Cushing died, Lee said, "At some point of your lives, every one of you will notice that you have in your life one person, one friend whom you love and care for very much. When this hindered the post-synching process, Olivier leaned in close to Cushing's face and said, "Now drown me. The two actors went on to appear in over 20 films . [97] Cushing played a surgeon who attempts to restore the beauty of his wife (played by Sue Lloyd), whose face is horribly scarred in an accident. Dis St Peter, who was married, have any. PETER CUSHING was one of the handful of actors. [13][15] Cushing continued to pursue a scholarship, writing twenty-one letters to the school,[15] until actor and theatre manager Bill Fraser finally agreed to meet Cushing in 1935 simply so he could ask him in person to stop writing. [18] He found a modest success in a 1945 production of Sheridan's The Rivals at Westminster's Criterion Theatre, which earned him enough money to pay off some growing debts. He was paid more for Star Wars than the lead actors. Cushing sought and was cast in the role. Cushing envisioned the character as an idealist warrior for the greater good, and studied the original book carefully and adapted several of Van Helsing's characteristics from the books into his performance, including the repeated gesture of raising his index finger to emphasise an important point. [28] He suffered from nyctophobia from early in his life, but in his later years overcame this by forcing himself to take walks outside after midnight. He was and is an icon of genre film. Wiki User. He played Dr. Who in Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965) and Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (1966) and gained the highest amount of visibility in his career with his part in the original Star Wars film. "How Jim fixed it for horror actor Cushing" (8 May 2004). In the films where Lee iconically played Dracula, Cushing plaid his foil and rival, the righteous vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing. Hammer Studios' publicity department put out a story that when Cushing first encountered Lee without the make-up on, he screamed in terror. [34] Nevertheless, he continued to appear in several small roles in radio, theatre and film. [citation needed] Lee recognised Cushing's health was fading and did his best to keep his friend's spirits up, but Lee later claimed he had a premonition that it would be the last time he saw Cushing alive, which proved to be true. Payne, Graham (June 1958). 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