Christopher Haden-Guest, 5th Baron Haden-Guest, known professionally as Christopher Guest, is an American-British screenwriter, composer, musician, director, actor, and comedian.
30 Facts About Christopher Guest
2.
Many scenes and character backgrounds in Christopher Guest's films are written and directed, although actors have no rehearsal time and the ensemble improvises scenes while filming them.
3.
Christopher Guest holds a hereditary British peerage as the 5th Baron Haden-Christopher Guest, and has publicly expressed a desire to see the House of Lords reformed as a democratically elected chamber.
4.
Christopher Guest is married to the actress and author Jamie Lee Curtis.
5.
Christopher Guest's paternal grandfather, Leslie, Baron Haden-Christopher Guest, was a Labour Party politician, who was a convert to Judaism.
6.
Christopher Guest spent parts of his childhood in his father's native United Kingdom.
7.
Christopher Guest later took up the mandolin, became interested in country music, and played guitar with Arlo Guthrie, a fellow student at Stockbridge School.
8.
Christopher Guest later began performing with bluegrass bands until he took up rock and roll.
9.
Christopher Guest went to Bard College for a year and then studied acting at New York University's Graduate Acting Program at the Tisch School of the Arts, graduating in 1971.
10.
Christopher Guest began his career in theatre during the early 1970s with one of his earliest professional performances being the role of Norman in Michael Weller's Moonchildren for the play's American premiere at the Arena Stage in Washington, DC, in November 1971.
11.
Christopher Guest continued with the production when it moved to Broadway in 1972.
12.
Christopher Guest both performed comic characters and wrote, arranged, and performed numerous musical parodies.
13.
Christopher Guest was featured alongside Chevy Chase and John Belushi in the off-Broadway revue National Lampoon's Lemmings.
14.
Christopher Guest played a small role in the 1977 All in the Family episode "Mike and Gloria Meet", where in a flashback sequence Mike and Gloria recall their first blind date, set up by Michael's college buddy Jim, who dated Gloria's girlfriend Debbie.
15.
Christopher Guest had a small but important role in it Happened One Christmas, the 1977 gender-reversed TV remake of the Frank Capra classic it's a Wonderful Life, starring Marlo Thomas as Mary Bailey, with Cloris Leachman as Mary's guardian angel and Orson Welles as the villainous Mr Potter.
16.
Christopher Guest made his first appearance as Tufnel on the 1978 sketch comedy program The TV Show.
17.
Christopher Guest experimented behind the camera with pre-filmed sketches, notably directing a documentary-style short starring Shearer and Short as synchronized swimmers.
18.
Christopher Guest appeared as Count Rugen in The Princess Bride.
19.
Christopher Guest had a cameo role as the first customer, a pedestrian, in the 1986 musical remake of The Little Shop of Horrors, which featured Steve Martin.
20.
Christopher Guest maintains that his intention is not to mock anyone, but to explore insular, perhaps obscure communities through his method of film making.
21.
Christopher Guest had a guest voice-over role in the animated comedy series SpongeBob SquarePants as SpongeBob's cousin, Stanley.
22.
Christopher Guest again collaborated with Reiner in A Few Good Men, appearing as Dr Stone.
23.
Christopher Guest holds an honorary doctorate from and is a member of the board of trustees for Berklee College of Music in Boston.
24.
In 2013, Christopher Guest was the co-writer and producer of the HBO series Family Tree, in collaboration with Jim Piddock, a lighthearted story in the style he made famous in This is Spinal Tap, in which the main character, Tom Chadwick, inherits a box of curios from his great aunt, spurring interest in his ancestry.
25.
Christopher Guest replayed his role as Count Tyrone Rugen in the Princess Bride Reunion on September 13,2020.
26.
Christopher Guest became the 5th Baron Haden-Christopher Guest, of Great Saling, in the County of Essex, when his father died in 1996.
27.
Christopher Guest succeeded upon the ineligibility of his older half-brother, Anthony Haden-Guest, who was born before his parents married.
28.
Christopher Guest married actress Jamie Lee Curtis in 1984 at the home of their mutual friend Rob Reiner.
29.
Christopher Guest was played by Seth Green in the film A Futile and Stupid Gesture.
30.
Christopher Guest has worked multiple times with certain actors, notably with frequent writing partner Eugene Levy, who has appeared in five of his projects.