168 Facts About Peter Cushing

Peter Cushing's acting career spanned over six decades and included appearances in more than 100 films, as well as many television, stage and radio roles.

Peter Cushing achieved recognition in Britain 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.

Peter Cushing's career was revitalised once he started to work in live television plays and he soon became one of the most recognisable faces in British television.

Peter Cushing earned particular acclaim for his lead performance as Winston Smith in a BBC adaptation of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Peter Cushing gained worldwide fame for his appearances in twenty-two horror films from the Hammer studio, particularly for his role as Baron Frankenstein in six of their seven Frankenstein films and Doctor Van Helsing in five Dracula films.

Peter Cushing often appeared alongside actor Christopher Lee, who became one of his closest friends, and occasionally with the American horror star Vincent Price.

Peter Cushing appeared in several other Hammer films, including The Abominable Snowman, The Mummy and The Hound of the Baskervilles, the last of which marked the first of the several occasions he portrayed the detective Sherlock Holmes.

Peter Cushing continued to perform in a variety of roles, although he was often typecast as a horror film actor.

Peter Cushing played Dr Who in Dr Who and the Daleks and Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 AD and became even better known through his part in the original Star Wars film.

Peter Cushing continued acting into the early 1990s and wrote two autobiographies.

Peter Wilton Cushing was born in Kenley, then a district in the English county of Surrey, on 26 May 1913 to George Edward Cushing and Nellie Marie Cushing.

Peter Cushing's father, a quantity surveyor, was a reserved and uncommunicative man whom Peter said he never got to know very well.

Peter Cushing's mother was the daughter of a carpet merchant and considered of a lower class than her husband.

Cushing's family consisted of several stage actors, including his paternal grandfather Henry William Cushing, his paternal aunt Maude Cushing and his step-uncle Wilton Herriot, after whom Peter Cushing received his middle name.

The Peter Cushing family lived in Dulwich during the First World War, but moved to Purley after the war ended in 1918.

Peter Cushing got fair grades only through the help of his brother, a strong student who did his homework for him.

Peter Cushing harboured aspirations for the arts all throughout his youth, especially acting.

Peter Cushing played the lead in nearly every school production during his teenage years, including the role of Sir Anthony Absolute in a 1929 staging of Richard Brinsley Sheridan's comedy of manners play, The Rivals.

Peter Cushing wanted to enter the acting profession after school, but his father opposed the idea, despite the theatrical background of several of his family members.

Peter Cushing hated the job, where he remained for three years without promotion or advancement due to his lack of ambition in the profession.

Peter Cushing often learned and practised his lines in an attic at work, under the guise that he was putting ordnance survey maps into order.

Peter Cushing 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.

Peter Cushing eventually applied for a scholarship at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London.

Peter Cushing continued to pursue a scholarship, writing twenty-one letters to the school, until actor and theatre manager Bill Fraser finally agreed to meet Peter Cushing in 1935 simply so he could ask him in person to stop writing.

Peter Cushing spent the next three years in an apprenticeship at Southampton Rep.

Peter Cushing met a Columbia Pictures employee named Larry Goodkind, who wrote him a letter of recommendation and directed him to acquaintances Goodkind knew at the company Edward Small Productions.

Peter Cushing visited the company, which was only a few days away from shooting The Man in the Iron Mask, the James Whale-directed adaptation of the Alexandre Dumas tale based on the French legend of a prisoner during the reign of Louis XIV of France.

Peter Cushing was hired as a stand-in for scenes that featured both characters played by Louis Hayward, who had the dual lead roles of King Louis XIV and Philippe of Gascony.

Peter Cushing played one part against Hayward in one scene, then the opposite part in another, and ultimately the scenes were spliced together in a split screen process that featured Hayward in both parts and left Peter Cushing's work cut from the film altogether.

The small role involved sword-fighting and, although Peter Cushing had no experience with fencing, he told Whale he was an excellent fencer to ensure he got the part.

Peter Cushing later said his unscreened scenes alongside Hayward were terrible performances, but that his experience on the film provided an excellent opportunity to learn and observe how filming on a studio set worked.

Only a few days after filming on The Man in the Iron Mask was completed, Peter Cushing was in the Schwab's Drug Store, a famous Sunset Boulevard hangout spot for actors, when he learned producer Hal Roach was seeking an English actor for a comedy film starring Laurel and Hardy.

Peter Cushing continued to work in a few Hollywood engagements, including an uncredited role in the war film They Dare Not Love, which reunited him with director James Whale.

Peter Cushing was cast in one of a series of short films in an entry in the MGM series The Passing Parade, which focused on strange-but-true historical events.

Peter Cushing appeared in the episode The Hidden Master as a young Clive of India, well before the soldier established the military and political supremacy of the East India Company.

Peter Cushing 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.

Peter Cushing 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.

Peter Cushing was eventually noticed by a Broadway theatre talent scout, and in 1941 he made his Broadway debut in the religious wartime drama The Seventh Trumpet.

Peter Cushing agreed to take his place with very little notice or time to prepare, and earned a salary of ten pounds a week for the job.

Peter Cushing eventually had to leave ENSA due to lung congestion, an ailment his wife helped him recover from.

Peter Cushing struggled to find work during this period, with some plays he was cast in failing to even make it past rehearsals into theatres.

Peter Cushing recorded occasional radio spots and appeared in week-long stints as a featured player in London's Q Theatre, but otherwise work was difficult to come by.

Peter Cushing 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.

Peter Cushing was not cast because he insisted he could not perform in an American accent.

Peter Cushing accepted the role, and Hamlet marked his British film debut.

The set provided technical difficulties, and all of Peter Cushing's lines had to be post-synched.

Peter Cushing had recently undergone dental surgery and he was trying not to open his mouth widely for fear of spitting.

Peter Cushing designed custom hand-scarves in honour of the Hamlet film, and as it was being exhibited across England, the scarves were eventually accepted as gifts by the Queen and her daughter Princess Elizabeth.

Peter Cushing struggled greatly to find work over the next few years, and became so stressed that he felt he was suffering from an extended nervous breakdown.

Peter Cushing suggested he write to all the producers listed in the Radio Times magazine seeking work in the medium.

The move proved to be a wise one, as Peter Cushing was hired to complement the cast of a string of major theatre successes that were being adapted to live television.

Peter Cushing earned praise for playing the lead male role of Mr Darcy in an early BBC Television serialisation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.

Nevertheless, a second televised production was filmed and aired, and Peter Cushing eventually drew both critical praise and acting awards, further cementing his reputation as one of Britain's biggest television stars.

Peter Cushing felt his first performance was much stronger than the second, but the second production is the only known surviving version.

Peter Cushing won best actor awards from the Guild of Television Producers in 1955, and from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 1956.

Peter Cushing starred in the film adaptation of the Graham Greene novel The End of the Affair as Henry Miles, an important civil servant and the cuckolded husband of Sarah Miles, played by Deborah Kerr.

Peter Cushing, who enjoyed the tale as a child, had his agent John Redway inform the company of Peter Cushing's interest in playing the protagonist, Baron Victor Frankenstein.

Peter Cushing was about twenty years older than Baron Frankenstein as he appeared in the original novel, but that did not deter the filmmakers.

Peter Cushing was cast in the lead role of The Curse of Frankenstein, marking the first of twenty-two films he made for Hammer.

Peter Cushing later said that his career decisions entailed selecting roles where he knew that he would be accepted by the audience.

Hammer Studios' publicity department put out a story that when Peter Cushing first encountered Lee without the make-up on, he screamed in terror.

Peter Cushing so valued preparation for his role that he insisted on being trained by a surgeon to learn how to wield a scalpel authentically.

Many felt Peter Cushing's performance helped create the archetypal mad scientist character.

Peter Cushing reprised the role of Baron Victor Frankenstein in five sequels.

Peter Cushing returned for The Evil of Frankenstein, where the Baron has a carnival hypnotist resurrect his monster's inactive brain, and Frankenstein Created Woman, in which the Frankenstein's monster is a woman played by Playboy magazine centrefold model Susan Denberg.

Peter Cushing played the lead role twice more in Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed and Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell.

In Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell, Peter Cushing portrayed Frankenstein as having gone completely mad, in a fitting coda to the earlier films.

Peter 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.

Peter Cushing said one of the biggest challenges during filming was not missing whenever he struck a prop stake with a mallet and drove it into a vampire's heart.

Dracula was released in 1958, with Peter Cushing starring opposite Lee, who played the title character, although Peter Cushing was given top billing.

In 1959, Peter Cushing agreed to reprise the role of Van Helsing in the sequel, The Brides of Dracula.

In exchange, Hammer's James Carreras thanked Peter Cushing by paying for extensive roofing repair work that had recently been done on Peter Cushing's recently purchased Whitstable home.

Peter Cushing appeared in Dracula AD 1972, a Hammer modernisation of the Dracula story set in the then-present day.

Thereafter the action jumps ahead to 1972, and Peter Cushing plays the original character's grandson for the bulk of the movie.

Peter Cushing performed many of his own stunts in Dracula AD 1972, which included tumbling off a haywagon during a fight with Dracula.

Around the same time, Peter Cushing played the original nineteenth century Van Helsing in The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires, a co-production between Hammer Studios and the Shaw Brothers Studio, which brought Chinese martial arts into the Dracula story.

In that film, Peter Cushing's Van Helsing travels to the Chinese city Chongqing, where Count Dracula is heading a vampire cult.

Peter Cushing appeared in the horror film The Abominable Snowman, a Hammer adaptation of a BBC Nigel Kneale television play The Creature which Cushing had starred in.

Peter Cushing portrayed an English botanist searching the Himalayas for the legendary Yeti.

Director Val Guest said he was particularly impressed with Cushing's preparation and ability to plan which props to best use to enhance his performance, so much so that Cushing started to become known as "Props Peter".

Peter Cushing saw a promotional poster for The Mummy that showed Lee's character with a large hole in his chest, allowing a beam of light to pass through his body.

Peter Cushing co-starred opposite Lee, who portrayed the aristocratic Sir Henry Baskerville.

Hammer decided to heighten the source novel's horror elements, which upset the estate of Conan Doyle, but Peter Cushing himself voiced no objection to the creative licence because he felt the character of Holmes himself remained intact.

However, when producer Anthony Hinds proposed removing the character's deerstalker, Peter Cushing insisted they remain because audiences associated Holmes with his headgear and pipes.

Peter Cushing prepared extensively for the role, studying the novel and taking notes in his script.

Peter Cushing scrutinised the costumes and screenwriter Peter Bryan's script, often altering words or phrases.

In later years, Peter Cushing considered his Holmes performance one of the finest accomplishments of his career.

Immediately upon completion of The Hound of the Baskervilles, Peter Cushing was offered the lead role in the Hammer film The Man Who Could Cheat Death, a remake of The Man in Half Moon Street.

Peter Cushing turned it down, in part because he did not like the script by Jimmy Sangster, and the lead role was taken instead by Anton Diffring.

Peter Cushing next appeared for Hammer when he played the Sheriff of Nottingham in the adventure film Sword of Sherwood Forest, which starred Richard Greene as the outlaw Robin Hood.

The next year, Peter Cushing starred as an Ebenezer Scrooge-like manager of a bank being robbed in the Hammer thriller film Cash on Demand.

Peter Cushing considered this among the favourites of his films, and some critics believed it to be among his best performances, although it was one of the least seen films from his career.

Peter Cushing appeared in the Hammer film Captain Clegg, known in the United States as Night Creatures.

Peter Cushing starred as Parson Blyss, the local reverend of an 18th-century English coastal town believed to be hiding his smuggling activities with reports of ghosts.

Peter Cushing read Thorndike to prepare for the role, and made suggestions to make-up artist Roy Ashton about Blyss' costume and hairstyle.

Peter Cushing later appeared in The Vampire Lovers, an erotic Hammer horror film about a lesbian vampire, adapted in part from the Sheridan Le Fanu novella Carmilla.

However, Peter Cushing was able to star in Twins of Evil, a prequel of sorts to The Vampire Lovers, as Gustav Weil, the leader of a group of religious puritans trying to stamp out witchcraft and satanism.

In 1959, Peter Cushing originally planned to appear in the lead role of William Fairchild's play The Sound of Murder, while shooting a film at the same time.

The hectic schedule became overbearing for Peter Cushing, who had to drop out of the play and resolved to never again attempt a film and play simultaneously.

Peter Cushing appeared in the biographical epic film John Paul Jones, in which Robert Stack played the title role of the American naval fighter in the American Revolutionary War.

Peter Cushing became very ill with dysentery during filming and lost a considerable amount of weight as a result.

Peter Cushing played Robert Knox in The Flesh and the Fiends, based on the true story of the doctor who purchased human corpses for research from the serial killer duo Burke and Hare.

Peter Cushing had previously stated Knox was one of his role models in developing his portrayal of Baron Frankenstein.

Peter Cushing appeared in several films released in 1961, including Fury at Smugglers' Bay, an adventure film about pirates scavenging ships off the English coastline; The Hellfire Club, where he played a lawyer helping a young man expose a cult; and The Naked Edge, a British-American thriller about a woman who suspects her husband framed another man for murder.

In 1965, Peter Cushing appeared in the Ben Travers farce play Thark at Westminster's Garrick Theatre.

Peter Cushing took the lead role in two science fiction films by AARU Productions based on the British television series, Doctor Who.

Peter Cushing played the role in Dr Who and the Daleks and Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 AD.

Peter Cushing later starred in the fifteen-episode BBC television series Sherlock Holmes, reprising his role as the title character with Nigel Stock as Watson, though only six episodes now survive.

Many actors turned down the role as a result, but Peter Cushing accepted, and the BBC believed his Hammer Studios persona would bring what they called a sense of "lurking horror and callous savagery" to the series.

Peter Cushing tried to keep his performance identical to his portrayal of Holmes from The Hound of the Baskervilles.

Peter Cushing appeared in a handful of horror films by the independent Amicus Productions, including Dr Terror's House of Horrors, as a man who could see into the future using Tarot cards; The Skull, as a professor who became possessed by a spiritual force embodied within a skull; and Torture Garden, as a collector of Edgar Allan Poe relics who is robbed and murdered by a rival.

Peter Cushing appeared in non-Amicus horror films like Island of Terror and The Blood Beast Terror, in both of which he investigates a series of mysterious deaths.

Peter Cushing appeared in Corruption, a film that was billed as so horrific that "no woman will be admitted alone" into theatres to see it.

Peter Cushing played a surgeon who attempts to restore the beauty of his wife, whose face is horribly scarred in an accident.

Peter 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.

The single scene took only one morning of filming, which Peter Cushing agreed to after Davis asked him to do it as a favour.

Peter Cushing was forced to withdraw from the film to care for his wife, and was ultimately replaced by Andrew Keir.

In 1971, Peter Cushing contacted the Royal National Institute for the Blind and offered to provide voice acting for some of their audiobooks.

For Tales from the Crypt, an anthology film made up of several horror segments, Peter Cushing was offered the part of a ruthless businessman but did not like the part and turned down the role.

Originally, all of the character's lines were spoken aloud to himself, but Peter Cushing suggested he speak to a framed photo of his deceased wife instead, and director Freddie Francis agreed.

Peter Cushing used the emotions from the recent loss of his wife to add authenticity to the widower character's grieving.

Make-up artist Roy Ashton designed the costume and make-up Peter Cushing wore when he rose from the dead, but the actor helped Ashton develop the costume, and donned a pair of false teeth that he previously used in a disguise during the Sherlock Holmes television series.

In 1975, Peter Cushing was anxious to return to the stage, where he had not performed in ten years.

Ryan and Slater agreed, and Peter Cushing later said performing the part was his most pleasant experience since his wife had died four years earlier.

That film marked the first Peter Cushing worked for producer Kevin Francis, who worked in minor jobs at Hammer and had long aspired to work with Peter Cushing, whom he admired deeply.

Peter Cushing appeared in the television film The Great Houdini as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes.

Lucas felt a talented actor was needed to play the role and said Peter Cushing was his first choice for the part.

However, Peter Cushing has claimed that Lucas originally approached him to play the Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, and only decided to cast him as Tarkin instead after the two met each other.

Peter Cushing said he would have preferred to play Kenobi rather than Tarkin, but could not have done so because he was to be filming other movie roles when Star Wars was shooting, and Tarkin's scenes took less time to film than those of the larger Kenobi role.

Peter Cushing joined the cast in May 1976, and his scenes were filmed at Elstree Studios in Borehamwood.

When Peter 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.

Peter Cushing got along well with the entire cast, especially his old co-star David Prowse who played Darth Vader and Carrie Fisher, who was appearing in her first major role as Princess Leia Organa.

Peter 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.

Toward the end of his career, Peter Cushing performed in films and roles critics widely considered below his talent.

Director John Carpenter approached him to appear in the horror film Halloween as Samuel Loomis, the psychiatrist of murderer Michael Myers, but Peter Cushing turned down the role.

Peter Cushing appeared alongside his old co-stars Christopher Lee and Vincent Price in House of the Long Shadows, a horror-parody film featuring Desi Arnaz, Jr.

Peter Cushing appeared in the television film The Masks of Death, marking both the last time he played detective Sherlock Holmes and the final performance for which he received top billing.

Peter Cushing appeared alongside actor John Mills as Watson, and the two were noted by critics for their strong chemistry and camaraderie.

Peter Cushing wished for a strain of rose to be named after his wife, and it was arranged for the Helen Peter Cushing Rose to be grown at the Wheatcroft Rose Garden in Edwalton, Nottinghamshire.

Peter Cushing staged An Evening with Peter Cushing at St Edmund's Public School in Canterbury to raise money for the local Cancer Care Unit.

In 1987, a watercolour painting Peter Cushing painted was accepted by Prince Edward and auctioned at a charity event he organised to raise funds for The Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme.

Also that year, a sketch Peter Cushing drew of Sherlock Holmes was accepted as the official logo of the Northern Musgraves Sherlock Holmes Society.

Peter Cushing wrote the books as what he called "a form of therapy to stop me going stark, raving mad" following the loss of his wife.

Peter Cushing wrote a children's book called The Bois Saga, a story based on the history of England.

Peter Cushing's final acting job was narrating, along with Christopher Lee, the Hammer Films documentary Flesh and Blood: The Hammer Heritage of Horror, which was recorded only a few weeks before his death.

Lee recognised Peter 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 Peter Cushing alive, which proved to be true.

Peter Cushing had a variety of interests outside acting, including collecting and battling model soldiers, of which he owned over five thousand.

Peter Cushing hand-painted many and used the Little Wars rule set by H G Wells for miniature wargaming.

Peter Cushing loved games and practical jokes, and enjoyed drawing and painting watercolours, the latter of which he did especially often in his later years.

Peter Cushing nevertheless maintained a belief in both God and an afterlife.

Peter Cushing was an ardent vegetarian for most of his life who served as a patron with the Vegetarian Society from 1987 until his death.

Peter Cushing had a great interest in ornithology and wildlife in general.

Peter Cushing suffered from nyctophobia from early in his life, but in his later years overcame this by forcing himself to take walks outside after midnight.

Peter Cushing was known among his colleagues for his gentle and gentlemanly demeanour, as well as his professionalism and rigorous preparation as an actor.

Peter Cushing once said that he learned his parts "from cover to cover" before filming began.

Peter Cushing 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 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.

However, Peter Cushing was very proud of his experiences with the Hammer films, and never resented becoming known as a horror actor.

Peter Cushing always took the roles seriously and never portrayed them in a campy or tongue-in-cheek style because he felt it would be insulting to his audience.

On 10 April 1943, Peter Cushing married Violet Helene Beck, sister of Reginald Beck.

Peter Cushing often said he felt his life had ended when hers did, and he was so crushed that when his first autobiography was published in 1986, it made no mention of his life after her death.

Peter Cushing later stated that this had simply been a hysterical response borne out of grief, and that he had not purposely attempted to end his life; a poem left by Helen had implored him not to die until he had lived his life to the full.

Peter Cushing repeated the role of the man who lost family in other horror films, including Asylum, The Creeping Flesh, and The Ghoul.

Peter Cushing 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.

In total, Peter Cushing appeared in more than 100 films throughout his career.

Several filmmakers and actors have claimed to be influenced by Peter Cushing, including actor Doug Bradley, who played Pinhead in the Hellraiser horror films, and John Carpenter, who directed such films as Halloween, Escape from New York and The Thing.

In 2008, fourteen years after his death, Peter Cushing's image was used in a set of stamps issued by the Royal Mail honouring Hammer Studios films on the fiftieth anniversary of the release of Dracula.

In 2013, Peter Cushing was honoured by the Royal Mail as one of ten people selected for their "Great Britons" commemorative postage stamp issue.