Perhaps better known as Endora, the witch from "Bewitched," Agnes Moorehead sadly passed from cancer in 1974. [10] As with the Frankenstein film, critics largely disliked Dracula because of its violence and sexual content, deeming it inferior to the 1931 Universal version. [10] He appeared in the Hammer film Captain Clegg (1962), known in the United States as Night Creatures. [44], During a brief quiet period following Cushing's television work, he read in trade publications about Hammer, a low-budget production company seeking to adapt Mary Shelley's horror novel Frankenstein into a new film. [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. "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. He has adorned our screens as Dr. . The latter film starred Deborah Kerr, Cushing's co-star from The End of the Affair, and Gary Cooper, one of Cushing's favourite actors. Director: James Whale | Stars: Louis Hayward, Joan Bennett, Warren William, Joseph Schildkraut Votes: 1,771 2. [35] His largest television success from this period was the leading role of Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four, (1954) an adaptation by Nigel Kneale of George Orwell's novel of the same name about a totalitarian regime. [10] Along with Alec Guinness, who was ultimately cast as Kenobi, Cushing was among the best known actors at the time to appear in Star Wars, as the rest of the cast were then relatively unknown. Despite making the movie in the late Seventies his fiendish character lives on the character was even revived in CGI form for 2016's Rogue One. Both Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee had agreed to work together one last time. Peter Cushing. 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. [27] During this tour he met Violet Hlne "Helen" Beck, a former dancer who was starring in the lead female role of Amanda Prynne. For his role in Dracula A.D. 1972, Cushing (who was 58) had originally been cast as the father of Stephanie Beacham's character, but had aged so visibly and lost so much weight that the script was hastily rewritten to make him her grandfather: it was done again in the last Dracula film from Hammer, The Satanic Rites of Dracula. [8], He began his early education in Dulwich, South London, before attending the Shoreham Grammar School in Shoreham-by-Sea, on the Sussex coast between Brighton and Worthing. [38], In the two years following Nineteen Eighty-Four, Cushing appeared in thirty-one television plays and two serials, and won Best Television Actor of the Year from the Evening Chronicle. In the 1970s, he garnered fame for his role in a slew of horror films, including his performance as Van . Among them were Land of the Minotaur, where he played Baron Corofax, the evil leader of a Satanic cult opposed by a priest played by Donald Pleasence. link]: [121], When Star Wars was first released in 1977, most preliminary advertisements touted Cushing's Tarkin as the primary antagonist of the film, not Vader;[122] Cushing was extremely pleased with the final film, and he claimed his only disappointment was that Tarkin was killed and could not appear in the subsequent sequels. But millions want to see me as [Baron] Frankenstein, so that's the one I do. He portrayed an English botanist searching the Himalayas for the legendary Yeti. There were several stage actors in Cushing's family, including his paternal grandfather Henry William Cushing, his paternal aunt Maude Ashton, and his step-uncle Wilton Herriot. [33] A huge fan of Sherlock Holmes, Cushing was highly anxious to play the character,[69] and reread the novels in anticipation of the role. That person is so close to you that you are able to share so. 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. 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. Although I didn't . [59] Dracula was released in 1958, with Cushing once again starring opposite Lee, who played the title character, although Cushing was given top billing. [64] Cushing and Lee both reprised their respective roles in the sequel The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1974), which was known in the United States as Count Dracula and his Vampire Bride. . It was Broughton who encouraged Cushing to have the book published. List of the best Peter Cushing movies, ranked best to worst with movie trailers when available. Hammer Studios' publicity department put out a story that when Cushing first encountered Lee without the make-up on, he screamed in terror. Lawrence broke off the engagement citing his frequent crying and bringing his parents on dates. [21] Cushing and Lee became extremely close friends, and remained so for the rest of Cushing's life. Published in 1994, it was originally written specifically for the daughter of Cushing's long-time secretary and friend Joyce Broughton, to help her overcome reading problems resulting from her dyslexia. "Peter Cushing: The First Gentleman of Horror". They were the best of friends. [10][35] Among them was the John Huston film Moulin Rouge (1952) in which he played a racing spectator named Marcel de la Voisier appearing with Jos Ferrer, who played the artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. The only enjoyment he got out of it was drawing prospectives of proposed buildings, which were almost always rejected because they were too imaginative and expensive and lacked strong foundations, which Cushing disregarded as a "mere detail. shocked by the marriage, learned to love their new daughter-in-law. [70] Hammer decided to heighten the source novel's horror elements, which upset the estate of Conan Doyle, but Cushing himself voiced no objection to the creative licence because he felt the character of Holmes himself remained intact. (1966). Cushing appeared only briefly in A Chump at Oxford (1940) and his scenes took just one week to film, but he was proud to work with whom he called "two of the greatest comedians the cinema has ever produced. [107] His performance in Tales from the Crypt won him the Best Male Actor award at the 1971 French Convention of Fantasy Cinema in France. This led Lucas to write the character of Grand Moff Tarkin: a high-ranking Imperial governor and commander of the planet-destroying battlestation, the Death Star. [45] He later said that his career decisions entailed selecting roles where he knew that he would be accepted by the audience. More information Peter and Helen Cushing with the neighborhood children Comments More like this Old Hollywood Actors Hollywood Stars Classic Hollywood Classic Movie Stars Peter Cushing is best known for the huge number of horror films he made for Hammer Studios between 1957 and 1974. It was at home, with Peter beside her, that Helen Cushing passed away on January 14, 1971. He earned particular acclaim for his lead performance as Winston Smith in a BBC adaptation of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (1954). His daughter Antonia told the Hollywood Reporter that he passed on due to natural causes. [109] Cushing appeared in the television film The Great Houdini (1976) as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes. [75] The Hound of the Baskervilles was originally conceived as the first in a series of Sherlock Holmes films, but eventually no sequels were made. [77] Cushing and director Peter Graham Scott did not get along well during filming and at one point, when the two were having a disagreement on set, Cushing turned to cameraman Len Harris and said, "Take no notice Len. PETER CUSHING, the prolific and . A necessary requirement to having a family and children is of course, having a spouse. Peter Cushing - not for first nor the last time this week, we salute you. Despite performing in a string of roles, including one as Osric in Laurence Olivier's film adaptation of Hamlet (1948), Cushing struggled greatly to find work during this period. He made me believe he was evil and cruel. Very few. [147] In a silent tribute to Helen, a shot of Van Helsing's desk includes a photograph of her. [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. O'Brien, John (20 April 2002). As both actors were in their seventies, screenwriter N.J. One tradition says that Peter had at least one daughter but there is no confirmation of this. He repeated the role of the man who lost family in other horror films, including Asylum (1972), The Creeping Flesh (1973), and The Ghoul (1975). Originally, all of the character's lines were spoken aloud to himself, but Cushing suggested he speak to a framed photo of his deceased wife instead, and director Freddie Francis agreed. [4][42], In an interview included on the DVD release of The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959), Lee said of his friend's death: .mw-parser-output .templatequote{overflow:hidden;margin:1em 0;padding:0 40px}.mw-parser-output .templatequote .templatequotecite{line-height:1.5em;text-align:left;padding-left:1.6em;margin-top:0}, I don't want to sound gloomy, but 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. Perhaps the friendship between these two men - and its loss - speaks to us so keenly because it speaks . This marked his professional stage debut, although he had no lines and did little more than stand on stage behind other actors. Cushing visited the company, which was only a few days away from shooting The Man in the Iron Mask (1939), 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. There was no reference to such an injury in the film script, and when he asked the publicity department why it was on the poster, they said it was simply meant to serve as a shocking image to promote the movie. [21], Cushing later starred in the fifteen-episode BBC television series Sherlock Holmes, once again reprising his role as the title character with Nigel Stock as Watson, though only six episodes now survive. Fourteen days of rehearsal was originally scheduled for each episode, but they were cut down to ten days for economic reasons. [150] In August 1994, Cushing entered himself into Pilgrims Hospice in Canterbury, where he died on 11 August at 81 years old. "Talking toPeter Cushing". He appeared in several horror films and was in Lawrence Olivier's Hamlet. Did Saint Peter have a family and children? In the Gospel of Matthew, Peter was living with his mother-in-law in Capharnaum, and thus was married with a wife. Peter Cushing's highest grossing movies have received a lot of accolades over the years, earning millions upon millions around the world. For example, you can call that friend, and from the very first maniacal laugh or some other joke you will know who is at the other end of that line. His childhood inspiration was Tom Mix, an American film actor and star of many Western films. [139] He hand-painted many and used the Little Wars rule set by H. G. Wells for miniature wargaming. [127] Henry provided the on-set capture and voice work with the reference material augmented and mapped over his performance like a digital body-mask. Tarkin, played by the late Peter Cushing, was outwardly polite and aristocratic, but as princess Leia noted, there's no hiding the foul stench of his evil. [138] His final acting job was narrating, along with Christopher Lee, the Hammer Films documentary Flesh and Blood: The Hammer Heritage of Horror (1994), which was recorded only a few weeks before his death. Peter Bogdanovich's passing was announced by one of his daughters, Antonia, on Thursday, January 6. ", Thanks to his former teacher Davies, Cushing continued to appear in school productions during this time, as well as amateur plays such as W.S. Gilbert's Pygmalion and Galatea,[12] George Kelly's The Torch-Bearers, and The Red Umbrella, by Brenda Girvin and Monica Cosens. They Dare Not Love. During his. [10] Cushing felt his first performance was much stronger than the second, but the second production is the only known surviving version. [142] He also had a great interest in ornithology and wildlife in general. [88] Production lasted from May to December,[90] and Cushing adopted a strict regimen of training, preparation and exercise. 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. This article incorporates text from a free content work. [58] 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. [92] Although the series proved popular, Cushing felt he could not give his best performance under the hectic schedule, and he was not pleased with the final result. [151] In 2013, Cushing was honoured by the Royal Mail as one of ten people selected for their "Great Britons" commemorative postage stamp issue.[157]. [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. He always had a glass of milk handy to remove the . His first film for the studio was 1957's "The Curse of Frankenstein," in which he played Frankenstein's monster opposite actor Peter Cushing. His is most identified with the horror films of Hammer Pictures, often sharing the screen with Christopher Lee. "[22] Around this time actor Robert Coote, who met Cushing during a cricket game, recommended to director George Stevens that Cushing might be good for a part in Stevens' upcoming film Vigil in the Night (1940). 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. [63] Cushing appeared in Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972), a Hammer modernisation of the Dracula story set in the then-present day. Although Cushing's protagonist was derived from television scripts used for First Doctor serials, his portrayal of the character differed in the fact that Cushing's Dr. Who was a human being, whereas the original Doctor as portrayed on TV by William Hartnell was extraterrestrial. [21] He once said that he learned his parts "from cover to cover" before filming began. Stevens cast Cushing in the second male lead role of Joe Shand, the husband of the Lombard character's sister. Cushing gained worldwide fame for his appearances in 22 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. 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. Helen Cushing David CushingNellie Marie CushingGeorge Edward Cushing Peter Cushing/Family. [10] The scene in which Tarkin and Organa appear together on the Death Star, just before the destruction of the planet Alderaan, was the first scene with major dialogue that Fisher filmed for Star Wars. In the skit, Cushing portrayed King Arthur, while the other two gave comedic portrayals of characters like Merlin and the knights of the Round Table. The timeline seems to match, as James Mason passed away in 1984. Cushing also wrote a children's book called The Bois Saga, a story based on the history of England. [10][123][124], For the film Rogue One (2016), CGI and digitally-repurposed-archive footage[125][126] were used to insert Cushing's likeness from the original movie over the face of actor Guy Henry. Wiki User. Never harmed a fly. Peter Cushing WAS the villain in Star Wars, Vadar was his lap dog. His mother had always wanted a daughter, and was deeply disappointed that her second and last child was a boy. Cushing was about twenty years older than Baron Frankenstein as he appeared in the original novel, but that did not deter the filmmakers. MacDonald, Andrew and MacDonald, Gina (2003). The move proved to be a wise one, as Cushing was hired to complement the cast of a string of major theatre successes that were being adapted to live television. Peter Wilton Cushing, actor: born Kenley, Surrey 26 May 1913; OBE 1989; married 1943 Helen Beck (died 1971); died Canterbury 11 August 1994. [10], In 1947, when Laurence Olivier sought him out for his film adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet, Cushing's wife Helen pushed him to pursue a role. [28] Shot in dynamic colour with a 65,000-budget, the film became known for its heavy usage of gore and sexual content. Filmed on location in Munich, Cushing played Otto Wesendonck, the husband of poet Mathilde Wesendonck, who in the film is portrayed as having an affair with Wagner. Many actors turned down the role as a result, but Cushing accepted,[89] and the BBC believed his Hammer Studios persona would bring what they called a sense of "lurking horror and callous savagery" to the series. "[146], In his autobiography, Cushing implies that he attempted suicide on the night of his wife's death by running up and down stairs in the vain hope that it would induce a heart attack. [14][28] They fell in love and were married on 10 April 1943. 1. Peter Sellers CBE (born Richard Henry Sellers; 8 September 1925 - 24 July 1980) was an English actor and comedian.He first came to prominence performing in the BBC Radio comedy series The Goon Show, featured on a number of hit comic songs and became known to a worldwide audience through his many film roles, among them Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther series. He said his only regret about working on it was that he wasn't able to be in ESB or RotJ. [10] Cushing accepted the role, and Hamlet (1948) marked his British film debut. [96] Cushing also appeared in non-Amicus horror films like Island of Terror (1966) and The Blood Beast Terror (1968), in both of which he investigates a series of mysterious deaths. [20] 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. Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing were two of the most prolific actors in horror cinema. Cushing next appeared for Hammer when he played the Sheriff of Nottingham in the adventure film Sword of Sherwood Forest (1960), which starred Richard Greene as the outlaw Robin Hood. His 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. I love animals, and when I'm in the country I'm a keen bird-watcher." He was forced to withdraw from the film to care for his wife, and was ultimately replaced by Andrew Keir. "Horror-film actor Peter Cushing dies at 81, Played variety of roles From Sherlock Holmes to Baron Frankenstein" (12 August 1994). [10] Director Tim Burton and actor Johnny Depp both said the portrayal of Ichabod Crane in Sleepy Hollow was intended to resemble that of Cushing's old horror film performances. Crisp and executive producer Kevin Francis both in turn sought to portray them as two old-fashioned men in a rapidly changing world. Peter Wilton Cushing was born on May 26, 1913 in Kenley, Surrey, England, to Nellie Maria (King) and George Edward Cushing, a quantity surveyor. Early life [ edit ] Child was born in Montclair, New Jersey , on January 15, 1902, to Bertha Cushing and Charles Tripler Child. [11] Cushing hated the job, where he remained for three years without promotion or advancement due to his lack of ambition in the profession. Cushing was cast (again uncredited) 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. In the following we list the major anecdotes which blend into an interesting story. "The star who never grew up". See answer (1) Dis St Peter, who was married, have any. He was known for being a Movie Actor. The first was J.B. Priestley's Eden End, which was televised in December 1951. Cushing often said he felt his life had ended when hers did,[10] and he was so crushed that when his first autobiography was published in 1986, it made no mention of his life after her death. Afterward, he was granted the scholarship and given odd jobs around the theatre, such as selling refreshments and working as an assistant stage manager. Later that year he was set to appear in Blood from the Mummy's Tomb (1971), an adaptation of the Bram Stoker novel The Jewel of Seven Stars. Biography - A Short Wiki. 1959 - 1984. Peter Cushing seems like the perfect person to play the Doctor. Cushing struggled to find work during this period, with some plays he was cast in failing to even make it past rehearsals into theatres. [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. The person you saw has been dead for more than two centuries! Studio executives were pleased with Cushing's performance, and there was talk among Hollywood insiders grooming him for stardom. Peter Cushing (and, until her untimely death in 1971, his wife Helen), lived in this one: As you can see, it is adorned by a blue plaque, and it is notably the only one in that row to have large bushes growing in its front garden. They first met on the set of the film, where Lee was still wearing the monster make-up prepared by Phil Leakey. He appeared in the episode The Hidden Master (1940) as a young Clive of India, well before the soldier established the military and political supremacy of the East India Company. Cushing wrote to the couple and suggested they stage The Heiress, a play by Ruth and Augustus Goetz, with Cushing himself in the lead role. It was his final stage performance for a decade, but he continued to stay active in film and television during this period.