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Early life
Cushing was born in Kenley, Surrey and was raised there and in Dulwich, South London. He left his first job as a surveyor's assistant to take up a scholarship at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. After working in repertory theatre, he left for Hollywood in 1939, but returned in 1941 after roles in several films, one of them A Chump at Oxford (1940) appearing alongside Laurel and Hardy. His first major film part was as Osric in Hamlet (1948) with Laurence Olivier.
Early career
In the 1950s he worked in television, most notably as Winston Smith in the BBC's 1954 adaptation of the George Orwell novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, scripted by Nigel Kneale. Cushing drew much praise for his performance in this production, although he always felt that his performance in the existing version of the play — it was performed twice in one week and only the second version survives in the archives — was inferior to the first. During many of his small screen performances, Cushing also starred as Fitzwilliam Darcy in the BBC's 1952 production of Pride and Prejudice and as King Richard II in Richard of Bordeaux in 1955.
Hammer Horror
His first appearances in his two most famous roles were in Terence Fisher's films The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and Dracula (1958).
Cushing will always be associated with playing Victor Frankenstein and Van Helsing in a long string of horror films produced by Hammer Horror. These provided him with 20 years of steady employment despite being of often middling quality. Although talented as an actor, he admitted that career decisions for him meant choosing roles where he knew the audience would accept him. "Who wants to see me as 'Hamlet'? Very few. But millions want to see me as Frankenstein so that's the one I do." He also said "If I played Hamlet, they'd call it a horror film."[citation needed]
Reportedly, he thought The Blood Beast Terror (1968) to be the worst film in which he participated.[citation needed] A shade under 6' tall, a mane of increasingly iron-grey hair and wiry, his unemotional, meticulous delivery gave him an energetic onscreen presence, and he often performed his own stunts. Cushing was often cast opposite the 6'5" actor Christopher Lee, with whom he became best friends.
"People look at me as if I were some sort of monster, but I can't think why. In my macabre pictures, I have either been a monster-maker or a monster-destroyer, but never a monster. Actually, I'm a gentle fellow. Never harmed a fly. I love animals, and when I'm in the country I'm a keen bird-watcher," he said in an interview published in ABC Film Review in November 1964.
In the mid-1960s, he played the eccentric Dr. Who in two movies (Dr. Who and the Daleks and Daleks — Invasion Earth 2150 AD) based on the television series Doctor Who. He made a conscious decision to play the part as a lovable, avuncular figure, as a conscious effort to escape from his perceived image as a "horror" actor. "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'." he said in an interview in 1966. He also appeared in the cult series The Avengers and then again in its successor, The New Avengers. In 1986 he played the role of Colonel William Raymond in 'Biggles'. In Space: 1999 he appeared as a Prospero-like character called Raan.
He was one of many stars to guest on The Morecambe and Wise Show — the standing joke in his case being the idea that he was never paid for his appearance. He would appear, week after week, wearily asking hosts Eric and Ernie "Have you got my five pounds yet?" (A ludicrously low price for an artists fee, even in the 1970s). Delightfully, when Cushing was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1989, one of the guests was Ernie Wise ... who promptly presented him with a five pound note, but then, with typical dexterity, extorted it back from him. Peter was absolutely delighted with this, and cried: "All these years and I still haven't got my fiver!"
Cushing played Sherlock Holmes many times, starting with Hammer's The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959), the first colour Holmes film. Cushing, whose features resembled those of classic Holmes portrayer Basil Rathbone, seemed a natural for the part. He followed this up with a performance in 16 episodes of the BBC series Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes (1968), of which only six episodes survive. Finally, Cushing played the detective in old age, in The Masks of Death (1984) for Channel 4.
Death of his wife
In 1971, Cushing withdrew from the film Blood from the Mummy's Tomb when his wife died (Hammer stalwart Andrew Keir inherited the role). He and actress Helen Beck had been married since 1943. The following year, he was quoted in the Radio Times as saying "Since Helen passed on I can't find anything; the heart, quite simply, has gone out of everything. Time is interminable, the loneliness is almost unbearable and the only thing that keeps me going is the knowledge that my dear Helen and I will be united again some day. To join Helen is my only ambition. You have my permission to publish that... really, you know dear boy, it's all just killing time. Please say that."[citation needed]
Six years later, his feelings were unchanged: "When Helen passed on six years ago I lost the only joy in life that I ever wanted. She was my whole life and without her there is no meaning. I am simply killing time, so to speak, until that wonderful day when we are together again."[citation needed]
In his autobiography, he says he attempted suicide the night that Helen died, by running up and down stairs in the vain hope that it would induce a heart attack.
In 1986, Cushing appeared on the British TV show Jim'll Fix It. His "wish", "granted" by Jimmy Savile, was to have a strain of rose named after his late wife. Cushing's letter to the show, in copperplate handwriting, was shown, as was the identification and naming of a rose named "Helen Cushing" ([1]).
Star Wars
In 1976, he was cast in Star Wars, which was shooting at Elstree Studios, Boreham Wood, London. He appeared as one of his (now) most recognized characters, Grand Moff Tarkin despite having originally been considered for the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Cushing found accepting the role in a science fiction fantasy easy. "My criterion for accepting a role isn't based on what I would like to do. I try to consider what the audience would like to see me do and I thought kids would adore Star Wars."
Costuming difficulties resulted in an endearing piece of trivia about Star Wars. He was presented with ill-fitting riding boots for the Moff Tarkin role and they pinched his feet so much that he was given permission by George Lucas to play the role wearing his slippers. The camera operators filmed him above the knees or standing behind the table of the conference room set. Also, during filming of Star Wars, a star-struck Carrie Fisher found it hard to deliver her lines to him and seem terrified in the presence of a charming, polished man who smelled of 'linen and lavender' when in their first scene together, her character speaks of Cushing's as having a 'foul stench'.
For Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, George Lucas wanted Cushing, now deceased, to reprise his role as Tarkin through the use of archive footage and digital technology, but poor film quality made this impossible. Instead, Wayne Pygram took the role, though he underwent extensive prosthetic makeup for his brief cameo.
Later career
After Star Wars, he continued appearing in films and television sporadically, as his health allowed. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer but without surgery managed to survive several years, though his health was precarious.
In 1989 Cushing was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire. He retired to Whitstable, where he had bought a seafront house in 1959, and continued his hobby of birdwatching, and to write two autobiographies. Cushing also worked as a painter, specializing in watercolors, and wrote and illustrated a children's book of Lewis Carroll style humor, The Bois Saga.
His final professional engagement was as co-narrator of Flesh and Blood, the Hammer Heritage of Horror, produced by American writer/director Ted Newsom. As co-narrator, Cushing thus took his "last bow" with friend Christopher Lee, the BBC and Hammer Films. The narration was recorded in Canterbury near Cushing's home. The show was first broadcast in 1994, the week before Cushing's death from cancer in a Canterbury hospice, aged 81.
Lee remarked on his friend's death: "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. That person is so close to you that you are able to share some things only with him. 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. We used to do that with him so often. And then when that person is gone, there will be nothing like that in your life ever again".
Selected Filmography
* Hamlet (1948)
* The Curse of Frankenstein (1956)
* The Abominable Snowman Of The Himalayas (1957)
* The Horror of Dracula (1958)
* The Revenge Of Frankenstein (1958)
* The Mummy (1959)
* The Hound Of The Baskervilles (1959)
* The Brides of Dracula (1960)
* The Gorgon (1964)
* The Evil Of Frankenstein (1964)
* Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965)
* Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965)
* Daleks — Invasion Earth 2150 AD (1966)
* Island of Terror (1966)
* Frankenstein Created Woman (1967)
* The Torture Garden (1967)
* Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969)
* The Vampire Lovers (1970)
* The House That Dripped Blood (1971)
* Tales From The Crypt (1972)
* Asylum (1972)
* Dracula AD 1972 (1972)
* Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972)
* From Beyond the Grave (1973)
* Horror Express
* The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973)
* Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell (1974)
* The Beast Must Die (1974)
* The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974)
* Shock Waves (1977)
* Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977)
* House of the Long Shadows (1983)
* The Masks of Death (1984)
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