Peter Wilton Cushing (26 May 1913 – 11 August 1994) was an English actor. His acting career spanned over six decades and included appearances in more than 100 films, as well as many television, stage and radio roles. He achieved recognition for his leading performances in the Hammer Productions horror films from the 1950s to 1970s and as Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars (1977).
Born in Kenley, Surrey, Cushing made his stage debut in 1935 and spent three years at a repertory theatre before moving to Hollywood to pursue a film career. After making his motion-picture debut in the film The Man in the Iron Mask (1939), Cushing began to find modest success in American films before returning to England at the outbreak of the Second World War. Despite performing in a string of roles, including one as Osric in Laurence Olivier's film adaptation of Hamlet (1948), Cushing struggled to find work during this period. 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. He earned particular acclaim for his lead performance as Winston Smith in a BBC adaptation of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (1954).
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. Cushing often appeared alongside the actor Christopher Lee, who became one of his closest friends, and occasionally with the American horror star Vincent Price. Cushing appeared in several other Hammer films, including The Abominable Snowman (1957), The Mummy and The Hound of the Baskervilles (both 1959), the last of which marked the first of the several occasions he portrayed the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. Cushing continued to perform in a variety of roles, although he was often typecast as a horror film actor. He played Dr. Who in Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965) and Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (1966), and became even better known through his part in the original Star Wars film. Cushing continued acting into the early to mid-1990s and wrote two autobiographies.
Early life Peter Wilton Cushing was born in Kenley, then a village in the English county of Surrey, on 26 May 1913 to George Edward Cushing (1881–1956) and Nellie Marie (née King) Cushing (1882–1961). His father, a quantity surveyor, was a reserved and uncommunicative man who Peter said he never got to know very well. His mother was the daughter of a carpet merchant and considered of a lower class than her husband.Cushing, Peter. Peter Cushing: An Autobiography and Past Forgetting (1999). Midnight Marquee. pp. 13—17. . Cushing's family consisted of several stage actors, including his paternal grandfather, Henry William Cushing (who toured with Henry Irving),Barker, Dennis and Malcolm, Dennis (12 August 1994). "Horrormeister Cushing belonged to gentlemanly school of actors". The Gazette: p. D2. his paternal aunt Maude Cushing (his father's sister) and his step-uncle Wilton Herriot, after whom Peter Cushing received his middle name.
The Cushing family lived in Dulwich during the First World War, but moved to Purley after the war ended in 1918. Although raised during wartime, Cushing was too young to understand or become greatly affected by it, and was shielded from the horrors of war by his mother, who encouraged him to play games under the kitchen table whenever the threat of possible bombings arose. In his infancy, Cushing twice developed pneumonia and once what was then known as "double pneumonia". The latter was often fatal during that period, although he survived.Cushing, p. 28 During one Christmas in his youth, Cushing saw a stage production of Peter Pan, which served as an early source of inspiration and interest in acting.Cushing, p. 19 Cushing loved dressing up and make believe from an early age, and later claimed he always wanted to be an actor, "perhaps without knowing at first."Cushing, p. 30 A fan of comics and toy collectibles in his youth, Cushing earned money by staging puppet shows for family members with his glove-puppets and toys.Cushing, p. 21
He began his early education in Dulwich, south London, before attending Shoreham Grammar School in Shoreham-by-Sea, on the Sussex coast between Brighton and Worthing. Prone to homesickness, he was miserable at the boarding school and spent only one term there before returning home.Cushing, p. 24 He attended Purley County Grammar School, where he swam and played cricket and rugby. With the exception of art, Cushing was a self-proclaimed poor student in most subjects and had little attention span for that which did not interest him. He got fair grades only through the help of his brother, a strong student who did his homework for him. Cushing harboured aspirations for the arts all throughout his youth, especially acting. His childhood inspiration was Tom Mix, an American film actor and star of many Western films.Star Wars Insider 37, "Peter Cushing: Charming to the Last" by Constantine Nasr D.J. 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. He 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.Cushing, p. 35—37
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. Instead, seizing upon Cushing's interest in art and drawing, he got his son a job as a surveyor's assistant in the drawing department of the Coulsdon and Purley Urban District Council's surveyor's office during the summer of 1933. Cushing hated the job, where he remained for three years without promotion or advancement due to his lack of ambition in the profession. The only enjoyment he got out of it was drawing perspectives 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."
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,Cushing, pp. 37—41 George Kelly's The Torch-Bearers, and The Red Umbrella, by Brenda Girvin and Monica Cosens.Cushing, pp. 45—49 Cushing often learned and practised his lines in an attic at work, under the guise that he was putting ordnance survey maps into order. 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.
Career Early films and acting Cushing eventually applied for a scholarship at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London."Horror actor Peter Cushing dead at age 81" (12 August 1994). Bangor Daily News. p. C10. His first audition was before the actor Allan Aynesworth, who was so unimpressed with Cushing's manner of speech that he rejected him outright and insisted he not return until he improved his diction.Payne, Graham (June 1958). "The star who never grew up". New Zealand Home Journal. Cushing continued to pursue a scholarship, writing twenty-one letters to the school, until the actor and theatre-manager Bill Fraser finally agreed to meet Cushing in 1935 simply so he could ask him in person to stop writing. During that meeting, Cushing was given a walk-on part as a courier in that night's production of J. B. Priestley's Cornelius. This marked his professional stage debut, although he had no lines and did little more than stand on stage behind other actors. Afterward, he was granted the scholarship and given odd jobs around the theatre, such as selling refreshments and working as an assistant stage manager.
One of his earliest professional stage performances was in 1935 as Captain Randall in Ian Hay's The Middle Watch at the Connaught Theatre in Worthing."Horror-film actor Peter Cushing dies at 81, Played variety of roles – From Sherlock Holmes to Baron Frankenstein" (12 August 1994). Salt Lake Tribune: p. A5. 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. He spent the next three years in an apprenticeship at Southampton Rep., auditioning for character roles both there and in other surrounding theatres, eventually amassing almost 100 individual parts.Earnshaw, p. 3 While he was in Southampton, he met an 18-year-old fellow actor, Doreen Lawrence, and they were engaged to be married. Lawrence broke off the engagement, citing his frequent crying and bringing his parents on dates.
Soon, he felt the urge to pursue a film career in the United States. In 1939, his father bought him a one-way ticket to Hollywood, where he moved with only £50 to his name. 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. 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.Cushing, pp. 56—58 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. 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 Cushing's work cut from the film altogether. Although the job meant Cushing received no actual screen time, he was eventually cast in a bit part as the king's messenger, which made The Man in the Iron Mask his official film debut.Monush, Barry (2003). The Encyclopedia of Hollywood Film Actors: From the Silent Era to 1965 (1 vol.). Berkeley, California: Applause Books. p. 166. . The small role involved sword-fighting and, although Cushing had no experience with fencing, he told Whale he was an excellent fencer to ensure he got the part. 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.