Peter Cushing

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's family consisted of several stage actors, including his paternal grandfather, Henry William Cushing (who toured with Henry Irving), 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. 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 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." 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.

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. 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. 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.

Career

Early films and acting

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

Return to England and theatrical work

Cushing returned to England during the Second World War. Although some childhood injuries prevented him from serving on active duty, a friend suggested he entertain the troops by performing as part of the Entertainments National Service Association. In 1942, the Noël Coward play Private Lives was touring the military stations and hospitals in the British Isles, and the actor playing the lead role of Elyot Chase was called to service. 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. During this tour he met Violet Hélène "Helen" Beck, a former dancer who was starring in the lead female role of Amanda Prynne. They fell in love and were married on 10 April 1943. Cushing eventually had to leave ENSA due to lung congestion, an ailment his wife helped him recover from. The two had little money around this time, and Cushing had to collect from both National Assistance and the Actors' Benevolent Fund. Cushing struggled to find work during this period, with some plays he was cast in failing to even make it past rehearsals into theatres. Others closed after a few showings, like an ambitious five-hour stage adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace that opened and closed in 1943 at the Phoenix Theatre in London.

Cushing recorded occasional radio spots and appeared in week-long stints as a featured player at the Q Theatre, but otherwise work was difficult to come by. He 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. The war years continued to prove difficult for him, however, and at one point he was forced to work designing ladies' headscarves at a Macclesfield-based silk manufacturer to make ends meet. In the autumn of 1946, after the war ended, Cushing unsuccessfully auditioned for the part of Paul Verrall in a stage production of the play Born Yesterday that was being staged by the famed actor and director Laurence Olivier. He was not cast because he insisted he could not perform in an American accent. After Cushing attempted the accent and failed, Olivier replied, "Well, I appreciate you not wasting my time. I shall remember you." Nearing middle age and finding it increasingly harder to make a living in acting, Cushing began to consider himself a failure.

In 1947, when Olivier sought him out for his film adaptation of Hamlet, Cushing's wife Helen pushed him to pursue a role. Far from being deterred by Cushing's unsuccessful audition the year before, Olivier remembered the actor well and was happy to cast him, but the only character left unfilled was the relatively small part of the foppish courtier Osric. Cushing accepted the role, and Hamlet (1948) marked his British film debut. One of Cushing's primary scenes involved Osric talking to Hamlet and Horatio while walking down a wide stone spiral stairway. The set provided technical difficulties, and all of Cushing's lines had to be post-synched. Cushing had recently undergone dental surgery and he was trying not to open his mouth widely for fear of spitting. When this hindered the post-synching process, Olivier leaned in close to Cushing's face and said, "Now drown me. It'll be a glorious death, so long as I can hear what you're saying."

Success in television and major films

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. Nevertheless, he continued to appear in several small roles in radio, theatre and film. Among them was the John Huston film Moulin Rouge (1952) in which he played a racing spectator named Marcel de la Voisier appearing with José Ferrer, who played the artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. During this discouraging period for Cushing, his wife encouraged him to seek roles in television, which was beginning to develop in England. She suggested he should 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 Cushing was hired to complement the cast of a string of major theatre successes that were being adapted to live television. The first was J.B. Priestley's Eden End, which was televised in December 1951. Over the next three years, he became one of the most active and favoured names in British television, and was considered a pioneer in British television drama.

He earned praise for playing the lead male role of Mr. Darcy in an early BBC Television serialisation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (1952). Other successful television ventures during this time included Epitaph for a Spy (1953), The Noble Spaniard, Beau Brummell, Portrait by Peko, and Anastasia, the latter of which won Cushing the Daily Mail National Television Award for Best Actor of 1953–54. 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. The production proved to be controversial, resulting in death threats for the director Rudolph Cartier and causing Cushing to be vilified for appearing in such "filth." Parliament even considered a motion immediately after the first screening to ban the play's live repeat. Nevertheless, a second televised production was filmed and aired, and Cushing eventually drew both critical praise and acting awards, further cementing his reputation as one of Britain's biggest television stars. Cushing felt his first performance was much stronger than the second, but the second production is the only known surviving version.

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. He also won best actor awards from the Guild of Television Producers in 1955, and from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 1956. Among the plays he appeared in during this time were Terence Rattigan's The Browning Version, Gordon Daviot's Richard of Bordeaux, and the production of Nigel Kneale's The Creature (1955), the latter of which Cushing starred in film adaptation released in 1957. Despite this continued success in live television, Cushing found the medium too stressful and wished to return to film. Cinematic roles proved somewhat difficult to find, however, as film producers were often resentful of television stars for drawing audiences away from the cinema.

Hammer Frankenstein films

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. Cushing, who enjoyed the tale as a child, had his agent John Redway inform the company of Cushing's interest in playing the protagonist, Baron Victor Frankenstein. The studio executives were anxious to have Cushing; in fact, the Hammer co-founder James Carreras had been unsuccessfully courting Cushing for film roles in other projects even before his major success with Nineteen Eighty-Four. Cushing was about twenty years older than Baron Frankenstein as he appeared in the original novel, but that did not deter the filmmakers. Cushing was cast in the lead role of The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), marking the first of twenty-two films he made for Hammer. He later said that his career decisions entailed selecting roles where he knew that he would be accepted by the audience. "Who wants to see me as Hamlet? Very few. But millions want to see me as [Baron] Frankenstein, so that's the one I do." The film critic Roger Ebert described Cushing's work in the Hammer films: "[Cushing is] the one in all those British horror films, standing between Vincent Price and Christopher Lee. His dialog usually runs along the lines of, 'But good heavens, man! The person you saw has been dead for more than two centuries!'"

Unlike the 1931 Frankenstein produced by Universal, the Hammer films revolved mainly around Victor Frankenstein, rather than his monster. The screenwriter Jimmy Sangster wrote the protagonist as an ambitious, egotistical and coldly intellectual scientist who despised his contemporaries. Unlike the character from the novel and past film versions, Cushing's Baron Frankenstein commits vicious crimes to attain his goals, including the murder of a colleague to obtain a brain for his creature. The Curse of Frankenstein also featured Christopher Lee, who played Frankenstein's monster. Cushing and Lee became extremely close friends, and remained so for the rest of Cushing's life. They first met on the set of the film, where Lee was still wearing the monster make-up prepared by Phil Leakey. Hammer Studios' publicity department put out a story that when Cushing first encountered Lee without the make-up on, he screamed in terror.

Cushing so valued preparation for his role that he insisted on being trained by a surgeon to learn how to wield a scalpel authentically. Shot in dynamic colour with a £65,000-budget, the film became known for its heavy usage of gore and sexual content. As a result, while the film did well at the box-office with its target audience, it drew mixed to negative reviews from the critics. Most, however, were complimentary of Cushing's performance, claiming it added a layer of distinction and credibility to the film. Many felt Cushing's performance helped create the archetypal mad scientist character. The Picturegoer writer Margaret Hinxman, who was not complimentary of Lee's performance, praised Cushing and wrote of the film: "Although this shocker may not have created much of a monster, it may well have created something more lasting: a star!" Donald F. Glut, a writer and filmmaker who wrote a book about the portrayals of Frankenstein, said the inner warmth of Cushing's off-screen personality was apparent on-screen even despite the horrific elements of Frankenstein, which helped to add a layer of likability.

Hammer Dracula films

When Hammer sought to adapt Bram Stoker's classic vampire novel Dracula, they cast Cushing to play the vampire's adversary Doctor Van Helsing. 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. 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 Cushing once again starring opposite Lee, who played the title character, although Cushing was given top billing. During filming, Cushing himself suggested the staging for the final confrontation scene, in which Van Helsing leaps onto a large library table, opens window curtains to weaken Dracula with sunlight, then uses two candlesticks as a makeshift crucifix to drive the vampire into the sunlight. As with the Frankenstein film, critics largely disliked Dracula because of its violence and sexual content, deeming it inferior to the 1931 Universal version.

In 1959, Cushing agreed to reprise the role of Van Helsing in the sequel, The Brides of Dracula (1960). Before filming began, however, Cushing said he had reservations about the screenplay written by Jimmy Sangster and Peter Bryan. As a result, the playwright Edward Percy was brought in to make modifications to the script, though the rewrites pushed filming into early 1960 and brought additional costs to the production. For the sequel, Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966), which marked Lee's return to the title role for the first time since 1958, Cushing granted permission for archival footage featuring him to be used in the opening scene, a reprisal of the climax from the first Dracula film. In exchange, Hammer's James Carreras thanked Cushing by paying for extensive roofing repair work that had recently been done on Cushing's recently purchased Whitstable home. Cushing appeared in Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972), a Hammer modernisation of the Dracula story set in the then-present day. Lee once again starred as Dracula. 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. Thereafter the action jumps ahead to 1972, and Cushing plays the original character's grandson for the bulk of the movie. Cushing performed many of his own stunts in Dracula A.D. 1972, which included tumbling off a haywagon during a fight with Dracula. Christopher Neame, who also starred in the film, said he was particularly impressed with Cushing's agility and fitness, considering his age. 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. Around the same time, Cushing played the original nineteenth-century Van Helsing in The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (also 1974), a co-production between Hammer Studios and the Shaw Brothers Studio, which brought Chinese martial arts into the Dracula story. In that film, Cushing's Van Helsing travels to the Chinese city Chongqing, where Count Dracula is heading a vampire cult.

Other Hammer roles

Although most well known for his roles in the Frankenstein and Dracula films, Cushing appeared in a wide variety of other Hammer productions during this time. Both he and his wife feared that he would become typecast into horror roles, but he continued to take them because they guaranteed regular work. He appeared in the horror film The Abominable Snowman (1957), a Hammer adaptation of a BBC Nigel Kneale television play The Creature (1955) which Cushing had also starred in. He portrayed an English botanist searching the Himalayas for the legendary Yeti. The 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". 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. 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. 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 promotional image. During filming, he asked the director Terence Fisher for permission to drive a harpoon through the mummy's body during a fight scene to explain the poster image. Fisher agreed, and the scene was used in the film.

Around the same time, he portrayed the detective Sherlock Holmes in the Hammer production of The Hound of the Baskervilles (also 1959), an adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's novel of the same name. He again co-starred opposite Lee, who portrayed the aristocratic Sir Henry Baskerville. A fan of Sherlock Holmes, Cushing was highly anxious to play the character, and reread the novels in anticipation of the role. 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. However, when the producer Anthony Hinds proposed removing the character's deerstalker, Cushing insisted they should remain because audiences associated Holmes with his headgear and pipes. He prepared extensively for the role, studying the novel and taking notes in his script. He scrutinised the costumes and screenwriter Peter Bryan's script, often altering words or phrases. Lee later claimed to be awestruck by Cushing's ability to incorporate many different props and actions into his performance simultaneously, whether reading, smoking a pipe, drinking whiskey, filing through papers, or other things while portraying Holmes. In later years, Cushing considered his Holmes performance one of the finest accomplishments of his career. He drew generally mixed reviews: Film Daily called it a "tantalising performance" and Time Out's David Pirie called it "one of his very best performances", while the Monthly Film Bulletin called him "tiresomely mannered and too lightweight" and BBC Television's Barry Norman said he "didn't quite capture the air of know-all arrogance that was the great detective's hallmark". The Hound of the Baskervilles was originally conceived as the first in a series of Sherlock Holmes films, but no sequels were made.

Non-Hammer film work

Although best known for his Hammer performances from the 1950s to the 1970s, Cushing worked in a variety of other roles during this time, and actively sought roles outside the horror genre to diversify his work. In an interview published in ABC Film Review in November 1964, Cushing stated, "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." In an interview published in 1966, he added, "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 continued to perform in occasional stage productions, such as Robert E. MacEnroe's The Silver Whistle at Westminster's Duchess Theatre in 1956. Around the same time he appeared in the film Alexander the Great (1956) as the Athenian General Memnon of Rhodes. In 1959 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 Cushing, who had to drop out of the play and resolved to never again attempt a film and play simultaneously.

He appeared in the biographical epic film John Paul Jones (1959), in which Robert Stack played the title role of the American naval fighter in the American Revolutionary War. Cushing became very ill with dysentery during filming and lost a considerable amount of weight as a result. Cushing played Robert Knox in The Flesh and the Fiends (1960), based on the true story of the doctor who purchased human corpses for research from the serial killer duo Burke and Hare. Cushing had previously stated Knox was one of his role models in developing his portrayal of Baron Frankenstein. The film was called Mania in its American release. 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. 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. In 1965 Cushing appeared in the Ben Travers farce play Thark at Garrick Theatre in Westminster. It was his final stage performance for a decade, but he continued to stay active in film and television during this period.

Cushing took the lead role in two science fiction films by AARU Productions based on the British television series Doctor Who. 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. Cushing played the role in Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965) and Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (1966).

Star Wars

The American filmmaker George Lucas approached Cushing with the hopes of casting him in his upcoming space fantasy film, Star Wars. Since the film's primary antagonist, Darth Vader, wore a mask throughout the entire film and his face was never visible, Lucas felt that a strong human villain character was necessary. This led him to write the character of Grand Moff Tarkin: a high-ranking Imperial governor and commander of the planet-destroying battle station the Death Star. Lucas felt a talented actor was needed to play the role and said Cushing was his first choice. However, Cushing 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. He said he would have preferred to play Kenobi rather than Tarkin but could not have done so because he was to be filming other roles when Star Wars was shooting, and Tarkin's scenes took less time to film than those of the larger Kenobi role. Although he was not a particular fan of science fiction, Cushing accepted the part because he believed his audience would love Star Wars and enjoy seeing him in the film.

Cushing joined the cast in May 1976, and his scenes were filmed at Elstree Studios in Borehamwood. Along with Sir Alec Guinness, who was ultimately cast as Kenobi, he was among the best-known actors at the time to appear in Star Wars, as the rest of the cast were then relatively unknown. As a result, he was paid a larger daily salary than most of his fellow cast, earning £2,000 per day compared to weekly salaries of US$1,000 for Mark Hamill, $850 for Carrie Fisher, and $750 for Harrison Ford, who played the protagonists Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia and Han Solo. When 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. Like Guinness, he had difficulty with some of the technical jargon in his dialogue and claimed he did not understand all of the words he was speaking, later joking that "Grand Moff" sounded like "something which infests a clothes closet". Nevertheless, he worked hard to master his lines so that they sounded natural and that Tarkin, whom he described as a "deeply cross and unpleasant gentleman", came across as an intelligent and confident character.

Cushing got along well with the entire cast, especially his old Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell co-star David Prowse, who physically portrayed Darth Vader, and Carrie Fisher, who was appearing in her first major role as Princess Leia. 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. Cushing consciously attempted to define their characters as opposite representations of good and evil, and he purposely stood in the shadows so the light shone on Fisher's face. Fisher said she liked Cushing so much that it was difficult to act as though she hated Tarkin, and she had to substitute somebody else in her mind to muster the feelings. Although one of her lines referred to Tarkin's "foul stench," she said Cushing smelt like "linen and lavender," something Cushing attributed to his tendency to wash and brush his teeth thoroughly before filming because of his self-consciousness about bad breath.

Later career

Towards the end of his career, Cushing performed in films and roles critics widely considered below his talent. The American filmmaker John Carpenter approached him to appear in the horror film Halloween (1978) as Samuel Loomis, the psychiatrist of the murderer Michael Myers, but Cushing turned down the role. It was also turned down by Christopher Lee, and eventually went to Donald Pleasence, another of Cushing's former co-stars. Cushing appeared alongside his old co-stars Lee and Vincent Price in House of the Long Shadows (1983), a horror-parody film featuring Desi Arnaz Jr. as an author trying to write a gothic novel in a deserted Welsh mansion.

Cushing appeared in the television film The Masks of Death (1984), marking both the last time he played Sherlock Holmes and the final performance for which he received top billing. He appeared alongside the British actor John Mills as Dr. Watson, and the two were noted by critics for their strong chemistry and camaraderie. As both actors were in their seventies, the screenwriter N.J. Crisp and the executive producer Kevin Francis both in turn sought to portray them as two old-fashioned men in a rapidly changing world. Cushing's biographer Tony Earnshaw said Cushing's performance in The Masks of Death was arguably his best interpretation of the role, calling it "the culmination of a life-time as a Holmes fan, and more than a quarter of a century of preparation to play the most complex of characters". The final notable roles of Cushing's career were in the comedy Top Secret! (1984), the fantasy film Sword of the Valiant (also 1984) and the adventure film Biggles: Adventures in Time (1986). In 1986 he appeared on the British television show Jim'll Fix It, hosted by Jimmy Savile, in which it was arranged for the wishes of guests to be granted. Cushing wished for a strain of rose to be named after his late wife, and it was arranged for the Helen Cushing Rose to be grown at the Wheatcroft Rose Garden in Edwalton, Nottinghamshire.

During this period, Cushing was honoured by the British Film Institute, which invited him in 1986 to give a lecture at the National Film Theatre. He also staged An Evening with Peter Cushing at St Edmund's School Canterbury to raise money for the local Cancer Care Unit. In 1987, a watercolour painting 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 Cushing drew of Sherlock Holmes was accepted as the official logo of the Northern Musgraves Sherlock Holmes Society.

Personal life

Cushing had a variety of interests outside acting, including collecting and battling model soldiers, of which he owned over five thousand. He hand-painted many and used the Little Wars rule set by the English writer H. G. Wells for miniature wargaming. He also loved games and practical jokes, and enjoyed drawing and painting watercolours, the latter of which he did often in his later years.

After his wife's death, Cushing visited several churches and spoke to religious ministers, but was dissatisfied by their reluctance to discuss death and the afterlife, and never joined an organised religion. He nevertheless maintained a belief in both God and an afterlife, and even stated that “I suppose in a way it is possible that I was pre-ordained to play Van Helsing. For although I am not a religious man, I do try to live by Christian ethics and I believe in the truth as set forth in the New Testament. I can see so many of the elements of good and evil in life, and this seemed to give me added strength in my screen battles with the powers of darkness.” He was an ardent vegetarian for most of his life and served as a patron with the Vegetarian Society from 1987 until his death. He also had a great interest in ornithology and wildlife in general. He suffered from nyctophobia (a fear of the dark) from early in his life, but in his later years, he overcame this by forcing himself to take walks outside after midnight.

Cushing was known among his colleagues for his gentle and gentlemanly demeanour, as well as his professionalism and rigorous preparation as an actor. He once said that he learned his parts "from cover to cover" before filming began. His co-stars and colleagues often spoke of his politeness, charm, old-fashioned manners and sense of humour. While working, he actively provided feedback and suggestions on other elements beyond his performance, such as dialogue and wardrobe. At times, this put him at odds with writers and producers; the Hammer producer Anthony Hinds once declared him a "fusspot [and] terrible fusser about his wardrobe and everything, but never a difficult man."

Although he appeared in both television and stage productions, Cushing preferred the medium of film, which allowed his perfectionist nature to work out the best performance possible. 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. 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. Nevertheless, Cushing was very proud of his experiences with the Hammer films, and never resented becoming known as a horror actor. He 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.

Death and legacy

In May 1982 Cushing was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He was rushed to Kent and Canterbury Hospital, where his doctors determined he had twelve to eighteen months to live; however, Cushing recovered well enough to be released from the hospital, and although his health continued gradually to decline, he lived another twelve years without any operative treatment or chemotherapy. During this period, he lived with Joyce Broughton and her family at their homes in Hartley, Kent.

In August 1994 Cushing entered himself into Pilgrims Hospice in Canterbury, where he died on 11 August at the age of 81. In accordance with his wishes he had a low-profile funeral with family and friends, although hundreds of fans and well-wishers came to Canterbury to pay their respects. In January 1995 a memorial service was held in The Actors' Church in Covent Garden, with addresses given by Christopher Lee, Kevin Francis, Ron Moody and James Bree.

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

In an interview included on the DVD release of The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959), Lee said of his friend Cushing'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. Several filmmakers and actors have cited Cushing as an influence, including Doug Bradley, who played Pinhead in the Hellraiser horror films, and John Carpenter, who directed such films as Halloween (1978), Escape from New York (1981) and The Thing (1982). The director Tim Burton and the 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.

In 2008, fourteen years after his death, Cushing's image was used in a set of stamps issued by Royal Mail honouring Hammer Studios films on the fiftieth anniversary of the release of Dracula. In 2013 Cushing was honoured by Royal Mail as one of ten individuals selected for their "Great Britons" commemorative postage stamp issue.

Filmography