Peter Cushing

"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."

- Peter Cushing

Peter Wilton Cushing (May 26, 1913–August 11, 1994) was the actor who played Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin in A New Hope. He was best known for his work in horror films produced by Hammer Studios, as well as some other British B-movies. These films often had him collaborating with his good friend and frequent co-star Christopher Lee, who played Count Dooku in Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: The Clone Wars. In another Hammer Studios Film, Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell, Peter Cushing plays Dr. Victor aka Dr. Frankenstein. The Monster he creates in the film is played by David Prowse who would later play Darth Vader in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi.

Early life and career
Peter Cushing was born in Kenley, England on May 26, 1913, to George Edward Cushing and Nellie Marie Cushing, nee King. His father was a quantity surveyor, and Cushing himself worked briefly as a surveyor's assistant for the local council, but he harbored aspirations for the arts from a young age, especially acting. His childhood inspiration was Tom Mix, an American film actor and star of many Western films. Cushing earned a scholarship to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. He made his stage debut in 1935, and spent three years in an apprenticeship at a repertory theater before 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 made his film debut in the 1939 film 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. Cushing was actually 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. However, Cushing was also cast in a bit part himself as the king's messenger. in 1940, Cushing appeared in the comedy film A Chump at Oxford, which featured the classic duo Laurel and Hardy. Later that year, he appeared in Vigil in the Night, a drama film about a nurse (played by Carole Lombard in a poorly-equipped country hospital. Cushing played Joe Shand, the husband of the Lombard character's sister, a role which director and screenwriter George Stevens wrote specifically for Cushing. The performance drew critical praise for the actor.

Cushing, who was starting to grow homesick for England, returned to the country during World War II. Although a childhood injury prevented him from serving on active duty, he acted and entertained the troops as part of the Entertainments National Service Association. in 1942, he played the lead role of Elyot Chase in a stage production of the Noel Coward play Private Lives, where he met Helen Beck, who was starring in the leading female role. They were married in 1943. After the war ended, Cushing became a star in Old Vic, a repertory theater company led by actor Laurence Olivier. When Olivier sought out to adapt the William Shakespeare play Hamlet into a film, it was his wife Helen that pushed Cushing to pursue a role. Olivier was happy to cast him, but the only character left uncast was the relatively small part of the foppish courtier Osric. Cushing accepted the role, and Hamlet (1948) marked his British film debut. It went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, and earned Cushing praise for his performance. Also appearing in the film was Christopher Lee, who would eventually become a close friend and frequent co-star with Cushing, and would later go on to portray Count Dooku in Attack of the Clones (2002) and Revenge of the Sith (2005).

Cushing worked in several small film roles over the next few years. Among them was the 1952 John Huston film Moulin Rouge, where he played a racing spectator named Marcel de la Voisier appearing opposite star José Ferrer, who played the artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Cushing moved back to Britain in 1952, after spending the past several years traveling back and forth between there and the United States for different acting jobs. Nearing middle age and finding difficulty making a living in acting, Cushing was forced to design ladies head-scarves to make ends meet and began to consider himself a failure. During this period, his wife encouraged him to seek roles in television, which was onl just starting to grow in popularity in England. The move proved to be a wise one, reviving Cushing's struggling career and landing him many prime roles. He became extremely active in live television, and was considered something of a pioneer in television drama.

He played the lead male role of Fitzwilliam Darcy in the BBC's 1952 television miniseries production of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. But his largest television success of the period was the leading role of Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four, the 1954 British television adaptation of George Orwell's classic novel of the same name about a totalitarian socialist regime. The production would prove to be controversial, and his portrayal was so vivid that questions began to be asked in Parliament after the first screening. Nevertheless, the performance drew him both critical praise and acting awards, and he became known as one of Britain's biggest television stars.

Cushing appeared in the 1955 film adaptation of the Graham Greene novel The End of the Affair. He played the central role of Henry Miles, and important civil servant and the cuckolded husband of Sarah Miles, played by Deborah Kerr. Cushing won a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in 1956.

Fame from Hammer Studios roles
In 1957, at age 45, Cushing appeared as the protagonist Baron Victor Frankenstein in The Curse of Frankenstein, marking the first of several horror films produced by Hammer Studios in which he would star. His Frankenstein, an intellectual scientist whose intentions are misunderstood by villagers and bystanders, helped created the archetypical mad scientist character. His old Hamlet film co-star and friend Christopher Lee played Frankenstein's monster in the film. Cushing so valued preparation for his role that he insisted on being trained by a surgeon to learn how to wield a scalpel authentically. Cushing and Lee both achieved a fame they had never previously known with The Curse of Frankenstein, and both their names become synonymous with Hammer Studios as a result of the success.

Cushing went on to star in several other Hammer Studios films, most of which were noted for their verbose dialogue and bloodiness. He played Baron Victor Frankenstein in five sequels. In The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958), his protagonist is sentence to death by guillotine, but he flees and hides under the alias Dr. Stein. He returned for The Evil of Frankenstien (1963) and Frankenstein Created Woman (1967), in which the Frankenstein's monster was reincarnated as a woman played by Playboy magazine centerfold model Susan Denberg. Cushing played the lead role twice more in Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969) and Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1970), In the latter film, Cushing portrayed the Frankenstein doctor as completely mad, a departure from the previous movies. Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell featured David Prowse as the monster; the actor would later go on to play Darth Vader alongside Cushing in ''Star Wars (1977).

Cushing played Dr. Van Helsing, the arch-enemy of Bram Stocker's classic vampire character Count Dracula, the Hammer films in Dracula (1958), and The Brides of Dracula (1960). In 1972 he played Lorrimer Van Helsing, a descendant of the original Dr. Lawrence Van Helsing in Dracula AD 1972, a Hammer modernization of the Dracula story set in a then-present day 1970s setting. Lee once again starred as Dracula. Cushing and Lee both reprised their respective Dracula roles in the 1974 sequel The Satanic Rites of Dracula, which was known in the United States as Count Dracula and his Vampire Bride. Also that year, Cushing played Lawrence 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.

Other work from Hammer period
Although widely known for his performances in Hammer Studios horror films from the late-1950s to the late-1970s, Cushing continued to work in a variety of other performances during this time. He portrayed the famous detective Sherlock Holmes in the 1959 Hammer Studios production of The Hound of the Baskervilles, an adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's novel of the same name. He once again co-starred opposite Christopher Lee, who portrayed Sir Henry Baskerville in the film. Although the studio opted not to create a Sherlock Holmes series, Cushing would go on to play the character again in television series Sherlock Holmes in 1967, and in the 1984 film The Masks of Death.

Cushing appeared in the 1959 biographical epic film John Paul Jones, in which Robert Stack played the title role of the American naval fighter in the American Revolutionary War. In 1960, Cushing played Robert Knox in The Flesh and the Fiends, based on the true story of a doctor who purchases human corpses for research from the serial murder duo Burke and Hare. The film was called Mania in its American release. He also appeared in The Naked Edge, a 1961 British-American thriller film starring Gary Cooper and Deborah Karr.

During this period, Cushing continued to appear in Hammer Studios films that involved characters other than his Frankenstein and Dracula standards. He played the Sheriff of Nottingham in the 1960 Hammer adventure film Sword of Sherwood Forest, which starred Richard Greene as the legendary outlaw Robin Hood. Cushing starred as an Ebenezer Scrooge-like bank manager in the 1961 Hammer thriller film Cash on Demand. Cushing considered this among the favorites of his films. In 1962, he appeared in the Hammer Studios film Captain Clegg, known in the United States as Night Creatures. Cushing starred as the local reverend of an 18th century English coastal town believed to be hiding his smuggling activities with reports of ghosts.

In 1965, he portrayed Dr. Who in two science-fiction films by AARU Productions based on the cult British television series, Doctor Who. Although Cushing's protagonist was based on the Doctor from that series, his character was fundamentally different, most especially in the fact that Cushing's Dr. Who was a human, whereas the original Doctor was extraterrestrial. Cushing played the role in Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965) and Daleks' Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D.

His wife Helen Beck died in 1971, and Cushing was devastated by the loss. He sought therapy by burying himself in his work, and filmed twelve films in a twelve-month period after her death. In 1972, Cushing starred alongside Vincent Price in Dr. Phibes Rises Again!, a sequel to the 1971 film The Abominable Dr. Phibes. In 1975, Cushing starred in the British horror film Land of the Minotaur. He played Baron Corofax, the evil leader of a Satanic cult opposed by a priest played by Donald Pleasence.

Star Wars
Peter Cushing played Wilhuff Tarkin at Elstree Studios. He often complained that the boots for playing Tarkin were too small, and so the Director allowed him to wear a pair of slippers, shooting him from the waist up.

Personal life
Peter Cushing was known among his colleagues for his gentle and gentlemanly demeanor, as well as his professionalism and rigorous preparation as an actor. Although he appeared in both television and stage productions, Cushing preferred the medium of film, which allowed his perfectionist nature to achieve the best performance possible. He wrote two autobiographies, Peter Cushing: An Autobiography (1986) and Past Forgetting: Memoirs of the Hammer Years (1988). Cushing was fiercely dedicated to his wife, Helen Beck, for whom he was married 30 years until her death in 1971. Cushing often said he felt his life had ended when hers did, and he was so crushed that when his second autobiography was published in 1988, it made no mention of his life after her death.

Cushing was an ardent vegetarian for most of his life, and served as a patron with the Vegetarian Society, a British charity aimed at promoting understanding and respect for vegetarian lifestyles. He also had a great interest in ornithology and wildlife in general.