The Cushing family lived in Dulwich during the First World War, but moved to Purley after the war ended in 1918. Cushing's family consisted of several stage actors, including his paternal grandfather Henry William Cushing (who toured with Henry Irving), his paternal aunt Maude Ashton and his step-uncle Wilton Herriot, after whom Peter Cushing received his middle name. His mother was the daughter of a carpet merchant and considered of a lower class than her husband.
His father, a quantity surveyor from an upper-class family, was a reserved and uncommunicative man whom Peter said he never got to know very well. His mother had so hoped for a daughter that for the first few years of his life, she dressed Peter in girls' frocks, let his hair grow in long curls and tie them in bows of pink ribbon, so others often mistook him for a girl. Peter Wilton Cushing was born in Kenley, a district in the English county of Surrey, on to George Edward Cushing (1881–1956) and Nellie Marie ( née King) Cushing (1882–1961) he was the younger of two boys – his brother George was three years older. Cushing continued acting into the early 1990s and wrote two autobiographies. (1966) and gained the highest amount of visibility in his career with his part in the original Star Wars film. Who and the Daleks (1965) and Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. Cushing continued to perform in a variety of roles, although he was often typecast as a horror film actor. 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 detective Sherlock Holmes. Cushing often appeared alongside actor Christopher Lee, who became one of his closest friends, and occasionally with the American horror star Vincent Price. He earned particular acclaim for his lead performance in a BBC Television adaptation of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (1954).Ĭushing 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. 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. 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. 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. He achieved recognition in his home country for his leading performances in the Hammer Productions horror films from the 1950s to 1970s, while earning international prominence as Grand Moff Tarkin in the original 1977 Star Wars.īorn 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. His acting career spanned over six decades and included appearances in more than 100 films, as well as many television, stage, and radio roles. Peter Wilton Cushing OBE ( – 11 August 1994) was an English actor.
British Academy Television Award for Best Actor (1956)