[MUSIC]
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There I was, on the set, standing next to the great man.
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I was totally in awe. I thought, I really don't believe this. I'm actually standing
on a set with Peter Cushing, and he looked so, so frightening.
He had this face that looked so evil. And he was the complete opposite.
He was the most gentle man.
He loved his art, he loved his work, he loved acting. He was a little bit
frustrated I think with filmmaking because it didn't flow in the way
that he could flow on stage. But he was just a kind-hearted person
Down at Whitstable he would like to go out and paint, and he'd go to the
Tudor Tea Rooms, they were called, down the road and he had the
same table each day, and cycle around the town or whatever,
no flamboyance, nothing like that. And if somebody would come up to him, he'd be
very polite and very friendly, and always willing to sign an autograph.
He was so lovely; he was so kind. He was so particularly considerate with me,
because I had this burning scene and also, I had to be thrown on the floor in front of him.
All his focus seemed to be on caring for my well-being.
People had great respect for him. The unit would… If any of the assistant
directors… 'Sir. Can you do this, Sir?' There'd be Sir there. 'Yes, okay dear boy.'
I came to work with him specifically, in Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell of course.
I was joyfully anticipating being with him for a long time.
I was thrilled when I was cast in a dual starring role in Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb,
playing an evil queen called, Queen Tera, and modern girl
Margaret Fuchs. But even more thrilled when I heard that Peter Cushing
was going to be playing my father, because he was and is the master of horror.
In 1986, put my glasses on, I got this letter from Peter.
I couldn't believe it really, it was just most amazing.
I think when she died it killed him inside. He was very honest to me.
He said. ‘well, frankly I'm just waiting to die. I want to be with Helen.
He wasn't just respected as an actor, he was a wonderful actor, one of the finest
I've ever seen. But, as a person, not just as an actor, he was unique in my experience.
Not just a dearly beloved, but a true gentleman.
[MUSIC]
In May 1986, the day after the Royal Premiere for Biggles, producer Richard Edwards recorded an extended radio
interview with Peter Cushing. It was only meant to be a short 10 minutes, but soon
turned into over an hour, when relaxed and on form Peter opened up about his
life and his career, discussing his start in the profession and his approach to
some of his most famous roles.
I feel very lucky to have met Peter and to have had the opportunity to spend a whole afternoon with him,
much of which was recorded on tape; hence we've ended up with this particular interview.
I'd always been a huge fan of Peter's and I think that must have come across at the time,
because it only seemed to make him even more chatty.
But what seemed to seal it was the fact that I came from Worthing.
When Peter discovered this, he was really keen to tell us the story of how he landed his first acting job,
which happened to be at the Connaught Theatre in Worthing.
When I was in an office, I was a so-called surveyor's assistant at the Coulsdon and Purley Urban District Council,
I bombarded the Connaught Theatre in Worthing, where Bill Fraser, who has
since become so famous, he was running it. Nine months went by, I got a letter from him,
to come down and see him at the Connaught Theatre, Worthing. Got there between the matinée and
evening performance. Went to his dressing room and he said, 'who might you be?'
So, I said, 'I'm Peter Cushing.' 'Ah, so glad you come.' And I thought, ah, here we go.
He said, 'all I wanted to ask you was, I do admire your persistence, but I do have
other things to do rather than read letters from aspiring actors every day
of my life, will you please stop writing to me and get out. Whereupon,
I think I'd burst into tears and he took compassion on me and said, 'oh dear, oh dear.'
Bless him, he gave me the part of the assistant stage manager and I stayed
there all that summer. Very grateful, because that was my start, and in my one of my
very favourite seaside towns.
With PETER CUSHING: In His Own Words I wanted to use as much of the original interview as possible,
a lot of which is being heard here for the first time, to try and give Peter his voice back.
To allow him to use his own words to talk about how he saw his career and
some of the roles that he'd played over the years. But I wanted to add to that by
inviting some people to take part who also knew him, who'd spent time with him,
who'd worked with him, so they could share some of their personal insights
and help build a critical appraisal of Peter and his work and help review some
of his greatest performances. For me this is a very personal story. It's allowed
me to revisit that original interview and that wonderful afternoon that we'd spent
together. But it's also a great opportunity to reflect a little bit
about who he was and what he achieved throughout his career, but to hear it
from him and to hear it from the people who'd spent time with him too.
I only worked with him for those six weeks doing Frankenstein Created Woman.
But I first saw him when I was 15 years old. In our road in those days
there was only one telly and on Sunday nights I used to go along to my mates,
who owned this telly, to watch Saturday Night Theatre.
And one Sunday I saw 1984, the George Orwell, and it was in black and white,
and it was probably live, can you believe. And playing the starring role was
the wonderful Peter Cushing. And I thought he was amazing.
I had grown up with a television from a very early age and so I had watched Peter in a number
of old films. Used to sit there in the afternoon at the weekend, I think it was
a Sunday afternoon, and watch an old film, and I certainly was familiar with Peter
as a little kid living in Kew, Kew Gardens. Then I remember him vividly
as Sherlock Holmes, very vividly. I remember numbers of different Sherlock Holmes,
but I remember he was excellent in the role.
I first met Peter in 1968 when we had the presentation of the Queen's Award for Industry
at Pinewood Studios. We'd have the lunch. Our menus had an autograph page and I wanted him
to sign it and went around the room and said, 'Mr. Cushing, do you mind signing
my menu?' 'Dear boy, yes of course, dear boy.
I think Peter was a very genuine, sincere person. I think he was really like an old English gentleman.
I was delighted to do Lust for a Vampire; Peter was going to be in it. Great disappointment all
around, he couldn't do it because his wife was ill at the time. So, Ralph Bates
took his part, who was wonderful and wonderful to work with, and it was huge fun.
During the shoot, which was only six weeks, six wonderful weeks, I couldn't
wait to get work to be with him and the wonderful Thorley Walters. And Peter was
always saying, you know, 'what have you been doing and what's coming up for you,
and I wish you luck, good fortune.'
I thought he was the most incredible actor, but also the most wonderful man.
And then I was asked to go and see the producers, who were Michael Styles and Harry Fine,
to chat to them, I knew them already, and would I do another of
these films, Twins of Evil. I was really flattered because they offered me the
choice of three of the smaller parts. Then, of course, they say you have a scene
with Peter Cushing. Or you could do this other one, or you could do this barmaid
in the pub who gets, you know, bitten. All this sort of thing. Immediately, I homed in
on Peter Cushing, who I hugely admired.
I don't think he was a showbizy type of person, not somebody would turn up at every party
for the opening a fridge or something. He wasn't that kind of character.
He didn't need to be photographed every minute of every day.
He didn't have that sort of lifestyle. I think he was a gentle person.
He liked privacy. He was a people's person, but I don't think he was
necessarily what you would call a celebrity, in a sense of needing that
buzz of being spotted everywhere.
Being a fan, I had a lot of monster magazines, like Famous Monsters of Filmland,
and Monster World. I used to bring a couple of those in to show people at the studio, which is kind of
weird, but they hadn't seen them a lot of them, they didn't know
these magazines existed. I mean, Peter did obviously. I would show him because there's one
where he's on the cover and it's from Frankenstein Created Woman, one of the
magazines. And he sort of said, 'oh yes, yes, I remember doing that.' He was interested.
But he would take time to talk to you about these things.
He appreciated fans. He often replied to people and would
have typed letters and always hand sign, but he would bother to do that.
He wouldn't just give you a standard response or get his secretary to do something.
He wouldn't just give you a standard response. He would say, well this person's been kind enough to write
to me, they deserved me to reply to them. Which he did and that, you know,
takes time, it takes effort and I can imagine sometimes you don't
necessarily feel like doing it, but he did and those letters he knew would
mean something to that person and I'm sure, around the country and around the
world, people got letters from Peter Cushing that they hold on to as a lovely
sort of memory and I think he realized that a little bit of time spent on
your behalf can create something lasting for somebody else.
Twenty years later I got a letter from him. I couldn't believe it. It was a fan letter and he said,
'I hope you don't mind me calling you Derek, because we have met.'
But he became a great fan of Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister and he complimented me
On my performance. And I've got that letter in my office on the wall and
I treasure it, and the fact that Peter Cushing wrote me a fan letter.
I couldn't get over it and I look at it most days and say, 'Peter it was
a pleasure and a privilege and an honour to be with you for those six weeks.'
As an actor Peter was renowned for his detailed preparation and the unwavering
respect he gave to his audiences. He held firm views on acting and actors
expecting others to have also done their homework.
You can be taught certain things, but I don't think you can really be taught to be an actor,
any more than... You're given a gift, you see, we're all given gifts and actors are
given this gift and it is a calling, I don't want to sound too pompous, but the drive to be an actor
is just something you cannot push under the carpet and get rid of, it will out.
And you're either lucky or you're unlucky,
and I'm very lucky, to have been, lucky.
He always used to say to me that it was a duty to
the audience, it's a duty to your profession, it's a duty to your fellow
actor to be as good as you can be. It's not just a case of turning up,
learning your lines, hitting your mark, take the pay cheque and go. It's that sort
of old-world courtesy that made him loved by everybody. I've never heard
anybody in the profession say a bad word about him.
I think he had a great off-screen friendship with Christopher Lee, because on that day when I first
met him at that presentation, Chris Lee was on set, he was dressed in Dracula
costume because Hammer Films were shooting Dracula Has Risen from the Grave.
I didn't realise it at the time, but, of course, not only was it the first
time that I met Peter Cushing, but Christopher Lee as well, both together.
It's only later when you realise
that you’ve seen two of the boys, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing.
Two of the Hammer boys together.
They were quite different characters. Peter was quite... He wasn't shy and retiring, but he was quite
quiet, quite considered. Christopher was far more overt, far more open, far more grandiose.
But together they were this, not just this wonderful team on the screen, but off screen, together the best of friends.
They fed off each other. They got on so well and it was a relationship
that has last many, many years until Peter's death and one that Christopher Lee
missed and still misses, well missed for many years after he passed away.
And I've got an interview that I did somewhere with Christopher, in which he
Said, all those years later, he still missed the times that he had with Peter Cushing,
and not every actor would say that about another actor, and if they did
not everyone would mean it, and you knew they meant it about Peter.
I think I'm right in saying that in...
In the prayers that we say in church from time to time, some of the prayers
start with the words, 'dearly beloved, we are gathered here together.' If anyone was
beloved it was Peter. He wasn't just respected as an actor,
he was a wonderful actor, one of the finest I've ever seen, and I was fortunate
enough to be clear enough, to be close enough, to see him many times over a
period of years and at very close quarters of course. He was a wonderful actor, he had
enormous versatility, there wasn't anything he couldn't do, he was the despair of all
the other actors in one respect, certainly, as far as I was concerned
because I'm not a prop actor, you know actors like to fiddle with things and do things.
Pick them up and put them down. I don't like that, I'm not very good
at it and I drop things. Peter was just like something in a circus.
He would drink his tea, he would be writing a note to Sherlock Holmes, he would be
reading The Times, he would be looking out of the window and talking to the other
Actors, all at the same time. He was like a juggler, just kept things in the air.
He loved doing it, and of course, he was supremely good at it.
What takes the time is that they do the master shot of all four of us, with the camera the way over there.
Takes about an hour to light and the scene takes a couple of minutes.
But then your 3/4 shot would be done and
then your close-ups, and then the same with you, and then you, then me.
Different lighting each time. This is what takes the time. This comes
to the technical side. As far as an actor is concerned he really should know
exactly what, not only he's doing in the script, but everyone else is in
the script as written, so that you know how you're going to react.
What I loved about being in the theatre is the three or four weeks to rehearse, so you
have time to do that work and discover. Now filming and television, you get the
script sometimes the night before. So you've got to do all that preparation,
so that you know what you're going to do when you get on the set, because when
you're on the set you go through it, let's run the lines.
And then the lighting guys come in, they light the set.
You might rehearse it a couple of times. But you do have time. You do the
master shot, the close-ups, three shots, they cover it in every way and in many
Ways, that is when you are doing the work.
Important to remember that a lot of shows, a lot of drama in the fifties and sixties was live.
And some of the Sherlock Holmes productions as well were live, but it didn't worry him and trouble him
as much as it might have done, because he was an excellent and
accomplished stage performer. And you're on a stage effectively. A lot more wires
About, and you can't afford to forget a line, but it is basically a stage
performance that's being filmed. But he was able to do it all, because of his
training and that's how you can tell a good actor.
Peter Cushing, perhaps if anything, was overly detailed. He was so busy ensconced in the corner with dear
Shane Briant, going through his detailed Notes, you know, with a pince-nez on the
end of his nose, making absolutely sure that his every hand movement and every
gesture and every line was given enough weight and enough emphasis.
One of the things that makes him a really, really good actor is he's not casual about his
approach at all. He takes it all very seriously. I think that's the key to
these performances that he gives. Other people might have sent it up, other people
might have denigrated it, he never did.
When the director called ‘action’ he would have this shot of adrenaline and literary take off, whether it was a fight
sequence or just delivering lines or moving around quite quickly.
You think, oh, seconds ago he was sitting down looking rather
pale and sort of a bit delicate, the next minute he could throw himself across
the set and have a fight sequence, not a major fight sequence, but still a fight sequence,
and do it again when you have to do take-two.
The moment the camera goes on or the moment the curtain goes up, something takes over.
And I can understand actors sitting very Quietly, because they're doing all
the work and then suddenly the word 'action' and the camera happens or the
curtain goes up and then something something magical takes over.
Some people say it's his best performance in Twins of Evil, whether that was helped by his
recent bereavement, but he was just so severe and so awful and so frightening,
which was wonderful for an actor to work with, because he really frightened me,
especially as two minutes before he'd been sort of being, 'you going to be all right?'
It's become an iconic scene that actually.
I feel now in retrospect very, very lucky to have got that part and chosen that part in fact.
It was fascinating to watch these great actors
turn it on, you know, really go into character. Sound running. Camera running. ‘Action’.
It certainly paid off, in as much as there were no retakes, ever.
I can't remember him ever shouting that he would like to do something again.
Which, of course, for the director, and also, my dear friend the first assistant
Director, Derek Whitehouse, was a gift. So for filmmaking, particularly, I would say
that his attention to detail was just, as I say, manna from heaven.
In Fear in the Night, which is the other one I worked on, where he plays the schoolmaster.
It was the same thing. He was very quiet a lot of the time on location, because most of it
was shot on a location in a place called Piggott’s Manor. He was in for about a
week doing his parts, and the part was quite a serious character,
quite a quiet character and he was like that a lot of the time.
But when you see it on screen, he has the menace that he puts over, he can be
this slightly menacing character. Is he really weird, is he just deranged?
He sort of had a certain control over his character,
which he could just bring on like that, but then sit down again and become Peter Cushing.
The famous old story about Peter with his white gloves and the fact
that he wore his gloves in between takes so that when he smoked, because he was a
chain smoker, the nicotine wouldn't stain his fingers.
And he said, because that's a courtesy to the audience. ‘When they're doing close-ups of me
cutting somebody up, or whatever, the audience don't want to be insulted by
seeing nicotine stains on my hand.’ So, he would do things like that, and it's that
sort of old-world courtesy that made him loved by everybody.
I've never heard anybody in the profession say a bad word about him.
I enjoyed once traveling in the car with him going onto location in
The Vampire Lovers. In the unit car going out to Moor Park Golf Club and going through
the streets at Elstree. He'd already offered the driver of cigarette. 'Do you want
a cigarette driver?' 'Oh, no thank you, Sir.' And he lit up a cigarette.
So, there's this figure in this military Uniform, going through the streets of Elstree,
and he said shall I wave as we go past a few people. If they look, shall I go like that... [WAVES]
'Yes, of course. They'll expect you to.' A sense of humour was coming out there.
It's like playing tennis I suppose. If you've got a
good opponent, it ups your own game. Or anything in life, when you've got
somebody's working with you who's good, it encourages you, even if you're
naturally good, sometimes you get a bit lazy with things, but it perks you up.
It gets your performance going and I think people would have felt about
that working with Peter, that he was a person that you would get on well
with, but you knew when he was in character he would be realism
Personified. And that took your character along with it then,
and not just walking through. See here, I'm a star, so you all know
who I am and I just say the words and everybody would love me anyway.
No. He was not that type of man.
The early Frankenstein, which I like, The Curse of Frankenstein and the Dracula movie, the first two,
are probably, to me anyway, where he was at his best. He's totally believable in them.
You watch the films and you, even he's saying some of the what you say is
slightly ridiculous dialogue at the time, but he made it all believable.
He made it all convincing, and he carried that right through I think even
up to Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, which again is one of my favourites,
because he's very... In control of all the dialogue he's saying. Everything he says you believe.
Most of the stuff I've seen is this sort of
magnificence that he carries around with himself and it's brilliant to see.
I mean, it was eye-opening just having been chatting, like we're chatting now in fact.
Really, really nice little chat and then I get into position, 'action' and
then this man, this terrifying witch hunter man comes in front of the door.
But he looks great as well, he really looks the part.
He's got great character in his face. You can watch the screen up there and
there he is and it just looks good, it works.
Peter has spoken about his views on acting and the technique of film acting in particular,
but he also went on to talk about the various roles and characters
that he'd played over the years and some of the preparation that he would put
in to getting ready to play those characters. He'd built up over many years
quite a reputation of being totally focused, completely ready as soon as he
walked on set. And those who'd worked with him have seen that, they've experienced
that and completely admired that in Peter.
I mean, the commitment he would make to a part, the commitment he would make to
those around him in the profession was second to none.
When you get a script, you read and read and read and read the script.
And while you're doing that, things things start to happen. You may hear a
voice, you may start moving differently, but the character slowly comes to you, or
you go to it, that's what most great actors do, and Peter Cushing was
a great actor, on screen and on stage.
[MUSIC]
For many, Peter Cushing was the definitive Sherlock Holmes. It was a role that he relished and he went to extreme
lengths to ensure that his portrayal of the character was as faithful to Conan
Doyle's books as possible.
I think one of the performances that Peter was most proud of, was his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes.
People tend nowadays to think of Sherlock Holmes as being in a new generation, very fast, very quick,
very slick, using all the modern technology.
But, in those days, and you're talking over 40 years ago,
it was far slower it, was far more... It was like the book.
It was a reconstruction of the book, it was slow, it took you through it all. And he rehearsed it
and he read the books and he inquired as to what
the character would have been like, even though it was a character, but what would
the people at the time had been wearing, how would they be acting, how would they
have spoken. Because he wanted to get it right.
What is so marvellous if you're playing Holmes, you've only got to read the books again. I re-read them. I read them all.
He wrote 60 I think, 56 short ones of four long ones.
And everything is explained in there for you. He had four pipes and they were smoked
for four different reasons. And his favourite was a little, black, oily
clay pipe. There's never any mention of a meerschaum, that doesn't mean he
didn't smoke one, but when you're given such specific details by a writer,
I believe follow that along.
But he looked like Sherlock Holmes, he really looked like him, like Basil Rathbone did. Peter had that too.
I was lucky only because I've got sort of aquiline-ish features.
And that I think helps, if you look a little like the character
that people expect you to be. Because, I must say, I have been accepted as a sort
of definitive Holmes, which is a jolly nice thing to have said about you.
I don't quite agree with it, but then that's not for me to say. As long as other people do,
they're the ones who should judge that.
I thought he was a brilliant Sherlock Holmes. Probably, the best after Basil Rathbone. Am I allowed to say that?
I remember the film of Sherlock Holmes, The Hound the Baskervilles,
with Hammer, which I think was the only one they made. Perhaps it wasn't as big of a
success as they imagined it was going to be at the box office and they didn't make
a follow up, which is sad really, because Peter was great in that role, on the big screen.
The series for the BBC is the one I remember seeing and he was
wonderful in that. He was the archetypal Holmes at the time.
There's been several since, haven't there, but he did seem to be the definitive
Sherlock Holmes in in my view.
When Hammer films released The Curse of Frankenstein in 1957 it was an immediate international success,
and quickly established a formula for the Gothic horrors that they were to produce over the next two decades.
He didn't take success for granted.
Because he had gone through some rough times and so he knew what it's like to
be on the rough end of the game. He didn't kind of walk into his first film,
become a star overnight and then sallied forth forevermore.
He had to earn his way up, and he was a big success on BBC television in the
early 50s and so on before he moved into starring in feature films. So he had kind of
earned his stripes. And I think he respected the public and when people say
to him, 'don't you get fed up being typecast with horror films?' He said,
'I don't call them horror films to begin With.' He was a bit like Boris Karloff and
so on, they didn't like the phrase horror, because horror represented some terrible
Tragedy, or some horrible thing going on in the world, whereas these were more
like, we call them ghost stories, supernatural, fantasy was probably a better word that
he would have preferred. But he said, 'how can an actor be scared of typecasting, if it means I get regular work,
and that work is what the public want to see me in.'
Anyone to do with television in those days was rather
frowned upon by the film companies because they were emptying the cinemas.
People found they could switch a switch and get all the entertainment
they wanted at home. James Carreras felt, if there were someone
well-known and popular on television, if he could lure him into doing a film,
in turn that actor would lure people back to the cinema.
And I read that Hammer were going to do amongst their five films, they did five films a year,
and among them was Frankenstein. And the schedule was two and a half weeks and
the budget was about £65,000. I mean, it was really nothing to make a
picture on. Any anyway, I rang up my agent and said that I see that Hammer are
doing this, and I know that you've told me they've always been
wanting to use me, this would be one I'd like to do. Because I've seen the
original with Colin Clive playing Baron Frankenstein and Boris Karloff playing
his creation. I remembered loving it. So, I said this one I'd like to do. If they want me here I am.
So, they accepted me, which was as nice.
And Terence Fisher, that darling man who directed so many of those pictures, said
I cannot do it you two and a half weeks, I will try and keep in the budget,
but you must give me three. So, eventually we got four weeks, and America could
not believe it was made in that time, or for that amount of money. Because it
looked absolutely magnificent. Again where James Carreras was so clever, he got
the best people he could in all departments, the best cameraman, the best make-up,
the best set designer and a pretty jolly good all-round cast, and it paid off.
And to their amazement, within literally,
I think a couple of weeks, it had paid for itself,
and they became millionaires.
I just made one film for Hammer, but you know Anthony Nelson Keys and Terry Fisher who directed.
The whole set up; those six weeks was a joy. The crew and my co-actors, Barry Warren and Peter Blythe,
sadly, no longer with us, and of course the wonderful Thorley Walters, who made me laugh every day.
Blood from the Mummy's Tomb, which originally Brian was going to do,
but I ended up doing because Brian wasn't very well, so I jumped into the
opportunity to go down to the studios and work on Blood from the Mummy's Tomb and I knew he was
working on that so I was very excited. On the first day he was there and I at least got to see him.
I shall never forget the first days filming, which was
when he gives me Tera's ring on my 21st birthday. It's etched in my mind.
And then at the end of the first day's filming he heard his beloved wife, Helen
was desperately ill and he had to leave the picture, and I was totally devastated.
I was so sad, sad for him and sad not to be working with him.
I don't know that it was totally fair to even get him to do one day really, at the end of it.
I think Hammer should have thought, well let's do casting, they may end up
using Andrew Keir, they may have had an opportunity to use somebody else, they may have thought about it.
I think the tag horror was only put... If I played Hamlet,
which I'm sure I couldn't, they'll put an X certificate on it, because it's
good billing on the hoardings over cinemas.
Hammer horror used to argue with the censor. A lot of their films
were not particularly horrible, and in those days you had U, A and X.
Several of them were just being granted an A, but for business they wanted an X.
And so, films like The Hound of the Baskervilles, what should only have been
an A, in fact if you look at them nowadays the classification is right
down to PG / 12, but they wanted a higher one and there's several in that
genre that they asked to be bumped up, which are now only 12, but in those
days where X, which means over 18, because it was wow,
what you gonna see? You don’t see a great deal, but it was the expectation.
So, I think Hammer was probably the only organization that used to argue to get a
rating put higher to make the audience technically lower, but it more
people would attend over 18 to make it more exciting.
Two years after the BBC's Doctor Who first appeared on television, Peter was cast in the big-screen versions,
appearing in two films, one in 1965 and the other in 66.
Peter was not a fan of the TV series and had mixed feelings about the film versions too.
I didn't really care for the Doctor Who television series, they weren't my cups of tea and
I must say the Daleks did rather get on my nerves, with those 'exterminate'.
No, I got rather tired with all that, but they were for children you see.
Any more than Star Wars, bless it. All the old chippies and grips and electricians
used to come and say, 'what's all this about Peter, I don't understand it?'
I'd say, ‘nor do I dear boy. I just try and learn the lines and say them looking frightfully intelligent.’
They're for the children. They take their dads
and say, this is what it means, because it's all computerisation you see.
It became the norm in the 1960's and 1970's to take any small screen hit,
whether it be like a well-known show or a comedy, and turn it into a big-screen version
to try and get people to come out and pay money to come out and see it.
And Doctor Who had started about 63 on the BBC, and it had been a surprising hit. And two years
later, as William Hartnell started to come to the end of his three-year run,
they didn't know it then, but started to come to the end of his three-year run,
they decided we'll put a couple of screen versions out. And they were made
literally back-to-back at Shepperton Studios. But, as was often the case in
those days. they weren't quite sure if the star of the television version
was a big enough star to take on the film role. So, in fact William Hartnell
had had a history of British film, mainly, not just B-films, but character,
classic character roles, but wasn't a big enough star to take these on. The shows, well some of them
were live, 25 minutes, black-and-white. These films were big, widescreen,
CinemaScope, colour. They threw a lot of a lot of money at them.
At the time, the casting directors think we need a bigger name to get the people in.
So, Peter Cushing was the name they got in. He was picking up there, doing stuff for
Hammer, wasn't too expensive yet, but was known from television and was known from
film and thought he was the right person to play, a doddery if you like, Doctor Who.
And they had a bit of a comedy element, so you'd have your Bernard Cribbins in one,
and you'd have your Roy Castle in another.
I thought his portrayal of Doctor Who was a bit scatty. I didn't quite get it, probably because
I'd been brought up on William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton on TV as
Doctor Whos of that era, and I think the films were kind of mid-60s weren't they,
so, Doctor Who had been on TV for about three years or something. So, I kind of
had my own mental image of Doctor Who by then.
I did get to talk to him about Doctor Who, because I was quite a fan of the film's even though lots of people
don't like the films. He sort of said, ‘yes, he thought that was quite fun.’
But he wasn't very keen generally on the films I don't think. It wasn't one of his favourite characters.
It wasn't really him. And I think it wasn't really Him because he knew that the character
was already being played by somebody else.
It had been created by someone else, it was William Hartnell. We're talking about the
days before, oh, Doctor Who, we need a new character, we'll regenerate.
All he knew was he was being asked to play on the big screen a character that was very
popular on the small screen with another actor. So, he never felt overly comfortable.
He gave his take on it and he gave his best. Not a great hit, but you know what,
who was it made for? They're U certificates, and they were U certificates then.
Which means there was nothing in there likely to offend.
So, from an acting point of view he did his Job, he did what the contract said.
He doesn't regard them as classics. I think they're great fun.
Because it's interesting to see how Dr Who suddenly had an opportunity to go from small
black and white TV, to big screen and colour. Got the full colour treatment.
So, not his proudest moment, but as a fan of both Doctor Who and Peter Cushing,
yeah, I'll give it 8 out of 10.
I always try and do something. I never think, now what would I like to do?
I think, what do I think people would rather see me in.
Supposing I think, as a sort of conceited actor, I'd love to play Hamlet.
But who wants to see me as Hamlet, even if I could play it?
As opposed to playing Frankenstein. And the balance comes way down on Frankenstein.
At least with Peter, with all the films he did, he was coming out of different boxes.
I think he brought a humanity sometimes to roles that other people might
have played in a different way.
By the early 1970s and with more explicit horror films being produced and changes in audience tastes,
Hammer found it increasingly difficult to come up with new and original stories and so had to
look for new ways to bring in the audiences.
Michael felt that the time had come when you'd really run out of ideas for that kind of picture, because you see
once you're stuck with Mary Shelley's original idea of a man who
does the impossible and creates something that lives,
and Dracula a man who sucks blood, in each film you have those ingredients and it was awfully
difficult for script writers to write on the same theme, but you can't leave those
ingredients out and that was the only difficulty. And Michael felt by the time 10
years had gone by, by the time he took over, he tried to go into other kinds of pictures,
but you see Hammer Films meant that particular kind of picture.
Certainly in Blood from the Mummy's Tomb there's a naked shot, which is supposedly me,
but I had told them I was not prepared to go naked, so that wasn't me.
And there were no love scenes, so it didn't affect me. I'm thinking more of
perhaps The Vampire Lovers and some of the other horror films where
there were much more explicit scenes.
When I came to do The Vampire Lovers my only sadness was that I had to take my clothes off,
which I was very sad to do. I couldn't see the need of that, but there we are, that's another subject.
But I loved working with Ingrid Pitt. I loved working with the fantastic Roy Ward Baker,
who directed it, and it's the first time, The Vampire Lovers is the very
first time I ever think I gave a halfway, halfway decent performance.
Pre 1971, all Hammer stars were generally men, as with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee etc.
But, post 71 they started to star women and I think that was because more
mainstream films were becoming more and more violent and perhaps Hammer wanted
to increase the sexual content of their films, which in fact I think they did in the 70s.
Quite a lot of nudity in Lust for a Vampire. I mean, they had the camera roving
amongst the girls’ bedroom while they were getting changed and things.
It was perfectly accepted and normal in those days. The extraordinary thing as a
young actor is you just took it all for granted.
Lust for a Vampire, I remember just having fun with the girls. It was all sort of fun.
I don't think I was paid an enormous amount of money, it was for six weeks,
the same time span as the Carry-on films. So I think over the total of six weeks I earned £2,000.
I'm not sure how much that would be worth today, but I'm not sure it was that much for a dual-starring role.
When Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell came along, I was over the moon.
Shane Briant, for such a young man was, and still is, the calmest, loveliest guy,
and of course, Peter Cushing, who didn't speak except his lines, and Terence Fisher who only ever
spoke in a whisper. I cannot praise it high enough.
There are a lot of Hammer conventions and I've gone all over the world actually, but I feel very lucky and
very blessed that people still love it and still watch it and still want photographs from it.
Working for Hammer was I thought wonderful.
It's a sort of almost repertory. You see the same people being employed.
Once they realized you were reliable and you could do it, it was fantastic.
They always come up to you and say, 'what was it like working with Peter Cushing, what was it like working
with Christopher Lee etc?' And they are always pleased when you turn around and say,
'oh, he was he was a great chap, very friendly, very polite.'
I remember getting one letter from a man on death-row in America, and he asked
whether I would send him a picture of me as Queen Tera, as it would ease his journey
into the next world. I mean that still sends shivers down my spine when I think about it.
Since the Internet, I mean that's what's so extraordinary,
in the modern times, because who would know about me doing a
little scene with Peter Cushing if it wasn't for the Internet?
It's a huge passion. All these films are. The Bond films are. The Carry-Ons are. And the Hammer films are.
A huge passion for people now.
They say that life is made up of moments don't they,
and that was a moment, six weeks in my career that I'll always remember.
To many Star Wars was a surprising hit, not least of all to Peter.
But it gave him and Alec Guinness, both already international stars,
a well-earned place in the hearts of a new generation of fans for what was
essentially a few days’ work on a low-budget science-fiction film.
Baddies are all jolly good parts. I mean dear old Humphrey Bogart as a baddie
was so superb wasn't he, and I've been lucky, I had some good baddies to play.
That's rather nice, isn't it, good baddies. But, Star Wars, you know, he was a bit of a beast wasn't he.
The only reason I look so cross in that was that my feet hurt. I was wearing shows that
were far too tight for me. I was so angry with everyone.
He didn't do that many days. He wasn't here a long time on that film. But he said, ‘they got me dressed up
looking like an Edwardian chauffeur in this uniform.’
He said, 'I don't I don't really like science fiction films. I really don't understand what this is all about.
But it's a nice little part and if Alec Guinness is
willing to appear in something, I could hardly turn it down, could I?'
But they were established actors and they were known in their fields. And to bring Peter Cushing
in to play Grand Moff Tarkin, the commander of the Death Star, we look
back now and we say, well who else could it have been? At the time it could well
have been somebody else. Could have been Christopher Lee.
But George Lucas wanted Peter Cushing.
Peter was probably bemused I guess by it all and I think
he was by the fame that it produced for him. Because, a bit like Alec Guinness,
you think back to all the work they've done and suddenly the only thing anybody
wants to talk to you about is one film you spent a few days working on.
The fortunes of Hammer Films were probably very much replicating what was going on
in the British film industry at the time anyway. Certainly, here at Elstree, and
Hammer films had come here in about 66 or so, but the time we got to the end of
the 60s, EMI took over the studios here.
Things were tough, things were very tough. Bryan Forbes, who was not just an actor and a
director and a producer, but he came in as the managing director of Elstree
Studios and with it brought in a slate of films. Tales of Beatrix Potter,
The Railway Children, Raging Moon and so on. Hammer at the same time were bringing in
their horror films, some would say low-budget, well they were low-budget.
Jenny Hanley will tell you, in the Dracula film that she appeared in,
the cross that she wears to frighten off Dracula was actually her own, on a gold chain.
She still wears it to this day. Everything was done quite cheaply.
They weren't cheap films, but they were made cheaply. The difference being, if you got
the right actors and you've got the right crew, you could make a film quickly
and cheaply, but that didn't make it a cheap film. But it was a difficult time
for the industry and these studios almost closed. In fact, by
the time it got to mid-1970s stages were closed. And as a consequence of the
difficulties in the early 70s something very big did come along and we ended up
with Star Wars and of course we ended up with the first Indiana Jones trilogy as well.
And Elstree was alive again, the Phoenix rose from the ashes, and from
that we remain ever busy. So, we've had our
difficult times, we've had hard times, and Peter Cushing would have experienced
That, on a day to day basis, being in a studio where there wasn't much money.
And then, thankfully, he was alive long enough to get involved in some of the
big productions and see Elstree lift again. And I'm very grateful,
because I know he'd be very proud of that.
We recorded the interview in May 1986, the day after the Royal Premiere for the film Biggles in which
Peter played the part of Colonel Raymond. Biggles might not have been very
important in Peter's growing up, but he certainly enjoyed making the film.
He was completely full of praise for the production, but then, you know, they were
in full PR mode and the film was just about to go on general release, so it's not surprising really.
I was brought up on Billy Bunter and Tom Merrion, Greyfriars School, they were my school.
So, I never got to Biggles, because I had passed the stage of that kind of book.
So, when I knew I was going to do the picture, I'd been asked to play Colonel Raymond,
who was sort of M is to Bond, so he, Raymond is to Biggles and co., I read a couple of them
and was absolutely enchanted by them. I could see that they were all set in the
in the First World War, but in this one they combine
the First World War, in which Biggles always appears still in his marvellous jodhpurs
and the goggles that the used, and the flying helmet, and you see this
wonderful photography of the First World War planes,
and the trench scenes. But I do recommend to see it, because I thought it was absolutely super.
Some of my earliest memories of Peter go back to the Hammer films.
You'd quite often see a Frankenstein or a Dracula
turn up around half-past-ten on a Friday night on the BBC. But I also remember in
1984 seeing The Masks of Death on Channel 4, a great little film.
Peter, again a Sherlock Holmes, a part he was born to play, with John Mills this time
as his Watson. And how could he go wrong? Directed by Roy Ward Baker, produced by
Kevin Francis of Tyburn Films. But it turns out, as Peter will explain in a moment,
they were planning another in that series, again with Peter as Sherlock Holmes,
and again, with John Mills as his Watson. This time called The Abbott's Cry.
Filming was due to start around about the end of 1986, but for a variety of
reasons, Peter was certainly very unwell at that time and definitely feeling his age,
it didn't happen and it's a real shame, because it sounds like it would
have been a great film and people just love seeing Peter play Sherlock Holmes.
You see, I'm far too old for Holmes really. They worked out that
in 1920 he would have been about 64. I'm sure I look 90 now.
So, they have to set the ones I do in about 1920, but you don't want to go really
beyond that lovely period of pea soup fog and the handsome cabs, because
they're part of their tremendous attraction. So, this one has been
especially written by the same gentleman who wrote The Masks of Death,
called NC Crisp, and it's called The Abbott's Cry and it's based very loosely, only loosely,
upon The Hound of the Baskervilles, in as much as a document
is found about a legend that a certain family will all meet their doom
throughout their life. I won't tell you what it is, but it's beautifully written.
Awfully good. I think a best Script, even than The Masks of Death.
I remember Christopher Lee saying to me, He always called him the master of the
props, because he's always able to fiddle with things, like lighting a pipe and
picking a pipe up, looking at a paper and doing things with his hands,
which some actors find quite difficult, so you've got to be aware
all the time of what you're doing. So, a lot of actors rather prefer to stand
there and say their lines and not be meddling around with picking out which
pipe to have and all this. Because, you’ve got to remember exactly what you've done, and
your dialogue, and your marks, and the director’s cue to you.
But he was so fastidious about these things and he got it off perfectly.
I thought he made a great Sherlock Holmes.
His Sherlock Holmes was greatly admired, and I think it was one of the things he was most proud of.
Tends to be forgotten now, as I say, he does over a hundred performances and people tend to remember
a dozen horror films, and I remember Peter saying, ‘I could play Hamlet and
they'd call it a horror film.’ And I think that's kind of how his life would be
remembered for most of his fans nowadays. And I don't think he would regret that,
it's better to be remembered as an actor than not remembered at all. But certainly
he was most proud of Sherlock Holmes. That was something he felt he really had
achieved as an actor. A high level of quality for the show and he was very proud of it.
Very few actors really want to retire.
But force would make them, I think. You see the body wears out a bit,
but the brain, with any luck, keeps ticking over. There's certain things I can't do anymore.
I'm going to have great difficulty, frankly, being quite serious,
in doing Holmes. I can't walk as I used to.
But there's a strange thing called Doctor Theatre. You can go on the stage with a broken leg,
do your part collapse as soon as you go in the wings and come on again and do it.
And that saving grace I think will see me
through Holmes. But he's a very long, very tiring part and I'm so glad
dear Kevin Francis, knows me because he realised the poor old boy is not quite
what he was, even a couple of years ago when we made the other one.
But that's just old age. It's anno-domini creeps on apace laddie and you gotta know when
it's time to nail the old toupee to the mantelpiece. But I don't think it'll be for a few years yet.
[MUSIC]
Peter and Helen Cushing moved to Whitstable in Kent
in the late 1950s, where they set up home in a modest seafront house. Helen was a huge
support to Peter throughout his career, which is something he never forgot and why,
15 years after her death, the first person he wanted to thank for what he
had achieved was his beloved Helen.
There are always so many people to thank and be thankful for.
And I do, and have done, and always will, but there's one person
I wouldn't be sitting here, talking to you in this wonderful way today,
if it hadn't been for my dear wife. Not only physically would I not be here,
but I certainly wouldn't be in what I think is quite an enviable position
that I hold in the affection of my fellow actors and audiences throughout the world.
What actor can ask for more?
And I think that I've just being terribly lucky, but especially on that score that of my beloved wife.
I never met her, but the way he talked about her.
When we were on our own, sometimes he would say he was very, very happy.
And he said, 'are you very happy Derek?' And I said, 'yes.'
He was always so interested in you.
And that was quite rare.
There are times when actors are away from home and quite what may or may not have happened
I’m not privy to, and I'm not a great one for saying this person might have done that,
and this person might have done that. I tend to have a hero and would rather not
know what went on in their private life. But the fact that whatever did happen, or may
have happened, still they stayed together,
still they loved each other, and still the loss was devastating to him.
And as I've said, you can see how devastating it was, meant that whatever may or may not
have happened outside on the periphery is sometimes what happens in this
industry. People get lonely, people spend a lot of time with other people.
It's just unfortunate that it’s the way that it is. But their marriage survived it and that goes
to show the strength of characters, and the strength of love, and it can
win through and it obviously did in this case.
I think they were a true love match, in a sense…
Very much a prop I guess for Peter, in many ways. She would encourage him in the down
periods and stand by him and so on. So, I think they were a real partnership
in every sense and I think when she died it killed him inside.
And when I say I met him in 73, he was very honest to me and he said,
'well, frankly I'm just waiting to die. I I want to be with Helen.
So, I'm very grateful for this work, because it keeps me busy, it gives me a reason to wake up
in the morning, something to occupy my mind.’ But you could sense his spirit had altered.
It was a shame, because I used to talk to him
and have general conversations about things, but he was very subdued by then,
and obviously because his wife had died. So, it was a shame I didn't see him in his
element of all the films I'd seen him in before, like the early Frankenstein movies
and things like that. I think once he got back to work, he was
happy because he was doing something and I think he wanted to occupy
his time doing something. I think Twins of Evil he did, which we didn't
work on that one. That was done at Pinewood. Because we were
based at Elstree. But that was the first one.
His marriage to Helen meant everything to him. His love was true and it was deep.
And she was there in the good years, but she was there in the difficult years. People tend to think,
oh, Peter Cushing, I remember him being a great actor. But he started the 1930's,
wasn't really making it anywhere until sort of the 1950s and later. She was with
him through that period and then just as he reached the pinnacle of fame,
sadly, she became very ill, and she passed away in 1971.
And on his own admission he was devastated, he never got over it.
He wasn't one of these people that said I want to end my life and he lived
another 20 or so years, 22 years, but he never got over it. And if you read his
biography, it is so painful. I challenge anyone to read it without having tears
in their eyes, just what that loss meant. And if you look at him in film from the
early 70s to about 72, 73, you can see the effect it had on him.
There was a very bonny looking brief appearance by Peter Cushing in
The Vampire Lovers. And then horror, horror. What, 3 years later?
I made Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell, and I got such a shock.
He actually looked like the living dead. He looked like one of those corpses lying in the coffins.
He looked horrendous. I couldn't understand how he had the strength for
such a vital performance that he gave. He gave so much to it, he gave everything to it.
He wanted to be back with Helen, he missed her every day. But his faith
said when the time is right, and in the meantime he kept himself busy.
And I think that's a good way to do it, because it showed he could still act.
It showed he still had the ability. He was in some great films, and
some not-so-great films, let's be honest, but some great films, nonetheless.
And if it hadn't been for throwing himself back into it, we'd never have seen him in Star Wars.
And look what that's done over the last 40 years.
So, life has a way of playing things out, and thankfully Peter didn't shut himself away.
And even if it was for his own sanity, he kept his fans and the film industry very happy for several years.
It was heart-breaking, because he didn't eat,
he didn't leave the set, he didn't go to the canteen. All he had was black coffee.
I think he was trying to die, but of course he didn't succeed because he went
on for about another 20 years. But I think he was ready to join Helen.
When Peter was cremated, the grave that Helen had in the cemetery, he had his
ashes interred into the same grave to be with her, but then had the headstone
removed so that he didn't, as he said, want it to be some sort of tourist
place for people to visit, here we are at the grave of Peter Cushing in Whitstable.
But he was great believer in the afterlife.
So, he knew that he would meet her again and for eternity. And so, I guess,
he's a very happy man now.
For those who knew him and had the opportunity to work with him,
he was an adorable, caring, gentle man. A marked difference from the roles he became synonymous with.
His body of work, which includes over a hundred film appearances
has secured him a permanent place in popular culture
and is still enjoyed by fans the world over, whether they remember it the first time around,
have come to it through TV reruns,
or through the astonishing success of George Lucas's Star Wars.
A lot of people make the point that Peter will be remembered for the Hammer films,
playing Frankenstein and Van Helsing, but really
the sheer diversity of his work is very impressive. He was great as Sherlock Holmes,
he was wonderful in a whole range of different characters for Hammer,
and he did a lot of work for other companies too, including Amicus.
But Peter knew what was right for him, he knew what the public wanted to see him in, and he stuck to that.
You know, he really played to his strengths and gave the public what they wanted to see, and they loved him for it.
I think we've come to realise
over the years, where we've been going and meeting people who think so
much of him, how privileged we are really to have actually met him,
and seen him work, which people would give their eyeteeth for.
Now I feel like I should have said, 'you know, on behalf of everybody who'd love
to meet you Mr. Cushing, I feel privileged that I can stand here and
say, thank you Mr. Cushing.'
For thousands of people, because they
wouldn't be able, you know, they wouldn't get the chance to even meet him, and we did.
It's extraordinary there are a lot of Hammer conventions
and I've gone all over the world actually, for film conventions and
and as I say, although Blood from the Mummy's Tomb
actually, came out as a b-movie with Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde as the top billing,
and mine was the second billing. But it's my film that seems to have
stood the test of time, and it actually amazes me, but I feel
very lucky and very blessed that people still love it and still watch it, and still want photographs from it.
They always come up to you and say,
'what was it like working with Peter Cushing, what was the like working with Christopher Lee etc?'
And they're always pleased when we turn around and say, 'oh, he was a great chap,
very friendly, very polite, a great gentleman.’
And they say, 'yes, we've heard that.' We were like reinforcing the
view that they already have of him, they want him to be a nice person,
because he plays so many strange and often nasty characters,
apart from Van Helsing, who is always fighting the vampires. And it sort of
make them happy to go away knowing that they met somebody else who worked with him, knew him.
Star Wars elevated him into a fan base that will be over lasting,
because Star Wars is a phenomenon that goes across the world. I mean I'm always
amazed, people all over the world contact me wanting to know
something about Star Wars, and things. And so, I think that's ensured
his fame endures. But it will also endure by film fans who
loved the films he did, especially in this country, for Hammer and for Amicus.
So, I think his body of work will stand the test of time, and he's always like a comforter.
If you put on a Peter Cushing film, you know you're going to have an enjoyable view.
Well I mean, in the film industry,
just the name Peter Cushing is iconic. He's a legend.
And anyone who goes back into the archives and sees what Peter achieved as an actor
and, as you say, his body of work, is phenomenal and he will live forever.
He'll always be connected with Hammer horror and he'll always be
Baron Frankenstein really. But his other work, whatever Peter did was touched with class
and a bit of genius. There's no one like Peter. And that face,
and that voice, together. He was a joy.
He was really talented in other directions.
I understood that he created little miniature theatres
and he made wonderful jewellery and scarves for his wife, Helen whom he absolutely adored.
With his body of work, when you think about it, and being quite diverse, even though people
may just remember him... When you say his name, they'll probably just
remember him as playing Frankenstein and maybe Van Helsing, and then Star Wars.
When they delve deeper than that and see that he did the other
pieces of work in between, and the amount of different characters he played
for Hammer, because he did a lot of thrillers and things like that, and then
sci-fi type stuff, and for other companies, I think they'll be pleasantly surprised.
We tend to forget that about Peter, we tend to think of him as
this horror star, Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee,
Vincent Price, Peter Cushing all kind of typecast in these horror roles, though
all of them had successful careers outside of those sorts of films.
So, it wasn't true of any of them really, but we tend to label people and that's what
happens in the profession and it happens with the public. But Peter's work,
I mean some of the stuff I've seen him in over the years,
Cash on Demand, a lovely little film, where he's being held up in effect very
politely by Andre Morrell, and you see Peter Cushing's character descend
downwards under the pressure of it all, and so on, and what seems to be a kind of very
strict character become human.
I'm often asked if I've worked with Christopher Lee, which I haven't done.
They're both fantastic figureheads really.
Hammer was lucky to find them really, because they both had extraordinary charisma.
Ralph Bates took his part and he's a very clever actor and a lovely guy,
but he didn't have, wouldn't have had, didn't have Peter's charisma, something he
has, something indefinable about his work, as well as being a wonderful actor
he has, I can only say it's a charisma really.
These silly little laughs that we used to have all the time.
I have no one now, and I don't want to sound
sorry for myself, but I am feeling sorry myself in that respect,
because I don't have him to talk to and share all this with.
He would say to me if he was here, well he is here of course, in fact I only agreed to do this because
I had another chat with him the other day and he said if anything like this,
ever remotely like this, ever happened to me
of course, he would do the same thing. By remote control as he put it.
I loved everything he did. I know that sounds very sycophantic, but if Peter Cushing was on,
especially after I'd worked with him, and knew exactly what a gentle man he was,
and what a lovely, generous person, and completely the antithesis of what he played and portrayed.
I just loved watching him. I'd watch him in anything.
I don't think he's ever given a bad performance.
A wonderful actor, a wonderful man, a dear, dear friend.
An OBE. Far too little, far too late. And having received it,
he promptly fell off his bicycle to avoid some dogs. And I said to him in a letter, ‘I don't think
those initials stand for Old Bicyclist Ejected.’ And set him off again.
I first interviewed him in 1973 at Shepperton Studios. He was doing a film called
The Beast Must Die. And it did at the box office.
It wasn't one of those marvellous films, but again he was in it with Charles Gray and Anton Differing,
a lovely old name, but he gave it his all, as ever. I think he was playing a
Norwegian or something, so he learned how to do the accent, dialect and so on and
wore a particular style wig for the film and so on. So, he took it very seriously,
as he did everything, but it was shortly after he'd lost his wife a couple of
years earlier, and I don't think he was the same Peter that people would have
known earlier, but nonetheless, we used to correspond and then of course I saw him
three years later, I think it was, here when he was doing Star Wars at Elstree,
and a couple of other times, and we used to correspond in between times.
And right up towards the end of his life, when I was chairman of the Save Elstree Studios campaign,
and in about 1993 or something, the studio had just closed and was
under threat of demolition, and I wrote to Peter asking could you say a few words
or something about its fate and Peter said, 'well, dear boy,
I'm afraid cancer has got a better me and I'm held together by Sellotape and Blu-tac,
but if you want me to lie down in front of a bulldozer with you, I'm your man.'
And that was the mark of this man. I mean, he was not well, he was elderly and frail,
but I believe he would have turned up, honestly do believe he would have turned up.
Because he was just old school and how could you not like a man like that.
It was extraordinary to see Rogue One in a cinema. I saw it in America.
When Grand Moff Tarkin was in it, when Peter Cushing's image came up there,
I had tears in my eyes. Because I loved Peter Cushing, and of
Course, it took me back to seeing the first film forty years ago.
And there’s part of me that thinks knowing that Peter was a man of faith, in the sense of
he knew that one day he would be joined back together again in spirit with his
Wife, who died in the seventies, I think there's a part of him that would be very
happy and proud to know that his spirit lives on, forty years later.
Not just with the fans from the 70s, but with a whole new... Not just a whole new group of fans,
but a whole new generation of people.
That gives him immortality, and I think people like Peter deserved immortality,
because they were kind honest gentle actors, who just wanted to do their best for
the performance, for the industry, for everyone around them.
And I think people like him should be remembered.
An often used phrase about Peter is that he's the gentle man of horror,
and I suppose in many ways that's true.
His personality was certainly very gentle, very caring, very different from the
characters we saw him play on the big screen.
One lasting memory I have of Peter, as we were leaving after we'd recorded the interview, I remember
looking back and seeing him standing by the door waving his pussycat's paw goodbye.
I mean what an amazing image of Peter, and it's one that's still very fresh,
very clear in my mind, even today. And in some ways, I think it says an
awful lot about who he really was. You know, we see that man of horror,
but really, deep down he was just a lovely, gentle man.
In 1986, put my glasses on, I got this letter from Peter.
I couldn't believe it really; it was just most amazing.
'Dear Derek, I make so bold because we have met.
I just want you to know how absolutely splendid you are in the Minster series,
prime and plain. Superb timing, high comedy playing at its very best.
I do congratulate you and send my deep thanks for one of the few very
special treats on the telly. It is an awfully nice feeling of basking in
reflected glory to be able to smile somewhat smugly and say,
"I worked with him", even though that was way back when, not quite
before Methuselah, although sometimes I feel like it.
May God guide your every endeavour, and his blessing be with you always. In all sincerity, Peter.
I couldn't believe it. I really couldn't believe it. I was just totally knocked out.
It brought those six weeks back to me and his kindness and his generosity and his humour.
This is something I'll treasure and cherish always.
I have it on my office wall and look at it and think, thanks Peter, you always had wonderful taste...
[LAUGHS] Even if I say so myself... No, I was so thrilled, very flattered
and very honoured. It was great really.
Special man.
[PETER OUT-TAKES] I think they give enormous pleasure, when they were made and now
because of their... antiquity, is that a good word, shall we use it?
Would someone look it up in Chamber's Dictionary. Antiquity, yes antique, that's me.
Always interesting to look at, I hope.
Give me a good polish and I'll be all right. But mind me walnut. Yes! You were saying.
'No, no, no, titter not, titter not, no. You better though, I might lose my job. Who was that like?
[Frankie Howerd] Oh good, oh good. Shall I give you Noel Coward as well. 'I love you, terribly,
and don't you forget it. Do you mind?' Oh, stop it Cushing.
Pleasure isn't the word. It is for me an immense honour,
a real honour and a joy to be able to… I don't know if the word is really.
To dedicate? To dedicate this flag, star of Hammer Films and many other motion pictures,
to indeed, very well worded, not just a dearly beloved, but a true gentleman.
Thank you very much.
[APPLAUSE]
[MUSIC]