My Hungarian mother fell for this actor big time. To the point where she sent up for a signed photo of himself. She prided herself on knowing about artists – there had been several in her family.
Once, I was on set with this man in Frankenstein Must be Destroyed, though too lowly to bother him; in any case (as I describe in – The Adventure Continues) Hammer Films was run like the smoothest factory operation imaginable and you couldn’t dare to socialise for fear of jamming up the production line.
In his day Peter Cushing was as celebrated as John Gielgud or Laurence Olivier – but for very different reasons. Gielgud and Olivier were, essentially, stage stars. Cushing was famous for his television and film work – hardly appearing on stage at all. He was a superb actor and created the role of Winston in a daring TV adaptation of Orwell’s 1984 – it helped serious, modern drama on its way.
At the Earth’s Core was another movie in which I briefly appear that Peter starred in. He is, in fact, known today mainly for years of potboiling in horror and adventure films. He liked, as he said, to be in work and, compared with the earlier generation of stage performers, could count his fans in the millions.
