A giant among vampire killers. Endlessly professional, with just enough of a sense of humour creeping in under the floorboards, Cushing more than anyone else defines British horror, with a hundred films of that nature to his credit, ranging in quality from The Blood Beat Terror to your actual Dracula.
FINEST HOUR: He’s one of those actors it’d be almost churlish to pick a single defining moment for. This man’s worked with Laurel and Hardy, for goodness’ sake! But the sight of him really going for it as the harassed widower Arthur Grimsdyke – at a time when he was still mourning his own wife – and turns in a top notch performance in the much-denigrated portmanteau genre demonstrates his selfless dedication as well as his skill.
paulus
May 28, 2010 at 2:49 pm
Star Wars… giving it all and playing it straight when SCI-FI was an unknown quantity.
Class-tastic!
Danforth
May 28, 2010 at 4:21 pm
British thesps. Making cheesy American scifi scripts sound ten times better since 1977 😀 Apparently Carrie Fisher found it hard to deliver the lines about his character’s “foul stench”, as he was quite lovely between takes, was scrupulously clean and smelled faintly of lavender. Bless.
Matty
August 3, 2010 at 8:10 pm
‘Blood Beast Terror’, surely. Unless there was a “groovy” sequel set amongst the music scene that I’ve not heard of…