#TOOCOOLTUESDAY: One of Peter Cushing's many hobbies, the building of model theaters. Each theater came complete with hand-made scenery, props, acting figures and characters, tabs and lighting. Every theater also had operating curtains. Each theater was set with a particular scene from a play, musical or opera. ALL hand made and painted. It's thought there were up to twenty working theaters, these were permanently on display in his loft studio, at the Cushing's home, Sea View, Seasalter, Whitstable.
FROM 1952 UNTIL 1971, Peter was hardly ever resting (resting : the professions term for being unemployed). With the obvious thousands of man hours to make these theaters, it makes you wonder, when Cushing actually had time to spend on this work. Cushing also made model airplanes, board games, train set lay outs with model villages and towns, painting, bird-watching, jewellery making and collecting and reading books! All of this, with exception of reading and studying for his professional work, stopped when his late wife, Helen Cushing sadly died. There was however, one little window of time when Cushing did set to work on making some models. CEO of Hammer films, Michael Carreras had come up with the idea of a Hammer Films museum . . . he commissioned the making of a Chinese temple, as depicted in the Hammer / Run Run Shaw Brosthers film, 'The Legend of the even Golden Vampires'. Peter set to work, and didn't really stop for four whole days! He admitted that with the glues, paints and latex involved in making the model, his working clothes had to be burned! Sadly, the Hammer museum, didn't work out and what became of the temple is a mystery . . .
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