Ron Moody Remembers Peter Cushing:
"Some
scripts are so terribly over the top, there's a terrible temptation to
send them up" I said to Peter Cushing. We were sitting in the late
summer sunshine outside a very realistic French bistro on the
lot of Pinewood studios, between takes on Tyburn films, 'Legend of the
Werewolf'. I was playing the zooo keeper, and regarded the whole thing
as a bit of a half term holiday, so i was decked out in a stove pipe
bowler hat, a black embrosse wig, a ten o'clock shadow and set of buck
teeth that made me look like a Neanderthal throwback! Actually, I rather
thought I looked like Humphrey Boart. Anyway, if the hero could be a
werewolf, why shouldn't the zoo keeper be an ape? Here, I must add,
Freddie Francis, the director, thought it was a very funny idea.
Peter didn't. He surveyed me quizzically for a moment, his eyes
twinkled. "If you were sending it up" he said, "We wouldn't have you on
the film." And he MEANT it. For this sweet-natured, gentle man,
dangerously on the verge of sainthood, there could be no mockery of his
beloved craft. He played every one of his 'horror roles' with no less
dedication then he had applied to his earlier classical career and the
stream of powerful dramas that had established him as television's
leading actor. His total belief and immersion in everything he did
lifted these fantasy / horror tales from the banal to the believable,
he commanded respect for the genre, lifted it up, almost single
highhandedly, to the level of credibility that made everyone of them a
minor classic!
Working with a great actor, something always
brushes off! My zoo keeper, hair, hat, teeth and all, was never sent up!
In fact, I like to think that my animal man was totally believable,
completely identified within film, and had, dare I presume to say it, a
touch of Cushing
