THE PETER CUSHING STORY: THEATRE TELEVISION AND FILM

ANOTHER ADDITION to our 'PCAS Cushing Things To Take You Away, For An Hour!'😊😀 You can watch or even maybe do the ironing, dusting or washing the dog while listening!😊 The excellent 1989 Tyburn films documentary 'One Way Ticket To Hollywood' on the life and career of Peter Cushing! It's full of gems, clips, stories, Peter's wonderful summing up of his good friend, Christopher Lee, his life with his late wife Helen and a few surprises! Hosted by Dick Vosburgh, who knows how to get the best from Peter here! 😉Enjoy! Please look after yourselves. Stay safe everyone 😊 More tomorrow! - Marcus

Copyright disclaimer: I do NOT own this video nor the image featured in the video. All rights belong to it's rightful owner/owner's. No copyright infringement intended. 

CATCH UP READ the PCASUK review of the LATEST Peter Cushing film now RELEASED on BLU RAY: INDICATOR's 'THE REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN' HERE! Feature includes : Photographs : Screen Captures and a FULL breakdown of extras PLUS full Audio and Visual standards of the release  

IF YOU WOULD LIKE  to be part of the team and write YOUR reviews of the latest releases, just drop us a line at our FACEBOOK PCASUK FAN PAGE HERE!

DOOMWATCH INSEMINOID FEAR IN THE NIGHT AND DIAGNOSIS MURDER! A HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO JUDY GEESON!

A VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY to actress JUDY GEESON today! We interviewed JUDY GEESON back in the early 1980's, in her dressing room, at a London theatre, where she was appearing in a play at the time. She was sharp, bright as a button, and chomped her way through a pawn salad, as she regaled us with stories for our Marantz audio recorder and microphone!

JUDY GEESON had only worked with Peter once in FEAR IN THE NIGHT (1972), and Christopher Lee in 1975 in a film called, DIAGNOSIS MURDER. Thankfully, she had much to share on both. She also commented on his Cushing's laugh...and his pleasure on finding out that Judy kept a parakeet, and had a pet dog. She even brought the bird to the set of Fear In The Night, so Peter could sketch and paint it! It's interesting that most reports and reviews of Cushing's films that you read about, from this period of time, are usual tinged sadness, and concerned with Peter Cushing's grief and loss, of his wife, Helen. It's good to know, he did have sunny days, some light and shade.

JUDY GEESON was born in Arundel, Sussex, in 1948, Her father moved the family to London when she was 10 years old and enrolled her and sister Sally Geeson into the Corona Academy, Chiswick. Judy initially wanted to be a ballet dancer, but had to change course when she suffered from terrible headaches as a result of some of the moves. Acting had always been a great interest, however, and she chose to pursue this, making her first TV appearance in Dixon of Dock Green (1955) aged 12. 

HER FIRST MAJOR FILM ROLE was as wayward teenager Pamela Dare opposite Sidney Poitier in To Sir, with Love (1967) at the age of 18. I am sure you can all name your personal favourite Judy film... I will vote for Fear in the Night and To Sire with Love... but there are many others, 10 Rillington Place, Doomwatch, Brannigian with John Wayne and a HEAP of tv dramas too! Please join us wishing Judy the BEST of birthday's today!

CALLUM MCKELVIE : THE THREE ROLES THAT MADE THE CAREER : RARE GALLERIES

THE THREE ROLES THAT CREATED the career of Peter Cushing! A NEW series of features from CALLUM MCKELVIE starting very soon! The RARE photograph of Peter in this promo banner marks probably one of Cushing's best known roles. Over at the FACEBOOK PCASUK FAN PAGE we asked, which THREE roles would you personally list as being Cushing's TOP THREE? Lots of interesting answers and many suggesting the THREE we have chosen  to focus on, in this new  weekly feature! Feel free  to visit the PCASUK page and join in!

A VERY SWEET CHOICE: THIS WEEKS TUESDAY TOUGHY

THE TUESDAY TOUGHY . . .over at the PCAS website I have set this week's CUSHING TUESDAY TOUGHY. As I am sure any regular here knows , CUSHING LOVED his cuppa. He also had quite strict ideas about how it should be made and what tea was used... I am quite surprised to see he is using one of those tacky PYREX glass tea cups that were around in the 1970's! Anyone else remember those? I would have though his jaw would have dropped at the absence of a china cup and saucer... maybe it was just for the photograph..and he threw the slops and cup in the laboratory sink, after the pic was taken? 

SO SUGAR... what do you think? BELOW is  the answer to the LAST TUESDAY TOUGHY and a link to previous gallery and feature I wrote on Hammer films and their tea breaks, here at the website, should you want to learn more!

A FULL GALLERY AND FEATURE ON THE ABOVE YOU'LL FIND HERE! 

ANSWER: Peter Cushing was offered several plays on Broadway early in his career. Shortly before leaving the US for Canada on his efforts to get back to England, Peter was offered two plays that went to Broadway, The Seventh Trumpet and Golden Wings. He chose The Seventh Trumpet, which ran a week longer than Golden Wings. Cushing also auditioned for the role of Paul Verrall in Olivier's production of 'Born Yesterday' in 1946. But when Olivier asked him to try an American accent, Cushing didn't think he could do the accent justice. Olivier promised he wouldn't forget Cushing and if anything else came up, that he thought Peter was suitable for, he would contact him. He kept his word. Cushing was cast in Olivier's film production of HAMLET shortly after as Osric, and toured with Olivier's company in the US and Canada, for quite sometime afterwards. The production we were looking for however, was a 1975 Broadway production of The Crucifer of Blood, a play based on Conan Dolye's Sherlock Holmes story, The Sign of Four. Cushing, as with many theatre opportunities after the mid 1960's, declined.

IF YOU LIKE what you see here at our website, you'll  love our daily themed posts at our PCAS FACEBOOK FAN PAGE.  Just click that blue LINK and click LIKE when you get there, and help us reach all lovers of Peter Cushing's work AND Help Keep The Memory Alive!  

GOODBYE TO ROY DOTRICE OBE 1923 -2017

VERY SAD TO READ that actor ROY DOTRICE passed a few days ago. Dotrice has one of those acting CV's that crosses all genre's, generations, trends and all arts disciplines, all of which he excelled in . . . he has a tenuous connection to Peter Cushing in that he was in the cast of Amicus films, 'Tales from the Crypt' (1972) in the 'Wish You Were Here' story, with Richard Greene and Barbara Murray. But I want to mention his passing here as more of a note to myself, and maybe you too, that Roy like Christopher Lee before him, is one of the last of our actors who stood for something special. In most cases their work, as they got older, should have come with a 'Quality Reassurance' stamp!

DOTRICE PLAYED so many good roles, very well during his long career, that's it's almost impossible to make a choice of the best... but stand outs would be Leopold Mozart in 'Amadeus' (1984), John Aubrey in Patrick Garland's 'Brief Lives', a one-man show that saw Dotrice on stage for more than two-and-a-half hours. 

A WEALTH BRIT TALENT: Rehearsing for a show at the Roundhouse, Chalk Farm is Foreground Barbara Windsor, and Max wall, a bearded Roy Dotrice, George Baker, Liza Goddard, Fenella Fielding, Amanda Barry, Anna Quayle, Melvyn Hayes, Bob Todd and Miriam Karlin! 

INTERVIEW: Roy Dotrice discuses recording the audio book of George R.R. Martin's A DANCE WITH DRAGONS

DOTRICE ALSO DID a terrific job of playing the title role in the television mini-series 'Dickens of London' in 1976. Followers of the 1980s American TV series 'Beauty and the Beast' will know him as the adopt-father of Ron Pearlman's character.

AMAZINGLY HE EARNED a place in the Guinness World Records in 2004 for the highest number of character voices by a single actor for the first book in the series of, 'A Game of Thrones' (in which he voiced a total of 224 characters). He also narrated many storybook adaptations for Disney Records, including 'The Little Mermaid', for which he was nominated for a Grammy award. In 2000 Dotrice won much acclaim for his Tony Award-winning Broadway performance in the revival of 'A Moon for the Misbegotten' and in 2008 was appointed to the Order of the British Empire for services to the world of theatre and drama.

BACK A FEW YEARS ago, I had the opportunity to spend an afternoon with Roy at the BBC rehearsal rooms in Acton, London. He was relaxed, unpretentious, extremely friendly..and blessed with that same grace, manner and composure that Mr Lee and Mr Cushing also lived by... a gentleman, an outstanding talent and presence in his profession. Roy Dotrice OBE 1923 - 2017.

IF YOU LIKE what you see here at our website, you'll  love our daily themed posts at our PCAS FACEBOOK FAN PAGE.  Just click that blue LINK and click LIKE when you get there, and help us . . Keep The Memory Alive!. The Peter Cushing Appreciation Society website, facebook fan page and youtube channel are managed, edited and written by Marcus Brooks, PCAS coordinator since 1979. PCAS is based in the UK and USA . .

#MONSTERMONDAY! THE SOULLESS ONES : DONT GO ALONE TO SEE HAMMER HOUSE OF HORROR LIVE!

#MONSTERMONDAY! YOU MAY REMEMBER the feature we posted a few weeks ago about LIVE Hammer Films EVENTS, happening at Hoxton Hall in the heart of East London?? (Read It HERE!)Well the time IS NOW! It certainly looks it's going to be a month of spine chilling performances. Here's the trailer the #HAMMER are putting out on their website and Facebook feeds. Booking Details RIGHT HERE!

IF YOU LIKE what you see here at our website, you'll  love our daily themed posts at our PCAS FACEBOOK FAN PAGE.  Just click that blue LINK and click LIKE when you get there, and help us . . Keep The Memory Alive!. The Peter Cushing Appreciation Society website, facebook fan page and youtube channel are managed, edited and written by Marcus Brooks, PCAS coordinator since 1979. PCAS is based in the UK and USA

#TOOCOOLTUESDAY: THE MODEL PERFECTIONIST : NO SMALL TIME HOBBY

#TOOCOOLTUESDAY! I have made this #BANNER using a series of promotional photographs that were commissioned by the #HAMMERFILMS  press office, during the publicity campaign of their fourth #FRANKENSTEIN film with Cushing, 'Frankenstein Created Woman' with Susan Denberg. It's true, while the good Baron was very great at making 'Monsters', Cushing was quite an accomplished and expert model maker. 

EVERYTHING FROM his model soldiers, used in his #WARGAME past-time, model aircraft, ships, boats, houses and theater's . . . particularly theaters. After Cushing's death all of his model work, was auctioned to help pay his DEATH TAX bill..a REAL horror story... of the eight or nine that still existed, displayed and fully functional in the attic studio workshop at his Whitstable home, some are now in the 'eat you heart out collectors' MEGA COLLECTION, of huge Cushing fan and director, Guillermo del Toro Gómez. Each of the theaters, consisted of a proscenium arch, scenery, tabs, curtains, actors, props and a fully operational lighting system, complete with lightning board. 

I HAVE LABELLED  the photographs, with close up images, so you can see the amazing eye for detail and authenticity that Cushing really had. Take a look at the handmade GOBO light, with different colored gels and working selection motor. The lighting positioned at the rear of the set in photograph C, a shows that colored lighting gel, was positioned over the lamps, so that the light source on the model stage, depicted daylight! I have no idea just how much the theaters sold for, but from his telephone bidding on the day, it's known their was huge interest in the theaters, and the 'lolly' that went under the hammer, was big bucks.

IF YOU LIKE what you see here at our website, you'll  love our daily themed posts at our PCAS FACEBOOK FAN PAGE.  Just click that blue LINK and click LIKE when you get there, and help us . . Keep The Memory Alive!. The Peter Cushing Appreciation Society website, facebook fan page and youtube channel are managed, edited and written by Marcus Brooks, PCAS coordinator since 1979. PCAS is based in the UK and USA    

NEWS: THE HAMMER HOUSE OF HORROR IMMERSIVE AND FRIGHTENINGLY LIVE:

NEWS: THE COMPANY BEHIND so many of Peter Cushing's and Christopher Lee GREATEST SCARES is about to embark on a IMMERSIVE THEATRICAL EXPERIENCE to CHILL YOU to your HALLOWEEN BONES! Something 'ANCIENT and EVIL' is coming to HOXTON HALL, set in deepest JACK THE RIPPER country, the EAST END of LONDON! HOXTON HALL is an ATMOSPHERIC listed VICTORIAN music hall theatre and will be the setting of a HALLOWEEN HAPPENING, Hammer says, 'You'll NEVER forget!' 

THE HOUSE OF HAMMER HORROR SHOW LIVE is due to run through out OCTOBER 2017, ending it's run with a SPECIAL EXTRA LATE show on Halloween. Hammer Films CEO SIMON OAKES is promising 'A TENSE and INTIMATE ENCOUNTER' adding 'NO TWO PERFORMANCES WILL BE THE SAME! Anything else, he's keeping nailed down as tight as coffin lid! 

IT SOUNDS PROMISING! The HAMMER HOUSE OF HORROR LIVE runs from OCTOBER 3rd 2017 until HALLOWEEN October 31st 2017  . .. .  We can't wait!

IF YOU LIKE what you see here at our website, you'll  love our daily themed posts at our PCAS FACEBOOK FAN PAGE.  Just click that blue LINK and click LIKE when you get there, and help us . . Keep The Memory Alive!. The Peter Cushing Appreciation Society website, facebook fan page and youtube channel are managed, edited and written by Marcus Brooks, PCAS coordinator since 1979. PCAS is based in the UK and USA