Actor: Peter Cushing

Peter Cushing brought a clipped, precise, almost fussy quality to horror that made his Baron Frankenstein far more unsettling than any monster. He plays the character as a man for whom other people are simply materials, and does it politely.

He made more than twenty films with Christopher Lee and the contrast between them, Cushing’s exactness against Lee’s silent physical presence, is the engine of the Hammer cycle.

Star Wars gave him Grand Moff Tarkin, and he reportedly found the boots so uncomfortable that Lucas shot him in slippers from the knees up.

His wife’s death in 1971 devastated him and he was open that he worked afterward mainly to fill time, which colors the later performances considerably.