Trivia: Imperious, intellectual-looking British actor Peter Cushing studied for a theatrical career under the guidance of Cairns James at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Cushing supported himself as a clerk in a surveyor's office before making his first professional stage appearance in 1935. Four years later, he came to America, where he was featured in a handful of Broadway plays and Hollywood feature films. He had a small part in The Man in the Iron Mask (1939) and also doubled for Louis Hayward in the "twin" scenes; he was among the rather overaged students in Laurel and Hardy's A Chump at Oxford (1940); and he was second male lead in the Carole Lombard vehicle Vigil in the Night (1940). After closing out his Hollywood tenure with They Dare Not Love (1941), he returned to stage work in England. His next film appearance was as Osric in Laurence Olivier's Hamlet (1948), which also featured his future co-star Christopher Lee in a nonspeaking bit (Cushing and Lee's paths would cross again cinematically in Moulin Rouge [1952], though, as in Hamlet, they shared no scenes).In the early '50s, Cushing became a TV star by virtue of his performance in the BBC production of George Orwell's 1984. Still, film stardom would elude him until 1957, when he was cast as Baron Frankenstein in Hammer Films' The Curse of Frankenstein. It was the first of 19 appearances under the Hammer banner; Cushing went on to play Van Helsing in Horror of Dracula (1958) and Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959), roles which, like Baron Frankenstein, he would repeat time and again. Though his horror film appearances brought him fame and fortune, Cushing ruefully commented that he'd prefer not to be so tightly typecast: It is significant that his entry in the British publication Who's Who in the Theatre lists all of his theatrical credits, but only one title -- Hamlet -- in his film manifest. In 1975, after a decade's absence, Cushing made a return to the theater in Washington Square, ironically playing the role originated on Broadway by fellow Sherlock Holmes interpreter Basil Rathbone. Many of Cushing's later film assignments were in the tongue-in-cheek category, notably his sneeringly evil Governor Tarkin in Star Wars (1977) and his backwards-talking librarian in Top Secret! (1984). Retiring from the screen in 1986, Peter Cushing penned two volumes of memoirs: An Autobiography (1986) and Past Forgetting (1988).

Trivia: Starting his film career as a supporting actor in 1957's Yangste Incident, British actor Bernard Cribbins rapidly established himself as a singular comic talent. Audiences were primed to chuckle the moment the grinning, lantern-jawed Cribbins shambled onto the screen. His film credits include Tommy the Toreador (1960), Wrong Arm of the Law (1962), Mouse on the Moon (1963), The Undertakers (1971), and a handful of the "Carry On" series. In his heyday in the '60s, Bernard Cribbins was a popular radio and TV storyteller; he also cut a few best-selling Allan Sherman-style comedy record albums.

Trivia: Sturdy Scots actor Andrew Keir played Prince John on the 1958 British TV series Ivanhoe and was seen in such swordfests as The Pirates of Blood River (1961) and The Viking Queen (1967). Keir's other screen assignments have included the role of Agrippa in the 1963 spectacle Cleopatra and the 1971 Hammer horror Blood From the Mummy's Tomb (1971). Keir is best known to "Fantastic Cinema" fanatics for his portrayal of Professor Quatermass in the 1967 film Quatermass and the Pit, and for his performance as Wyler in the "Doctor Who" feature Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 AD (1966). Andrew Keir was most recently seen in the boisterous historical epic Rob Roy (1995).

Trivia: British lead and supporting actor Ray Brooks began his film career in the early '60s. He has also done a lot of television and stage work.