Peter Cushing is known to Star Wars fans as Grand Moff Tarkin, but his acting career, spanning nearly seven decades and over 100 film and television appearances, proved far more durable than Tarkin's Death Star. He was born May 26, 1913, in Surrey, England. He learned his craft at London's famous Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and spent most of the 1940s performing smaller roles on the stage and screen.

Though he participated in many dramatic projects from Lawrence Olivier's Hamlet (1948) to The End of the Affair (1955) Cushing is most famous for his many appearances in the Hammer horror films. The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), in which he starred opposite fellow horror legend Christopher Lee, launched his career as a cult icon. He would eventually play some of the most enduring literary characters of all time, among them Dr. Frankenstein, Dracula, and Sherlock Holmes.

Cushing died of cancer on August 11, 1994. He was 81.