Happy birthday, Christopher Lee.

Frequent Peter Cushing costar Christopher Lee, CBE, was born today in London in 1922. An integral part of numerous horror movies, Lee played Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu and Bram Stoker's Dracula in several films, Duc de Richelieu in The Devil Rides Out (writ. Richard Matheson and Dennis Wheatley, 1968), and Jean-Pierre in the TV series Colonel Marsh of Scotland Yard (many episodes written by John Dickson Carr, 1956).  His career also has a definite Sherlock Holmes emphasis; he played Sir Henry Baskerville in The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959), Mycroft Holmes in The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970), and Holmes himself in Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady (1991). He's also the uncle of Harriet Walter (who appeared as Harriet Vane in Strong Poison, Have His Carcase, and Gaudy Night).

About the image: Christopher Lee in The Hound of the Baskervilles (dir. Terence Fisher, 1959)

Happy birthday, Peter Cushing.

Hammer Films stalwart Peter Cushing, OBE, was born today in Surrey in 1913. He died in 1994. Among the notable roles in his long career were Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles (and in a subsequent TV series), Josef Vadassey in the TV series adapted from Eric Ambler's Epitaph for a Spy (1953), Dr. Who in Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965) and Daleks' Invasion Earth: 2150 AD (1966), Holly in H. Rider Haggard's She (1965), and Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars (1977).

About the image: Peter Cushing in The Hound of the Baskervilles (dir. Terence Fisher, 1959)