Movie Trivia

 Carrie Fisher said in an interview that doing her scenes with Peter Cushing in "Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope" (1977) were difficult for two reasons: she thought the lines were ridiculous and she found Peter to be so polite and charming off camera that it was hard to project the sense of disdain that her character, Princess Leia Organa, held for his character, Grand Moff Tarkin.

The costume boots they gave Cushing for the film were too small and hurt his feet. Cushing told George Lucas this, and asked if he could wear slippers instead. Lucas agreed, and shot Cushing from the waist up for nearly all his scenes to compensate for Cushing's slippers.

In addition to acting, Cushing was also an artist, skilled in drawing and painting. As a young struggling actor, in 1945, with no money for presents, he found a large piece of silk, cut it into a neat square, painted Dickens characters on it and gave it to his wife as a present. She later loaned it to a friend who wore it to a party where it was seen by a textile manufacturer who gave Peter a contract as a silk scarf designer. Amongst those he designed were those for the Festival of Britain and the Coronation. As an established actor, Cushing had showings of his water colors. His sketch of Sherlock Holmes became the official logo for the Northern Musgraves, a British Sherlock Holmes society.

Although Cushing and Christopher Lee were often mortal enemies on-screen, off-screen they were inseparable friends. He and Lee were once asked to leave a theater showing a Sylvester and Tweety cartoon, because they were laughing hysterically.