Impersonating Horror Stars

The British TV series Q.I., which stands for "Quite Interesting," is a celebrity comedy quiz show with a lot of chatter between the questions. It's hosted by Stephen Fry, and this is my favorite clip from the show, in which Fry tells a couple of anecdotes about Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, and Vincent Price, complete with impersonations.

Cushing and Lee starred in a long series of Hammer horror films, British takes on the classic movie monsters Dracula, Frankenstein, and so on. Invariably, Cushing would play the hero, Van Helsing or somebody, and Lee would play the monster. Americans today are most likely to know Peter Cushing as General Tarkin, from Star Wars, and Christopher Lee as Saruman, from Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Vincent Price, of course, is another of the most famous horror stars of all time. He had a long career, but he's arguably best known for Edgar Allan Poe adaptations from the 60s, the first being House of Usher. Modern audiences may known him as The Inventor, in Edward Scissorhands.