Christopher Haden-Guest, 5th Baron Haden-Guest, better known as Christopher Guest, is an English-American
screenwriter, composer, musician, director, actor, and comedian who holds dual British
and American citizenship. He is most widely known in Hollywood for having written, directed
and starred in several improvisational "mockumentary" films featuring an ensemble cast. This series
of films began with This Is Spinal Tap, and continued with Waiting for Guffman, Best In
Show, A Mighty Wind, and For Your Consideration. Guest also had a featured role as the evil
six-fingered Count Rugen in the film The Princess Bride.
He holds a hereditary British peerage as the 5th Baron Haden-Guest, and has publicly expressed
a desire to see the House of Lords reformed as a democratically elected chamber. Though
he was initially active in the Lords, his career there was cut short by the House of
Lords Act 1999. When using his title, he is normally styled as Lord Haden-Guest. Guest
is married to the actress and author Jamie Lee Curtis.
Early years Guest was born in New York City, the son of
Peter Haden-Guest, a British United Nations diplomat who later became the 4th Baron Haden-Guest,
and his second wife, Jean Pauline Hindes, a former vice president of casting at CBS.
Guest's paternal grandfather, Leslie, Baron Haden-Guest, was a Labour Party politician
who was a convert to Judaism, and Guest's paternal grandmother's father was Colonel
Albert Goldsmid, a British officer who founded the Jewish Lads' and Girls' Brigade and the
Maccabaeans. Guest's maternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Russia. Both of
Guest's parents had become atheists, and Guest had no religious upbringing. Nearly a decade
before he was born, his uncle, David Guest, a lecturer and Communist Party member, was
killed in the Spanish Civil War fighting in the International Brigades.
Guest spent parts of his childhood in his father's native United Kingdom. He attended
The High School of Music & Art, studying classical music and the Stockbridge School in Interlaken,
MA. He later took up the mandolin, became interested in country music, and played guitar
with Arlo Guthrie a fellow student at Stockbridge School. Guest later began performing with
bluegrass bands until he took up rock and roll.
Guest studied acting at New York University's Graduate Acting Program at the Tisch School
of the Arts, graduating in 1971. Career
1970s Guest began his career in theatre during the
early 1970s with one of his earliest professional performances being the role of Norman in Michael
Weller's Moonchildren for the play's American premiere at the Arena Stage in Washington
D.C. in November 1971. Guest continued with the production when it moved to Broadway in
1972. The following year he began making contributions to The National Lampoon Radio Hour for a variety
of National Lampoon audio recordings. He both performed comic characters and wrote, arranged
and performed numerous musical parodies. He was featured alongside Chevy Chase and John
Belushi in the Off-Broadway revue National Lampoon's Lemmings. Two of his earliest film
roles were small parts as uniformed police officers in the 1972 film The Hot Rock and
1974's Death Wish. Guest played a small role in the 1977 All
In the Family episode "Mike and Gloria Meet", where in a flashback sequence Mike and Gloria
recall their first blind date, set up by Michael's college buddy Jim, who dated Gloria's girlfriend
Debbie. 1980s
Guest's biggest role of the first two decades of his career is likely that of Nigel Tufnel
in the 1984 mockumentary film This Is Spinal Tap. Guest made his first appearance as Tufnel
on the 1978 sketch comedy program The TV Show. Along with Martin Short, Billy Crystal and
Harry Shearer, Guest was hired as a one-year only cast member for the 1984–85 season
on NBC's Saturday Night Live. Recurring characters on SNL played by Guest include Frankie, of
Willie and Frankie; Herb Minkman, a shady novelty toymaker with a brother named Al;
Rajeev Vindaloo, an eccentric foreign man in the same vein as Andy Kaufman's Latka character
from Taxi; and Señor Cosa, a Spanish ventriloquist often seen on the recurring spoof of The Joe
Franklin Show. He also experimented behind the camera with pre-filmed sketches, notably
directing a documentary-style short starring Shearer and Short as synchronized swimmers.
In another short film from SNL, Guest and Crystal appear as retired Negro league baseball
players, "The Rooster and the King". He appeared as Count Rugen in The Princess
Bride. He had a cameo role as the first customer, a smarmy pedestrian, in the 1986 musical remake
of The Little Shop of Horrors, that also featured his SNL co-star, Steve Martin. As a co-writer
and director, Guest made the Hollywood satire The Big Picture.
Upon his father succeeding to the family peerage in 1987, he was henceforth known as The Hon.
Christopher Haden-Guest in full. This was his official style and name until he inherited
the barony in 1996. 1990–present
The experience of having made Spinal Tap would directly inform the second phase of his career.
Starting in 1996, Guest began writing, directing and acting in his own series of substantially
improvised films. Many of them would come to be definitive examples of what came to
be known as "mockumentaries". His frequent writing partner is Eugene Levy.
Together, Levy, Guest and a small band of other actors have formed a loose repertory
group, which appear across several films. These include Catherine O'Hara, Michael McKean,
Parker Posey, Bob Balaban, Jane Lynch, John Michael Higgins, Harry Shearer, Jennifer Coolidge,
Ed Begley, Jr. and Fred Willard. Guest and Levy write backgrounds for each of the characters
and notecards for each specific scene, outlining the plot, and then leave it up to the actors
to improvise the dialogue, which is supposed to result in a much more natural conversation
than scripted dialogue would. Notably, everyone who appears in these movies receives the same
fee, and the same portion of profits. Despite making a number of mockumentaries,
Guest dislikes the term. He maintains that his intention is not to mock anyone, but to
explore insular, perhaps obscure communities through his method of filmmaking.
He had a guest voice-over role in the animated comedy series SpongeBob SquarePants as SpongeBob's
cousin, Stanley. Guest appeared as Dr. Stone in A Few Good
Men, as Lord Cromer in Mrs Henderson Presents and in the 2009 comedy The Invention of Lying.
He is also currently a member of the musical group The Beyman Bros, which he formed with
his childhood friend David Nichtern and Spinal Tap's current keyboardist C. J. Vanston. Their
debut album Memories of Summer as a Child was released on January 20, 2009.
In 2010, the United States Census Bureau paid $2.5 million to have a television commercial
directed by Guest shown during television coverage of Super Bowl XLIV.
Guest holds an honorary doctorate from and is a member of the board of trustees for Berklee
College of Music in Boston. He is currently the writer and producer of
the HBO series, Family Tree, a lighthearted story in the mockumentary style he made famous
in Spinal Tap, in which the main character, Tom Chadwick, inherits a box of curios from
his great aunt, spurring interest in his ancestry. Family
Peerage and heirs
Guest became the 5th Baron Haden-Guest, of Great Saling, in the County of Essex, when
his father died in 1996. He succeeded upon the ineligibility of his older half-brother,
Anthony Haden-Guest, who was born prior to the marriage of his parents. According to
an article in The Guardian, Guest attended the House of Lords regularly until the House
of Lords Act 1999 barred most hereditary peers from their seats. In the article Guest remarked:
There's no question that the old system was unfair. I mean, why should you be born to
this? But now it's all just sheer cronyism. The Prime Minister can put in whoever he wants
and bus them in to vote. The Upper House should be an elected body, it's that simple.
Ancestry Personal life
Guest married actress Jamie Lee Curtis in 1984 at the home of their mutual friend, Rob
Reiner. They have two adopted children: Anne and Thomas. Because Guest's children are adopted,
they cannot inherit the family barony under the terms of the letters patent that created
it, though a 2004 Royal Warrant addressing the style of a peer's adopted children states
that they can use courtesy titles. The current heir presumptive to the barony is Guest's
younger brother, the actor The Hon. Nicholas Haden-Guest.
Off-stage demeanor As reported by Louis B. Hobson, "On film,
Guest is a hilariously droll comedian. In person he is serious and almost dour." He
quotes Guest as saying "People want me to be funny all the time. They think I'm being
funny no matter what I say or do and that's not the case. I rarely joke unless I'm in
front of a camera. It's not what I am in real life. It's what I do for a living."
Filmography The Hot Rock – as policeman
Death Wish – as Patrolman Jackson Reilly The Fortune – as Boy Lover
The Billion Dollar Bubble Girlfriends – as Eric
The Long Riders – as Charley Ford Heartbeeps – as Calvin
Million Dollar Infield – as Bucky Frische This Is Spinal Tap – as Nigel Tufnel
Little Shop of Horrors – as The First Customer Beyond Therapy – as Bob
The Princess Bride – as Count Tyrone Rugen, the six-fingered man
The Big Picture – A Few Good Men – as Dr. Stone
Waiting for Guffman – as Corky St. Clair Almost Heroes
Small Soldiers – Slamfist/Scratch-It Best in Show – as Harlan Pepper
A Mighty Wind – as Alan Barrows Mrs Henderson Presents – as Lord Cromer
For Your Consideration – as Jay Berman SpongeBob SquarePants – as Stanley S. SquarePants
Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian – as Ivan the Terrible
The Invention of Lying – as Nathan Goldfrappe Family Tree
Recurring cast members
Titles and styles 5 February 1948 – 26 May 1987: Mister Christopher
Haden-Guest 26 May 1987 – 8 April 1996: The Honourable
Christopher Haden-Guest 8 April 1996 – present: The Right Honourable
The Lord Haden-Guest Awards and nominations
References
External links Christopher Guest at the Internet Movie Database
Christopher Guest at the Internet Broadway Database
Christopher Guest at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
Christoper Guest bio in The Peerage "Nowt so queer as folk". The Guardian. January
10, 2004. Richard Grant. Interview for release of A Mighty Wind.