Background
Christopher Guest was born on February 5, 1948 in New York City, the son of Peter Haden, a baron, and Jean Guest.
Actor comedian composer screenwriter
Christopher Guest was born on February 5, 1948 in New York City, the son of Peter Haden, a baron, and Jean Guest.
Guest graduated from New York City’s High School of Music and Art, attended Bard College, 1967, and New York University, 1968-70. Guest studied acting at New York University's Graduate Acting Program at the Tisch School of the Arts, graduating in 1971.
Guest's debut as a stage performer came in 1969. Four years later he had his first big success in National Lampoon’s Lemmings, a comedic musical for which he composed the music and wrote the lyrics.
Guest appeared in several films, including Death Wish, Girlfriends, The Long Riders, and Heartbeeps, before achieving popular success in 1984 with the comedic spoof on rock documentaries, This Is Spinal Tap.
He was not only one of the film’s three principal stars, but he co-wrote the script with the other two stars, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer. The trio also composed the music and penned the lyrics for the amusing pseudo-hits performed by the pseudo-band. The concept was revived for the 1992 television special A Spinal Tap Reunion, and Guest and his co-stars also released two albums as Spinal Tap.
Guest made his big-screen directorial debut with another of his screenplays, 1989’s The Big Picture. He returned to the mock-documentary format with 1997’s Waiting for Guffman, a comedy about the trials of a would-be Broadway director working with small-town actors in Missouri. Other film appearances for Guest include roles in 1987’s The Princess Bride and 1992’s A Few Good Men.
Guest’s television credits are numerous. He appeared on an episode of the acclaimed television series All in the Family, and was a regular on NBC’s Saturday Night Live in 1984 and 1985. He has also had guest roles on the comedy specials of such performers as Billy Crystal and Martin Short. He has directed and produced for the small screen as well; his titles in this area include the short-lived television series Morton & Hayes. He also directed an episode of Tall Tales and Legendsfor cable’s Showtime network, and the cable remake of the 1950s science fiction film Attack of the 50-Foot Woman for Home Box Office (HBO).
Guest penned 1989’s The Big Picture with This Is Spinal Tap's McKean, and also with Michael Varhol. The story, which Guest created himself, concerns a young student filmmaker who is “discovered” by Hollywood after his first motion picture. With a professional agent, and big studios interested in his next project, he is in great danger of being corrupted to the point where his second film will bear no relation to his original idea for it but will instead be filled with Hollywood gimmicks. As Terrence Rafferty, reviewing The Big Picture in the New Yorker, revealed, however, the film’s protagonist “learns to be a nice guy again, and finally gets to make his picture, his way.”
Guest co-wrote the program’s script, lyrics, and music. In addition to portraying Nigel Tufnel once more, he co-produced the special as well. Its premise is that the band have reunited after a nasty break-up in order to tour and to promote their latest album, Break Like the Wind—an album of heavy-metal parody that was actually released in the same year that the special aired. The show also included mock-interviews with celebrities such as Robin Williams, Mel Torme, and Graham Nash, who discuss Spinal Tap’s impact on the music field.
Guest turned to the world of community theater for his next motion picture mock-documentary, 1997’s Waiting for Guffman. The film’s protagonist is the somewhat effeminate Corky St. Claire, who has come from New York to the fictional town of Blaine, Missouri to teach high school drama. He is put in charge of a stage show commemorating Blaine’s sesquicentennial, from its founding to its rise to fame as a manufacturer of stools.
Though born in New York City in 1948, Guest became a baron by inheriting his father’s title in 1996.
Guest appeared as Dr. Stone in A Few Good Men (1992), as Lord Cromer in Mrs Henderson Presents (2005) and in the 2009 comedy The Invention of Lying.
On August 11, 2015, Netflix announced that Mascots, a film about the competition for the World Mascot Association championships's Gold Fluffy Award, would debut in 2016.
Guest is most widely known in Hollywood for having written, directed and starred in his series of comedy films shot in mock-documentary (mockumentary) style. Many scenes and character backgrounds in Guest's films are written and directed, although actors have no rehearsal time and the ensemble improvise scenes while filming them. He won Emmy Award award for best writing for a comedy special, 1976, for The Lily Tomlin Special.
(In Butterfly Rider, Kline and his 2008 Suzuki Boulevard c...)
(Warner Brothers special edition that was sent to Academy ...)
(This is the adapted screenplay from the film "The Dark Kn...)
( Comedy Christopher Durang Chacrters: 4 male, 2 female...)
Guest is married to actress Jamie Lee Curtis, and the couple have one daughter and one son.
