Christopher Guest

For the Law Lord, see Christopher Guest, Baron Guest.

Christopher Haden-Guest, 5th Baron Haden-Guest (born February 5, 1948) is an American-British screenwriter, composer, musician, director, actor, and comedian. 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 improvises scenes while filming them. The series of films began with This Is Spinal Tap (which he did not direct) and continued with Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind, For Your Consideration, and Mascots.

The Right Honourable The Lord Haden-Guest
Guest in 2016
Member of the House of Lords Lord Temporal
In office April 8, 1996 – November 11, 1999 Hereditary peerage
Preceded by	The 4th Baron Haden-Guest
Personal details
Born	Christopher Haden-Guest (1948-02-05) February 5, 1948 (age 75) New York City, U.S.
Spouse	Jamie Lee Curtis ​ (m. 1984)​
Children	2
Parent(s)	Peter Haden-Guest, 4th Baron Haden-Guest (father) Jean Pauline Hindes (mother)
Relatives	Nicholas Guest (brother) Anthony Haden-Guest (half-brother)
Education	Bard College New York University (MFA)

Guest 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.^[1] Though he was initially active in the Lords, his career there was cut short by the House of Lords Act 1999, which removed the right of most hereditary peers to a seat in the parliament. 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, the former Jean Pauline Hindes, an American former vice president of casting at CBS.^[2] Guest's paternal grandfather, Leslie, Baron Haden-Guest, was a Labour Party politician, who was a convert to Judaism. Guest's paternal grandmother, a descendant of the Dutch Jewish Goldsmid family, was the daughter of Colonel Albert Goldsmid, a British officer who founded the Jewish Lads' and Girls' Brigade and the Maccabaeans.^[3][4] Guest's maternal grandparents were Jewish emigrants from Russia.^[2] Both of Guest's parents had become atheists, and Guest himself had no religious upbringing.^[4] 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 (New York City), studying classical music (clarinet) at the Stockbridge School in Interlaken, Massachusetts. He later took up the mandolin, became interested in country music, and played guitar with Arlo Guthrie, a fellow student at Stockbridge School.^[5] Guest later began performing with bluegrass bands until he took up rock and roll.^[6] Guest went to Bard College for a year^[4] and then studied acting at New York University's Graduate Acting Program at the Tisch School of the Arts, graduating in 1971.^[7]

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, DC, 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 (Flash Bazbo—Space Explorer, Mr. Rogers, music critic Roger de Swans, and sleazy record company rep Ron Fields) and wrote, arranged, and performed numerous musical parodies (of Bob Dylan, James Taylor, and others). 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 (Guest), who dated Gloria's girlfriend Debbie (Priscilla Lopez).

Guest also had a small but important role in it Happened One Christmas, the 1977 gender-reversed TV remake of the Frank Capra classic it's a Wonderful Life, starring Marlo Thomas as Mary Bailey (the Jimmy Stewart role), with Cloris Leachman as Mary's guardian angel and Orson Welles as the villainous Mr. Potter. Guest played Mary's brother Harry, who returned from the Army in the final scene, speaking one of the last lines of the film: "A toast! To my big sister Mary, the richest person in town!"

1980s

Guest's biggest role of the first two decades of his career is likely that of Nigel Tufnel in the 1984 Rob Reiner 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.^[8] Recurring characters on SNL played by Guest include Frankie, of Willie and Frankie (coworkers who recount in detail physically painful situations in which they have found themselves, remarking laconically "I hate when that happens"); Herb Minkman, a shady novelty toymaker with a brother named Al (played by Crystal); 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 prefilmed sketches, notably directing a documentary-style short starring Shearer and Short as synchronized swimmers. In another short film from SNL, Guest and Crystal appear in blackface as retired Negro league baseball players, "The Rooster and the King".

He appeared as Count Rugen (the "six-fingered man") in The Princess Bride. He had a cameo role as the first customer, a pedestrian, in the 1986 musical remake of The Little Shop of Horrors, which also featured 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 known as "the Hon. Christopher Haden-Guest". This was his official style and name until he inherited the barony in 1996.

1990–present

The experience of making This is Spinal Tap directly informed 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 came to be definitive examples of what came to be known as "mockumentaries"—not a term Guest appreciates in describing his unusual approach to exploring the passions that make the characters in his films so interesting. He maintains that his intention is not to mock anyone, but to explore insular, perhaps obscure communities through his method of film making.

Together, Guest, his frequent writing partner Eugene Levy, and a small band of actors have formed a loose repertory group, which appears in 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., Jim Piddock 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. Typically, everyone who appears in these movies receives the same fee and the same portion of profits.^[9] Among the films performed in this manner, which have been written and directed by Guest, include Waiting for Guffman (1996), about a community theatre group, Best in Show (2000), about the dog show circuit, A Mighty Wind (2001), about folk singers, For Your Consideration (2006), about the hype surrounding Oscar season, and Mascots (2016), about a sports team mascot competition.

Guest had a guest voice-over role in the animated comedy series SpongeBob SquarePants as SpongeBob's cousin, Stanley.

Guest again collaborated with Reiner in A Few Good Men (1992), appearing as Dr. Stone. In the 2000s, Guest appeared in the 2005 biographical musical 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 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.^[10]

In 2010, the United States Census Bureau paid $2.5 million to have a television commercial^[11] directed by Guest shown during television coverage of Super Bowl XLIV.^[12]

Guest holds an honorary doctorate from and is a member of the board of trustees for Berklee College of Music in Boston.^[13]

In 2013, Guest was the co-writer and producer of the HBO series Family Tree, in collaboration with Jim Piddock, a lighthearted story in the style he made famous in This is Spinal Tap, in which the main character, Tom Chadwick, inherits a box of curios from his great aunt, spurring interest in his ancestry.^[14]

On August 11, 2015, Netflix announced that Mascots, a film directed by Guest and co-written with Jim Piddock, about the competition for the World Mascot Association championship's Gold Fluffy Award, would debut in 2016.^[15]

Guest replayed his role as Count Tyrone Rugen in the Princess Bride Reunion on September 13, 2020.^[16]

Family

 

Coat of arms – Baron Haden-Guest, of Saling in the County of Essex

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 before his parents married. 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:^[1]

"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."

— Richard Grant, Nowt so queer as folk, The Guardian (9 Jan 2004)

Personal life

Guest married actress Jamie Lee Curtis in 1984 at the home of their mutual friend Rob Reiner. They have two children, through adoption: Annie (born 1986) and Ruby (born 1996).

Guest was played by Seth Green in the film A Futile and Stupid Gesture.^[17]

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Actor	Screenwriter	Director	Producer	Role	Notes
1971	The Hospital	Yes	No	No	No	Resident	Uncredited
1972	The Hot Rock	Yes	No	No	No	Policeman
1973	National Lampoon Lemmings	Yes	Yes	No	No		Musical arranger
1974	Death Wish	Yes	No	No	No	Patrolman Jackson Reilly
1975	The Fortune	Yes	No	No	No	Boy Lover
	Tarzoon: Shame of the Jungle	Yes	No	No	No	Chief M'Bulu / Short / Nurse	Voice only
1978	Girlfriends	Yes	No	No	No	Eric
1979	The Last Word	Yes	No	No	No	Roger
1980	The Long Riders	Yes	No	No	No	Charley Ford
	The Missing Link	Yes	No	No	No	No Lobes	English version; voice
1981	Heartbeeps	Yes	No	No	No	Calvin
	Likely Stories, Vol. 1	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	All roles (segment "Dead Ringer")
1983	Likely Stories, Vol. 3	Yes	No	No	No	Frankie (segment "Split Decision")
1984	This Is Spinal Tap	Yes	Yes	No	No	Nigel Tufnel	Composer, musician
1985	Martin Short: Concert for the North Americas	Yes	No	No	No	Rajiv Vindaloo
1986	Little Shop of Horrors	Yes	No	No	No	The First Customer
1987	Beyond Therapy	Yes	No	No	No	Bob
	The Princess Bride	Yes	No	No	No	Count Tyrone Rugen, the six-fingered man
1988	Sticky Fingers	Yes	No	No	No	Sam
1989	The Big Picture	No	Yes	Yes	No
1992	A Few Good Men	Yes	No	No	No	Dr. Stone
1994	The Return of Spinal Tap	Yes	No	No	No	Nigel Tufnel
1996	Waiting for Guffman	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Corky St. Clair
1998	Almost Heroes	No	No	Yes	No
	Small Soldiers	Yes	No	No	No	Slamfist/Scratch-It	Voices
2000	Best in Show	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Harlan Pepper
2003	A Mighty Wind	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Alan Barrows
2005	Mrs Henderson Presents	Yes	No	No	No	Lord Cromer
2006	For Your Consideration	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Jay Berman
2009	Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian	Yes	No	No	No	Ivan the Terrible
	The Invention of Lying	Yes	No	No	No	Nathan Goldfrappe
2012	Her Master's Voice	No	No	No	Yes
2016	Mascots	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Corky St. Clair	Netflix film

Television

Year	Title	Actor	Screenwriter	Director	Producer	Role	Notes
1975	Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell	No	Yes	No	No		Variety series
	The Lily Tomlin Special	No	Yes	No	No		TV special
1976	The Billion Dollar Bubble	Yes	No	No	No	Al Green	TV film
	TVTV Looks at the Oscars	No	Yes	No	No		TV special
	TVTV: Super Bowl	No	Yes	No	No		TV special
	The TVTV Show	Yes	Yes	No	No	Various	TV special
1977	It Happened One Christmas	Yes	No	No	No	Harry Bailey	TV film
	The Andros Targets	Yes	No	No	No	Gordon Hamilton	Episode: "A Currency for Murder"
	All in the Family	Yes	No	No	No	Jim	Episode: "Mike and Gloria Meet"
1978	Laverne & Shirley	Yes	No	No	No	Greg Harris	Episode: "Bus Stop"
	Peeping Times	No	Yes	No	No		Television special
1979	Blind Ambition	Yes	No	No	No	Jeb Stuart Magruder	Miniseries
	The Chevy Chase National Humor Test	Yes	Yes	No	No	Various	Television special
1980	Haywire	Yes	No	No	No	The T.V. Director	Television film
1982	Million Dollar Infield	Yes	No	No	No	Bucky Frische	Television film
	A Piano for Mrs. Cimino	Yes	No	No	No	Philip Ryan	Television film
	St. Elsewhere	Yes	No	No	No	H.J. Cummings	2 episodes
1984–85	Saturday Night Live	Yes	Yes	No	No	Various	19 episodes
1986	Shelley Duvall's Tall Tales & Legends	No	Yes	No	No		Episode: "Johnny Appleseed"
1989	Trying Times	No	No	Yes	No		Episode: "The Sad Professor"
	Billy Crystal: Midnight Train to Moscow	Yes	No	No	No	The Voice	Stand-up special
	I, Martin Short, Goes Hollywood	Yes	No	No	No	Antoninus DiMentabella
1991	Morton & Hayes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	El Supremo / Crooner / Dr. Von Astor	Directed 5 episodes; acted 3 episodes; composed theme music
	Amnesty International's Big 3-0	Yes	No	No	No	Nigel Tufnel	Television special
1992	The Simpsons	Yes	No	No	No	Nigel Tufnel	Episode: "The Otto Show" Voice
1993	Animaniacs	Yes	No	No	No	Umlatt	Episode: "King Yakko" Voice
	Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman	No	No	Yes	No		Television film; composer
1999	Dilbert	Yes	No	No	No	The Dupey	Episode: "The Dupey" Voice
2003	MADtv	Yes	No	No	No	Nigel Tufnel	Episode: season 8, episode 21
2007, 2021	SpongeBob SquarePants	Yes	No	No	No	Stanley S. SquarePants / Clem Clam	2 episodes: "Stanley S. SquarePants", "Goofy Scoopers" Voice
2009	Stonehenge: 'Tis a Magic Place	Yes	No	No	No	Nigel Tufnel	3 episodes
2012	84th Academy Awards	Yes	No	Yes	No	Focus Group Member	Directed focus group segment
2013	Family Tree	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Dave Chadwick / Phineas Chadwick	8 episodes; also co-creator composed credits theme

Recurring cast members

Guest has worked multiple times with certain actors, notably with frequent writing partner Eugene Levy, who has appeared in five of his projects. Other repeat collaborators of Guest include Fred Willard (7 projects); Michael McKean, Bob Balaban, and Ed Begley, Jr. (6 projects each); Parker Posey, Jim Piddock, Michael Hitchcock and Harry Shearer (5 projects each); Catherine O'Hara, Larry Miller, John Michael Higgins, Jane Lynch, and Jennifer Coolidge (4 projects each).

Work Actor
	This Is Spinal Tap	The Big Picture	Waiting for Guffman	Almost Heroes	Best in Show	A Mighty Wind	For Your Consideration	Family Tree	Mascots
Bob Balaban
Ed Begley, Jr.
Jennifer Coolidge
John Michael Higgins
Michael Hitchcock
Eugene Levy
Jane Lynch
Michael McKean
Larry Miller
Catherine O'Hara
Jim Piddock
Parker Posey
Harry Shearer
Fred Willard

Awards and nominations

Year	Award	Category	Film	Result^[18]
1976	Primetime Emmy Award	Outstanding Writing in a Comedy-Variety or Music Special Ann Elder Shared with Earl Pomerantz, Jim Rusk, Lily Tomlin, Rod Warren, George Yanok	The Lily Tomlin Special	Won
1995	International Fantasy Film Award	Best Film	Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman	Nominated
1998	Independent Spirit Award	Best Male Lead	Waiting for Guffman	Nominated
		Best Screenplay Shared with Eugene Levy		Nominated
	Lone Star Film & Television Award	Best Director		Won
2001	DVD Exclusive Award	Best DVD Audio Commentary	This Is Spinal Tap	Won
	American Comedy Award	Funniest Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture	Best in Show	Nominated
	Golden Satellite Award	Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture, Comedy or Musical		Nominated
	Independent Spirit Award	Best Director		Nominated
	Writers Guild of America Award	Best Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen Shared with Eugene Levy		Nominated
2003	Seattle Film Critics Award	Best Music Shared with John Michael Higgins, Eugene Levy, Michael McKean, Catherine O'Hara, Annette O'Toole, Harry Shearer, Jeffrey C. J. Vanston	A Mighty Wind	Won
2004	Grammy Award	Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media Shared with Eugene Levy, Michael McKean^[19]	A Mighty Wind	Won

References

1. Richard Grant (January 9, 2004). "Nowt so queer as folk". The Guardian Weekend. from the original on December 19, 2016. Retrieved December 11, 2016.
2. Witchel, Alex (November 12, 2006). "The Shape-Shifter". The New York Times. from the original on December 4, 2011. Retrieved November 16, 2006.
3. Murray, William Henry (1952). Adam and Cain: Symposium of Old Bible History, Sumerian Empire, Importance of Blood of Race, Juggling Juggernaut of the Leaders of the Jews, the Gothic Civilization of Adam and the Ten Commandments of His Church. Murray.
4. Rosen, Steven (November 16, 2006). "Want to spoof Purim and the Oscars? Be our Guest!". The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles. 21 (39). from the original on September 29, 2007. Retrieved November 16, 2006.
5. Richard Grant (January 10, 2004). "Nowt so queer as folk". The Guardian Weekend. from the original on December 19, 2016. Retrieved December 11, 2016.
6. Gross, Terry (September 14, 1989). "Christopher Guest Plays with Parody". Fresh Air, WHYY. Philadelphia: NPR. from the original on April 24, 2010. Retrieved August 6, 2010.
7. "NYU Graduate Acting Alumni". 2011. from the original on July 5, 2012. Retrieved December 1, 2011.
8. Gus Wezerek (December 14, 2019). "The 'S.N.L.' Stars Who Lasted, and the Ones Who Flamed Out". The New York Times. from the original on December 14, 2019. Retrieved December 16, 2019. Some of the names here will be familiar only to die-hard fans; others, like Murphy, defined what was funny for generations of viewers.
9. Rose, Charlie (May 12, 2003). . Charlie Rose LLC. Archived from the original on December 1, 2008. Retrieved August 6, 2010.
10. Moon, Tom (February 2, 2009). "Beyman Bros: The Thinking Person's Americana". All Things Considered. NPR. from the original on April 23, 2010. Retrieved August 6, 2010.
11. "U.S. Census Bureau - Preproduction Location Video from Ad Age". Ad Age. February 7, 2010. Retrieved March 1, 2023.
12. "Taxpayers to Fork Out $2.5 Million for Single Census Ad During Super Bowl". Fox News. February 3, 2010. from the original on October 5, 2010. Retrieved August 6, 2010.
13. Shanahan, Mark (October 18, 2011). . The Boston Globe. Archived from the original on July 28, 2012. Retrieved March 6, 2012.
14. Rampton, James (July 9, 2013). "Christopher Guest: From Spinal Tap to Family Tree". The Independent. Retrieved September 18, 2019.
15. McNary, Dave (August 11, 2015). "Netflix Acquires Christopher Guest's Mascots Mockumentary". Variety. from the original on September 6, 2015. Retrieved September 5, 2015.
16. Ehrlich, Brenna (September 14, 2020). "'The Princess Bride' Cast Reunite for Hilarious Table Read". Rolling Stone. Retrieved March 1, 2022.
17. "A Futile and Stupid Gesture". IMDb.
18. "Christopher Guest – Awards". IMDb. from the original on March 23, 2013. Retrieved March 15, 2013.
19. "46th Annual GRAMMY Awards". GRAMMY.com. January 15, 2013. from the original on June 24, 2017. Retrieved November 11, 2017.

External links

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Christopher Guest.

• Christopher Guest at IMDb
• Christopher Guest at the Internet Broadway Database  
• Christopher Guest at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• "Nowt so queer as folk". The Guardian (UK). January 10, 2004. Richard Grant. Interview for release of A Mighty Wind.

Media offices
Preceded by Brad Hall	"Weekend Update" anchor 1984–1985	Succeeded by Dennis Miller
Peerage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Peter Haden-Guest	Baron Haden-Guest 1996–present Member of the House of Lords (1996–1999)	Incumbent Heir presumptive: Hon. Nicholas Haden-Guest