PETER Cushing was almost as enigmatic as the Hammer horror film characters he played.

Now a new light is set to be shed on the iconic actor in a previously unpublished video interview soon available to view free on a new Hammer Film tribute website.

Bournemouth screenwriter Ian Jennings, now of Alumhurst Road, Westbourne, secured his rare interview in 1983 aged just 20, after contacting Cushing’s agent.

What he did not expect was that the actor himself would call at 6pm on a Friday as he tucked into his dinner.

Ian said: “A few days later Peter Cushing himself phoned me but the cheeky bugger reversed the charges.

“My heart was going 50 to the dozen as we arranged the date and time. In my excitement I lost my appetite.”

The pair arranged that Ian would meet Cushing at the home of his secretary Joyce Broughton in Hartley, Kent, the following Monday.

Ian had to get up at 3am to get to Kent in time for 10am, lugging along two heavy suitcases full of equipment.

He said: “His secretary answered the door. I was shown through to the living room nervously biting my nails and he made his entrance. He was very much the actor although not a show off.

“He had bright yellow socks on. That stands out in my mind.”

When Cushing found out that Ian had started off from Bournemouth at 3am he immediately exclaimed: “Oh my dear boy would you like a brandy?” remembers Ian.

Ian describes the actor as “almost like the grandfather you never had or like an uncle”.

Cushing opened up about his time working on the Hammer films, his friendship with Christopher Lee, his beliefs on life and death and appearing in Star Wars.

He told Ian of his hopes to be buried alongside his beloved late wife and that there was space for his name on the gravestone.

Mysteriously Cushing was cremated, his wife’s remains exhumed and relocated and to this day no-one knows where he is buried.

Ian added: “I think how novel it would be if his urn containing his ashes is on Christopher Lee’s mantelpiece.”

The pair were best friends after appearing as adversaries in numerous low budget Hammer films.

Ian said: “Cushing himself left instructions. He didn’t want his final resting place to be a shrine. When Joyce Broughton goes I think the secret will go with her.”

Ian asked Cushing what he would say to God on judgement day if asked about his sinister appearances in the films.

He replied: “I would say, I hope I gave pleasure to others and please forgive me if I didn’t. It was an off-the-cuff answer.”

Cushing who spent years playing characters such as Van Helsing, fighting off a range of supernatural creatures, also believed there was something more than the physical “three score years and ten”.

He said: “I think that would be too ironic and cruel if the only thing we are sure of when we are born is that we are going to die.”

Cushing also revealed that he sometimes went into empty churches to “just talk”.

The actor also revealed his sense of humour remembering the time co-star Christopher Lee burst into his dressing room during filming of The Curse of Frankenstein.

Lee played the creature but had no lines.

“He said, ‘Have you seen this? I don’t have any lines. I said, ‘You’re lucky. I’ve seen the script’,” Cushing quipped.

Commenting on his role as Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars in 1976, Cushing joked: “I’ve always wondered what a Grand Moff was.”

Cushing famously played the part wearing carpet slippers after being given boots that pinched and had to be filmed from the waist up.

Ian added: “I’ve always regretted not asking him about the two Dr Who movies.”

Joyce Broughton’s husband, Bernard, who acted as Cushing’s chauffeur even drove Ian back to the station afterwards, added Ian.

Afterwards, travelling home on the train, he felt like it had been a dream.

“It was all over a bit too quickly. On the train coming back I kept thinking, ‘Did this really happen?’ Then I looked down at the video and thought, ‘Yes it did’.

A printed version of the interview appeared in an American magazine more than 20 years ago and was re-printed in part in a Cushing biography. Unofficial versions of the video are rumoured to exist on the internet, said Ian.

The official video is available to view at theblackboxclub.com from January 29.