The loss of a loved one can take a mighty toll on the psyche. After his wife’s passing in 1971, Peter Cushing found himself suddenly alone in the world. Cushing had been married to his wife, Violet Hélène Beck, for 28 years. He frequently credited his wife with having helped his career.

“I owe everything ot her,” Cushing said, according to an article for Star Wars Insider. “I always say that I was born in 1913. I started to live in 1941 when I met Helen, and I died in 1971 when she died.”

After the death of his wife, Cushing threw himself into acting. By focusing on work, Cushing was given both an outlet and a distraction from the pain of losing a loved one. “It is the answer to my prayers,” Cushing said of his hectic filming schedule, according to The Hammer Story: The Authorised History of Hammer Films, written by Marcus Hearn and Alan Barnes.

Cushing began playing Victor Frankenstein in the 1957 film, The Curse of Frankenstein. The actor would reprise the role in follow-up films like Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969) and Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1979).

“When we first started, Frankenstein was trying to do the impossible,” Cushing said during an interview with the Sunday Mirror. “Then, brain transplants began to be shown on television, and we thought that would be the end of the doctor, with his crude do-it-yourself surgery. But he is more popular than ever. He is not evil, but a man so single-minded and obsessed by what he is trying to achieve that any means will justify the end.”