Peter Cushing Thing" (1982). Director Tim Burton and actor Johnny Depp both said the portrayal of Ichabod Crane in "Sleepy Hollow" was intended to resemble that of Cushing's old horror film performances. In 2008, fourteen years after his death, Cushing's image was used in a set of stamps issued by the Royal Mail honouring Hammer Studios films on the fiftieth anniversary of the release of "Dracula". Peter Cushing was dedicated to his wife Helen, to whom he was married for twenty-eight years until her death in 1971. Cushing often said he felt his life had ended when hers did, and he was
Johnny Depp him as a leading Hollywood actor and began his long association with Burton. Producer Scott Rudin has stated that "basically Johnny Depp is playing Tim Burton in all his movies"; although Burton disapproved of the comment, Depp agrees with it. In his introduction to "Burton on Burton", a book of interviews with the director, Depp called Burton "... a brother, a friend, ... and [a] brave soul". Depp's first film release in 1990 was John Waters' "Cry-Baby", a musical comedy set in the 1950s. Although it was not a box office success upon its initial release, over the years it