The Right Honourable The Lord Haden-Guest
Guest in 2016
Member of theHouse of Lords
Lord Temporal
as ahereditary peer April 8, 1996 – November 11, 1999
Preceded by	The 4th Baron Haden-Guest
Succeeded by	Seat abolished [a]
Personal details
Born	Christopher Haden-Guest (1948-02-05)February 5, 1948 (age 77) New York City, U.S.
Spouse	Jamie Lee Curtis ​ (m. 1984)​
Parent(s)	Peter Haden-Guest, 4th Baron Haden-Guest (father) Jean Pauline Hindes (mother)
Relatives	Elissa Haden Guest (sister) Nicholas Guest (brother) Anthony Haden-Guest (half-brother)
Education	Bard College New York University (MFA)

Christopher Haden-Guest, 5th Baron Haden-Guest (born February 5, 1948), known professionally asChristopher Guest, is an American and British actor, comedian, screenwriter and director. Guest has written, directed, and starred in his series of comedy films shot inmockumentary style. He co-wrote and acted in the rock satireThis Is Spinal Tap (1984), and later directed a string of satirical mockumentary films such asWaiting for Guffman (1996),Best in Show (2000),A Mighty Wind (2003),For Your Consideration (2006), andMascots (2016). He also acted in the filmsDeath Wish (1974),Little Shop of Horrors (1986),The Princess Bride (1987), andA Few Good Men (1992); and was a regular cast member on the10th season ofSaturday Night Live.

Guest holds ahereditaryBritish peerage as the 5thBaron Haden-Guest.^[1] He was active in the House of Lords until the1999 reform abolished his seat. When using his title, he is normallystyled asLord Haden-Guest. Guest is married to the actressJamie Lee Curtis.

Guest was born on February 5, 1948^[2] in New York City, the son ofPeter Haden-Guest, a British United Nations diplomat who later became the 4thBaron Haden-Guest, and his second wife, the formerJean Pauline Hindes, an American former vice president of casting atCBS.^[3] Guest's paternal grandfather,Leslie, Baron Haden-Guest, was aLabour Party politician, who was aconvert to Judaism. Guest's paternal grandmother, a descendant of the Dutch JewishGoldsmid family, was the daughter ofColonelAlbert Goldsmid who founded theJewish Lads Brigade and theMaccabaeans.^[4][5] Guest's maternal grandparents were Jewish emigrants from Russia.^[3] Both of Guest's parents had becomeatheists, and Guest himself had no religious upbringing.^[5] In 1938, his uncle,David Guest, a lecturer andCommunist Party member, was killed in theSpanish Civil War, fighting in theInternational Brigades.

Guest spent parts of his childhood in his father's native United Kingdom. He attended theHigh School of Music & Art (New York City), studying classical music (clarinet) at theStockbridge School in the village ofInterlaken inStockbridge,Massachusetts. He later took up themandolin, became interested incountry music, and played guitar withArlo Guthrie, a fellow student at Stockbridge School.^[6] Guest later began performing withbluegrass bands until he took uprock and roll.^[7] Guest went toBard College for a year^[5] and then studied acting atNew York University'sGraduate Acting Program at theTisch School of the Arts, graduating in 1971.^[8]

Guest began his career in theatre during the early 1970s with one of his earliest professional performances being the role of Norman inMichael Weller'sMoonchildren for the play's American premiere at theArena Stage in Washington, DC, in November 1971. Guest continued with the production when it moved toBroadway in 1972. The following year, he began making contributions toThe 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 alongsideChevy Chase andJohn Belushi in theoff-Broadway revueNational Lampoon's Lemmings. Two of his earliest film roles were small parts as uniformed police officers in the 1972 filmThe Hot Rock and 1974'sDeath Wish.

Along withBill Murray,Brian Doyle-Murray, and others, Guest was one of the "Prime Time Players" onSaturday Night Live with Howard Cosell. This was the short-lived variety show that aired from September 20, 1975, to January 17, 1976, not to be confused with the long-running sketch showSaturday Night Live, which began airing a month later and lampooned the group by billing their own sketch comedy actors as "The Not Ready for Prime Time Players".

Guest played a small role in the 1977All in the Family episode "Mike and Gloria Meet", where in aflashback 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 inIt Happened One Christmas, the 1977 gender-reversed TV remake of the Frank Capra classicIt's a Wonderful Life, starringMarlo Thomas as Mary Bailey (the Jimmy Stewart role), withCloris Leachman as Mary's guardian angel andOrson 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!"

Guest's biggest role of the first two decades of his career is likely that ofNigel Tufnel in the 1984 Rob Reiner filmThis Is Spinal Tap. Guest made his first appearance as Tufnel on the 1978 sketch comedy programThe TV Show.

Along withMartin Short,Billy Crystal, andHarry Shearer, Guest was hired as a one-year-only cast member for the1984–1985 season onNBC'sSaturday Night Live.^[9] Recurring characters onSNL 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 novelty toymaker with his brother Al (played by Crystal); Rajeev Vindaloo, an eccentric foreign man in the same vein asAndy Kaufman'sLatka character fromTaxi; and Señor Cosa, a Spanish ventriloquist often seen on the recurring spoof ofThe Joe Franklin Show. He also experimented behind the camera with pre-filmed sketches, notably directing a documentary-style short starring Shearer and Short as synchronized swimmers. In another short film fromSNL, Guest and Crystal appear in blackface as retiredNegro league baseball players, "The Rooster and the King".

He appeared as Count Rugen (the "six-fingered man") inThe Princess Bride. He had a cameo role as the first customer, a pedestrian, in the 1986 musicalremake ofThe Little Shop of Horrors. As a co-writer and director, Guest made the Hollywood satireThe Big Picture.

Upon his father succeeding to the familypeerage in 1987, he was known as "the Hon. Christopher Haden-Guest". This was his officialstyle and name until he inherited the barony in 1996.

The experience of makingThis 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 substantiallyimprovised films. Many of them are considered definitive examples of what came to be known as "mockumentaries"—not a term Guest appreciates.^[10]

Together, Guest, his frequent writing partnerEugene Levy, and a small band of actors have formed a looserepertory group, which appears in several films. These includeCatherine O'Hara,Michael McKean,Parker Posey,Bob Balaban,Jane Lynch,John Michael Higgins,Harry Shearer,Jennifer Coolidge,Ed Begley Jr.,Jim Piddock andFred 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.^[11] Among the films performed in this manner, which have been written and directed by Guest, includeWaiting for Guffman (1996), about acommunity theatre group,Best in Show (2000), about thedog show circuit,A Mighty Wind (2003), aboutfolk singers,For Your Consideration (2006), about the hype surroundingOscar season, andMascots (2016), about a sports teammascot competition.

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

Guest again collaborated with Reiner inA Few Good Men (1992), appearing as Dr. Stone. In the 2000s, Guest appeared in the 2005 biographical musicalMrs Henderson Presents and in the 2009 comedyThe Invention of Lying.

He is also currently a member of the musical groupThe Beyman Bros, which he formed with childhood friendDavid Nichtern and Spinal Tap's current keyboardistC. J. Vanston. Their debut albumMemories of Summer as a Child was released on January 20, 2009.^[12]

In 2010, theUnited States Census Bureau paid $2.5 million to have a television commercial^[13] directed by Guest shown during television coverage ofSuper Bowl XLIV.^[14]

Guest holds an honorary doctorate from and is a member of the board of trustees forBerklee College of Music in Boston.^[15]

In 2013, Guest was the co-writer and producer of theHBO seriesFamily Tree, in collaboration withJim Piddock, a lighthearted story in the style he made famous inThis is Spinal Tap, in which the main character, Tom Chadwick, inherits a box of curios from his great-aunt, spurring interest in his ancestry.^[16]

On August 11, 2015,Netflix announced thatMascots, 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.^[17]

Guest was offered an opportunity to do another film for Netflix, but, by his own account, didn't have an idea for one and essentially decided to retire instead. He did reprise his role as Count Tyrone Rugen at a table read in thePrincess Bride Reunion on September 13, 2020.^[18] After a nine-year absence from film acting, Guest came out of retirement in 2025 to reprise the role of Nigel Tufnel inSpinal Tap II: The End Continues.

Guest became the 5thBaron Haden-Guest, ofGreat Saling, in theCounty of Essex, when his father died in 1996. His older half-brother,Anthony Haden-Guest, was ineligible to succeed as he wasborn before his parents married. Guest sat in theHouse of Lords regularly until theHouse of Lords Act 1999 barred him (and most hereditary peers) from their seats. 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. Theprime minister can put in whoever he wants and bus them in to vote. TheUpper House should be an elected body, it's that simple.

Guest married actressJamie Lee Curtis in 1984 at the home of their mutual friendRob Reiner. They have two daughters, throughadoption. Guest was played bySeth Green in the filmA Futile and Stupid Gesture.^[19]

Coat of arms of Christopher Guest

Crest A caladrius displayed Sable, beaked, legged and charged on the breast with a sun in splendour Or. Escutcheon Sable two flaunches Or, three Welsh triple harps in fess counter-changed. Supporters Dexter: a leopard Sable semée of roundels and grasping in the interior paw a quill Or; Sinister: a leopard Or semée of roundels and grasping in the interior paw a quill Sable. Motto "NON NOBIS SOLUM NATI SUMUS" (Not for ourselves alone do we come into the world).

Guest has worked multiple times with certain actors, notably with frequent writing partnerEugene Levy, who has appeared in five of his projects. Other repeat collaborators of Guest includeDon Lake (8 projects);Fred Willard (7 projects);Michael McKean,Bob Balaban, andEd Begley Jr. (6 projects each);Paul Benedict,Parker Posey,Jim Piddock,Michael Hitchcock andHarry Shearer (5 projects each);Catherine O'Hara,Larry Miller,John Michael Higgins,Jane Lynch, andJennifer Coolidge (4 projects each);Paul Dooley,Fran Drescher,Rachael Harris andRob Reiner (3 projects each)

Work Actor
	This Is Spinal Tap	The Big Picture	Morton & Hayes	Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman	Waiting for Guffman	Almost Heroes	Best in Show	A Mighty Wind	For Your Consideration	Family Tree	Mascots	Spinal Tap II: The End Continues
Bob Balaban
Ed Begley Jr.
Paul Benedict
Jennifer Coolidge
Paul Dooley
Fran Drescher
Christopher Guest
Rachael Harris
John Michael Higgins
Michael Hitchcock
Don Lake
Eugene Levy
Jane Lynch
Michael McKean
Larry Miller
Catherine O'Hara
Jim Piddock
Parker Posey
Rob Reiner
Harry Shearer
Fred Willard

Wikimedia Commons has media related toChristopher Guest.

• Christopher Guest atIMDb 
• Christopher Guest at theTCM Movie Database
• Christopher Guest at theInternet Broadway Database
• Christopher Guest at theInternet Off-Broadway Database (archived)
• "Nowt so queer as folk".The Guardian (UK). January 10, 2004. Richard Grant. Interview for release ofA Mighty Wind.
• Christopher Guest onCharlie Rose

• 1948 births
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