Christopher Guest

Born: February 5 1948
Where: New York, USA

The comedy actor, writer and director is probably best known as rocker Nigel Tufnel in the mock rockumentary Spinal Tap whose amp "goes all the way up to eleven".

The fictitious but all too believable band has now gone into cinema history and has drawn comparisons with new flavour-of-the-year The Darkness.

Guest - who cites Peter Sellers as his greatest influence - went on to enjoy featured roles in The Princess Bride and A Few Good Men.

However, he has latterly concerned himself with direction, making the critically-lauded dog contest mockumentary Best in Show and giving folk the Spinal Tap treatment in A Mighty Wind.

In the late 1960s Guest worked as a stage actor in New York before writing for National Lampoon magazine in 1970 and going on to record comedy albums.

He made his uncredited acting debut in 1971's The Hospital and also landed a role as a patrolman in Michael Winner's Death Wish with Charles Bronson.

Guest was also writing for television, including The Chevy Chase Show and The Lily Tomlin Show, for which he received an Emmy.

In 1984 This Is Spinal tap was a huge success (a film publicity shot led to him meeting his wife Jamie Lee Curtis).

Two years later he starred in Little Shop of Horrors with his brother Nicholas and followed that with The Prince Bride (he modelled his character on actor Henry Daniell).

Roles followed in 1987's Beyond Therapy and Sticky Fingers and A Few Good Men, directed by his longtime friend Rob Reiner.

He made his directorial debut with Hollywood parody The Big Picture starring Kevin Bacon and went on to helm Waiting For Guffman and Almost Heroes (with Chris Farley).

Best in Show - in which he also played Harlan Pepper - was a huge critical success and marked his reteaming with writing partner Eugene Levy.

The same team also made the spoof of 1960s American folk - A Mighty Wind - with Levy playing in a Sonny and Cher style singing duo.

In 2005, Guest appeared in the British comedy Mrs Henderson presents alongside Judie Dench and Will Young.