Christopher Guest (born February 5, 1948) is an
American screenwriter,
composer,
musician,
director,
actor and
comedian. He is most widely known for having written, directed and starred in several "
mockumentary" films that feature a
repertory-like
ensemble cast.
In the United Kingdom he holds a minor
peerage and is formally known as
Christopher Haden-Guest, 5th Baron Haden-Guest. That
barony has given him an additional measure of celebrity in the UK. He has publicly expressed a desire to see the
House of Lords reformed as a democratically-elected chamber. Despite initial activity in the Lords, his career there was cut short by the
House of Lords Act 1999.
Background
Guest was born in New York City, the son of
Peter Haden-Guest, a British
United Nations diplomat who later became 4th Baron Haden-Guest, and his second wife, Jean Pauline Hindes, a
CBS executive. Guest's maternal grandparents were
Jewish immigrants from Russia,
while a paternal great-grandfather was Colonel
Albert Goldsmid, a British Jew who founded the
Jewish Lads' and Girls' Brigade. Guest spent parts of his childhood in his father's native UK. Although both of his parents were born
Jewish, they became
atheists and Guest had no religious upbringing
.
