Actor Christopher Lee Has Died at 93

Christopher Lee (or Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee) has played his last on-screen villain. The actor and singer died Sunday at the age of 93, reports The Guardian, after a career in which he played very few positive role models, but an astounding number of antagonists in fantasy, Sci-Fi, and horror films; as a young man, Lee played a career-launching Dracula, as well as a James Bond villain, the perfectly unsettling Lord Summerisle in The Wicker Man, and dozens of other characters (not all of them evil). Into his 80s, still in demand for the creepiness he was so good at projecting, Lee portrayed the fallen-from-grace wizard Saruman in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings adaptations, and the evil Count Dooku in George Lucas's Star Wars follow-ons. He was also perhaps the only Knight Bachelor to have released an album of symphonic metal. Even at the time of his death, Lee was involved in film projects, so his legacy will always be immense but incomplete.

Comments

He was much more than that

[dargaud]

Good summary here. RIP.

Re:He was much more than that

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really a good summary at all. And what the fuck does Chuck Norris have to do with anything?

Re:He was much more than that

[Daetrin]

For those who don't want to follow the link:

Sir Christopher Lee:

He was Dracula
He was a Bond Villain.
He was Sherlock _and_ Mycroft Holmes.
He was Death.
He was Lucifer.
He was Count Dooku.
He was Saruman.
He was Lord Summerisle.
He recorded a heavy metal concept album about Charlemagne.
He hunted Nazis during WWII.
He was part of a secret agent unit called The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.
When told be Peter Jackson to imagine how a man being stabbed in the back sounds, he told him he didn't have to imagine it.
He's fluent in English, Italian, French, German, and Spanish; "moderately proficient" in Swedish, Russian, and Greek; and "conversational" in Mandarin.Chinese.

Now, let's see Check Norris top that.

Re:He was much more than that

[Maxo-Texas]

Considering what a bad ass he was during world war 2, I'll let him decide what is a proper job for a man.

Re:He was much more than that

[rubycodez]

He was part of the SOE, behind enemy lines. Their exact activities are classified to this day. Because they were hunting down certain Nazis and killing them. So you must have very manly accomplishments yourself to make that pale in comparison, do tell

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

Re:He was much more than that

[Billly Gates]

He also studied at Tolkien at Oxford and corrected Jackson multiple times.

To top it off during return of the king Jackson asked him to imagine being stabbed to which his reply was I don't need to. Damn

Re:He was much more than that

[tylikcat]

...gender essentialism already?

Re:He was much more than that

[SvnLyrBrto]

More to the point, as much of a badass as we know he was during WW2, we don't even know how much of a badass he really was because so much of what he did in the war is still classified.

Re:He was much more than that

[kamapuaa]

Sorry for the long quote, but this isn't the wikipedia of a guy who was a "badass," although he did serve honorably and with initiative, as did many other soldiers:

When World War II broke out, Lee volunteered to fight for the Finnish forces during the Winter War in 1939.[33] He and other British volunteers were kept away from actual fighting, but they were issued winter gear and were posted on guard duty a safe distance from the front lines. After a fortnight, they returned home.[34] Lee returned to work at United States Lines and found his work more satisfying, feeling that he was contributing. In early 1940, he joined Beecham's, at first as an office clerk, then as a switchboard operator.[35] When Beecham's moved out of London, he joined the Home Guard.[36] In the winter, his father fell ill with double pneumonia and died on 12 March 1941. Realising that he had no inclination to follow his father into the Army, Lee decided to join up while he still had some choice of service, and volunteered for the Royal Air Force.[37]

Lee reported to RAF Uxbridge for training and was then posted to the Initial Training Wing at Paignton.[38] After passing his exams in Liverpool, the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan meant that he travelled on the Reina del Pacifico to South Africa, then to his posting at Hillside, at Bulawayo in Southern Rhodesia.[39] Training with de Havilland Tiger Moths, Lee was having his penultimate training session before his first solo flight when he suffered from headaches and blurred vision. The medical officer hesitantly diagnosed a failure of his optic nerve and he was told he would never be allowed to fly again.[40] Lee was devastated and the death of a fellow trainee from Summer Fields only made him more despondent. His appeals were fruitless and he was left with nothing to do.[41] He was moved around to different flying stations, before going to Salisbury in December 1941.[42] He then visited the Mazowe Dam, Marandellas, the Wankie Game Reserve and the ruins of Great Zimbabwe. Thinking he should "do something constructive for my keep", he applied to join RAF Intelligence. His superiors praised his initiative and he was seconded into the Rhodesian Police Force and was posted as a warder at Salisbury Prison.[43] He was then promoted to leading aircraftman and moved to Durban in South Africa, before travelling to Suez on the Nieuw Amsterdam.[44]

After "killing time" at RAF Kasfareet near the Great Bitter Lake in the Suez Canal Zone, he resumed intelligence work in the city of Ismaïlia.[45] He was then attached to No. 205 Group RAF before being promoted to pilot officer and attached to No. 260 Squadron RAF as an intelligence officer.[46] As the North African Campaign progressed, the squadron "leapfrogged" between Egyptian airstrips, from RAF El Daba to Maaten Bagush and on to Mersa Matruh. They lent air support to the ground forces and bombed strategic targets. Lee, "broadly speaking, was expected to know everything."[47] The Allied advance continued into Libya, through Tobruk and Benghazi to the Marble Arch and then through El Agheila, Khoms and Tripoli, with the squadron averaging five missions a day.[48] As the advance continued into Tunisia, with the Axis forces digging themselves in at the Mareth Line, Lee was almost killed when the squadron's airfield was bombed.[49] After breaking through the Mareth Line, the squadron made their final base in Kairouan.[50] After the Axis surrender in North Africa in May 1943, the squadron moved to Zuwarah in Libya in preparation for the Allied invasion of Sicily.[51] They then moved to Malta, and, after its capture by the British Eighth Army, the Sicilian town of Pachino, before making a permanent base in Agnone Bagni.[52] After the Sicilian campaign was over, Lee came down with malaria for the sixth time in under a year. He was flown to a hospital in Carthage for treatment and when he returned, the squadron was restless. Frustrated with a lack of news about the Eastern Front and the Soviet Union in general, and with no

Re:He was much more than that

[Anonymous Coward]

...Not a proper job for a man.

Whilst pissing on people online is manly?

Pathetic.

Re:He was much more than that

[Anonymous Coward]

He was such a badass, that he is in heaven because the devil doesn't like compitition

Re:He was much more than that

[ImprovOmega]

There's a wonderful bio here that kind of expands on a lot of those points.

Re:He was much more than that

[Anonymous Coward]

you mean studied With Tolkien?

Re:He was much more than that

[Maxo-Texas]

At least one site begs to differ...

http://www.badassoftheweek.com...

His service records are sealed and Lee doesn't talk much about his service (when pressed on the subject, he reportedly asks his interviewer, "Can you keep a secret?". When they excitedly say yes, he leans in close and says, "So can I."), but we do know that by the time he retired as a Flight Lieutenant in 1945 he'd been personally decorated for battlefield bravery by the Czech, Yugoslavian, English, and Polish governments and was good friends with Josip Broz Tito, so draw your own conclusions.

Re:He was much more than that

[leathered]

He was the father of Willy Wonka. Everything else he did pales into insignificance.

Re:He was much more than that

[Maxo-Texas]

Just had to add this bit from the article...

Lee also belongs to three stuntman unions, does all of his own stunts, once busted his face smashing head-first through an actual plate glass window for a scene, injured himself falling into an open grave while portraying Dracula, and once had his hand slashed open during a drunken sword fight with Errol Flynn.

Re:He was much more than that

[SvnLyrBrto]

Heh... if your resume includes drunken sword fights you're either doing life really, really right or really, really wrong.

Re:He was much more than that

[Anonymous Coward]

What about the rest of us who know him by his reputation, and have seen some of his other works? Does that mean we're also ignorant? Seems more like you're ignorant, and an angry little nerd to boot.

Re:He was much more than that

[Anonymous Coward]

The nerd who had to google who the fuck Christopher Lee was calls all the other nerds "ignorant fucks".

Hypocrisy NOW; News at 11.

Re:He was much more than that

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you a retarded young kid? He is at least so world-famous for acting Saruman in the Lord of the Rings before new Star Wars movie.

Re:He was much more than that

[DigMarx]

...I had to Google him to figure out who the fuck he was.

...You ignorant fucks...

Irony, thy name is Anonymous Coward.

Re:He was much more than that

[Plumpaquatsch]

For those who don't want to follow the link:

Sir Christopher Lee: He was ...

They forgot Fu Manchu? Not PC?

Re:He was much more than that

[tehcyder]

90% of that was, "he was an actor." Like those ponces in high school who did glee club, only he held on to it for a career. Not a proper job for a man.

It's good of you to share your latent homosexuality with us all. All you need to do now is take the next step and come out to the world. You'll feel much happier afterwards.

Re:He was much more than that

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you write this originally? I saw it as a meme on Facebook this morning, and remember seeing it here the other day.

They spellchecked 'Chuck' though.

Re:He was much more than that

[Anonymous Coward]

I am most certainly not a nerd.

Never saw Lord of the Rings. Never will. Wizards and witches are for fags.

Most sci-fi sucks.

His role in James Bond wasn't such scary great acting that I felt the need to find out who played the part.

I never even heard of 95% of the stuff he did.

Looking at his Wikipedia page, I'm guessing that he set the world record for number of acting gigs. Perhaps that is why he was bestowed a CBE? (in what I am sure was a farcical aquatic ceremony).

Yeah, I had to look him up.

No, I am not joking.

What a long and storied career

[NotDrWho]

Not many actors get to span good chunks of two centuries, with great roles in each.

Re:What a long and storied career

[Anonymous Coward]

Not many actors today still actively working who started in the 1940's either. But he was working right up until the end.

Re:What a long and storied career

[k6mfw]

Not many actors today still actively working who started in the 1940's either. But he was working right up until the end.

I guess if you have to go, leave "feet first."

He was a good actor

[Anonymous Coward]

RIP, you will be missed.

Re:He was a good actor

[cyberchondriac]

Indeed... it's the world's loss. I always thought he was one of the best (if not the best) classic Draculas I'd ever seen, and he was brilliant in all his roles.

Interesting career, good life.

[Stripe7]

Loved his Hammer films growing up, I think he was great as Saruman in LOTR. He had a great career, and a good life, he will be missed.

Re:Interesting career, good life.

[Hognoxious]

A rare one where he plays a good guy. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt00...

Despite the incredibly cheesy special effects, it still gives me the creeps.

Re:Interesting career, good life.

[RabidReindeer]

Screenplay by Richard (Omega Man/Last Man on Earth) Matheson.

Re:Interesting career, good life.

[Dunbal]

A rare one where he plays a good guy.

Here's another one: Terry Pratchett's Death character is not evil. Nor good. It's just Him. But because of a fondness for kittens Death probably leans closer to good than evil...

Re:Interesting career, good life.

[MouseTheLuckyDog]

A rare one where he plays a good guy.

Here's another one: Terry Pratchett's Death character is not evil. Nor good. It's just Him. But because of a fondness for kittens Death probably leans closer to good than evil...

Death is neither good nor bad, but he is on humanities side.
Myfavorite line from The Color of Magic movie is when he sighs and says "another near Rincewind moment."

Loved him in Three Musketeers

[Black Parrot]

1973 version. See it if you haven't!

Re:Loved him in Three Musketeers

[segedunum]

Yer, he's the definitive Rochefort. To be honest, I would ban anyone making any musketeers films or series ever again because there simply isn't any point.

Re:Loved him in Three Musketeers

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but Man in the Iron Mask was a great Musketeers movie.

Re:Loved him in Three Musketeers

[Maxo-Texas]

The new BBC version is at least back in the right territory.

When I recently read some of the original three musketeers, I realized how much closer to the book and the characters those two movies were. I love those films and they are in my top 100 films of all time. I still watch them every few years.

Re:Loved him in Three Musketeers

[gzuckier]

Sorry, but Man in the Iron Mask was a great Musketeers movie.

Annette was good.

Pale shrouded figure

[jokkebk]

Rest in peace, Sir Lee.

I heard that when he died, a grey mist gathered, and rising slowly to a great height like smoke from a fire, as a pale shrouded figure it loomed over the Hill. For a moment it wavered, looking to the West; but out of the West came a cold wind, and it bent away, and with a sigh dissolved into nothing.

Re:Pale shrouded figure

[AthanasiusKircher]

Rest in peace, Sir Lee.

I really appreciate your sentiment here -- though note that one should never use Sir + last name when referring to someone who is knighted.

He can be addressed as "Sir Christopher" or "Sir Christopher Lee," but NOT "Sir Lee."

Not to mention in this context it makes him sound surly. Or, to paraphrase a movie that once parodied movies like ones Christopher Lee was in: "Don't call me 'Surly'!"

Re:Pale shrouded figure

[gzuckier]

Insert Chinese dialect joke here regarding "I am Ang-Lee!"

He was a good actor

[Anonymous Coward]

Rest in Peace. Looking through his IMDb page I see he was also a voice actor in Freelancer among other games.

Making metal albums in his 90's

[pecosdave]

That's one of the coolest old men ever! Not to mention he played Dracula in more languages that most people know how to find a bathroom in.

Re:Making metal albums in his 90's

[mister_playboy]

Music video for "The Bloody Verdict of Verden": https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

The original version of the album is more truthfully filed under "narration" than "metal", but there was a stripped down re-release that focused more on the music.

He could sing, too

[alanxyzzy]

One of his lesser known singing roles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

You See Mr Bond......

[segedunum]

.....I always though I liked animals. Then I found I liked killing people even more.

Great line, usually overshadowed by Goldfinger's "I expect you to die!" Then there was Scaramanga's answer to a boardroom resignation all delivered brilliantly by the man himself. I'm afraid they really don't make them like that any more, and that isn't a rose tinted view.

But they're naked!

[Deadstick]

Naturally. It's much too dangerous to jump through a fire with your clothes on.

--The Wicker Man

Re:But they're naked!

[tylikcat]

Still my favorite of his roles... but that's a hard pick. Damn, but he will be missed. So very good at being bad.

Re:But they're naked!

[Anonymous Coward]

"All they'd have to do is to eat three or four children, and there'd be the most appalling publicity!"
  – Gremlins 2: The New Batch

The Last Unicorn

[Etherwalk]

He played King Haggard in the Last Unicorn.

Death takes Death

[Convector]

I really liked him as Death in the animated adaptations of the Discworld novels Soul Music and Wyrd Sisters. He could actually speak in all caps.

Re:Death takes Death

[cyberchondriac]

I need to find those.. I've read most of the books.

Re:Death takes Death

[Adriax]

Youtube to the rescue.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Soul Music is what go me interested in Discworld, and Sir Christopher's portrayal of Death was a big part of that.

Re:Death takes Death

[Anonymous Coward]

Just download the rips, the rights holder doesn't want us to be able to buy copies.

Re:Death takes Death

[cyberchondriac]

Thank you sir

Re:Death takes Death

[Anonymous Coward]

They are also on netflix on DVD.

Re:Death takes Death

[MouseTheLuckyDog]

For me it was a youtube version of Don't Fear the Reaper, which contained scenes from Soul Music. I had to find out what it was and watch it.

Not Many People Manage to Live an Epic Life

[LaurenCates]

This man did, however. If there ever were a real someone you could nominate as "The Most Interesting Man in the World", he would probably be the guy.

RIP, Sir Lee, and thank you.

Re:Not Many People Manage to Live an Epic Life

[Whiteox]

The only actor who could act without acting. I always believed his roles. He had such gravitas.

awesome actor, he will be missed

[Golden_Rider]

What an actor, one of the great ones. Nobody could do the sophisticated villain like him. And what a voice! And he definitely led an interesting life - he was in the secret service, and I remember that one scene from the LotR "making of" videos in which Peter Jackson talked about how Christopher Lee explained to him what "someone getting stabbed in the back with a knife" really sounded like. And how Peter Jackson was not all that eager to find out how exactly Lee knew that.

RIP

Well, I'll wait for his next movie.

[Chas]

We know he pretty much ALWAYS comes back...

Oh wait!

RIP Sir Christopher.

He died on Sunday

[DrXym]

They just waited 3 days to be absolutely certain before announcing it.

The Best...

[womby68]

Sei il mio Saruman...!!! Il Migliore.

Re:The Best...

[3.5 stripes]

Tranne tante altre cose...

Re:The Best...

[Anonymous Coward]

common sum yunggai!

Rest in peace

[blindseer]

Anyone that has served their nation in defense of freedom deserves to be honored and remembered well after they are gone. Sir Christopher was one of many that fought evil but he has done so in a way to stand out among the many.

Occult Book Collection

[Dripdry]

He apparently also had one of the most extensive collections of books on the occult.

Re:Occult Book Collection

[Anonymous Coward]

and they all lead to the same place, Hell.

Re:Occult Book Collection

[ninjagin]

This isn't true. It was a silly rumor that gained traction because of his many many odd roles and the characters he played. He was so good at playing them, people assumed he had some kind of crazy dark fascination with the occult. In reality, he was just a good actor.

Re:Occult Book Collection

[Anonymous Coward]

Choke on a burning bible, you horrible zealot.

Re:Occult Book Collection

[aristotle-dude]

Yeah, huge as in 4 or 5 books. He also warned students at a university to avoid looking into the occult and stated that he was not a wizard.

He'll be back

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if anyone had the foresight to put a stake in his heart? He may rise again when night falls.

"I've become more powerful..." apk

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject, con't -> "... than ANY jedi - even YOU..." Count Duqu Sith Lord...

* Old Sith's don't DIE: They just get FASTER...

(He was excellent in that role in Star Wars, & I grew up on his Hammer "Dracula" film roles + I loved him a "The Man with the GOLDEN GUN" ala James Bond films also - which, @ the time in those "halcyon days of yore" where pretty good (not by today's standards though, not by a LONG SHOT...)).

APK

P.S.=> It's too bad, but we've ALL "gotta go" sometime - Rest in Peace Mr. Lee - you were "A-OK" by APK... apk

Tolkien Fan

[Sir_Eptishous]

I remember an interview he gave discussing playing Saruman. He said he was a huge fan of Tolkien and re-read the trilogy yearly. Wow, and I wait about every five years to do it...

Meeting him

[andrewa]

I met him when I was living in Germany in the '80s. I was buying a CD at Ludwick Becks (München) and this booming voice came from behind me asking if his order (for some opera) had arrived. Turning around and realising who it was and instantly turned into a nine year-old and asked him to autograph the CD I was holding. It was a BBC audio book of LotR, and he proceeded to tell me I'd be better off reading the book... :-)

Re:Meeting him

[andrewa]

*Ludwig....

Re:Meeting him

[Anonymous Coward]

Lucky :)
What a neat experience Andrewa, thanks for sharing.

Embodiment of "The Evil Overlord". Sure he's dead?

[DutchUncle]

I'm probably old for the Slashdot demographic, and Christopher Lee was *already* the complete embodiment of evil scary from the first old-movie-reruns that I can remember. I would totally believe that he has merely moved on to another role . . .

not to be a punk, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Christopher lee was A great man, and has achieved a significant ammount of success, and rightfully so.. Moving past that, I must ask, how exactally does this qualify as a /. article?
 

Re:not to be a punk, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

He was in Star Wars. And LoTR.

Re:not to be a punk, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have to ask, you don't really belong here

Who's gonna play Saruman now

[krkhan]

In the upcoming 18-movie adaptation of The Silmarillion?

Re:Who's gonna play Saruman now

[Anonymous Coward]

Try 118 o.O If they do just the first third I'd be happy. Especially the 'creation story'.

Re:Who's gonna play Saruman now

[Stripe7]

Saruman will be played by the Electronic Ghost of Christopher Lee.

Know what? I've figured out your problem!

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: You *WISH* you were me... lol!

* :)

"Johnny B. Good" -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

APK

P.S.=> ... & you KNOW it! So, that "all said & aside"? See above: "Rinse, Lather, & Repeat" - drink in & digest it... apk

Beyond the Grey, cast Adrift

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does it feel like.. we're all on our own now..?

career in which he played very few positive roles?

[Anonymous Coward]

That seems to be an American view of the world.

Let me inform you from this side of the pond that:

a) films and plays are NOT REAL
b) you don't have to play likeable heros to be a good actor
c) In Europe, many US actors are considered rather second rate because they limit themselves to formulaic hero roles. That is why a lot of them come over to the UK to work in theatre....

another famous quote by Christopher Lee

[Golden_Rider]

"One should try anything he can in his career, except folkdance and incest."

Re:another famous quote by Christopher Lee

[tehcyder]

"One should try anything he can in his career, except folkdance and incest."

No, that was Thomas Beecham - "try anything once except incest and folk dancing".

Has he?

[gzuckier]

Has he really? You fools!!!