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

[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

[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

[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.

Loved him in Three Musketeers

[Black Parrot]

1973 version. See it if you haven't!

The Last Unicorn

[Etherwalk]

He played King Haggard in the Last Unicorn.

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: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.

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: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...