Sir Christopher Lee died last Sunday, June 7th, at the age of 93 in a hospital in London. His Dracula is and remains by far the best of all bloodsuckers. In Star Wars he was Count Dooku and in Lord of the Rings he played Saruman. Now he's gone, the gentleman of the old school, which he gave privately and we will miss him, the best of all bad guys!
After World War II, the son of a British officer and an Italian countess, born in 1922, decided to pursue acting out of a beer idea, “without any natural talent”, as he always freely admitted. For ten years he had to struggle with small appearances and extra roles, while maintaining his motto: "You can't always choose the roles - but you still have the freedom to interpret them with dignity." He soon received an offer from a gory horror company called Hammer to hire him as Count Dracula, which he went on to do seven more times. "Dracula gave me a name, a fan club, and a used car," Lee noted gratefully in his autobiography, Lord of Misrule.
Christopher Lee as Dracula: Please assembly
The now legendary "Hammer Horror" is inseparably linked to his face: a slim, elegant face that went well with the undead from the old noble family, a stoic, almost stiff facial expression that the psychological dimensions of the vampire role - loneliness and sexual greed - still able to fathom. However, Lee also played the mummy, Frankenstein's monster and the villain Fu Manchu five times for Hammer. Early on, he became one of the pre-eminent villains in film history. One of the best-known characters is Scaramanga from “The Man with the Golden Gun” and he was distantly related to Bond inventor Ian Fleming.
It is said that vampires can detach themselves from their shadow. Christopher Lee knew better, because he never completely got rid of the bloodthirsty count. Lee has scoffed at this lifelong identification. He never really complained about her. As late as 2002, Johnny Depp, a good friend of recent years, found: "You play alongside Christopher and you can't help but think: Oh my God, it's him – Dracula!" Of course, hardly anyone looked at the films that were particularly close to Lee's heart. He was proud to have embodied Pakistan's founder of the same name in "Jinnah" (1998). The actor himself described the British horror film “The Wicker Man” (1973), about a macabre pagan ritual, which was relatively unknown to the masses, as his best work.
The Raven (Christopher Lee)
Together with his wife Gitte and their daughter Christina, who had already spent part of his childhood in Switzerland, he lived on Lake Geneva for a few years. From there he traveled the whole continent: The language talent could speak Italian, French, Spanish, German and of course his mother tongue English fluently and was happy to be employed everywhere. He himself approached all of these commitments conscientiously, without under too much illusions about their film-historical rank. So the top performances remained rather of a different nature, hardly anyone has acted in more films than Lee - depending on the source, the number fluctuates between 250 and over 300. He fought 17 sword fights in front of the camera - Errol Flynn only got 9. Lee's body length was also repeatedly emphasized: 1,96 meters, at least in the blooming years.
At the age of 63, the opera lover, avid golfer and cigar smoker had to undergo heart surgery. At the end of the millennium he befriended the passionate B-movie admirer Tim Burton, who hired Lee regularly, for example for "Sleepy Hollow" and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". George Lucas gave him a blockbuster performance in Episodes II and III of "Star Wars," and let's face it, Count Dooku is the best part of those episodes and a thinly disguised throwback to his most famous role. Lee was a great admirer of Tolkien and even had the opportunity to meet him in person. He read The Lord of the Rings once a year, so it is not surprising that the role of the evil sorcerer Saruman was very close to his heart. His disappointment was all the greater when his part from the theatrical version of the third part, "The Return of the King", was deleted - he was then back in "The Hobbit".
Thank you Christopher, thank you for all the great monsters and say greetings to Peter Cushing and Vincent Price.
The Time Warp Instructions - Christopher Lee
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