Christopher Lee: Film's Best-Loved Villain
The tall and deep-voiced actor cut an imposing figure as some of film's darkest characters in a career that spanned decades.
Thursday 11 June 2015 13:08, UK
Sir Christopher Lee was best known for playing Dracula and for his roles in the Star Wars and Lord Of The Rings sagas.
The English actor died in London at age 93.
Throughout a career that spanned six decades, Sir Christopher was a prolific performer who became known to different generations of movie buffs.
A tall, lanky man with a deep voice, he cut an imposing figure on screen and was often cast as a villain.
"I didn't have dreams of being a romantic leading man," Lee told the AP news agency in 2002.
"But I dreamed of being a character actor, which I am."
He brought dramatic gravitas to the low-budget thrills of Hammer Horror movies - the gory, gothic thrillers churned out by the British studio in the 1950s and 1960s that became hugely popular.
Sir Christopher played the blood-sucking vampire in movies throughout the 1960s and 1970s - including in one case, Prince Of Darkness, where he had no lines - and went on to become a Bond villain in The Man With The Golden Gun.
Recently, he was reintroduced to new generations of movie-goers as he played Count Dooku in the Star Wars prequels and Saruman in The Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit.
Christopher Frank Carandini Lee was born on 27 May 1922 in London. His father was an Army officer, his mother was Contessa Estelle Marie Carandini di Sarzano, an Edwardian beauty of Italian descent. His parents separated when he was young.
He attended Wellington College, an elite boarding school, and enlisted in the Royal Air Force and served during World War Two - though he remained reluctant to talk about the experience.
"I was attached to the SAS from time to time but we are forbidden - former, present, future - to discuss any specific operations," he was quoted as saying by the Telegraph.
"Let’s just say I was in Special Forces and leave it at that."
After his parents' separation, his mother remarried Harcourt Rose, the uncle of James Bond creator Ian Fleming.
The two frequently played golf together. Sir Christopher was initially cast by the author as a villain in Dr No, the first film of the Bond series. He did not get the role - but was cast as Bond nemesis Francisco Scaramanga and title character in The Man With The Golden Gun in 1974.
In those years he tried to shake off the horror mantle and took on varied roles, most notably in the cult classic The Wicker Man.
Overall, he starred in something like 250 movies - too many for him to remember.
"And certainly some of them you want to forget," he once joked.
Sir Christopher was knighted in 2009 and two years later he received a BAFTA fellowship.
"Such sad news to hear that Sir Christopher Lee has passed away," tweeted BAFTA.
He remained active, and had signed up to be part of an ensemble cast for the movie The 11th, according to film reference website IMBD.
He married Birgit "Gitte" Kroencke in 1961. Their daughter Christina was born in 1963.