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By Dennis McLellan
Actor Christopher Lee with his wife, Brigitta, in 2006. (Patrick Riviere/Getty Images)
Christopher Lee, the English actor who emerged as a British horror movie icon in the 1950's with his memorable portrayal of Count Dracula and later appeared in the blockbuster “Star Wars” and “The Lord of the Rings” films, has died. He was 93.
Lee died in London of undisclosed causes, according to an official with the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London, who spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with the policies of the borough. A death certificate was given June 8, the official said.
In a career that spanned more than 60 years, beginning with bit parts in England in the late 1940s, Lee was known by the mid-'60s as “one of the screen’s foremost purveyors of evil and terror,” having played roles such as Frankenstein’s monster, the Mummy and Rasputin, the Mad Monk.
Christopher Lee in 'The Lord of the Rings' New Line Cinema
Christopher Lee, who died at 93, was decidedly a legend, especially as the bad guy: he's the only person in movie history who ever has or likely ever will play Dracula ("Horror of Dracula"), Lucifer ("Poor Devil"), Saruman ("Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit") and Bond bad guy Scaramanga ("The Man With the Golden Gun"). Lee is seen above in 2001's "LOTR."
“With his eyes ablaze and eyeteeth bared, his aristocratic nostrils flaring, and his cloak clutched tight about him like the wings of a giant bat trapped in midflight, Lee made Dracula his own as no actor had before him,” Denis Meikle wrote in his book “A History of Horrors: The Rise and Fall of the House of Hammer.”
Lee once credited three films “for bringing me to the fore” as an actor, all of them remakes of classic films: “A Tale of Two Cities” (1958), in which he played the villainous Marquis; “The Curse of Frankenstein” and “Horror of Dracula.”
But “Horror of Dracula,” titled “Dracula” in Britain, was “the one that made the difference.” One was the Dickensian leader of a group of petty thieves. Another was the producer who made classic boxing movies happen. And the third was villainy incarnate in franchises such as "Dracula" and "The Lord of the Rings.”
“It brought me a name, a fan club and a secondhand car a (Mercedes-Benz), for all of which I was grateful,” he wrote in “Tall, Dark and Gruesome,” his 1977 autobiography. “It also, if I may be forgiven for saying so, brought me the blessing of Lucifer, the third and final nail in my coffin.
“Count Dracula might escape, but not the actors who play him.”
Lee went on to co-star with Boris Karloff in “Corridors of Blood” in 1958 and to star in films such as “The Mummy,” “The Face of Fu Manchu,” “Castle of the Living Dead,” “Crypt of the Vampire” and “I, Monster.”
He also played the 1962 title role in “Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace.”
But he remained closely identified with Dracula, a character he reprised in 1966 with “Dracula: Prince of Darkness,” and in a string of other films, including “Taste the Blood of Dracula” (1970) and “The Satanic Rites of Dracula” (1973).
“They had really disintegrated by then,” Lee said in a 2000 interview with the Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. “I did the last four under protest.”
But, he said, “every time I turned one down, I’d get a hysterical call from Jimmy Carreras, the producer, saying he’d already sold the American rights by telling them I’d do it. And when I’d say no … he’d say, ‘Think of all the people you’re putting out of work!’ Now that was truly disgraceful — emotional blackmail, really. But it worked.”
Not that he wanted to “knock horror films,” Lee said in a 1988 interview with the Orange County Register.
“They typecast me for a while, but they also made me known,” he said. “They were a great launching pad. This is a business of faces and names, and those movies gave me a face and a name. I had been playing nothing but heavies until then, and the horror films put me out front.”
A classical scholar in Greek and Latin at Wellington College, Lee worked as a shipping company office boy and messenger in London before serving in the Royal Air Force and spending time as an intelligence officer during World War II.
Back home after the war, he followed the suggestion of his mother’s second cousin — the Italian ambassador to Britain — that he become an actor. He quickly found himself among a group of amateurs under contract with the Rank Organization, which provided acting training in the film company’s so-called “Charm School.”
Lee made his film debut in 1948 with a one-line bit part in director Terence Young’s “Corridor of Mirrors.”
Over the decades, he amassed more than 275 film and TV credits. After being knighted by Prince Charles at a ceremony in Buckingham Palace in 2009, Lee told Britain’s The Telegraph that a “whole new career opened” for him in the new century when he appeared as the wizard Saruman in director Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” and as Count Dooku in George Lucas’ “Star Wars” films.
“What’s really important for me is, as an old man, I’m known by own generation, and the next generation know me too,” he said.
In 1961, Lee married Danish model Birgit “Gitte” Kroencke, with whom he had a daughter, Christina.
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report
Actor Christopher Lee with his wife, Brigitta, in 2006. (Patrick Riviere/Getty Images)
Christopher Lee, the English actor who emerged as a British horror movie icon in the 1950's with his memorable portrayal of Count Dracula and later appeared in the blockbuster “Star Wars” and “The Lord of the Rings” films, has died. He was 93.
Lee died in London of undisclosed causes, according to an official with the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London, who spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with the policies of the borough. A death certificate was given June 8, the official said.
In a career that spanned more than 60 years, beginning with bit parts in England in the late 1940s, Lee was known by the mid-'60s as “one of the screen’s foremost purveyors of evil and terror,” having played roles such as Frankenstein’s monster, the Mummy and Rasputin, the Mad Monk.
Christopher Lee in 'The Lord of the Rings' New Line Cinema
Christopher Lee, who died at 93, was decidedly a legend, especially as the bad guy: he's the only person in movie history who ever has or likely ever will play Dracula ("Horror of Dracula"), Lucifer ("Poor Devil"), Saruman ("Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit") and Bond bad guy Scaramanga ("The Man With the Golden Gun"). Lee is seen above in 2001's "LOTR."
“With his eyes ablaze and eyeteeth bared, his aristocratic nostrils flaring, and his cloak clutched tight about him like the wings of a giant bat trapped in midflight, Lee made Dracula his own as no actor had before him,” Denis Meikle wrote in his book “A History of Horrors: The Rise and Fall of the House of Hammer.”
Lee once credited three films “for bringing me to the fore” as an actor, all of them remakes of classic films: “A Tale of Two Cities” (1958), in which he played the villainous Marquis; “The Curse of Frankenstein” and “Horror of Dracula.”
But “Horror of Dracula,” titled “Dracula” in Britain, was “the one that made the difference.” One was the Dickensian leader of a group of petty thieves. Another was the producer who made classic boxing movies happen. And the third was villainy incarnate in franchises such as "Dracula" and "The Lord of the Rings.”
“It brought me a name, a fan club and a secondhand car a (Mercedes-Benz), for all of which I was grateful,” he wrote in “Tall, Dark and Gruesome,” his 1977 autobiography. “It also, if I may be forgiven for saying so, brought me the blessing of Lucifer, the third and final nail in my coffin.
“Count Dracula might escape, but not the actors who play him.”
Lee went on to co-star with Boris Karloff in “Corridors of Blood” in 1958 and to star in films such as “The Mummy,” “The Face of Fu Manchu,” “Castle of the Living Dead,” “Crypt of the Vampire” and “I, Monster.”
He also played the 1962 title role in “Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace.”
But he remained closely identified with Dracula, a character he reprised in 1966 with “Dracula: Prince of Darkness,” and in a string of other films, including “Taste the Blood of Dracula” (1970) and “The Satanic Rites of Dracula” (1973).
“They had really disintegrated by then,” Lee said in a 2000 interview with the Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. “I did the last four under protest.”
But, he said, “every time I turned one down, I’d get a hysterical call from Jimmy Carreras, the producer, saying he’d already sold the American rights by telling them I’d do it. And when I’d say no … he’d say, ‘Think of all the people you’re putting out of work!’ Now that was truly disgraceful — emotional blackmail, really. But it worked.”
Not that he wanted to “knock horror films,” Lee said in a 1988 interview with the Orange County Register.
“They typecast me for a while, but they also made me known,” he said. “They were a great launching pad. This is a business of faces and names, and those movies gave me a face and a name. I had been playing nothing but heavies until then, and the horror films put me out front.”
A classical scholar in Greek and Latin at Wellington College, Lee worked as a shipping company office boy and messenger in London before serving in the Royal Air Force and spending time as an intelligence officer during World War II.
Back home after the war, he followed the suggestion of his mother’s second cousin — the Italian ambassador to Britain — that he become an actor. He quickly found himself among a group of amateurs under contract with the Rank Organization, which provided acting training in the film company’s so-called “Charm School.”
Lee made his film debut in 1948 with a one-line bit part in director Terence Young’s “Corridor of Mirrors.”
Over the decades, he amassed more than 275 film and TV credits. After being knighted by Prince Charles at a ceremony in Buckingham Palace in 2009, Lee told Britain’s The Telegraph that a “whole new career opened” for him in the new century when he appeared as the wizard Saruman in director Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” and as Count Dooku in George Lucas’ “Star Wars” films.
“What’s really important for me is, as an old man, I’m known by own generation, and the next generation know me too,” he said.
In 1961, Lee married Danish model Birgit “Gitte” Kroencke, with whom he had a daughter, Christina.
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report
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