RIP Sir Christopher Lee

[steve58]

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2015/06/11/sir-christopher-lee-dead-at-3-according-to-death-certificate/


He was a great actor and villain, may he rest in peace.

[bayonetbrant]

https://www.yahoo.com/movies/christopher-lee-legendary-movie-villain-and-121265764947.html

Christopher Lee, the mystical British actor whose haunting, intimidating performances as Count Dracula, the Frankenstein monster and Fu Manchu made him an icon of horror films and the cinematic embodiment of villainy, has died. He was 93.

Lee, who as bad guy Scaramanga battled Roger Moore's James Bond in The Man With the Golden Gun (1974) and re-ignited his career in his late 70s with what would be recurring roles in the Lord of the Rings, Hobbit and Star Wars franchises, has died. He was 93.

According to media reports, Lee died on Sunday morning, June 7 at Westminster Hospital in London after being admitted for respiratory problems and heart failure. The Guardian reported that his wife, former Danish model and painter Gitte Kroencke, decided to release the news days later in order to inform family members first. The couple had been married since 1961

Incredibly, the London native had more than 275 credits on IMDb, making him perhaps the most prolific feature-film actor in history. He did many of his own stunts, likely appeared in more on-screen sword fights than anyone else and was the only member of the Lord of the Rings cast to have actually met author J.R.R. Tolkien, who was born in 1892.

With his gaunt 6-foot-5 frame and deep, strong voice, Lee was best at playing characters — slave traders, crazed kings, vampires, demented professors — who were evil, murderous, dour and unrepentantly ruthless.

Starting with The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and Horror of Dracula (1958), Lee, like a mad scientist, helped Hammer Films bring the genre of horror back to life. He played the bloodsucking and brooding Prince of Darkness 10 times but disliked being known as a "horror legend."

Lee was menacing in the title role of The Mummy (1959) and, that same year, starred as the new owner of Baskerville Hall in the remake of The Hound of the Baskervilles, starring his best friend, Peter Cushing, as Sherlock Holmes. The suave and courtly Cushing was his castmate in Curse of Frankenstein and Horror of Dracula as well.

He appeared three times as Holmes on screen, most recently in the 1991 telefilm Incident at Victoria Falls, and starred as the detective's brother Mycroft in Billy Wilder's The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970).

Lee also was Rasputin and Lucifer, and his characters executed King Charles I of England and Louis the XVI of France. He relished the evil roles: "As Boris Karloff [his Corridors of Blood co-star] told me, you have to make your mark in something other actors cannot, or will not, do. And if it's a success, you'll not be forgotten."

His 1977 autobiography was titled Tall, Dark and Gruesome.

Lee played Rochefort of Three Musketeers fame three times and was Sax Rohmer's Asian evil genius with that distinctive mustache in five films of the 1960s, starting with The Face of Fu Manchu (1965).

Ian Fleming, the creator of Bond, was his cousin and frequent golf companion. The author wanted Lee to play the title villain in the 007 film Dr. No (1962), but the job went to Joseph Wiseman. For Bond fans, it was worth the wait after seeing his turn as the wealthy assassin who employs only bullets made of gold in The Man With the Golden Gun.

Lee's considerable body of film work also included Captain Horatio Hornblower (1951), The Wicker Man (1973), To the Devil a Daughter (1976), The Passage (1979), House of the Long Shadows (1983), Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990), The Golden Compass (2007), The Resident (2011), Hugo (2011) and four films with director/fan Tim Burton: Sleepy Hollow (1999), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) and Dark Shadows (2012).

Lee, who was knighted in 2009, appeared as Saruman in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy and in the director's two Hobbit films, including The Battle of Five Armies (2014). And he was Count Dooku in the Star Wars installments Attack of the Clones (2002), Revenge of the Sith (2005) and The Clone Wars (2008).

"This last decade has been the most extraordinary decade of my life," he said in a 2012 interview.

Christopher Frank Carandini Lee was born on May 27, 1922 (American horror legend Vincent Price was born on the same date 11 years earlier), and attended exclusive prep schools. He went to Eton College and Wellington College and studied Greek and Latin.

During World War II, Lee served in the Royal Air Force and Special Forces and spent one year in a hellacious winter campaign in Finland. He was said to be a spy but never wanted to talk about it, honoring an oath of secrecy.

"When the Second World War finished I was 23 and already I had seen enough horror to last me a lifetime," he told the Telegraph in 2011. "I'd seen dreadful, dreadful things, without saying a word. So seeing horror depicted on film doesn't affect me much."

Lee was decorated for distinguished service, and after his discharge, he took the advice of his uncle, the Italian ambassador in London, and tried his hand in the film business, landing a contract with the Rank Organisation.

The Curse of Frankenstein — a box-office hit and the first film to feature Mary Shelley's disfigured creature in color — was a big break for him. Lee likely landed the gig because he was so tall.

Wilder told him he needed to come to America to further his career, and he took that advice and made Airport '77, in which his character died under water and he almost drowned.

He said the film that made him the most proud was Jinnah (1998), in which he played the founder of Pakistan.

Despite his serious demeanor, Lee liked to showcase his offbeat, self-deprecating wit. He hosted Saturday Night Live in 1978, and his show (with musical guest Meat Loaf) reached 35 million viewers, one of its most-watched installments.

"As you may know, I first came to public attention as a result of my appearances in certain rather eerie and even macabre films," he said during the SNL opening. "You may be surprised to know that I haven't made one in several years.

"This is because I have a great deal of respect for this kind of film, and I don't think that very good ones are being produced anymore. Week after week, I find myself receiving scripts like The Creature From the Black Studies Program ... and Frankenstein Snubs The Wolf Man ... and of course, Dr. Terror's House of Pancakes."

Later, he played a Russian commandant for laughs in Police Academy: Mission to Moscow (1994).

An expert fencer and honorary member of three stuntmen unions, Lee also knew how to handle a golf club. He was the first actor to be accepted into The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers. How good was he? He thought he had enough cred to offer advice to Tiger Woods on how to play The Masters.

Music was important to him. He appeared in operas, sang "Name Your Poison" in The Return of Captain Invincible (1983) opposite Alan Arkin and was among the pack of "convicts" on the cover of Paul McCartney & Wings' 1973 album Band on the Run.

In 2010, Lee recorded a symphonic heavy metal concept album, Charlemagne: By the Sword and the Cross (he said he was related to the emperor on his mother's side). Three years later, he released a follow-up that had Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath on guitar.

"People never thought I would be a heavy metal performer. Well, I am," he said in the 2012 interview.

Sure, he never was nominated for an Oscar, but he has a Metal Hammer Golden God Award.

Survivors include his wife, former Danish model and painter Gitte Kroencke, whom he married in 1961, and their daughter Christina.

Lee, who had a library of 12,000 books on the occult, admitted to being fascinated by the nature of evil during a 2003 interview with the Guardian.

“ 'Good' people ... being persistently noble can become rather uninteresting," he said. "There is a dark side in all of us. And for us 'bad' people, the bad side dominates. I think there is a great sadness in villains, and I have tried to put that across. We cannot stop ourselves doing what we are doing."

[bayonetbrant]

merged topics

[bob48]

A sad loss - a very remarkable man.

[mirth]

An amazing man, who lead a full life by any measure.

RIP, Sir Christopher.

[Greybriar]

Rest in peace, Sir Christopher Lee.

He was a very active man who played many, many roles.

[bayonetbrant]

[bayonetbrant]

well, then there's this...

[JasonPratt]

I shall have to look into this Charlemagne album.

Edited to add -- I didn't realize he was Ian Fleming's cousin, only that they worked together.

[Centurion40]

A sad loss - a very remarkable man.

Amen.

[bayonetbrant]

http://www.infobarrel.com/True_Facts_About_Christopher_Lee

[steve58]

He was a true Renaissance Man...

[Centurion40]

I never knew so much about him.  They should make a movie about his life!  Some of the info below has already been referenced:

Christopher Lee was born in Belgravia, Westminster, London, on 27 May 1922,[5] the son of Lieutenant Colonel Geoffrey Trollope Lee (1879–1941), of the 60th King's Royal Rifle Corps, and his wife, Contessa Estelle Marie (née Carandini di Sarzano) (1889–1981).[6] Lee's father fought in the Boer War and in the First World War[7] and his mother was an Edwardian beauty who was painted by Sir John Lavery as well as by Oswald Birley and Olive Snell, and sculpted by Clare Frewen Sheridan.[8][9] Lee's maternal great-grandfather was an Italian political refugee, whose wife, Lee's great-grandmother, was English-born opera singer Marie Carandini (née Burgess). He had one sister, Xandra Carandini Lee (1917–2002).[10]

Lee's parents separated when he was four and divorced two years later.[11] During this time, his mother took him and his sister to Wengen in Switzerland.[12] After enrolling in Miss Fisher's Academy in Territet, he played his first role, as Rumpelstiltskin.[13] They then returned to London, where Lee attended Wagner's private school in Queen's Gate and his mother married Harcourt George St-Croix Rose, a banker and uncle of Ian Fleming.[14] Fleming, author of the James Bond novels, thus became Lee's step-cousin. The family moved to Fulham, living next door to the actor Eric Maturin.[15] One night, he was introduced to Prince Yusupov and Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, the assassins of Grigori Rasputin, whom Lee was to play many years later.[16]

When Lee was nine, he was sent to Summer Fields School, a preparatory school in Oxford many of whose pupils later attended Eton.[17] He continued acting in school plays, though "the laurels deservedly went to Patrick Macnee."[18]

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.

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 mail from home or alcohol, unrest spread and threatened to turn into mutiny. Lee, by now an expert on Russia, talked them into resuming their duties, which much impressed his commanding officer.[53]

After the Allied invasion of Italy, the squadron was based in Foggia and Termoli during the winter of 1943. Lee was then seconded to the Army during an officer's swap scheme.[54] He spent most of this time with the Gurkhas of the 8th Indian Infantry Division during the Battle of Monte Cassino.[55] While spending some time on leave in Naples, Lee climbed Mount Vesuvius, which erupted three days later.[56] During the final assault on Monte Cassino, the squadron was based in San Angelo and Lee was nearly killed when one of the planes crashed on takeoff and he tripped over one of its live bombs.[57] After the battle, the squadron moved to airfields just outside Rome and Lee visited the city, where he met his mother's cousin, Nicolò Carandini, who had fought in the Italian resistance movement.[58] In November 1944, Lee was promoted to flight lieutenant and left the squadron in Iesi to take up a posting at Air Force HQ.[59] Lee took part in forward planning and liaison, in preparation for a potential assault into the rumoured German Alpine Fortress.[60] After the war ended, Lee was invited to go hunting near Vienna and was then billeted in Pörtschach am Wörthersee.[61] For the final few months of his service, Lee, who spoke fluent French and German, among other languages, was seconded to the Central Registry of War Criminals and Security Suspects.[62] Here, he was tasked with helping to track down Nazi war criminals.[63] Of his time with the organisation, Lee said: "We were given dossiers of what they'd done and told to find them, interrogate them as much as we could and hand them over to the appropriate authority ... We saw these concentration camps. Some had been cleaned up. Some had not."[63] Lee then retired from the RAF in 1946 with the rank of flight lieutenant.[62]

Intriguingly, Lee's stepfather served as a captain in the Intelligence Corps, but it is unlikely he had any influence over Lee's military career. Lee saw him for the last time on a bus in London in 1940, by now divorced from Lee's mother, though Lee did not speak to him.[64] Lee mentioned that during the war he was attached to the Special Operations Executive and the Long Range Desert Patrol, the precursor of the SAS,[65][66] but always declined to go into details.

"I was attached to the SAS from time to time but we are forbidden – former, present, or future – to discuss any specific operations. Let's just say I was in Special Forces and leave it at that. People can read in to that what they like.[67]"

Wild!

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

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

Great people like him should get a 50 yr extension. A man of many talents.
RIP Sir Christopher Lee.

[LongBlade]

Wow. Such an impressive life.

Thank you for your many talents and contributions, Sir Christopher. You will be missed.