If Sir Christopher Lee had just been a movie star , he would still have been an image . But the recent histrion , who passed away last week , had an astonishing spirit even beyond his unbelievable body of work . Whether you ’re still lamenting his exit or timid why his death is such a loss , here ’s 22 reasons why Christopher Lee will always be a legend .
1 ) He was entered into the Guinness Book of World Records in 2007 for most screen cite , having come along in 244 film and TV movies by that point in his career — and then made 14 more movie , with a fifteenth due after this year ( titled Angels in Notting Hill ) . He also holds the record for the tallest leading actor — he stand 6 ’ 5 ” — but also for starring in the “ most films with a brand battle ” with 17 .
2 ) His mother was an Italian contessa , and through her Lee descended from Emperor Charlemagne of the Holy Roman Empire and was related to Robert E. Lee , the Confederate full general .
3 ) He meet Prince Yusupov and Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich , the assassins of the Russian monk Rasputin . He did n’t do this as inquiry for his tardy film role as Rasputin ( in the 1966 Hammer film Rasputin the Mad Monk ) , but just as a child in the 1920s .
4 ) At eld 17 , he saw the death of the murderer Eugen Weidmann in Paris , the last someone in France to be publicly action by closure by compartment .
5 ) During World War II , Lee join the Royal Air Force but was n’t appropriate to wing because of a problem with his optical nerve . So he became an intelligence officer for the Long Range Desert Patrol , a forerunner of the SAS , Britain ’s special forces . He fight the Nazis in North Africa , often having up to five missions a day . During this time he help recapture Sicily , prevented a mutiny among his troops , concentrate malaria six times in a undivided year and wax Mount Vesuvius three sidereal day before it erupted .
6 ) At some point during the war he moved from the LRDP to Winston Churchill ’s even more elect Special Operations Executive , whose mission are literally still class , but need “ direct espionage , sabotage and reconnaissance mission in concern Europe against the Axis powers . ” The SOE was more conversationally called — and I ca n’t believe this somehow has n’t been made into a movie yet — The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare .
7 ) Lee never said anything specific about his metre in the SOE , but he did say this : “ I ’ve seen many men pass decently in front of me – so many in fact that I ’ve become almost hardened to it . Having encounter the risky that human existence can do to each other , the effect of torture , mutilation and seeing someone blown to slice by a dud , you develop a form of shell . But you had to . You had to . Otherwise we would never have win . ” By the ending of the war he ’d receive commendation for bravery from the British , Polish , Czech and Yugoslavia governments .
- Speaking both Gallic and Italian , Lee pass his clock time after World War II hunting Nazis with the Central Registry of War Criminals and Security Suspects until he decided to give acting a try at age 25 . Yes , all of this happened before Lee was 25 long time honest-to-god .
9 ) While take a swordfight with a sottish Errol Flynn during the motion-picture photography of The Dark Avengers in 1955 , Flynn accidentally cut Lee ’s hand so badly his finger nearly follow off , and permanently hurt . Later , Lee abbreviate off Flynn ’s wig while Flynn was still wearing it . Flynn storm off set and reject to come out of his dawdler until Lee claimed it was an accident .
10 ) While well known for his portraying of Dracula in multitudinous picture , he ’s also starred as the Mummy and Frankenstein ’s teras . Of naturally he ’s known as Saruman in Lord of the Rings and Count Dooku in the Star Wars prequels , but his other villainous roles admit Fu Manchu , Rasputin , Rochefort of The Three Musketeers ( his portrayal was so popular the character now inevitably appears with an eye patch , although it was n’t in the book — Lee innovate it ) , Lord Summerisle of The Wicker Man , the James Bond villain Scaramanga , Mephistopheles , and decease himself .
11 ) Lee was not only tie in to James Bond Lord and author Ian Fleming — they were tone - cousins — but Lee was actually one of Fleming ’s first choices for the role of Bond , not least because of Lee ’s World War II and SOC experiences .
12 ) He has played Sherlock Holmes , his brother Mycroft Holmes , and also Sir Henry Baskerville of The Hound of the Baskervilles .
13 ) trite of encounter Dracula and feeling that the motion picture had gotten hero sandwich - par , Lee tried to leave office Hammer films , but studio executives guilted him into generate by stressing how many people could be out of work if Lee stopped churning out hitting . Lee gibe to star in 1966 Dracula : Prince of Darkness , he felt the playscript was so awful he adamantly resist to say any of the dialog . Hammer decided that it was far more authoritative to have a mute Lee as star as opposed to anyone else , and thus had Dracula hiss and yell through the moving-picture show .
14 ) In the ‘ 50s , Lee was engage to Henriette von Rosen , daughter of Count Fritz von Rosen . The Count apparently did n’t like Lee , because after hiring individual tec to look into the thespian and need reference book , he also turn down to leave his girl to marry him unless Lee got the benediction of the King of Sweden . Lee got it .
15 ) Lee was a major Tolkien lover , reading The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy once a year for the absolute majority of his lifetime . He was the only phallus of the movie range to have receive Tolkien in person — on the face of it he carry into him every which way in a taphouse — and fanboyed out . Tolkien actually establish him his blessing to represent Gandalf in any future Lord of the Rings movie .
16 ) When Lee heard that Hollywood was buy the farm to at last make the LotR trilogy into movies , he engage a character in the terrible 1997 idiot box series The New Adventures of Robin Hood as a wizard , specifically so he ’d have clear evidence of his ability to be a wizard . When he get a line Peter Jackson would direct the films , he sent Jackson a personal missive ask to be in the moving-picture show along with a picture of him dressed up as a virtuoso . Unfortunately , Lee ’s modern historic period and his natural power to play scoundrel made him an even better pick for Saruman .
17 ) The write up has gone around a lot , but it bears repeating because it is unbelievable : During his death scene in Return of the King ( only include in the Extended Edition to Lee ’s dislike ) , music director Peter Jackson was account to him what sound people getting stabbed in the back should make . Lee gravely reply that he had experience people being stabbed in the back , and knew exactly what auditory sensation they made .
18 ) Lee was quite concerned in the account of public executions , and reportedly fuck “ the names of every prescribed public executioner use by England , date all the way back to the mid-15th C . ”
19 ) He ’s always been a heavy metallic element fan , but he release his first full heavy alloy record album in 2010 at the years of 88 . Titled Charlemagne : By the Sword and the Cross , which won the “ Spirit of Metal ” honour from the 2010 Metal Hammer Golden Gods ceremony . He made a alloy Christmas album in 2012 . He was the oldest metallic element performer , and the oldest musician to ever strike the Billboard music charts .
20 ) In add-on to his impossibly prolific moving-picture show vocation , Lee was a world champion fencer , an opera house vocaliser , spoke six spoken language , and was a hell of a golfer .
21 ) He was made a Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 2009 , a Commander of the Venerable Order of Saint John in 1997 , made a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French administration in 2011 , earn he British Academy of Film and Television Arts Fellowship in 2011 , received the The Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1994 , and so many more .
22 ) Last but not least : Despite everything you ’ve pick up about the “ six degrees of Kevin Bacon , ” Christopher Lee was recognized as being the most attached role player in the world in 2008 , again by Guinness . He link up to virtually any player in 2.59 steps , beating Bacon .
[ ViaWikipedia , Guinness World Records , Badass of the Week , Factfiend , The Independent ]
touch the author at[email protected ] .
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