Sir Christopher Frank
Carandini Lee, CBE, CStJ (27 May 1922 – 7 June 2015) was an English actor,
singer and author. With a career spanning nearly 70 years, Lee initially
portrayed villains and became best known for his role as Count Dracula in a
sequence of Hammer Horror films. His other film roles include Francisco
Scaramanga in the James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), Saruman
in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy (2001–2003) and The Hobbit film trilogy
(2012–2014), and Count Dooku in the final two films of the Star Wars prequel
trilogy (2002 and 2005).
Lee was knighted for
services to drama and charity in 2009, received the BAFTA Fellowship in 2011
and received the BFI Fellowship in 2013. Lee considered his best performance to
be that of Pakistan's founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah in the biopic Jinnah (1998),
and his best film to be the British horror film The Wicker Man (1973).
Always noted as an actor for
his deep strong voice, Lee was also known for his singing ability, recording
various opera and musical pieces between 1986 and 1998 and the symphonic metal
album Charlemagne: By the Sword and the Cross in 2010 after having worked with
several metal bands since 2005. The heavy metal follow-up titled Charlemagne:
The Omens of Death was released on 27 May 2013. He was honoured with the
"Spirit of Metal" award at the 2010 Metal Hammer Golden God awards
ceremony.
Born Christopher Frank Carandini Lee, 27 May 1922, Belgravia,
London, England
Died 7 June 2015 (aged 93), Chelsea, London, England
Occupation Actor, singer, author
Years active 1946–2015
Spouse(s) Birgit Krøncke (m. 1961; his death
2015)
Children 1
Military career
Allegiance United Kingdom, Finland (1939)
Service/branch Finnish Army (1939)
British Home Guard (1940)
Royal Air Force (1941–46)
Years of service 1939–1946
Rank Flight Lieutenant
Battles/wars Winter War
World War II
North African Campaign
Allied invasion of Italy
Battle of Monte Cassino
Early life
Christopher Lee was born in
Belgravia, Westminster, London, on 27 May 1922, the son of Lieutenant Colonel
Geoffrey Trollope Lee (1879–1941), of the 60th King's Royal Rifle Corps, and
his wife, Countess Estelle Marie (née Carandini di Sarzano; 1889–1981). Lee's
father fought in the Boer War and in the First World War 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; her lineage can be
traced to Charlemagne. 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).
Lee's parents separated when
he was four and divorced two years later. During this time, his mother took him
and his sister to Wengen in Switzerland. After enrolling in Miss Fisher's
Academy in Territet, he played his first role, as Rumpelstiltskin. 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. 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. 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.
When Lee was nine, he was
sent to Summer Fields School, a preparatory school in Oxford whose pupils often
later attended Eton. He continued acting in school plays, though "the
laurels deservedly went to Patrick Macnee." Lee applied for a scholarship
to Eton, where his interview was in the presence of the ghost story author M.
R. James. Sixty years later, Lee played the part of James for the BBC. His poor
maths skills meant that he placed eleventh and thus missed out on being a
King's Scholar by one place. His step-father was not prepared to pay the higher
fees that being an Oppidan Scholar meant and so he did not attend. Instead, Lee
attended Wellington College, where he won scholarships in the classics,
studying Ancient Greek and Latin. Aside from a "tiny part" in a
school play, he didn't act while at Wellington. He was a "passable"
racquets player and fencer and a competent cricketer but did not do well at the
other sports played: hockey, football, rugby and boxing. He disliked the
parades and weapons training and would always "play dead" as soon as
possible during mock battles. Lee was frequently beaten at school, including
once at Wellington for "being beaten too often", though he accepted
them as "logical and therefore acceptable" punishments for knowingly
breaking the rules. At age 17 and with one year left at Wellington, the summer
term of 1939 was his last. His step-father had gone bankrupt, owing £25,000.
His mother separated from
Rose, and Lee had to get a job, his sister already working as a secretary for
the Church of England Pensions Board. With most employers on or preparing to go
on summer holidays, there were no immediate opportunities for Lee and so he was
sent to the French Riviera, where his sister was on holiday with friends. On
his way there he stopped briefly in Paris, where he stayed with the journalist
Webb Miller, a friend of Rose, and witnessed the execution of Eugen Weidmann,
the last person to be executed in public in France. Arriving in Menton, he
stayed with the Russian Mazirov family, living among exiled princely families.
It was arranged that he should stay on in Menton after his sister had returned
home, but with Europe on the brink of war, he returned to London instead. He
worked as an office clerk for United States Lines, taking care of the mail and
running errands.
Military service in World
War II
When World War II broke out,
Lee volunteered to fight for the Finnish forces during the Winter War in 1939.
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. After a fortnight, they returned home. Lee returned to work at
United States Lines and found his work more satisfying, feeling that he was
contributing. In early 1940, he joined Beecham's, at first as an office clerk,
then as a switchboard operator. When Beecham's moved out of London, he joined
the Home Guard. In the winter, his father fell ill with double pneumonia and
died on 12 March 1941. 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.
Lee reported to RAF Uxbridge
for training and was then posted to the Initial Training Wing at Paignton.
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. 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. 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. He was moved around
to different flying stations, before going to Salisbury in December 1941. 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. He was then promoted to leading aircraftman
and moved to Durban in South Africa, before travelling to Suez on the Nieuw
Amsterdam.
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. He was then attached to
No. 205 Group RAF before being commissioned as a pilot officer at the end of
January 1943 and attached to No. 260 Squadron RAF as an intelligence officer.
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."
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. 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. After breaking through the Mareth
Line, the squadron made their final base in Kairouan. 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. 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. At the end of July 1943 Lee
received his second promotion of the year, this time to flying officer. 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.
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. He spent
most of this time with the Gurkhas of the 8th Indian Infantry Division during
the Battle of Monte Cassino. While spending some time on leave in Naples, Lee
climbed Mount Vesuvius, which erupted three days later. 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. 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. In November 1944, Lee was
promoted to flight lieutenant and left the squadron in Iesi to take up a
posting at Air Force HQ. Lee took part in forward planning and liaison, in
preparation for a potential assault into the rumoured German Alpine Fortress.
After the war ended, Lee was invited to go hunting near Vienna and was then
billeted in Pörtschach am Wörthersee. 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. Here, he was
tasked with helping to track down Nazi war criminals. 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." Lee then retired from the RAF in 1946 with the
rank of flight lieutenant.
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 then divorced from Lee's mother, though Lee did not speak to him. Lee
mentioned that during the war he was attached to the Special Operations
Executive and the Long Range Desert Patrol, 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.
”
Acting career
1947–1957: Career beginnings
Returning to London in 1946,
Lee was offered his old job back at Beecham's, with a significant rise, but he
turned them down as "I couldn't think myself back into the office frame of
mind." The Armed Forces were sending veterans with an education in the
Classics to teach at universities, but Lee felt his Latin was too rusty and
didn't care for the strict curfews. Having lunch with his cousin Nicolò
Carandini, now the Italian Ambassador to Britain, Lee was detailing his war
wounds when Carandini said: "why don't you become an actor, Christopher?"
Lee liked the idea and after assuaging his mother's protests by pointing to the
successful Carandini performers in Australia, which included his
great-grandmother Marie Carandini, who had been a successful opera singer, he
met Nicolò's friend Filippo Del Giudice, a lawyer-turned-film producer. The
head of Two Cities Films, part of the Rank Organisation, Giudice, "looked
me up and down... [and] concluded that I was just what the industry had been
looking for." He was sent to see Josef Somlo for a contract, who
immediately announced that he was "much too tall to be an actor".
Somlo sent him to see Rank's David Henley and Olive Dodds, who signed him on a
seven-year contract.
A student at Rank's
"Charm School", Lee and many of the others had difficulty finding
work. He finally made his film début in Terence Young's Gothic romance Corridor
of Mirrors (1947). Playing Charles, the director got around his height by
placing him at a table in a nightclub alongside Lois Maxwell, Mavis Villiers,
Hugh Latimer and John Penrose. Lee had a single line, "a satirical shaft
meant to qualify the lead's bravura."
His
"apprenticeship" lasted ten years as he mostly played supporting and
background characters.
“ I was around a long time – nearly ten years. Initially,
I was told I was too tall to be an actor. That's a quite fatuous remark to
make. It's like saying you're too short to play the piano. I thought,
"Right, I'll show you..." At the beginning I didn't know anything
about the technique of working in front of a camera, but during those 10 years,
I did the one thing that's so vitally important today – I watched, I listened
and I learned. So when the time came I was ready... Oddly enough, to play a
character who said nothing [The Creature in The Curse of Frankenstein]. ”
Also in this early period,
he made an uncredited appearance in Laurence Olivier's film version of Hamlet
(1948), as a spear carrier (his later co-star and close friend Peter Cushing
played Osric). A few years later, he appeared in Captain Horatio Hornblower
R.N. (1951) as a Spanish captain. He was cast when the director asked him if he
could speak Spanish and fence, which he was able to do. Lee appeared uncredited
in the American epic Quo Vadis (also 1951), which was shot in Rome, playing a
chariot driver and was injured when he was thrown from it at one point during
the shoot.
He recalled that his
breakthrough came in 1952 when Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. began making films at the
British National Studios. He said in 2006, "I was cast in various roles in
16 of them and even appeared with Buster Keaton and it proved an excellent
training ground." The same year, he appeared in John Huston's
Oscar-nominated Moulin Rouge. Throughout the next decade, he made nearly 30
films, playing mostly stock action characters.
1957–1976: Work with Hammer
Lee's first film for Hammer
was The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), in which he played Frankenstein's
monster, with Peter Cushing as Baron Victor Frankenstein. It was the first film
in which Lee and Cushing were co-stars, and ultimately appeared together in
over twenty films and became close friends. When he arrived at a casting
session for the film, "they asked me if I wanted the part, I said yes and
that was that." A little later, Lee co-starred with Boris Karloff in the
film Corridors of Blood (1958), but Lee's own appearance as Frankenstein's
monster led to his first appearance as the Transylvanian vampire in the film
Dracula (1958, known as Horror of Dracula in the United States). Lee accepted a
similar role in an Italian-French horror picture called Uncle Was a Vampire
(1959).
Lee returned to the role of
Dracula in Hammer's Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1965). Lee's role has no
lines, he merely hisses his way through the film. Stories vary as to the reason
for this: Lee states he refused to speak the poor dialogue he was given, but
screenwriter Jimmy Sangster claims that the script did not contain any lines
for the character. This film set the standard for most of the Dracula sequels
in the sense that half the film's running time was spent on telling the story
of Dracula's resurrection and the character's appearances were brief. Lee went
on record to state that he was virtually "blackmailed" by Hammer into
starring in the subsequent films; unable or unwilling to pay him his going
rate, they would resort to reminding him of how many people he would put out of
work if he did not take part.
“ The process went like this: The telephone would ring and
my agent would say, "Jimmy Carreras [President of Hammer Films] has been
on the phone, they've got another Dracula for you." And I would say,
"Forget it! I don't want to do another one." I'd get a call from
Jimmy Carreras, in a state of hysteria. "What's all this about?!"
"Jim, I don't want to do it, and I don't have to do it." "No,
you have to do it!" And I said, "Why?" He replied, "Because
I've already sold it to the American distributor with you playing the part.
Think of all the people you know so well, that you will put out of work!"
Emotional blackmail. That's the only reason I did them. ”
His roles in the films
Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968), Taste the Blood of Dracula (1969), and
Scars of Dracula (1970) all gave the Count very little to do. Lee said in an
interview in 2005. "all they do is write a story and try and fit the
character in somewhere, which is very clear when you see the films. They gave
me nothing to do! I pleaded with Hammer to let me use some of the lines that
Bram Stoker had written. Occasionally, I sneaked one in." Although Lee may
not have liked what Hammer was doing with the character, worldwide audiences
embraced the films, which were all commercially successful.
Lee starred in two further
Dracula films for Hammer in the early 1970s, both of which attempted to bring
the character into the modern-day era. These were not commercially successful:
Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972) and The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973), which was his
last appearance as Dracula. The film was tentatively titled Dracula Is Dead...
and Well and Living in London, a parody of the stage and film musical revue
Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, but Lee was not amused.
Speaking at a press conference in 1973 to announce the film, Lee said:
"I'm doing it under protest... I think it is fatuous. I can think of
twenty adjectives – fatuous, pointless, absurd. It's not a comedy, but it's got
a comic title. I don't see the point." Hammer went on to make one more
Dracula film without him: The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974), with John
Forbes-Robertson playing the Count and David de Keyser dubbing him.
Lee's other work for Hammer
included The Mummy (1959). Lee portrayed Rasputin in Rasputin, the Mad Monk
(1966) and Sir Henry Baskerville (to Cushing's Sherlock Holmes) in The Hound of
the Baskervilles (1959). Lee later played Holmes himself in 1962's Sherlock
Holmes and the Deadly Necklace, and returned to Holmes films with Billy
Wilder's British-made The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970), in which he
plays Sherlock's smarter brother, Mycroft. Lee considers this film to be the
reason he stopped being typecast: "I've never been typecast since. Sure,
I've played plenty of heavies, but as Anthony Hopkins says, "I don't play
villains, I play people."" Lee played a leading role in the German
film The Puzzle of the Red Orchid (1962), speaking German, which he had learned
during his education in Switzerland. He auditioned for a part in the film The
Longest Day (1962), but was turned down because he did not "look like a
military man". Some film books incorrectly credit him with a role in the
film, something he had to correct for the rest of his life.
He was responsible for
bringing the occult author Dennis Wheatley to Hammer. The company made two
films from Wheatley's novels, both starring Lee. The first, The Devil Rides Out
(1967), is generally considered to be one of Hammer's crowning achievements.
According to Lee, Wheatley was so pleased with it that he offered the actor the
film rights to his remaining black magic novels free of charge. However, the
second film, To the Devil a Daughter (1976), was fraught with production
difficulties and was disowned by its author. Although financially successful,
it was Hammer's last horror film and marked the end of Lee's long association
with the studio that had a major impact on his career.
Various roles, The Wicker
Man and James Bond
Like Cushing, Lee also
appeared in horror films for other companies during the 20-year period from
1957 to 1977. Other films in which Lee performed include the series of Fu
Manchu films made between 1965 and 1969, in which he starred as the villain in
heavy oriental make-up; I, Monster (1971), in which he played Jekyll and Hyde;
The Creeping Flesh (1972); and his personal favourite, The Wicker Man (1973),
in which he played Lord Summerisle. Lee wanted to break free of his image as Dracula
and take on more interesting acting roles. He met with screenwriter Anthony
Shaffer, and they agreed to work together. Film director Robin Hardy and
British Lion head Peter Snell became involved in the project. Shaffer had a
series of conversations with Hardy, and the two decided that it would be fun to
make a horror film centring on "old religion", in sharp contrast to
the popular Hammer films of the day. Shaffer read the David Pinner novel
Ritual, in which a devout Christian policeman is called to investigate what
appears to be the ritual murder of a young girl in a rural village, and decided
that it would serve well as the source material for the project. Shaffer and
Lee paid Pinner £15,000 for the rights to the novel, and Schaffer set to work on
the screenplay. However, he soon decided that a direct adaptation would not
work well, and began to craft a new story, using only the basic outline of the
novel. Lee was so keen to get the film made, he gave his services for free, as
the budget was so small.
Lee appeared as the
on-screen narrator in Jess Franco's Eugenie (1970) as a favour to producer
Harry Alan Towers, unaware that it was softcore pornography, as the sex scenes
were shot separately.
“ I had no idea that was what it was when I agreed to the
role. I was told it was about the Marquis de Sade. I flew out to Spain for one
day's work playing the part of a narrator. I had to wear a crimson dinner
jacket. There were lots of people behind me. They all had their clothes on.
There didn't seem to be anything peculiar or strange. A friend said: 'Do you
know you are in a film in Old Compton Street?' In those days that was where the
mackintosh brigade watched their films. 'Very funny,' I said. So I crept along
there heavily disguised in dark glasses and scarf, and found the cinema and
there was my name. I was furious! There was a huge row. When I had left Spain
that day everyone behind me had taken their clothes off!
In addition to making films
in the United Kingdom, Lee made films in mainland Europe: he appeared in two
German films, Count Dracula, where he again played the vampire count, and The
Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism. Other films in Europe he made include Castle of
the Living Dead and Horror Express.
In 1972, Lee was a producer
of the horror film Nothing But the Night, in which he also starred. It was the
first and last film he ever produced as he did not enjoy the process.
In 1973, Lee appeared as the
Comte de Rochefort in Richard Lester's The Three Musketeers. He was wounded in
his left knee during filming, an injury he still felt many years later. He also
appeared in the 1974 film The Four Musketeers which was actually shot at the
same time. Although "killed" in the latter film he reprised the role
in The Return of the Musketeers in 1989, with his character given token
dialogue explaining that his wound in the earlier film's climactic sword fight
wasn't fatal.
Since the mid-1970s, Lee
eschewed horror roles almost entirely. Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond
spy novels and Lee's step-cousin, had offered him the role of the titular
antagonist in the first Eon-produced Bond film Dr. No. Lee enthusiastically
accepted, but by the time Fleming told the producers, they had already chosen
Joseph Wiseman for the role. In 1974, Lee finally got to play a James Bond
villain when he was cast as the deadly assassin Francisco Scaramanga in The Man
with the Golden Gun. Lee said of his performance, "In Fleming's novel he's
just a West Indian thug, but in the film he's charming, elegant, amusing,
lethal... I played him like the dark side of Bond."
Because of his filming
schedule in Bangkok, film director Ken Russell was unable to sign Lee to play
the Specialist in Tommy (1975). That role was eventually given to Jack
Nicholson. In an AMC documentary on Halloween, John Carpenter states that he
offered the role of Samuel Loomis to Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee before
Donald Pleasence took the role. Years later, Lee met Carpenter and told him
that the biggest regret of his career was not taking the role of Dr. Loomis.
Lee appeared on the cover of
the Wings album Band on the Run (1973), along with others including chat show
host Michael Parkinson, singer Kenny Lynch, film actor James Coburn, world
boxing champion John Conteh and broadcaster Clement Freud.
1977: Move to the United
States
In 1977, Lee left England
for America, concerned at being typecast in horror films, as had happened to
his close friends Peter Cushing and Vincent Price. He said in an interview in
2011:
“ Peter and Vincent made some wonderful serious movies but
are only known for horror. That was why I went to America. I couldn't see
anything happening here except a continuation of what had gone before. A couple
of friends, Dick Widmark and Billy Wilder, told me I had to get away from
London otherwise I would always be typecast. ”
His first American film was
the disaster film Airport '77. In 1978, Lee surprised many people with his
willingness to go along with a joke by appearing as guest host on NBC's
Saturday Night Live. As a result of his appearance on SNL, Steven Spielberg,
who was in the audience, cast him in 1941. Also in 1978, Lee co-starred with
Bette Davis in the Disney film Return from Witch Mountain. He turned down the
role of Dr. Barry Rumack (finally played by Leslie Nielsen) in the 1980
disaster spoof Airplane!, which was made around the same time, a decision he
later called "a big mistake."
In 1982, Lee appeared in The
Return of Captain Invincible. In this comedy-musical film, Lee plays a fascist
who plans to rid America (and afterwards, the world) of all non-whites. Lee
sings on two tracks in the film ("Name Your Poison" and "Mister
Midnight"), written by Richard O'Brien (who had written The Rocky Horror
Picture Show seven years previously) and Richard Hartley. In 1985, he appeared
alongside Reb Brown and Sybil Danning in Howling II: Stirba – Werewolf Bitch.
Lee made his last appearances as Sherlock Holmes in 1991's Incident at Victoria
Falls and 1992's Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady.
In addition to more than a
dozen feature films together for Hammer Films, Amicus Productions and other
companies, Lee and Peter Cushing both appeared in Hamlet (1948) and Moulin
Rouge (1952) albeit in separate scenes; and in separate instalments of the Star
Wars films, Cushing as Grand Moff Tarkin in the original film, Lee decades
later as Count Dooku. The last project which united them in person was a
documentary, Flesh and Blood: The Hammer Heritage of Horror (1994), which they
jointly narrated. It was the last time they saw each other as Cushing died two
months later. While they frequently played off each other as mortal enemies
onscreen—Lee's Count Dracula to Cushing's Professor Van Helsing—they were close
friends in real life.
In 1994, Lee played the
character of the Russian commandant in Police Academy: Mission to Moscow.
In 1998, Lee starred in the
role of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, founder of modern Pakistan, in the film Jinnah. In
2002, while talking about his favourite role in film at a press conference at
the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival, he declared that his role
in Jinnah was by far his best performance.
Lee was considered for the
role of comic book villain/hero Magneto in the screen adaptation of the popular
comic book series X-Men, but he lost the role to Sir Ian McKellen, his co-star
in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.
2000s: The Lord of the Rings
and Star Wars
He had many television
roles, including that of Flay in the BBC television miniseries, based on Mervyn
Peake's novels, Gormenghast (2000), and Stefan Wyszyński in the CBS film John
Paul the Second (2005). He played Lucas de Beaumanoir, the Grand Master of the
Knights Templar, in the BBC/A&E co-production of Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe
(1997). He played a role in the made-for-TV series La Révolution française
(1989) in part 2, "Les Années Terribles", as the executioner,
Charles-Henri Sanson, who beheaded King Louis XVI, Maximilien de Robespierre
and others.
Lee played Saruman in the
The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. In the commentary, he states he had a
decades-long dream to play Gandalf, but that he was now too old and his
physical limitations prevented his being considered. The role of Saruman, by
contrast, required no horseback riding and much less fighting. Lee had met
J.R.R. Tolkien once (making him the only person involved in The Lord of the
Rings film trilogy to have done so) and made a habit of reading the novels at
least once a year. In addition, he performed for the album The Lord of the
Rings: Songs and Poems by J.R.R. Tolkien in 2003. Lee's appearance in the final
film in the trilogy, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, was cut
from the theatrical release, but the scene was reinstated in the extended
edition.
The Lord of the Rings marked
the beginning of a major career revival that continued in Star Wars Episode II:
Attack of the Clones (2002) and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
(2005), in which he played the villainous Count Dooku. He did most of the
swordplay himself, though a double was required for the long shots with more
vigorous footwork.
Lee was one of the favourite
actors of Tim Burton and became a regular in many of Burton's films, working
for the director five times since 1999. He had a small role as the Burgomaster
in the film Sleepy Hollow. In 2005, Lee voiced the character of Pastor
Galswells in Corpse Bride, co-directed by Burton and Mike Johnson, and played
Willy Wonka's strict dentist father Dr. Wilbur Wonka in Burton's reimagining of
the Roald Dahl tale Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
In 2007, Lee collaborated
with Burton on Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, playing the
spirit of Sweeney Todd's victims, called the Gentleman Ghost, alongside Anthony
Head, with both singing "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd", its reprises
and the Epilogue. These songs were recorded, but eventually cut since Burton
felt that the songs were too theatrical for the film. Lee's appearance was
completely cut from the film, but Head still had an uncredited one-line cameo.
In 2008, he was offered the role of King Balor in Guillermo del Toro's Hellboy
II: The Golden Army but had to turn it down due to prior commitments.
In late November 2009, Lee
narrated the Science Fiction Festival in Trieste, Italy. Also in 2009, Lee
starred in Stephen Poliakoff's British period drama Glorious 39 with Julie
Christie, Bill Nighy, Romola Garai and David Tennant, Academy Award-nominated
director Danis Tanović's war film Triage with Colin Farrell and Paz Vega, and
Duncan Ward's comedy Boogie Woogie alongside Amanda Seyfried, Gillian Anderson,
Stellan Skarsgård and Joanna Lumley.
2010s: Later roles
In 2010, Lee marked his
fourth collaboration with Tim Burton by voicing the Jabberwocky in Burton's
adaptation of Lewis Carroll's classic book Alice in Wonderland alongside Johnny
Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Anne Hathaway. While he only had two lines, Burton
said that he felt Lee to be a good match for the iconic character because he is
"an iconic guy".
Lee won the "Spirit of
Metal" award in the Metal Hammer Golden Gods 2010. The award was presented
by Tony Iommi. In 2010, Lee received the Steiger Award (Germany) and, in
February 2011, Lee was awarded the BAFTA Fellowship.
In 2011, he appeared in a
Hammer film for the first time in thirty-five years, the last being 1976's To
the Devil a Daughter. The film was called The Resident and he gave a
"superbly sinister" performance alongside Hilary Swank and Jeffrey
Dean Morgan. Whilst filming scenes for the film in New Mexico in early 2009,
Lee injured his back when he tripped over power cables on set. He had to
undergo surgery and as a result was unable to play the role of Sir Lachlan
Morrison in The Wicker Tree, the sequel to The Wicker Man. Very disappointed,
director Robin Hardy recast the role but Lee was determined to appear in the
film, so Hardy wrote a small scene specially for him. Lee appears as the
unnamed "Old Gentleman" who acts as Lachlan's mentor in a flashback.
Hardy stated that fans of The Wicker Man will recognise this character as Lord
Summerisle, but Lee contradicted this, stating that they are two unrelated
characters. Also in 2011, Lee appeared in the critically acclaimed Hugo,
directed by Martin Scorsese.
On 11 January 2011, Lee
announced on his website that he would be reprising the role of Saruman for the
prequel film The Hobbit. Lee had originally said he would have liked to have
shown Saruman's corruption by Sauron, but would not be comfortable flying to
New Zealand at his age. The production was adjusted to accommodate Lee's travel
concerns and allow him to participate in the film from London. Lee says he
worked on his role for the films over the course of four days, portraying
Saruman as a kind and noble wizard, before his subsequent fall into darkness,
as depicted in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy.
In 2012, Lee marked his
fifth collaboration with Tim Burton by appearing in his film adaptation of the
gothic soap opera Dark Shadows, in the small role of a New England fishing
captain.
In an interview in August
2013, Lee said that he was "saddened" to hear that his friend Johnny
Depp might retire from acting and said that he had no intention of retiring.
“ There are frustrations – people who lie to you, people
who don't know what they are doing, films that don't turn out the way you had
wanted them to – so, yes, I do understand [why Depp would consider retiring]. I
always ask myself "well, what else could I do?". Making films has
never just been a job to me, it is my life. I have some interests outside of
acting – I sing and I've written books, for instance – but acting is what keeps
me going, it's what I do, it gives life purpose... I'm realistic about the
amount of work I can get at my age, but I take what I can, even voice-overs and
narration. ”
Lee narrated the
feature-length documentary Necessary Evil: Super-Villains of DC Comics, which
was released on 25 October 2013. In 2014, he appeared in an episode of the BBC
documentary series Timeshift called How to Be Sherlock Holmes: The Many Faces
of a Master Detective. Lee and others who have played Sherlock Holmes discussed
the character and the various interpretations of him. He also appeared in a web
exclusive, reading an excerpt from the short story The Final Problem. He
recently narrated an advertising campaign for Age UK, reading a poem by Roger
McGough.
A month before his death Lee
had signed up to star with an ensemble cast in the Danish film The 11th.
Voice work
Lee spoke fluent English,
Italian, French, Spanish and German, and was moderately proficient in Swedish,
Russian and Greek. He was the original voice of Thor in the German dubs in the
Danish 1986 animated film Valhalla, and of King Haggard in both the English and
German dubs of the 1982 animated adaptation of The Last Unicorn.
Lee provided the off-camera
voice of "U. N. Owen", the mysterious host who brings disparate
characters together in Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians (1965). The film
was produced by Harry Alan Towers, for whom Lee had worked repeatedly in the
1960s. Even though he is not credited on the film, the voice is unmistakable.
He also provided all the voices for the English dub of Monsieur Hulot's Holiday
(1953).
He contributed his voice as
Death in the animated versions of Terry Pratchett's Soul Music and Wyrd Sisters
and reprised the role in the Sky1 live action adaptation The Colour of Magic,
taking over the role from the late Ian Richardson.
Lee provided the voice for
the role of Ansem the Wise/DiZ in the video games Kingdom Hearts II and Kingdom
Hearts 358/2 Days but veteran voice actor Corey Burton (who would also take
over for Lee in Star Wars: The Clone Wars) took over for Kingdom Hearts
Re:Chain of Memories, Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, and Kingdom Hearts 3D:
Dream Drop Distance as well as the version of Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days that
was released as part of Kingdom Hearts 1.5 HD Remix. He was the voice of Lucan
D'Lere in the trailers for EverQuest II.
Lee reprised his role as
Saruman in the video game The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth
along with the other actors of the films. He also narrated and sang for the
Danish musical group The Tolkien Ensemble, taking the role of Treebeard, King
Théoden and others in the readings or singing of their respective poems or
songs. In 2007, he voiced the transcript of The Children of Húrin, by J.R.R.
Tolkien for the audiobook version of the novel.
In 2005, Lee provided the
voice of the Pastor Galswells in The Corpse Bride co-directed by Tim Burton and
Mike Johnson. He served as the narrator on The Nightmare Before Christmas's
poem written by Tim Burton as well. Lee reprised his role as Count Dooku in the
Star Wars: The Clone Wars 2008 animated film but Corey Burton took his place
for the character in the TV series. In 2010, he collaborated again with Tim
Burton, this time by voicing the Jabberwocky in Burton's adaptation of Lewis
Carroll's classic book Alice in Wonderland.
Lee was signed by Falcon
Picture Group to host the syndicated radio series "Mystery Theatre",
a nightly two-hour program featuring classic radio mystery shows. The programme
is distributed by Syndication Networks Corporation with a launch date of 2
March 2009.
Some thirty years after
playing Francisco Scaramanga in The Man with the Golden Gun, Lee provided the
voice of Scaramanga in the video game GoldenEye: Rogue Agent.
Lee recorded special
dialogue in addition to serving as the Narrator for Lego The Hobbit video game
released in April 2014.
Lee plays the part of The
Programmer (Narrator) in the game Deus Ex Machina 2, released in March 2015.
Music career
With his operatic bass
voice, Lee sang on the The Wicker Man soundtrack, performing Paul Giovanni's
psych folk composition, "The Tinker of Rye". He sang the closing
credits song of the 1994 horror film Funny Man. His most notable musical work
on film, however, appears in the superhero comedy/rock musical The Return of
Captain Invincible (1983) in which Lee performs a song and dance number called
"Name Your Poison", written by Richard O'Brien. Lee appears on Peter
Knight and Bob Johnson's (from Steeleye Span) 1970s concept album The King of
Elfland's Daughter. In the 1980s, during the height of Italo disco, he provided
vocals to Kathy Joe Daylor's song "Little Witch".
Lee's first contact with
heavy metal music by singing a duet with Fabio Lione, former lead vocalist of
the Italian symphonic power metal band Rhapsody of Fire (and currently a member
of Angra), on the single "The Magic of the Wizard's Dream" from the
Symphony of Enchanted Lands II album. Later he appeared as a narrator on the
band's four albums Symphony of Enchanted Lands II – The Dark Secret, Triumph or
Agony, The Frozen Tears of Angels and From Chaos to Eternity as well as on the
EP The Cold Embrace of Fear – A Dark Romantic Symphony, portraying the Wizard
King. He also worked with Manowar while they were recording a new version of
their first album, Battle Hymns. The original voice was done by Orson Welles
(who was long dead at the time of the re-recording). The new album, Battle
Hymns MMXI, was released on 26 November 2010.
In 2006, he bridged two
disparate genres of music by performing a heavy metal variation of the Toreador
Song from the opera Carmen with the band Inner Terrestrials. The song was
featured on his album Revelation in 2007. The same year, he produced a music
video for his cover version of the song "My Way".
His first complete metal
album was Charlemagne: By the Sword and the Cross, which was critically
acclaimed and awarded with the "Spirit of Metal" award from the 2010
Metal Hammer Golden Gods ceremony, where he described himself as "a young
man right at the beginning of his career". It was released on 15 March
2010. In June 2012, he released a music video for the song "The Bloody
Verdict of Verden".
On his 90th birthday (27 May
2012) he announced the release of his new single "Let Legend Mark Me as the
King" from his upcoming album Charlemagne: The Omens of Death, signifying
his move onto "full on" heavy metal. That makes him the oldest
performer in the history of the genre. The music was arranged by Richie
Faulkner from the band Judas Priest and features World Guitar Idol Champion,
Hedras Ramos.
In December 2012, he
released an EP of heavy metal covers of Christmas songs called A Heavy Metal
Christmas. He released a second in December 2013, entitled A Heavy Metal
Christmas Too. With the song Jingle Hell, Lee entered the Billboard Hot 100
chart at #22, thus becoming the oldest living performer to ever enter the music
charts, at 91 years and 6 months. The record was previously held by Tony
Bennett, who was 85 when he recorded "Body and Soul" with Amy
Winehouse in March 2011. After media attention, the song rose to #18.
Lee released a third EP of
covers in May 2014, to celebrate his 92nd birthday. Called Metal Knight, in
addition to a cover of "My Way" it contains "The Toreador March",
inspired by the opera Carmen, and the songs "The Impossible Dream"
and "I Don Quixote" from the Don Quixote musical Man of La Mancha.
Lee was inspired to record the latter songs because, "as far as I am
concerned, Don Quixote is the most metal fictional character that I know."
His fourth EP and third annual Christmas release came in December 2014 as he
put out "Darkest Carols, Faithful Sing", a playful take on
"Hark! The Herald Angels Sing". He explained: "It's
light-hearted, joyful and fun... At my age, the most important thing for me is
to keep active by doing things that I truly enjoy. I do not know how long I am
going to be around, so every day is a celebration and I want to share it with
my fans."
Honours
In 1997, he was appointed a
Commander of the Venerable Order of Saint John. On 16 June 2001, as part of
that year's Queen's Birthday Honours, Lee was appointed a Commander of the
Order of the British Empire "for services to Drama". He was made a
Knight Bachelor "For services to Drama and to Charity" on 13 June as
part of the Queen's Birthday Honours in 2009. He was knighted by Prince
Charles, but because of his age he was excused the usual requirement to kneel
and received the knighthood whilst standing. Lee was named 2005's 'most
marketable star in the world' in a USA Today newspaper poll, after three of the
films he appeared in grossed US$640 million. In 2011, Lee was awarded the BAFTA
Academy Fellowship by Tim Burton.
In 2011, accompanied by his
wife Birgit and on the 164th anniversary of the birth of Bram Stoker, Lee was
honoured with a tribute by University College Dublin, and described his
honorary life membership of the UCD Law Society as "in some ways as special
as the Oscars". He was awarded the Bram Stoker Gold Medal by the Trinity
College Philosophical Society, of which Stoker was President, and a copy of
Collected Ghost Stories of MR James by Trinity College's School of English. The
government of France made him a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters in
2011.
Personal life
The Carandinis, Lee's
maternal ancestors, were given the right to bear the coat of arms of the Holy
Roman Empire by the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. Cinemareview notes:
"Cardinal Consalvi was Papal Secretary of State at the time of Napoleon
and is buried at the Pantheon in Rome next to the painter Raphael. His
painting, by Lawrence, hangs in Windsor Castle."
Lee was a step-cousin of Ian
Fleming, author of the James Bond spy novels, and a distant relative of Robert
E. Lee and the astronomer John Lee.
Lee was engaged for a time
in the late fifties to Henriette von Rosen, whom he met at a nightclub in
Stockholm. Her father, Count Fritz von Rosen, proved demanding, getting them to
delay the wedding for a year, asking his London-based friends to interview Lee,
hiring private detectives to investigate him, and asking Lee to provide him
with references, which Lee obtained from Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., John Boulting and
Joe Jackson. Lee found the meeting of her extended family to be like something
from a surrealist Luis Buñuel film and thought they were "killing me with
cream". Finally, Lee had to have the permission of the King of Sweden to
marry. Lee had met him some years before whilst filming Tales of Hans Anderson
and received his blessing. However, shortly before the wedding, Lee ended the
engagement. He was concerned that his financial insecurity in his chosen
profession meant that she "deserved better" than being "pitched
into the dishevelled world of an actor". She understood and they called
the wedding off.
Lee was introduced to Danish
painter and former model Birgit "Gitte" Krøncke by a Danish friend
and his wife in 1960. They were engaged soon after and married on 17 March
1961. They had a daughter, Christina Erika Carandini Lee (b. 1963), who married
Juan Francisco Aneiros Rodriguez in July 2001. Lee was also the uncle of the
British actress Dame Harriet Walter. Both Lee and his daughter Christina
provided spoken vocals on Rhapsody of Fire's album From Chaos to Eternity.
Known for his imposing
height, Lee stood 6 ft 5 in (1.95 m) tall. Lee and his wife Birgit were listed
as among the fifty best-dressed over 50 by the Guardian in March 2013.
Lee was a supporter of the
British Conservative Party. He described Michael Howard as "the ideal
person to lead the party" in 2003 and supported William Hague and David
Cameron.
Contrary to popular belief,
Lee did not have a vast library of occult books. When giving a speech at the
University College Dublin on 8 November 2011, he said: "Somebody wrote I
have 20,000 books. I'd have to live in a bath! I have maybe four or five
[occult books]." He further admonished the students against baneful occult
practices, warning them that he had met "people who claimed to be
Satanists. Who claimed to be involved with black magic."; however, he
himself had certainly never been involved: "I warn all of you: never,
never, never. You will not only lose your mind, you'll lose your soul."
Death
Lee died at the Chelsea and
Westminster Hospital on 7 June 2015 at 8:30 am after being admitted for
respiratory problems and heart failure, shortly after celebrating his 93rd birthday
there. His wife delayed the public announcement until 11 June in order to break
the news to their family.
