Wikipedia

Christopher Lee

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Mllefifi (talk | contribs) at 23:34, 24 January 2006 (→Selected films: +Serial). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
This article is about the British actor. For other uses, see Christopher Lee (disambiguation).

Christopher Frank Carandini Lee, CBE (born May 27, 1922 in Belgravia, London) is a legendary and prolific British actor known for his versatility and film longevity.

Christopher Lee portrays Count Dooku in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones

Lee became famous for his role as Count Dracula in a string of Hammer Horror films. He is viewed by many as the quintessential film villain. Other notable films include The Wicker Man and The Man with the Golden Gun. Lee is now over 80 years old, and still appearing in films such as The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Early life

Lee was born in London in 1922, the son of Geoffrey Trollope Lee, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the 60th King's Royal Rifle Corps, and the Marchesina Estelle Marie Carandini di Sarzano, whose grandfather had been an Italian political refugee who had sought refuge in Australia. His parents separated when he was very young and his mother took Christopher and his sister Xandra to Switzerland where Christopher was enrolled in Miss Fisher's Academy in Wengen and he played his first villainous role as Rumpelstiltskin. The family returned to London where Christopher attended Wagner's private school. His mother then married Harcourt Rose, a banker and uncle of the James Bond author Ian Fleming. He then attended Wellington College, where he won scholarships in classics. He volunteered to fight for the Finnish forces during the Winter War against the Soviet Union in 1939 - though, as Lee admits in his autobiography, he and his fellow British volunteers were in Finland for a fortnight and kept well away from the Russian forces the whole time - then served in the Royal Air Force and intelligence during World War II. To this day he will not talk about what he did while in the RAF but claims to know the sound a man makes when you stab him in the back and puncture his lung.

Career as an actor

In 1946 he gained a 7 year contract with Rank Organisation after discussing his interest in acting with his cousin Nicolò Carandini, the Italian Ambassador, who related to Lee that performance was in his blood as his great grandmother Marie Carandini had been a successful opera singer in Australia, a fact of which Lee was unaware. He made his film debut in Terence Young's Gothic romance, Corridor of Mirrors, in 1948. Throughout the next decade, Lee made nearly 30 films, playing mostly stock action characters. His first film for Hammer, made in 1956 with his close friend Peter Cushing, was The Curse of Frankenstein, in which he played, "The Creature". That led to his first appearance as the infamous Transylvanian Count in the 1958 film Dracula (known as Horror of Dracula in the U.S.). Lee would become indelibly associated with the role and with the horror genre, making another six films as Dracula, five of them for Hammer, as well as many other horror films.

Lee has played roles in over 220 films since 1948. He has had many notable television roles. He appeared as Flay in the BBC television miniseries Gormenghast, based on Mervyn Peake's novels.

As an indication to his prolificacy and longevity, Lee has, according to the Oracle of Bacon at Virginia, an average Bacon number of 2.684104 (as of December 2003), making him second on the list of most suitable centres of the Hollywood universe. This calculation uses a modification of the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game.

In 2001 Christopher Lee was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) by Queen Elizabeth II.

In 2005 he played the role of Stefan Cardinal Wyszyński in the film: John Paul the Second on CBS.

Notes

File:007Scaramanga.jpg
Lee as Francisco Scaramanga facing off against James Bond in The Man with the Golden Gun

Lee is a direct lineal descendent of Charlemagne through his mother's side. She was a famous Edwardian beauty, the Contessa Estelle Marie Carandini di Sarzano. She was painted by Sir John Lavery, as well as Oswald Birley, Olive Snell and sculpted by Clare Sheridan, a cousin of Winston Churchill.

The Carandini family was given the right to bear the coat of arms of the Holy Roman Empire by the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. Cinemareview cites: "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."

In 1974, Lee played the James Bond villain, Francisco Scaramanga in The Man with the Golden Gun. Lee is author Ian Fleming's cousin.

Lee appeared on the cover of the Wings album Band on the Run along with other people, including Clement Freud. Also, he narrated the Dark Secret EP by Italian power metal band, Rhapsody, appearing in the storyline as the wizard king Iras Algor.

Lee was a natural choice for the Lord of the Rings movies, where he plays the role of Saruman. Lee had known Tolkien, and makes a habit of reading the novels at least once a year.

Lee served in the military during World War II, where he acquired the knowledge of the noise a person makes when stabbed in the back (though the exact circumstances of this knowledge are still covered by the Official Secrets Act). He put this to use when filming The Lord of the Rings, as can be seen on the Extended Edition DVD of The Return of the King.

Lee's great-grandparents formed Australia's first opera company, performing before miners in towns in the outback.

Lee sings on the soundtrack to The Wicker Man -- in character as the modern pagan noble in the film -- performing Paul Giovanni's psych folk composition, The Tinker of Rye.

He is fluent in German and moderately proficient in French.

Lee is married to the Danish model Birgit Kroencke (since 1961). They have a daughter named Christina (born 23 November 1963).

He is the uncle of the British actress Harriet Walter.

At 6 feet 5 inches, he is listed in The Guinness Book of World Records for "Tallest leading Actor."

Books by Christopher Lee

Selected films

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Christopher_Lee&oldid=36565395"