Dracula. James Bond. The Lord of the Rings. Star Wars. Has any actor played pivotal roles in more iconic franchises than Christopher Lee, who died on Sunday at 93?
Lee's professional acting career began in 1948, shortly after he returned from World War II as a volunteer. Though he had small roles in a wide range of movies, he was repeatedly told that he was "too tall," at 6'5", to be a professional actor. In the end, it was his imposing height that landed Lee his big break: The Creature in Hammer Productions' 1957 horror flick The Curse of Frankenstein.
The collaboration proved fruitful; Lee became one of Hammer's go-to actors, starring as Count Dracula in 1958's Horror of Dracula, and reprising the role in a whopping six sequels between 1966 and 1973. For an entire generation of filmgoers, Lee simply was Dracula, though he later came to resent the degree to which the character overshadowed the rest of his career. ("Mentioning the count is almost a taboo, as mentioning Macbeth is for other actors," wrote The Telegraph in a 2011 profile).
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Lee's imposing height and deep, sonorous baritone made him an ideal choice for a villain, and he squared off against some of cinema's greatest heroes: James Bond (as Francisco Scaramanga in 1974's The Man With the Golden Gun), Gandalf (as Saruman in 2001's The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring), and Yoda (as Count Dooku in 2002's Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones).
At the end of his decades-long career, Lee continued to honor the roles of his past — even reprising the role of Scaramanga as a voice actor for a 2004 James Bond video game — while innovating in bold new directions. (His heavy metal albums, recorded within the past five years, are well worth tracking down.) "The thing I have always tried to do is surprise people," said Lee in a 2001 interview with The Guardian. "To present them with something they didn't expect." Scott Meslow
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