| # | Fact |
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| 1 | The villain Tormack from the animated series Galtar and the Golden Lance (1985) was apparently based on him, right down to his voice actor, Brock Peters of To Kill A Mockingbird (1962) fame, utilizing a British accent in order to sound like Lee. |
| 2 | He was considered for Tom Baker's role in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973). |
| 3 | He turned down Leslie Nielsen's role in Airplane! (1980) as he had trouble understanding the script. |
| 4 | He was considered for the guest role of De Flores in the Doctor Who (1963) serial "Silver Nemesis". He was also considered for the Master and Borusa (before the character was dropped) in Doctor Who (1996). |
| 5 | He was regarded The Devil Rides Out (1968) as the best film he ever made for Hammer. |
| 6 | He was seriously considered to play Mr. Dark in Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983). |
| 7 | He was originally going to play The Inquisitor in The Lost Continent (1968). |
| 8 | He was considered for the role of Dr. Hans Fallanda in Lifeforce (1985). |
| 9 | He turned down the role of The Man in Black in The Vampire Lovers (1970). |
| 10 | Of the nine Dracula films that Hammer made, he doesn't appear in two of them. Dracula is absent from The Brides of Dracula (1960) as Hammer worried that his salary would increase. He refused to appear in The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974) after reading the script. |
| 11 | He was so ashamed of Howling II: ... Your Sister Is a Werewolf (1985) that when he met Joe Dante on Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990), he apologised for being in such a bad sequel to his film. |
| 12 | He turned down the role of The Specialist in Tommy (1975), as he was in Thailand filming The Man with the Golden Gun (1974). |
| 13 | He was seriously considered to star as the title role in The Phantom of the Opera (1962). |
| 14 | He was considered to play Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). |
| 15 | He was considered to play The High Priest of Kali in The Stranglers of Bombay (1959). |
| 16 | As a 17 year old, he was a spectator in the crowd attending the last public guillotining in France - that of Eugen Weidmann in 1939. At 6'5" tall, he'd have had a good view. (Because of the behavior of the spectators at the execution, all subsequent executions in France were done behind closed doors). |
| 17 | Coincidently, the veteran horror actor appeared in the only two Best Picture winners to feature ghosts, Hamlet (1948) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003). |
| 18 | His roles were cut from the films My Brother's Keeper (1948) and Saraband (1948). |
| 19 | Both he and his niece Harriet Walter appeared in "Star Wars" films: Lee played Count Dooku in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002), Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005) and Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) and Walter played Dr. Kalonia in Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015). |
| 20 | He played three characters from the Sherlock Holmes stories: Sherlock himself, his brother Mycroft, and Sir Henry Baskerville. He subsequently worked with several actors who appeared in more recent Holmes stories. In Dark Shadows (2012), he appeared with Jonny Lee Miller, who played Sherlock on Elementary (2012). He also worked with Miller's grandfather, Bernard Lee, in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974). In Hugo (2011), he worked with Ben Kingsley and Jude Law, who have both played Doctor Watson. In The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014), he appeared - though never at the same time - with Stephen Fry, who played Mycroft in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011); Ian McKellen, who plays Sherlock in Mr. Holmes (2015); and Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, who play Holmes and Watson on Sherlock (2010). Also appearing in Lee's five Fu Manchu movies was Howard Marion-Crawford, who was television's first Dr. Watson on Sherlock Holmes (1954). Lee also provided the introduction for that series' 2005 DVD release. |
| 21 | He died only one day after his Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N. (1951), Julius Caesar (1970) and Treasure Island (1990) co-star Richard Johnson. |
| 22 | His date of death, June 7, is also the birthday of Liam Neeson, who played his apprentice Qui-Gon Jinn in the Star Wars films. |
| 23 | With his death on June 7, 2015, Patrick Macnee became the last surviving cast member of Hamlet (1948). Macnee himself died only 18 days later. |
| 24 | As he played a Bond villain, he has worked with the most fellow Bond villain actors in films: Robert Shaw, Donald Pleasence, Telly Savalas, Charles Gray, Curd Jürgens, Michael Lonsdale, Julian Glover, Sean Bean, Christopher Walken, etc. |
| 25 | According to the Multimedia Encyclopedia "Cinemania 95", he died on March 31, 1993. But he was alive in that time. |
| 26 | He appeared in six films that were nominated for the Best Picture Oscar: Hamlet (1948), Moulin Rouge (1952), The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) and Hugo (2011). Of those, Hamlet (1948) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) are winners in the category. |
| 27 | He has two roles in common with his Tales of the Haunted (1981) co-star Jack Palance: (1) Lee played Count Dracula in ten films from Horror of Dracula (1958) to Dracula and Son (1976) while Palance played him in Dracula (1974) and (2) Palance played Dr. Edward Hyde / Mr. Henry Jekyll in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1968) while Lee played renamed versions of the character(s), Dr. Charles Marlowe and Mr. Edward Blake, in I, Monster (1971). |
| 28 | He played Frankenstein's Monster in The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) while his niece Harriet Walter played Mary Wollstonecraft, the mother of "Frankenstein" author Mary Shelley, in Frankenstein: Birth of a Monster (2003). |
| 29 | He has two roles in common with his Corpse Bride (2005) co-star Richard E. Grant: (1) Lee played Sherlock Holmes in Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace (1962), Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady (1991) and Sherlock Holmes: Incident at Victoria Falls (1992) while Grant played him in The Other Side (1992) and (2) Lee played Holmes' brother Mycroft Holmes in The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970) while Grant played him in Sherlock (2002). |
| 30 | He made ten films with Michael Gough: Saraband (1948), Night Ambush (1957), Horror of Dracula (1958), Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965), The Skull (1965), The Crimson Cult (1968), Julius Caesar (1970), Sleepy Hollow (1999), Corpse Bride (2005) and Alice in Wonderland (2010). |
| 31 | He was offered the role of Justinian in The Viking Queen (1967), which he turned down. Don Murray was eventually cast. |
| 32 | He was killed by Francis Matthews in both Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966) and Rasputin: The Mad Monk (1966). |
| 33 | His voice in the Italian versions of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) and Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005) was dubbed by Omero Antonutti. |
| 34 | He made cameo appearances in the final instalments of two prequel trilogies: Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005) and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014). |
| 35 | He made six films with Desmond Llewelyn: Hamlet (1948), They Were Not Divided (1950), Corridors of Blood (1958), The Pirates of Blood River (1962) and The Man with the Golden Gun (1974). |
| 36 | He has two roles in common with Tom Baker: (1) Lee played Sherlock Holmes in Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace (1962), Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady (1991) and Sherlock Holmes: Incident at Victoria Falls (1992) while Baker played him in The Hound of the Baskervilles (1982) and (2) Lee played Grigory Rasputin in Rasputin: The Mad Monk (1966) while Baker played him in Nicholas and Alexandra (1971). |
| 37 | He made six films with Michael Goodliffe: Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N. (1951), Pursuit of the Graf Spee (1956), She Played with Fire (1957), The Gorgon (1964), The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) and To the Devil a Daughter (1976). |
| 38 | He made four films with Charlton Heston: Julius Caesar (1970), The Three Musketeers (1973), The Four Musketeers: Milady's Revenge (1974) and Treasure Island (1990). |
| 39 | Before he was persuaded to return as Count Dracula in Scars of Dracula (1970), John Forbes-Robertson was considered for the role. Forbes-Robertson later played the character in The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974), making him the only actor other than Lee to play Dracula in the Hammer "Dracula" film series. |
| 40 | He has two roles in common with Frank Langella, Richard Roxburgh and Anthony D.P. Mann: (1) Lee played Count Dracula in ten films from Horror of Dracula (1958) to Dracula and Son (1976), Langella played him in Dracula (1979), Roxburgh played him in Van Helsing (2004) and Mann played him in Canucula! (Dracula in Canada) (2008) and Terror of Dracula (2012) and (2) Lee played Sherlock Holmes in Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace (1962), Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady (1991) and Sherlock Holmes: Incident at Victoria Falls (1992), Langella played him in Standing Room Only: Sherlock Holmes (1981), Roxburgh played him in The Hound of the Baskervilles (2002) and Mann played him in Sherlock Holmes and the Shadow Watchers (2011). |
| 41 | He has appeared in three films with Lee Pace: The Resident (2011), The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014). |
| 42 | He appeared in two Best Picture Academy Award winners: Hamlet (1948) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003). He is the only actor to appear in two films which were released more than 50 years apart and both won Best Picture. |
| 43 | He has three roles in common with Lon Chaney Jr.: (1) Chaney played Frankenstein's Monster in The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942) while Lee played him in The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), (2) Chaney played Kharis the Mummy in The Mummy's Tomb (1942), The Mummy's Ghost (1944) and The Mummy's Curse (1944) while Lee played him in The Mummy (1959) and (3) Chaney played Count Dracula in Son of Dracula (1943) while Lee played him in ten films from Horror of Dracula (1958) to Dracula and Son (1976). |
| 44 | He has two roles in common with Bela Lugosi: (1) Lugosi played Count Dracula in Dracula (1931) and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) while Lee played him in ten films from Horror of Dracula (1958) to Dracula and Son (1976) and (2) Lugosi played Frankenstein's Monster in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943) while Lee played him in The Curse of Frankenstein (1957). |
| 45 | He starred in two Hammer adaptations of novels by Dennis Wheatley: The Devil Rides Out (1968) and To the Devil a Daughter (1976). |
| 46 | He worked with Klaus Kinski in The Devil's Daffodil (1961), Secret of the Red Orchid (1962), Psycho-Circus (1966), Five Golden Dragons (1967) and Count Dracula (1970) and his daughter Nastassja Kinski in To the Devil a Daughter (1976). |
| 47 | He played Count Dracula in ten films: Horror of Dracula (1958), Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966), Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968), Count Dracula (1970), One More Time (1970), Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970), Scars of Dracula (1970), Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972), The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973) and Dracula and Son (1976). |
| 48 | He made four films with Patrick Troughton: Hamlet (1948), The Gorgon (1964), Scars of Dracula (1970), and Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974). Coincidentally, Peter Cushing appeared in all of them except Scars of Dracula (1970). |
| 49 | He made four films with Helena Bonham Carter: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), Corpse Bride (2005), Alice in Wonderland (2010) and Dark Shadows (2012). |
| 50 | He made four films with Marton Csokas: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002), The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) and Alice in Wonderland (2010). |
| 51 | He made six films with Johnny Depp: Sleepy Hollow (1999), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), Corpse Bride (2005), Alice in Wonderland (2010), Hugo (2011) and Dark Shadows (2012). |
| 52 | He appeared in a total of 24 films with his close friend Peter Cushing: Hamlet (1948), Moulin Rouge (1952), Alexander the Great (1956), The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), Horror of Dracula (1958), The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959), The Mummy (1959), The Devil's Agent (1962), The Gorgon (1964), Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965), She (1965), The Skull (1965), Island of the Burning Damned (1967), Scream and Scream Again (1970), One More Time (1970), The House That Dripped Blood (1971), I, Monster (1971), Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972), Horror Express (1972), Nothing But the Night (1973), The Creeping Flesh (1973), The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973), Arabian Adventure (1979) and House of the Long Shadows (1983). |
| 53 | He has two roles in common with Marc Warren: (1) Lee played Count Dracula in ten films from Horror of Dracula (1958) to Dracula and Son (1976) while Warren played him in Dracula (2006) and (2) Lee played the Comte de Rochfort in The Three Musketeers (1973), The Four Musketeers: Milady's Revenge (1974) and The Return of the Musketeers (1989) while Warren played him in The Musketeers (2014). |
| 54 | He has four roles in common with his Corridors of Blood (1958) and The Crimson Cult (1968) co-star Boris Karloff: (1) Karloff played Frankenstein's Monster in Frankenstein (1931), Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and Son of Frankenstein (1939) while Lee played him in The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), (2) Karloff played the Mummy in The Mummy (1932) while Lee played him in The Mummy (1959), (3) Karloff played Dr. Fu Manchu in The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932) while Lee played him in The Face of Fu Manchu (1965), The Brides of Fu Manchu (1966), The Vengeance of Fu Manchu (1967), The Blood of Fu Manchu (1968) and Sax Rohmer's The Castle of Fu Manchu (1969) and (4) Karloff played Grigori Rasputin in Suspense: The Black Prophet (1953) while Lee played him in Rasputin: The Mad Monk (1966). |
| 55 | In both The Pirates of Blood River (1962) and The Devil-Ship Pirates (1964), he played the captain of a pirate crew which included Michael Ripper and Michael Peake. |
| 56 | He appeared in three films with Suzan Farmer: The Devil-Ship Pirates (1964), Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966) and Rasputin: The Mad Monk (1966). |
| 57 | He was the last surviving cast member of Scott of the Antarctic (1948). |
| 58 | He starred in two adaptations of Robert Louis Stevenson's 1886 novella "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde": The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960) and I, Monster (1971). |
| 59 | He made five films with Miles Malleson: One Night with You (1948), Saraband (1948), Private's Progress (1956), Horror of Dracula (1958) and The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959). |
| 60 | He made seven films with Francis De Wolff: The Gay Lady (1949), Moulin Rouge (1952), Corridors of Blood (1958), The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959), The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959), The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960) and The Three Musketeers (1973). |
| 61 | He made seven films with Oliver Reed: The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960), Wild for Kicks (1960), The Pirates of Blood River (1962), The Three Musketeers (1973), The Four Musketeers: Milady's Revenge (1974), The Return of the Musketeers (1989) and Treasure Island (1990). |
| 62 | He appeared in 12 films directed by Terence Fisher: A Song for Tomorrow (1948), The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), Horror of Dracula (1958), The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959), The Mummy (1959), The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959), The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960), Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace (1962), The Gorgon (1964), Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966), Island of the Burning Damned (1967) and The Devil Rides Out (1968). |
| 63 | He made nine films with Michael Ripper: The Mummy (1959), The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959), The Pirates of Blood River (1962), The Devil-Ship Pirates (1964), Rasputin: The Mad Monk (1966), Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968), Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970), Scars of Dracula (1970) and The Creeping Flesh (1973). |
| 64 | His character seduced Barbara Shelley in both Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966) and Rasputin: The Mad Monk (1966). |
| 65 | He had no lines in Hamlet (1948), The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) or Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966). |
| 66 | He worked with Bernard Lee in Pursuit of the Graf Spee (1956), Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965) and The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) and his grandson Jonny Lee Miller in Dark Shadows (2012). |
| 67 | In his autobiography, he relates his first meeting with Peter Cushing during production of The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), in which he played the monster. Lee stormed into a dressing room where Cushing was sitting and angrily shouted "I haven't got any lines!". Cushing replied, "You're lucky; I've read the script.". |
| 68 | He considers Billy Wilder to be the greatest director he worked for. |
| 69 | He was married to his wife Gitte just before production on The Devil's Daffodil (1961) began. They had no time for a full honeymoon as they only had a weekend before filming began on Mondy. They spent it in Brighton and resolved to have a serial honeymoon spread out over the next year between picture commitments. Unfortunately, it rained most of the weekend. |
| 70 | Did not start acting until he was 25 years old. |
| 71 | Lee got along well with Eddie Powell, his longtime stunt double at Hammer Film Productions. Powell married Hammer wardrobe mistress Rosemary Burrows, who jokingly referred to Lee as "Nasty" and sometimes "Green Mould". |
| 72 | After preparatory school, he passed the entrance exam for Eton but his parents could not afford the fees. He went to Wellington, but had to be taken out when their financial situation worsened. He took a job as an office boy in a shipping company in the City at £1 a week. |
| 73 | His godfather was Prince Alexander of Battenberg, a grandson of Queen Victoria, who later adopted the title of Lord Carisbrooke. |
| 74 | He got started in films when his cousin Count Nicolò Carandini, Italy's first post war ambassador to Britain introduced him to Filipo Del Guidice of Two Cities Film. |
| 75 | His mother was a contessa of the Italian Carandini family related through marriage across the centuries to the Borgias. |
| 76 | Around 1988, Lee agreed to play a vampire once more in an unproduced Dutch/Belgian comedy that was to be called "Blooper". The script, written by 'Frank van Laecke', was commissioned because of the physical resemblance between Lee and Dutch opera singer Marco Bakker, as noted by Bakker's wife, actress Willeke van Ammelrooy. Lee, a great lover of opera, got along well with both of them. The story concerned an opera singer called Billy Blooper (Bakker) who learns his father (Lee) is a vampire who's teeth had gone rotten after eating too many sweets. Now whenever he bites anyone, instead of turning into a vampire, they became half-human, half-chicken. |
| 77 | Has also done a few small roles that only require his voice, such as the priest in Corpse Bride (2005), and the Jabberwocky in Alice in Wonderland (2010). |
| 78 | Early in his career, Lee dubbed foreign films into English and other languages including Monsieur Hulot's Holiday (1953). Sometimes he dubbed all the voices including women's parts. Douglas Fairbanks Jr., recalled that Lee could do any kind of accent: "foreign, domestic, North, South, Middle, young, old, everything. He's a great character actor". |
| 79 | Wore an eyepatch to play the role of Rochefort in The Three Musketeers (1973), The Four Musketeers: Milady's Revenge (1974) and The Return of the Musketeers (1989), one of few films, if not the only film, to be based on "Twenty Years After". His interpretation of the character was so popular that many subsequent adaptations of the story; such as Disney's The Three Musketeers (1993) and The Three Musketeers (2011), have continued to portray Rochefort as wearing an eyepatch, despite the fact that Alexandre Dumas père never described the character as wearing one. |
| 80 | Read the Lord of the Rings trilogy once a year for decades, long before the film series ever got started. |
| 81 | He was awarded Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters by French culture minister Frederic Mitterrand in 2011. |
| 82 | Lee's friend, Jean Paul Getty, lent him and wife Gitte his Sutton Place home for their honeymoon in 1961. |
| 83 | Was very good friends with Josip Broz Tito, a partisan leader and a president of a former country of Yugoslavia. |
| 84 | Has said that his favorite director is Tim Burton, whom he frequently collaborated with on several of Burton's films. |
| 85 | Had dubbed King Haggard in the German version of The Last Unicorn (1982) for no fee, out of love for the film. |
| 86 | He learned how to speak German by listening to Richard Wagner records. |
| 87 | Once declared himself an unconditional fan of Gene Hackman. |
| 88 | Was offered the role of King Balor in Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008), but had to turn it down due to other commitments. |
| 89 | At age 77, he confirmed that he had lost an inch of height and was now 6'4". |
| 90 | He was awarded Commander of the Venerable Order of Saint John in 1997. |
| 91 | He was awarded Knight Bachelor of the Order of the British Empire in the 2009 Queen's Birthday Honours List for his services to drama and charity. The ceremony took place at Buckingham Palace on October 30, 2009, and was carried out by HRH 'Prince Charles', The Prince of Wales. |
| 92 | In various interviews over the years has referred to all three actors to play James Bond that he has worked with - Roger Moore, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig - as the best and most close to Ian Fleming's intentions. However, he has also criticized Fleming's weak characters when discussing his own Bond film, The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) and described the screen adaptation as considerably better written. |
| 93 | In 2008, he received a lifetime achievement award at Pula Film Festival (Croatia). |
| 94 | He was cast as a ballad soloist called The Gentleman Ghost in the film adaptation of the Broadway musical "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street", but his role was cut when the ballad numbers were omitted. However, he never filmed the scenes and was present for the recording session. |
| 95 | Has worked with three James Bonds: Roger Moore in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), Pierce Brosnan in Around the World in 80 Days (1989), and Daniel Craig in The Golden Compass (2007). |
| 96 | Is possibly the only actor in cinematic history to have achieved a unique trifecta. He has played a Star Wars villain (Count Dooku), a James Bond villain (Francisco Scaramanga), and a classic horror movie monster (Dracula, the Mummy and Frankenstein's Monster). |
| 97 | Has played a staggering amount of Victorian characters. He played Count Dracula ten times, Dr. Fu Manchu five times, Sherlock Holmes three times, Mycroft Holmes (Sherlock's brother) once and Sir Henry Baskerville (a friend of Holmes) once. He also appeared in The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960) and I, Monster (1971), adaptations of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", among others. |
| 98 | Has worked with three different Gollums. The first Gollum, Brother Theodore, provided a voice in The Last Unicorn (1982). The second, Peter Woodthorpe, appeared with him in The Odyssey (1997). The last, Andy Serkis, appeared with him in the Lord of the Rings films. |
| 99 | Released the music album "Christopher Lee: Revelation" in the United Kingdom in October 2006. It includes songs like "The Toreador March", "O Sole Mio", "Oh What a Beautiful Mornin'" and "My Way". |
| 100 | As a veritable J.R.R. Tolkien expert and the only member of the cast who had met Tolkien himself, he often visited the Production department on the sets of the various Lord of the Rings movies to give advice and tips on the various attributes of the films. |
| 101 | His films have made more money than any other actor's in history. As of May 2006, five of his films (the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the two Star Wars films in which he played Count Dooku) had total grosses in excess of $4.4 billion. Even without considering Lee's other appearances dating back to 1948, his totals considerably surpass the figures of #3 billion and #3.8 billion claimed by Harrison Ford and Samuel L. Jackson, respectively. |
| 102 | Although he and Peter Cushing were often mortal enemies on-screen, off-screen they were inseparable friends. |
| 103 | He was one of the few people to volunteer to fight on the Finnish side in the Russo-Finnish winter war in 1939-1940, though he and his fellow British volunteers were in Finland only for about two weeks and were kept well away from direct combat. |
| 104 | He was the tallest of the many actors who have played Count Dracula. |
| 105 | Shot all his scenes for Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005) in one day. |
| 106 | Has appeared in three different films in which he had either known or met the (late) author of the original work: Gormenghast (2000) (Mervyn Peake), The Lord of the Rings (J.R.R. Tolkien) and The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) (Ian Fleming, his cousin). |
| 107 | In Horror of Dracula (1958), Lee in the title role had to drop a woman into a grave, but when he carried her, she was unexpectedly heavy and in trying to drop her into the grave, Lee also fell in with her. |
| 108 | In his role as the title character, The Mummy (1959), in which he co-starred with Peter Cushing, Lee got severely injured in the course of the filming. All that smashing through real glass windows and doors had dislocated his shoulder and pulled his neck muscles, especially when he had to carry an actress with arms fully extended across a swamp, walking as much as 87 yards, which damaged his shoulders considerably. |
| 109 | According to his friend Norman Lloyd, he has a somewhat eccentric hobby: he is fascinated by public executioners and knows the names of every official executioner England has had since the middle of the 15th century. |
| 110 | Wanted to attend the Heavy Metal Festival Earthshaker Fest in 2005 to support his favorite bands, the Italian band Rhapsody and the American band Manowar, but had to cancel at the last moment because of an important filming appointment. He recorded a message to the fans in advance, which was shown right before Rhapsody appeared on-stage. |
| 111 | Like his Lord of the Rings director, Peter Jackson, he has appeared in films with three generations of Astins. |
| 112 | When he arrived in the recording studio to do the voice-over for King Haggard in the original animated version of The Last Unicorn (1982), he came armed with his own copy of the book with certain excerpts marked pertaining to parts of the book that he felt should not have been omitted. |
| 113 | According to his official website: He speaks French, German, Italian and Spanish and can "get along" in Greek, Russian and Swedish. |
| 114 | His daughter, Christina Erika Lee, was born with her legs severely deformed. They were bent at such a severe angle that they were almost backwards. She spent her first two years in splints. She eventually learned how to walk after the age of three and no longer needed splints. |
| 115 | He studied at Summerfield Preparatory School and attended Wellington College. |
| 116 | In 1972, he founded Charlemagne Productions Ltd. |
| 117 | During World War II, he served in the Royal Air Force and in British Intelligence. |
| 118 | Has one child, Christina Erika Lee (b. November 23, 1963) with his wife Birgit Kroencke Lee (Gitte Lee). |
| 119 | In a bonding of two generations of Frankenstein's monsters, Lee and his wife were good friends with Boris Karloff and his wife. This friendship was not as a result of them working together (they made two films together: Corridors of Blood (1958) and The Crimson Cult (1968)) but by the coincidence that they lived next door to each other in England. |
| 120 | Two of his roles have been as leaders of a separatist movement. The first was Jinnah (1998), about Mohammad Ali Jinnah, founder of Pakistan. The second was in the Star Wars series as Count Dooku, the former mentor of Qui-Gon Jinn. |
| 121 | Was the Center of the Hollywood Universe, according to data at the Movie Oracle, http://www.cs.virginia.edu/oracle/center.html, but is now second to Rod Steiger. |
| 122 | On July 21, 2004, he was given the honorary citizenship of the Italian city of Casina (Province of Reggio Emilia) where Sarzano, the castle of his ancestors is situated. He gave his speech of thanks in Italian. |
| 123 | One of his favorite bands is the Italian symphonic power metal band Rhapsody, and he has also appeared on one of their album (listen to the speech in the intro on the song "Unholy Warcry" on the album "The Dark Secret"). Lee also appears on the Rhapsody single "The Magic of the Wizard's Dream", where he does a duet with Rhapsody vocalist Fabio Leoni in English, German, Italian and French versions of the song. |
| 124 | He was awarded Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters by French culture minister Jean-Jacques Aillagon on December 11, 2002. |
| 125 | Although he has been in well over 200 films, he has very rarely played a hero, having been a villain in perhaps about 85% of his films (even his bit parts lean towards the unsympathetic). |
| 126 | As Darth Tyranus, he plays the first Sith apprentice to act in both body and voice. |
| 127 | One of the most prolific actors of all time, he has acted in nearly 230 films, although he later admitted that his film work was not always chosen on quality but often on whether they could support his family. His peak years of productivity were 1955 and 1970, as Lee starred in nine films in both years. |
| 128 | Was upset about the deletion of his death scene in the theatrical version of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003). However, the scene was put back into the Extended Edition which is seen as the definitive version. |
| 129 | He struggled to get work early in his career as a supporting actor because almost all the male stars were shorter than he. |
| 130 | At 6 feet 5 inches, he is entered into the Guinness Book of World Records as "The Tallest Leading Actor". |
| 131 | Since his feature film debut in Corridor of Mirrors (1948), he has had at least one film role every year except for 1993, 1995, 1997, 2000 and 2006. |
| 132 | Was originally offered the role of Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977), which he turned down. The role eventually went to his good friend Peter Cushing. |
| 133 | Both he and his fellow Star Wars Sith Lord, David Prowse, have played Frankenstein's Monster opposite Peter Cushing: Lee in The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), and Prowse in Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974). |
| 134 | Sustained an injury to his hand while filming a swordfight with a slightly drunk Errol Flynn for The Dark Avenger (1955). |
| 135 | Was voted No. 31 on the recent British televised poll "The Greatest Movie Stars of All Time" above the likes of John Wayne, Michael Caine and Humphrey Bogart. |
| 136 | His stepfather (his mother's second husband) was the maternal uncle of writer Ian Fleming (of James Bond fame). Lee and Fleming are therefore stepcousins. |
| 137 | Is an honorary member of three stuntmen's unions. |
| 138 | Speaks very good French, good enough to understand questions and give long replies in a press conference. |
| 139 | A stunt double performed the stunts and lightsaber fights in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002). Lee's face was imposed on the double's body. Lee mentioned that in the last 40 years, he has done more swordfights than any other actor, but "not anymore". |
| 140 | He made his stage debut in school as the demonic lead in "Rumpelstiltskin", a sign of things to come. |
| 141 | From an acting dynasty, his great-grandparents founded the first Australian opera company. |
| 142 | One of Lee's maternal great-grandfathers was Italian. Through him, Lee is of noble Italian ancestry (from the Carandini family). |
| 143 | The white coffin used in one of his Dracula films was later used in Bananarama's music video "Venus". |
| 144 | Has appeared in a scene from The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) on screen during the drive-in sequence in Stanley Kubrick's Lolita (1962). |
| 145 | Served in the British Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve from 1941 to 1946. During that time, he was an active member of the Special Forces. |
| 146 | Appears on the cover of Paul McCartney's 1973 album "Band on the Run". |
| 147 | He was awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2001 Queen's Birthday Honours List for his services to drama. |
| 148 | In a radio interview in South Africa, Lee claimed that he held the record for number of film roles by an actor (2001). |
| 149 | Is listed as the Center of the Hollywood Universe by the Oracle of Kevin Bacon website at the University of Virginia, because he can be linked to any one in Hollywood on average in 2.59 steps. That is less than either Charlton Heston or Kevin Bacon himself. |
| 150 | The blooddripping fangs worn by Lee in many of his vampire films were created by Irish dental technician Sean Mulhall. |
| 151 | Was one of the judges for the 1995 Miss World beauty pageant. |
| 152 | Vincent Price and Christopher Lee were born on the same day (27th May) and Peter Cushing was born on the 26th. |
| 153 | Uncle of Harriet Walter. |
| 154 | A distant cousin and frequent golfing partner of Bond creator Ian Fleming, Lee was the author's personal pick for the role of Dr. No (1962) in the first 007 film. The role, of course, went to actor Joseph Wiseman, who was brilliant. However, fans of the literary Bond might want to check out Lee's portrayal of Chinese master criminal Fu Manchu, for an idea of how Ian Fleming himself envisioned Dr. No. |
| 155 | One of the few actors who has portrayed three different Sherlock Holmes characters: Sherlock Holmes, Mycroft Holmes and Sir Henry Baskerville. |
| 156 | Classically trained singer. |
| 157 | Turned down Donald Pleasence's role as Dr. Sam Loomis in Halloween (1978) (He later remarked that this was his biggest mistake). |
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