The Hollywood Reporter, among other sites, is reporting that actor, WWII veteran, and musician Sir Christopher Lee has passed away at the age of 94.
It is, frankly, hard to tell what he’ll be best known for playing. Maybe it’ll be as Count Dracula in Hammer’s horror films. Maybe it’ll be as Saruman in the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies. Maybe it will be for his performance in the original The Wicker Man. No matter what particular roles he’ll be remembered for – he was one of film’s most iconic actors, and like other horror legends like Boris Karloff and Vincent Price, his work will stand the test of time long after his passing.
Although he was most famous in his earlier days for being Dracula, he also managed the Frankenstein
Monstercreature, the mummy, and a renamed Dr. Jekyll (I, Monster). Then, as you say, he became involved with Star Wars prequels and the Tolkien films. He also played Death, Lord Summerisle, Sherlock and Mycroft, Fu Manchu, several mostly-sinister Counts and Doctors, the videogame version of the Rocky Horror narrator, Gormenghast‘s Flay, Tiresias…He is an iconic actor whose connection to ‘genre’ will mean he is remembered,
I want to be Lord Summerisle.
Rest well, Sir!
Don’t forget Scaramanga in Man With The Golden Gun. He’ll be missed.
His IMDB entry (where he’s the 489th person added to their database) lists 278 credits. I tip my hat to you good sir. I’ll always remember his wickedly evil King Haggard from The Last Unicorn.