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RIP Sir Christopher Lee


ZoSoRose

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Probably in my top ten actors.

Really? Out of interest, who'd be the other 9, off the top of your head?

Loved them Hammer Horror films, they used to put em on ITV at 2am when i was a kid, watched every fuckin' one. Oliver Reed was usually a werewolf in em :lol: Was funny though, those werewolf ones, he'd bugger off down the sewer and come out with his hair all pushed back and a set of fangs, i always wondered about that, where the pushed back hair fit into the whole werewolf thing :lol: Nice to know even the hounds of hell have one eye on presentation and sartorial elegance eh? I mean it wouldn't do to be rippin' some tarts flesh off her bones with a scruffy barnet eh? :lol:

I think he turned down the role of Dr. Loomis in the original "Halloween". And regretted the decision.

RIP

Pleasance was fantastic though. Always half expected him to go 'i can't see a bloody thing!' in every scene though.

'When i looked in that boys eyes you know what i saw?'

'what?'

'nothing! i can't see a bloody thing!'

:lol:

I never knew you were a horror fan Len.

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Watching Jinnah. It really is a good movie and Lee is carrying it.

Lee's interpretation of The Creature in The Curse of Frankenstein was the best of the Hammer Films. Had he done more films as The Creature he could have rivaled Karloff like his Dracula rival's Lugosi's.

Oh that video of him I posted, is part of a longer video and Christmas message he did in 2013. Even then you can see his health deteriorating. That hat he was wearing was bequeathed to him from Vincent Price who wore it every Christmas so Lee continues the tradition. I wonder if the hat is passed on to someone else? Maybe Johnny Depp?

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Watching Jinnah. It really is a good movie and Lee is carrying it.

Lee's interpretation of The Creature in The Curse of Frankenstein was the best of the Hammer Films. Had he done more films as The Creature he could have rivaled Karloff like his Dracula rival's Lugosi's.

Oh that video of him I posted, is part of a longer video and Christmas message he did in 2013. Even then you can see his health deteriorating. That hat he was wearing was bequeathed to him from Vincent Price who wore it every Christmas so Lee continues the tradition. I wonder if the hat is passed on to someone else? Maybe Johnny Depp?

Agreed. It was a completely different interpretation from Karloff's.

I am trying to think of my favourite Lee films but there is just so many. Don't forget his work at Amicus on the portmanteau horrors (e.g. The House That Dripped Blood; Dr Terror's House of Horror). Then you have his career defining roles as Dracula, Fu Manchu and Frankenstein's monster at Hammer. Another good one is Hammer's Hound of the Baskervilles, in which Lee plays Sir Henry Baskerville (who else?) against Cushing's Holmes. Then you have The Wicker Man. What a twisted masterpiece! A decent early role incidentally, which may have prepared him for Dracula, was a haughty aristocratic in the classic adaptation of Dickens' Tale of Two Cities. That was Lee's niche. Lee tended to play sinister aristocrats which contrasted well with Cushing's, 'man from the Home Counties': Cushing was, salt of the earth English, genial, 'trust him with your wallet' soul, whereas Lee was haughty, posh yet (vaguely) foreign. His archetype fed into this ancien regime belief of aristocrats plundering the peasents - something inherit in Stoker's original Dracula. (Understand that the majority of Hammer's are set in the 18th or 19th century, in some hard to distinguish Eastern European municipality). So Lee found his role within this niche.

I am generalising of course as Cushing had his famous bad guy roles (e.g. mad Dr Frankenstein) and Lee could play the occasionally good role.

Edited by DieselDaisy
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Being descended from Charlemagne is not an uncommon claim:

Genealogists have mathematically demonstrated how all Americans of European descent must be related to Charlemagne. In this regard, genealogists have established the exact lines of descent from Charlemagne for 14 U.S. Presidents. Two of these are President George W. Bush and his father President George H.W. Bush. Other Presidents whose descent from Charlemagne have been traced include: George Washington, Ulysses Grant, Franklin Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt, and Gerald Ford. To demonstrate how we are all related, the New England Historical Society has researched the genealogy of Barack Obama and determined that on his mother's side he is related to six other previous presidents: George W. Bush, George H. W. Bush, Lyndon Johnson, Harry Truman, Gerald Ford, and James Madison. Presumably, if Barack Obama's ancestry on his mother's side could be traced far enough back, he also would be shown to be descended from Charlemagne. Meanwhile, on his father's side, we are all related to President Barack Obama since anthropologists have determined that all modern humans are descended from a common African ancestor.

http://genealogyofpresidents.blogspot.co.uk/2009/01/you-are-related-to-president-obama.html

Edited by sturginho
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I love the story about Peter Jackson telling him to imagine what it sounds like when a man gets stabbed in the back for one of the scenes in the extended edition Return of the King. Lee calmly responds "Peter, have you ever heard the sound a man makes when he’s stabbed in the back? Well, I have, and I know what to do.”

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I love the story about Peter Jackson telling him to imagine what it sounds like when a man gets stabbed in the back for one of the scenes in the extended edition Return of the King. Lee calmly responds "Peter, have you ever heard the sound a man makes when he’s stabbed in the back? Well, I have, and I know what to do.”

Did the two of them have a falling out? Saruman's scenes were completely cut from the theatrical version

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He will always be King Haggard from The Last Unicorn to me. Loved that movie as a kid and that character was my first mememory or... whatever when it comes ot him. Can't really call it a memory but it just resonates with me. I remember the character and how scared of him I was or how creepy or unnerving I thought he was, even as a cartoon.

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I thought he would live up to 130, surpassing anyone in known history.


I love the story about Peter Jackson telling him to imagine what it sounds like when a man gets stabbed in the back for one of the scenes in the extended edition Return of the King. Lee calmly responds "Peter, have you ever heard the sound a man makes when he’s stabbed in the back? Well, I have, and I know what to do.”

Did the two of them have a falling out? Saruman's scenes were completely cut from the theatrical version

They had a disagreement that resulted in a strained relationship that evaporated by the time The Hobbit was made.

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Watching Jinnah. It really is a good movie and Lee is carrying it.

Lee's interpretation of The Creature in The Curse of Frankenstein was the best of the Hammer Films. Had he done more films as The Creature he could have rivaled Karloff like his Dracula rival's Lugosi's.

Oh that video of him I posted, is part of a longer video and Christmas message he did in 2013. Even then you can see his health deteriorating. That hat he was wearing was bequeathed to him from Vincent Price who wore it every Christmas so Lee continues the tradition. I wonder if the hat is passed on to someone else? Maybe Johnny Depp?

Agreed. It was a completely different interpretation from Karloff's.

I am trying to think of my favourite Lee films but there is just so many. Don't forget his work at Amicus on the portmanteau horrors (e.g. The House That Dripped Blood; Dr Terror's House of Horror). Then you have his career defining roles as Dracula, Fu Manchu and Frankenstein's monster at Hammer. Another good one is Hammer's Hound of the Baskervilles, in which Lee plays Sir Henry Baskerville (who else?) against Cushing's Holmes. Then you have The Wicker Man. What a twisted masterpiece! A decent early role incidentally, which may have prepared him for Dracula, was a haughty aristocratic in the classic adaptation of Dickens' Tale of Two Cities. That was Lee's niche. Lee tended to play sinister aristocrats which contrasted well with Cushing's, 'man from the Home Counties': Cushing was, salt of the earth English, genial, 'trust him with your wallet' soul, whereas Lee was haughty, posh yet (vaguely) foreign. His archetype fed into this ancien regime belief of aristocrats plundering the peasents - something inherit in Stoker's original Dracula. (Understand that the majority of Hammer's are set in the 18th or 19th century, in some hard to distinguish Eastern European municipality). So Lee found his role within this niche.

I am generalising of course as Cushing had his famous bad guy roles (e.g. mad Dr Frankenstein) and Lee could play the occasionally good role.

You need to check out Jinnah. It was a fine film and performance.

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watched the wicker man earlier :(

Might be my favorite horror movie of all time.

one of the few that still creeps me out

Yeah, it's just so fucked up. It's not even like it's in-your-face scary like most horror movies, but still that last 15 minutes is some of the most terrifying footage in all of cinema.

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