Christopher Lee Biography

Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee, , (born 27 May 1922) is an English actor and singer. Lee initially portrayed villains and became best known for his role as Count Dracula in a string of popular Hammer Horror films. Other notable roles include Francisco Scaramanga in the James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), Saruman in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy (2001"2003) and The Hobbit film trilogy (2012"2014), and Count Dooku in the final two films of the Star Wars prequel trilogy (2002, 2005).

He was knighted for services to drama and charity in 2009, received the BAFTA Fellowship in 2011 and will receive the BFI Fellowship in 2013. Lee considers his best performance to be that of Pakistan's founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah in the biopic Jinnah (1998), and his best film to be the British horror film The Wicker Man (1973).

Always noted as an actor for his deep, strong voice, he has, more recently, also taken to using his singing ability, recording various opera and musical pieces between 1986 and 1998 and the symphonic metal album Charlemagne: By the Sword and the Cross in 2010 after having worked with several metal bands since 2005. The heavy metal follow-up titled Charlemagne: The Omens of Death was released on 27 May 2013. He was honoured with the "Spirit of Metal" award in the 2010 Metal Hammer Golden God awards ceremony.

Early life

Lee was born in Belgravia, Westminster, London on 27 May 1922, the son of Lieutenant-Colonel Geoffrey Trollope Lee, of the 60th King's Royal Rifle Corps, and his wife, Contessa Estelle Marie (née Carandini di Sarzano). Lee's mother was a famous Edwardian beauty who was painted by Sir John Lavery as well as by Oswald Birley and Olive Snell, and sculpted by Clare Frewen Sheridan. Lee's maternal great-grandfather was an Italian political refugee, whose wife, Lee's great-grandmother, was English-born opera singer Marie Carandini (née Burgess).

His parents separated when he was very young, and his mother took him and his sister to Switzerland. After enrolling in Miss Fisher's Academy in Wengen, he played his first villainous role as Rumpelstiltskin. The family returned to London, where Lee attended Wagner's private school. His mother then married Harcourt "Ingle" Rose, a banker and step-cousin of Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond novels. Lee spent some time at Summer Fields School, a preparatory school in Oxford (notable for sending many alumni to Eton). Lee applied unsuccessfully for a scholarship to Eton, although the interview was to prove portentous because of the presence of the noted ghost story author M.R. James. Lee later claimed in his autobiography that James had cut a very impressive figure. Sixty years later Lee played the part of M.R. James for the BBC.

Instead, Lee attended Wellington College, Berkshire, where he won scholarships in the classics, studying Ancient Greek and Latin.

Service in World War II

Initially, Lee volunteered to fight for the Finnish forces during the Winter War in 1939. He and other British volunteers were kept away from actual fighting, but he was issued winter gear and was posted on guard duty a safe distance from the front lines. He went on to serve in the Royal Air Force and intelligence services during World War II, including serving as an intelligence officer with the Long Range Desert Group in Northern Africa. He trained in South Africa as a pilot, but eyesight problems forced him to drop out. He eventually ended up stationed in North Africa as a Cipher Officer for No. 260 Squadron RAF and was with it through the campaigns in Sicily and Italy. He has mentioned serving in Special Operations Executive but has always declined to go into details.

After the war, Lee, who can speak fluent French and German, among other languages, was seconded to the Central Registry of War Criminals and Security Suspects. Here, he was tasked with helping to track down Nazi war criminals. Of his time with the organisation, Lee has said: "We were given dossiers of what they'd done and told to find them, interrogate them as much as we could and hand them over to the appropriate authority ... We saw these concentration camps. Some had been cleaned up. Some had not." Lee then retired from the RAF after the end of the war with the rank of Flight Lieutenant to take up acting.

Acting career

1947"1957:Career beginnings

In 1947, Lee gained a seven-year contract with the Rank Organisation after discussing his interest in acting with his mother's second cousin Nicolò Carandini, the Italian Ambassador. Carandini told Lee that performance was in his blood, as his great-grandmother Marie Carandini had been a successful opera singer, a fact of which Lee was unaware. His "apprenticeship" lasted ten years as he mostly played supporting and background characters.

He made his film debut in Terence Young's Gothic romance Corridor of Mirrors in 1947. He was a student at the Rank "charm school". Also in 1947, he made an uncredited appearance in Laurence Olivier's film version of Hamlet as a spear carrier (marking his first film with frequent co-star and close friend Peter Cushing, who played Osric). In 1951 he appeared in Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N. as a Spanish Captain. He was cast when the director asked him if he could speak Spanish and fence, which he could. Also in 1951, he appeared uncredited in the American epic Quo Vadis. He played a chariot driver and was injured when he was thrown from it at one point during filming. He recalls that his breakthrough came in 1952 when Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. began making films at the British National Studios. He said in 2006, "I was cast in various roles in 16 of them and even appeared with Buster Keaton and it proved an excellent training ground." Also in 1952 he appeared in John Huston's Oscar-nominated Moulin Rouge. Throughout the next decade, he made nearly 30 films, playing mostly stock action characters.

1957"1976: Work with Hammer

Lee's first film for Hammer was The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), in which he played Frankenstein's monster, with Peter Cushing as Baron Victor Frankenstein. It was the first film he and Cushing were credited with together. They went on to appear in over twenty films together and became close friends. When he arrived at a casting session for the film, "they asked me if I wanted the part, I said yes and that was that." A little later, Lee co-starred with Boris Karloff in the film Corridors of Blood (1958), but Lee's own appearance as Frankenstein's monster led to his first appearance as the Transylvanian vampire in the 1958 film Dracula (known as Horror of Dracula in the United States). In 1959, Lee played in another film called "My Uncle is a Vampire".

Lee returned to the role of Dracula in Hammer's Dracula: Prince of Darkness in 1965. Lee's performance is notable in that he has no lines, merely hissing his way through the film. Again, stories vary as to the reason for this: Lee states he refused to speak the poor dialogue he was given, but screenwriter Jimmy Sangster claims that the script did not contain any lines for the character. This film set the standard for most of the Dracula sequels in the sense that half the film's running time was spent on telling the story of Dracula's resurrection and the character's appearances were brief. Lee has gone on record to state that he was virtually "blackmailed" by Hammer into starring in the subsequent films; unable or unwilling to pay him his going rate, they would resort to reminding him of how many people he would put out of work if he did not take part.

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His roles in the films Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968), Taste the Blood of Dracula (1969), and Scars of Dracula (1970) all gave the Count very little to do. Lee said in an interview in 2005. "all they do is write a story and try and fit the character in somewhere, which is very clear when you see the films. They gave me nothing to do! I pleaded with Hammer to let me use some of the lines that Bram Stoker had written. Occasionally, I sneaked one in." Although Lee may not have liked what Hammer was doing with the character, worldwide audiences embraced the films, which were all commercially successful and are now considered classics of the genre.

Lee starred in two further Dracula films for Hammer in the early 1970s, both of which attempted to bring the character into the modern-day era. These were not commercially successful: Dracula A.D. 1972 in 1972 and The Satanic Rites of Dracula in 1973, which marked his last appearance as Dracula. The film was tentatively titled Dracula is Dead... and Well and Living in London, a parody of the stage and film musical revue Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, but Lee was not amused. Speaking at a press conference in 1973 to announce the film, Lee said: "I'm doing it under protest... I think it is fatuous. I can think of twenty adjectives " fatuous, pointless, absurd. It's not a comedy, but it's got a comic title. I don't see the point." Hammer went on to make one more Dracula film without him: The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires in 1974, with John Forbes-Robertson playing the Count and David de Keyser dubbing him.

Lee's other work for Hammer included The Mummy (1959). Lee portrayed Rasputin in Rasputin, the Mad Monk (Lee apparently met Rasputin's assassin Felix Yussupov when he was a child) and Sir Henry Baskerville (to Cushing's Sherlock Holmes) in The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959). Lee later played Holmes himself in 1962's Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace, and returned to Holmes films with Billy Wilder's British-made The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970), in which he plays Sherlock's smarter brother, Mycroft. Lee considers this film to be the reason he stopped being typecast: "I've never been typecast since. Sure, I've played plenty of heavies, but as Anthony Hopkins says, "I don't play villains, I play people."" Lee played a leading role in the German film The Puzzle of the Red Orchid (1962), speaking German, which he had learned during his education in Switzerland. He auditioned for a part in the 1962 film The Longest Day, but was turned down because he did not "look like a military man". Some film books incorrectly credit him with a role in the film, something he has to correct to the present day.

He was responsible for bringing the acclaimed occult author Dennis Wheatley to Hammer. The company made two films from Wheatley's novels, both starring Lee. The first, The Devil Rides Out (1967), is generally considered to be one of Hammer's crowning achievements. According to Lee, Wheatley was so pleased with it that he offered the actor the film rights to his remaining black magic novels free of charge. However, the second film, To the Devil a Daughter (1976), was fraught with production difficulties and was disowned by its author. Although financially successful, it was Hammer's last horror film and marked the end of Lee's long association with the studio that brought him fame.

Various roles, The Wicker Man and James Bond

Like Cushing, Lee also appeared in horror films for other companies during the 20-year period from 1957 to 1977. Other films in which Lee performed include the series of Fu Manchu films made between 1965 and 1969, in which he starred as the villain in heavy oriental make-up; I, Monster (1971), in which he played Jekyll and Hyde; The Creeping Flesh (1972); and his personal favourite, The Wicker Man (1973), in which he played Lord Summerisle. Lee wanted to break free of his image as Dracula and take on more interesting acting roles. He met with screenwriter Anthony Shaffer, and they agreed to work together. Film director Robin Hardy and British Lion head Peter Snell became involved in the project. Shaffer had a series of conversations with Hardy, and the two decided that it would be fun to make a horror film centring on "old religion", in sharp contrast to the popular Hammer films of the day. Shaffer read the David Pinner novel Ritual, in which a devout Christian policeman is called to investigate what appears to be the ritual murder of a young girl in a rural village, and decided that it would serve well as the source material for the project. Shaffer and Lee paid Pinner £15,000 for the rights to the novel, and Schaffer set to work on the screenplay. However, he soon decided that a direct adaptation would not work well, and began to craft a new story, using only the basic outline of the novel. Lee was so keen to get the film made, he apparently gave his services for free, as the budget was so small. He still considers Lord Summerisle his best character and The Wicker Man his best film.

Lee appeared as the on-screen narrator in Jess Franco's Eugenie (1970) as a favour to producer Harry Alan Towers, unaware that it was softcore pornography, as the sex scenes were shot separately.

In addition to making films in the United Kingdom, Lee made films in mainland Europe: he appeared in two German films, Count Dracula, where he again played the vampire count, and The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism. Other films in Europe he made include Castle of the Living Dead and Horror Express.

In 1972, Lee was a producer of the horror film Nothing But the Night, in which he also starred. It was the first and last film he ever produced as he did not enjoy the process.

In 1973 Lee appeared as the Comte de Rochefort in Richard Lester's The Three Musketeers. He was wounded in his left knee during filming, an injury he can still feel to this day. He also appeared in the 1974 film The Four Musketeers which was actually shot at the same time. Although "killed" in the latter film he reprised the role in The Return of the Musketeers in 1989.

Since the mid-1970s, Lee has eschewed horror roles almost entirely. Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond spy novels and Lee's step-cousin, had offered him the role of the titular antagonist in the first Eon-produced Bond film Dr. No. Lee enthusiastically accepted, but by the time Fleming told the producers, they had already chosen Joseph Wiseman for the part. In 1974, Lee finally got to play a James Bond villain when he was cast as the deadly assassin Francisco Scaramanga in The Man with the Golden Gun. Lee said of his performance, "In Fleming's novel he's just a West Indian thug, but in the film he's charming, elegant, amusing, lethal... I played him like the dark side of Bond."

Because of his filming schedule in Bangkok, film director Ken Russell was unable to sign Lee to play the Specialist in Tommy (1975). That role was eventually given to Jack Nicholson. In an AMC documentary on Halloween, John Carpenter states that he offered the role of Samuel Loomis to Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee before Donald Pleasence took the role. Years later, Lee met Carpenter and told him that the biggest regret of his career was not taking the role of Dr. Loomis.

Lee appeared on the cover of the 1973 Wings album Band on the Run, along with others including chat show host Michael Parkinson, film actor James Coburn, world boxing champion John Conteh and broadcaster Clement Freud.

1977: Move to America

In 1977, Lee left England for America, concerned at being typecast in horror films, as had happened to his close friends Peter Cushing and Vincent Price. He said in an interview in 2011:

His first American film was the disaster film Airport '77. In 1978, Lee surprised many people with his willingness to go along with a joke by appearing as guest host on NBC's Saturday Night Live. As a result of his appearance on SNL, Steven Spielberg, who was in the audience, cast him in 1941. He turned down the role of Dr. Barry Rumack in the 1980 disaster spoof Airplane!, which was made around the same time, a decision he later called "a big mistake."

In 1982, Lee appeared in The Return of Captain Invincible. In this film, Lee plays a fascist who plans to rid America (and afterwards, the world) of all non-whites. Lee sings on two tracks in the film ("Name Your Poison" and "Mister Midnight"), written by Richard O'Brien (who had written The Rocky Horror Picture Show seven years previously) and Richard Hartley. In 1985, he appeared alongside Reb Brown and Sybil Danning in Howling II: Stirba " Werewolf Bitch. Lee made his latest appearances to date as Sherlock Holmes in 1991's Incident at Victoria Falls and 1992's Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady.

In addition to more than a dozen feature films together for Hammer Films, Amicus Productions and other companies, Lee and Peter Cushing both appeared in Hamlet (1948) and Moulin Rouge (1952) albeit in separate scenes; and in separate instalments of the Star Wars films, Cushing as Grand Moff Tarkin in the original film, Lee decades later as Count Dooku. The last project which united them in person was a documentary, Flesh and Blood: The Hammer Heritage of Horror (1994), which they jointly narrated. It was the last time they saw each other as Cushing died two months later. While they frequently played off each other as mortal enemies onscreen"?Lee's Count Dracula to Cushing's Professor Van Helsing"?they were close friends in real life.

In 1994, Lee played the character of the Russian commandant in Police Academy: Mission to Moscow.

In 1998, Lee starred in the role of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, founder of modern Pakistan, in the film Jinnah. While talking about his favourite role in film at a press conference at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival, he declared that his role in Jinnah was by far his best performance.

Lee was at one point considered for the role of comic book villain/hero Magneto in the screen adaptation of the popular comic book series X-Men, but he lost the role to Ian McKellen.

2000s: The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars

He has had many television roles, including that of Flay in the BBC television miniseries, based on Mervyn Peake's novels, Gormenghast (2000), and Stefan Wyszy"?ski in the CBS film John Paul the Second (2005). He played Lucas de Beaumanoir, the Grand Master of the Knights Templar, in the BBC/A&E co-production of Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe (1997). He played a role in the made-for-TV series La Révolution française (1989) in part 2, "Les Années Terribles", as the executioner, Sanson, who beheaded Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, Robespierre and others. In 1967 he starred in an episode of The Avengers entitled "Never, Never Say Die."

Lee played Saruman in the The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. In the commentary, he states he had a decades-long dream to play Gandalf but that he was now too old and his physical limitations prevented his being considered. The role of Saruman, by contrast, required no horseback riding and much less fighting. Lee had met J.R.R. Tolkien once (making him the only person in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy to have done so) and makes a habit of reading the novels at least once a year. In addition, he performed for the album The Lord of the Rings: Songs and Poems by J.R.R. Tolkien in 2003. Lee's appearance in the final film in the trilogy, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, was cut from the theatrical release, but the scene was reinstated in the extended edition.

The Lord of the Rings marked the beginning of a major career revival that continued in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002) and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005), in which he played the villainous Count Dooku. He did most of the swordplay himself, though a double was required for the long shots with more vigorous footwork.

Lee is one of the favourite actors of Tim Burton and has become a regular in many of Burton's films, having now worked for the director five times since 1999. He had a small role as the Burgomaster in the film Sleepy Hollow. In 2005, Lee then went on to voice the character of Pastor Galswells in Corpse Bride co-directed by Burton and Mike Johnson and play a small role in the Burton's reimagining of the Roald Dahl tale Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as Willy Wonka's strict dentist father Dr. Wilbur Wonka.

In 2007, Lee collaborated with Burton on Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, playing the spirit of Sweeney Todd's victims called the Gentleman Ghost alongside Anthony Head, with both singing "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd", its reprises and the Epilogue. These songs were recorded, but eventually cut since Burton felt that the songs were too theatrical for the film. Lee's appearance was completely cut from the film, but Head still has an uncredited one-line cameo. In 2008, he was offered the role of King Balor in Guillermo del Toro's Hellboy II: The Golden Army but had to turn it down due to prior commitments.

In late November 2009, Lee narrated the Science Fiction Festival in Trieste, Italy. Also in 2009, Lee starred in Stephen Poliakoff's British period drama Glorious 39 with Julie Christie, Bill Nighy, Romola Garai and David Tennant, Academy Award-nominated director Danis Tanovi"?'s war film Triage with Colin Farrell and Paz Vega, and Duncan Ward's comedy Boogie Woogie alongside Amanda Seyfried, Gillian Anderson, Stellan Skarsgård and Joanna Lumley.

2010s: Recent and future roles

In 2010, Lee marked his fourth collaboration with Tim Burton by voicing the Jabberwocky in Burton's adaptation of Lewis Carroll's classic book Alice in Wonderland alongside Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Anne Hathaway. While he only had two lines, Burton said that he felt Lee to be a good match for the iconic character because he is "an iconic guy".

Lee won the "Spirit of Metal" award in the Metal Hammer Golden Gods 2010. The award was presented by Tony Iommi.

In 2010, Lee received the Steiger Award (Germany) and, in February 2011, Lee was awarded the BAFTA Fellowship.

In 2011, he appeared in a Hammer film for the first time in thirty-five years, the last being 1976's To the Devil a Daughter. The film was called The Resident and he appeared alongside Hilary Swank and Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Whilst filming scenes for the film in New Mexico in early 2009, Lee injured his back when he tripped over power cables on set. He had to undergo surgery and as a result was unable to play the role of Sir Lachlan Morrison in The Wicker Tree, the sequel to The Wicker Man. Very disappointed, director Robin Hardy recast the role but Lee was determined to appear in the film, so Hardy wrote a small scene specially for him. Lee appears as the unnamed "Old Gentleman" who acts as Lachlan's mentor in a flashback. Hardy has stated that fans of The Wicker Man will recognise this character as Lord Summerisle, but Lee himself has contradicted this, stating that they are two unrelated characters. Also in 2011, Lee appeared in the critically acclaimed Hugo, directed by Martin Scorsese.

On 11 January 2011, Lee announced on his website that he would be reprising the role of Saruman for the prequel film The Hobbit. Lee had originally said he would have liked to have shown Saruman's corruption by Sauron, but would not be comfortable flying to New Zealand at his age. Lee went on to say that if a film were made, he would love to voice Smaug, as it would mean he could record his part in England and not have to travel. A July 2011 behind-the-scenes featurette showed Jackson at the Pinewood Studios in London and Lee in make-up and costume as Saruman, so it would seem that production has been adjusted to accommodate Lee's travel concerns and allow him to participate in the film. Lee has stated that he worked on his role for the films over the course of four days and that he is portraying Saruman as a kind and noble wizard, before his subsequent fall into darkness, which audiences have seen in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy.

In 2012, Lee marked his fifth collaboration with Tim Burton by appearing in his film adaptation of the gothic soap opera Dark Shadows, in the small role of a New England fishing captain.

In an interview in 2013, Lee said that he was "saddened" to hear that his friend Johnny Depp might retire from acting and said that he has no intention of retiring.

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Voice work

Lee is fluent in English, Italian, French, Spanish and German, and moderately proficient in Swedish, Russian and Greek. He was the original voice of Thor in the German dubs in the Danish 1986 animated film Valhalla, and of King Haggard in both the English and German dubs of the 1982 animated adaptation of The Last Unicorn.

Lee provided the off-camera voice of "U. N. Owen", the mysterious host who brings disparate characters together in Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians (1965). The film was produced by Harry Alan Towers, for whom Lee had worked repeatedly in the 1960s. Even though he is not credited on the film, the voice is unmistakable. He also provided all the voices for the English dub of Monsieur Hulot's Holiday (1953).

He contributed his voice as Death in the animated versions of Terry Pratchett's Soul Music and Wyrd Sisters and reprised the role in the Sky1 live action adaptation The Colour of Magic, taking over the role from the late Ian Richardson.

Lee provided the voice for the role of Ansem the Wise/DiZ in the video games Kingdom Hearts II and Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days but veteran voice actor Corey Burton took over for Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories, Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, and Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance. He was the voice of Lucan D'Lere in the trailers for EverQuest II.

Lee reprised his role as Saruman in the video game The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth along with the other actors of the films. He also narrated and sang for the Danish musical group The Tolkien Ensemble, taking the role of Treebeard, King Théoden and others in the readings or singing of their respective poems or songs. In 2007, he voiced the transcript of The Children of Húrin, by J.R.R. Tolkien for the audiobook version of the novel.

In 2005, Lee provided the voice of the Pastor Galswells in The Corpse Bride co-directed by Tim Burton and Mike Johnson. He served as the narrator on The Nightmare Before Christmas's poem written by Tim Burton as well. Lee reprised his role as Count Dooku in the Star Wars: The Clone Wars 2008 animated film but Corey Burton took his place for the character in the TV series. In 2010, he collaborated again with Tim Burton, this time by voicing the Jabberwocky in Burton's adaptation of Lewis Carroll's classic book Alice in Wonderland.

Lee has been signed by Falcon Picture Group to host the syndicated radio series "Mystery Theatre", a nightly two-hour program featuring classic radio mystery shows. The programme is distributed by Syndication Networks Corporation with a launch date of 2 March 2009.

Some thirty years after playing Francisco Scaramanga in The Man with the Golden Gun, Lee provided the voice of Scaramanga in the video game GoldenEye: Rogue Agent.

Music career

With his classically-trained bass voice, Lee sings on the The Wicker Man soundtrack, performing Paul Giovanni's psych folk composition, "The Tinker of Rye". He sings the closing credits song of the 1994 horror film Funny Man. His most notable musical work on film, however, appears in the superhero comedy/rock musical The Return of Captain Invincible (1983) in which Lee performs a song and dance number called "Name Your Poison", written by Richard O'Brien. Lee appears on Peter Knight and Bob Johnson's (from Steeleye Span) 1970s concept album The King of Elfland's Daughter. In the 1980s, during the height of Italo Disco, he provided vocals to Kathy Joe Daylor's song "Little Witch".

He first came in touch with metal music by singing a duet with Fabio Lione, the lead vocalist of the Italian symphonic power metal band Rhapsody of Fire, on the single "The Magic of the Wizard's Dream" from the Symphony of Enchanted Lands II album. Later he appeared as a narrator on the band's four albums Symphony of Enchanted Lands II " The Dark Secret, Triumph or Agony, The Frozen Tears of Angels and From Chaos to Eternity as well as on the EP The Cold Embrace of Fear " A Dark Romantic Symphony, portraying the Wizard King. He also worked with Manowar while they were recording a new version of their first album, Battle Hymns. The original voice was done by Orson Welles. The new album, Battle Hymns MMXI, was released on 26 November 2010.

In 2006, he bridged two disparate genres of music by performing a heavy metal variation of the Toreador Song from the opera Carmen with the band Inner Terrestrials. The song was featured on his album Revelation in 2007. The same year, he produced a music video for his cover version of the song "My Way".

His first complete metal album was Charlemagne: By the Sword and the Cross, which was critically acclaimed and awarded with the "Spirit of Metal" award from the 2010 Metal Hammer Golden Gods ceremony. It was released on 15 March 2010. In June 2012, he released a music video for the song "The Bloody Verdict of Verden".

On his 90th birthday (27 May 2012) he announced the release of his new single "Let Legend Mark Me as the King" from his upcoming album Charlemagne: The Omens of Death, signifying his move onto "full on" heavy metal. That makes him the oldest performer in the history of the genre. The music was arranged by Richie Faulkner from the band Judas Priest and features World Guitar Idol Champion, Hedras Ramos.

In December 2012 he released an EP of heavy metal covers of Christmas songs called A Heavy Metal Christmas.

Honours

In 1997, he was appointed a Commander of the Venerable Order of Saint John. On 16 June 2001, as part of that year's Queen's Birthday Honours, Lee was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire "for services to Drama". He was made a Knight Bachelor "For services to Drama and to Charity" on 13 June as part of the Queen's Birthday Honours in 2009. He was knighted by Prince Charles, but because of his age he was excused the usual requirement to kneel and received the knighthood whilst standing. Lee was named 2005's 'most marketable star in the world' in a USA Today newspaper poll, after three of the films he appeared in grossed US$640 million. In 2011, Lee was awarded the BAFTA Academy Fellowship by Tim Burton.

In 2011, accompanied by his wife Birgit and on the 164th anniversary of the birth of Bram Stoker, Lee was honoured with a tribute by University College Dublin, and described his honorary life membership of the UCD Law Society as "in some ways as special as the Oscars". He was awarded the Bram Stoker Gold Medal by the Trinity College Philosophical Society, of which Stoker was President, and a copy of Collected Ghost Stories of MR James by Trinity College's School of English. The government of France made him a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters in 2011.

Personal life

The Carandinis, Lee's maternal ancestors, were 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".

Lee is a step-cousin of Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond spy novels, and a distant relative of Robert E. Lee and the astronomer John Lee.

He has been married to former Danish model Birgit "Gitte" Lee since 1961. They have a daughter named Christina Erika Carandini Lee, who married Juan Francisco Aneiros Rodriguez in July 2001. Lee is also the uncle of the British actress Dame Harriet Walter. Both Christopher Lee and his daughter Christina provided spoken vocals in Rhapsody of Fire's album From Chaos to Eternity.

Contrary to popular belief, Lee does not have a vast library of occult books. When giving a speech at the University College Dublin on 8 November 2011 he said: "Somebody wrote I have 20,000 books. I'd have to live in a bath! I have maybe four or five." He further admonished the students against occult practices, warning them that "you not only lose your mind...you lose your soul".

Known for his imposing height, Lee currently stands 6 ft 5 in tall, having lost an inch in height. Lee and his wife Birgit have been listed as among the fifty best-dressed over 50s by the Guardian in March 2013.

Lee is a supporter of the British Conservative Party. He described Michael Howard as "the ideal person to lead the party" in 2003 and supports William Hague and David Cameron.

Books

• Christopher Lee's Treasury of Terror, edited by Russ Jones, illustrated by Mort Drucker & others, Pyramid Books, 1966
• Christopher Lee's New Chamber of Horrors, Souvenir Press, 1974
• Christopher Lee's Archives of Terror, Warner Books, Volume I, 1975; Volume 2, 1976
• Tall, Dark and Gruesome (autobiography), W.H. Allen, 1977 and 1999
• The Hammer Story: The Authorised History of Hammer Films, by Marcus Hearn and Alan Barnes, Titan Books, 1997 and 2007 - Foreword by Christopher Lee
• Christopher Lee: The Authorised Screen History by Jonathan Rigby, Reynolds & Hearn, 2001 and 2003
• The Lord of the Rings: Weapons and Warfare by Chris Smith, HarperCollins, 2003 - Foreword by Christopher Lee
• Lord of Misrule (autobiography, a revised and expanded edition of Tall, Dark and Gruesome), Orion Publishing Group Ltd., 2004
• Dans les griffes de la Hammer by Nicolas Stanzick, Le Bord de l'eau Editions, Paris, 2010.
• Sir Christopher Lee by Laurent Aknin, Nouveau Monde "?ditions, Paris, 2011.
• Monsters in the Movies: 100 Years of Cinematic Nightmares, by John Landis, DK Publishing, 2011 - Interview with Christopher Lee
• Le Seigneur du désordre (autobiography, a French version of Lord of Misrule), Christopher Lee, Camion Blanc (Coll. "Camion Noir"), 2013.

Filmography

Discography

Albums

• Christopher Lee Sings Devils, Rogues & Other Villains (1998)
• Revelation (2006)
• Charlemagne: By the Sword and the Cross (2010)
• Charlemagne: The Omens of Death (2013)
• Metal Knight (2013)

EPs

• A Heavy Metal Christmas (2012)

Singles

• Let Legend Mark Me as the King (2012)
• The Ultimate Sacrifice (2012)

Guest appearances

• The Wicker Man soundtrack (1973)
• Hammer Presents "Dracula" With Christopher Lee (EMI NTS 186 UK/Capitol ST-11340 USA, 1974)
• The Soldier's Tale by Stravinsky, with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Lionel Friend (Nimbus, 1986)
• Peter and the Wolf by Prokofiev, with the English String Orchestra conducted by Yehudi Menuhin (Nimbus, 1989)
• Annie Get Your Gun (1995)
• The Rocky Horror Show (1995)
• The King and I (1998)
• Musicality of Lerner and Loewe (2002)
• Lord of the Rings: Songs and Poems by J. R. R. Tolkien (2003)
• Edgar Allan Poe Projekt - Visionen (2006), recites the poem "The Raven" and sings the song "Elenore"
• Battle Hymns MMXI (2010), Manowar album
• Fearless (2013)

With Rhapsody of Fire:

• Symphony of Enchanted Lands II " The Dark Secret (2004), as narrator
• Triumph or Agony (2006), as narrator and Lothen
• The Frozen Tears of Angels (2010), as narrator and Lothen
• The Cold Embrace of Fear " A Dark Romantic Symphony (2010), as the Wizard King
• From Chaos to Eternity (2011), as the Wizard King