Mike Marsland/WireImageSir Christopher Lee, the veteran British actor whose stage and screen career spanned nearly 70 years, died last Sunday. He was 93.
The U.K.’s Telegraph newspaper reports Lee had been hospitalized for some three weeks due to respiratory and heart problems, and passed away 8:30 a.m. Sunday. He turned 93 May 27, reportedly while hospitalized. Lee’s wife of 54 years, Gitte Lee, reportedly delayed announcing her husband’s death publicly until she’d informed friends and family.
Lee spent the first decade of his career playing a variety of conventional roles, but his role as The Creature in the 1957 Hammer Film Productions feature The Curse of Frankenstein set Lee on a career path that would largely define him for the rest of his life, despite the myriad other roles he played. Lee’s intense, angular features, towering six-foot, five-inch frame and booming bass voice made him perfect to portray villains and monsters, which he did dozens of times, most notably in a series of B-grade horror films produced by England’s legendary Hammer Film Productions. Lee’s most popular work for Hammer was playing the vampire Dracula in some seven films, usually opposite fellow actor and lifelong friend Peter Cushing, with whom he starred in The Curse of Frankenstein.
Lee memorably played the villain Scaramanga opposite Roger Moore as James Bond in the 1974 Bond Film The Man with the Golden Gun. He also wasn’t above sending up his screen persona — for example, playing the gleefully ghoulish Dr. Catheter in 1990’s Gremlins 2: The New Batch.
Lee found new generations of fans late in life when he appeared as the evil wizard Saruman in The Lord of the Rings films The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, as well as the more recent The Hobbit films An Unexpected Journey and The Battle of the Five Armies. He also played the evil Jedi Count Dooku in the Star Wars films Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, and had a cameo opposite Johnny Depp in 2005’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, playing Willy Wonka’s father.
Lee’s last credited film role, according to IMDB, was completed last year.
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