Christopher Lee, horror master and renowned film villain, dies at 93
He played Dracula, the bad guy in the James Bond thriller “The Man with the Golden Gun,” the deliciously evil wizard Saruman in the “Lord of the Ring” films, and the dude who fought Yoda with a lightsaber in “Star Wars: Attack of the Clones.”
But Sir Christopher Lee, the man, who died this week at the age of 93? Not an ounce of villain to be found, fans and fellow actors alike said Thursday.
“You were an icon, and a towering human being with stories for days,” “Lord of the Rings” co-star Elijah Wood tweeted Thursday. “We’ll miss you.”
In 2011, Lee said that he always wanted to bring something unexpected to his roles.
“One thing to me is very important, if you’re playing somebody that the audience regards as, let’s say evil, try to do something they don’t expect, something that surprises the audience,” he said.
In his last few years, he did just that for many fans: he turned to a heavy metal career, releasing the holiday albums “A Heavy Metal Christmas” and “A Heavy Metal Christmas Too” in 2012 and 2013 — endearing himself to yet another group of fans, many of whom reacted to the news of his death with an outpouring of celebration and sadness.
“The great, always criminally underrated Sir Christopher Lee has left us,” actor Mark Gatiss wrote on Twitter. “A Titan of Cinema and a huge part of my youth. Farewell.”