Trivia

He was upset about the deletion of his death scene in the theatrical version of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003). However, the scene was put back into the Extended Edition which is seen as the definitive version.

As a veritable J.R.R. Tolkien expert and the only member of the cast who had met Tolkien himself, he often visited the Production department on the sets of the various Lord of the Rings movies to give advice and tips on the various attributes of the films.

He read the Lord of the Rings trilogy once a year for decades, long before the film series ever even began.

He appeared in three different films in which he had either known or met the author of the original work: Gormenghast (2000) (Mervyn Peake), The Lord of the Rings (J.R.R. Tolkien) and The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) (Ian Fleming, his cousin).

Early in his career, Lee dubbed foreign films into English and other languages including Monsieur Hulot's Holiday (1953). Sometimes he dubbed all the voices including women's roles. Douglas Fairbanks Jr., recalled that Lee could do any kind of accent: "foreign, domestic, North, South, Middle, young, old, everything. He's a great character actor".

In his autobiography, he relates his first meeting with Peter Cushing during production of The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), in which he played the monster. Lee stormed into a dressing room where Cushing was sitting and angrily shouted "I haven't got any lines!". Cushing replied, "You're lucky; I've read the script.".

He was one of the few actors who portrayed three different Sherlock Holmes characters: Sherlock Holmes, Mycroft Holmes and Sir Henry Baskerville.

He turned down Donald Pleasence's role as Dr. Sam Loomis in Halloween (1978) (he later remarked that this was his biggest mistake). He was offered the role of King Balor in Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008), but had to turn down due to prior commitments. He was considered to play The High Priest of Kali in The Stranglers of Bombay (1959), Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), the title role in The Phantom of the Opera (1962), Dr. Hans Fallada in Lifeforce (1985), Mr. Dark in Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983), Koura in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973) and Carl Grissom in Batman (1989).

Often worked with his off-screen inseparable friend Peter Cushing frequently playing mortal enemies on-screen. After Cushing died, Lee said in an interview that he never felt closer and more open to any of his other friends than he felt to Peter.

He wanted to attend the Heavy Metal Festival Earthshaker Fest in 2005 to support his favorite bands, the Italian band Rhapsody and the American band Manowar, but had to cancel at the last moment because of an important filming appointment. He recorded a message to the fans in advance, which was shown right before Rhapsody appeared on-stage.

He was originally offered the role of Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977), which he turned down. The role eventually went to his good friend Peter Cushing.

One of his favorite bands is the Italian symphonic power metal band Rhapsody, and he has also appeared on one of their album (listen to the speech in the intro on the song "Unholy Warcry" on the album "The Dark Secret"). Lee also appears on the Rhapsody single "The Magic of the Wizard's Dream", where he does a duet with Rhapsody vocalist Fabio Leoni in English, German, Italian and French versions of the song.

One of the most prolific actors of all time, he has acted in nearly 230 films, although he later admitted that his film work was not always chosen on quality but often on whether they could support his family. His peak years of productivity were 1955 and 1970, as Lee starred in nine films in both years.

According to his friend Norman Lloyd, he has a somewhat eccentric hobby: he is fascinated by public executioners and knows the names of every official executioner England has had since the middle of the 15th century.

His daughter, Christina Erika Lee, was born with her legs severely deformed. They were bent at such a severe angle that they were almost backwards. She spent her first two years in splints. She eventually learned how to walk after the age of three and no longer needed splints.

He dubbed King Haggard in the German version of The Last Unicorn (1982) for no fee, out of love for the film.

As well as a distinguished actor, known for his immense charisma, imposing stature and deep speaking voice, he was also a classically trained singer and an intellectual who was extremely well-read.

At 6 feet 5 inches, he is entered into the Guinness Book of World Records as "The Tallest Leading Actor".

His films have made more money than any other actor's in history. As of May 2006, five of his films (the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the two Star Wars films in which he played Count Dooku) had total grosses in excess of $4.4 billion. Even without considering Lee's other appearances dating back to 1948, his totals considerably surpass the figures of #3 billion and #3.8 billion claimed by Harrison Ford and Samuel L. Jackson, respectively.

Vincent Price and Christopher Lee were born on the same day (27th May) and Peter Cushing was born on the 26th.

In Horror of Dracula (1958), Lee in the title role had to drop a woman into a grave, but when he carried her, she was unexpectedly heavy and in trying to drop her into the grave, Lee also fell in with her.

He said that his favorite director is Tim Burton, whom he frequently collaborated with on several of Burton's films.

In a bonding of two generations of Frankenstein's monsters, Lee and his wife were good friends with Boris Karloff and his wife. This friendship was not as a result of them working together (they made two films together: Corridors of Blood (1958) and The Crimson Cult (1968)) but by the coincidence that they lived next door to each other in England.

He learned how to speak German by listening to Richard Wagner records.

Like his Lord of the Rings director, Sir Peter Jackson, he had appeared in films with three generations of Astins.

He was one of the few people to volunteer to fight on the Finnish side in the Russo-Finnish winter war in 1939-40, though he and his fellow British volunteers were in Finland only for about two weeks and were kept well away from direct combat.

Although he has been in well over 200 films, he has very rarely played a hero, having been a villain in perhaps about 85% of his films (even his bit parts lean towards the unsympathetic).

He was awarded Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Minister of Culture in 2002 and Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Minister of Culture in 2011 for his services to the film industry.

He appears on the cover of Paul McCartney's album "Band on the Run" (1973).

Since his feature film debut in Corridor of Mirrors (1948), he has had at least one film role every year except for 1993, 1995, 1997, 2000 and 2006.

His mother was a contessa of the Italian Carandini family related through marriage across the centuries to the Borgias.

He struggled to get work early in his career as a supporting actor because almost all the male stars were shorter than he.

He wore an eyepatch to play the role of Rochefort in The Three Musketeers (1973), The Four Musketeers: Milady's Revenge (1974) and The Return of the Musketeers (1989), one of few films, if not the only film, to be based on "Twenty Years After". His interpretation of the character was so popular that many subsequent adaptations of the story; such as Disney's The Three Musketeers (1993) and The Three Musketeers (2011), have continued to portray Rochefort as wearing an eyepatch, despite the fact that Alexandre Dumas never described the character as wearing one.

On July 21, 2004, he was given the honorary citizenship of the Italian city of Casina (Province of Reggio Emilia) where Sarzano, the castle of his ancestors is situated. He gave his speech of thanks in Italian.

He was voted No. 31 on the recent British televised poll "The Greatest Movie Stars of All Time" above the likes of John Wayne, Michael Caine and Humphrey Bogart.

He was an honorary member of three stuntmen's unions.

From 1941 to 1946, he served in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve. During that time, he was an active member of the Special Forces. He also served in the Royal Air Force Intelligence Branch.

He played a staggering amount of Victorian characters. He played Count Dracula ten times, Dr. Fu Manchu five times, Sherlock Holmes three times, Mycroft Holmes (Sherlock's brother) once and Sir Henry Baskerville (a friend of Holmes) once. He also appeared in The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960) and I, Monster (1971), adaptations of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", among others.

He considers Billy Wilder to be the greatest director he worked for.

After preparatory school, he passed the entrance exam for Eton but his parents could not afford the fees. He went to Wellington, but had to be taken out when their financial situation worsened. He took a job as an office boy in a shipping company in the City at £1 a week.

He shot most of his scenes for Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005) in one day.

He is listed as the Center of the Hollywood Universe by the Oracle of Kevin Bacon website at the University of Virginia, because he can be linked to any one in Hollywood on average in 2.59 steps. That is less than either Charlton Heston or Kevin Bacon himself.

One of Lee's maternal great-grandfathers was Italian. Through him, Lee was of noble Italian ancestry (from the Carandini family).

He appeared in a total of 24 films with his close friend Peter Cushing: Hamlet (1948), Moulin Rouge (1952), Alexander the Great (1956), The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), Horror of Dracula (1958), The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959), The Mummy (1959), The Devil's Agent (1962), The Gorgon (1964), Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965), She (1965), The Skull (1965), Night of the Big Heat (1967), Scream and Scream Again (1970), One More Time (1970), The House That Dripped Blood (1971), I, Monster (1971), Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972), Horror Express (1972), Nothing But the Night (1973), The Creeping Flesh (1973), The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973), Arabian Adventure (1979) and House of the Long Shadows (1983).

He and his best friend Peter Cushing were huge fans of the Looney Tunes cartoons. They would often imitate the voices of characters to one another and they were once asked to leave a theater showing a Sylvester and Tweety cartoon, because they were laughing hysterically.

He appeared in two Best Picture Academy Award winners: Hamlet (1948) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003). He is the only actor to appear in two films which were released more than 50 years apart and both won Best Picture.

In his role as the title character, The Mummy (1959), in which he co-starred with Peter Cushing, Lee got severely injured in the course of the filming. All that smashing through real glass windows and doors had dislocated his shoulder and pulled his neck muscles, especially when he had to carry an actress with arms fully extended across a swamp, walking as much as 87 yards, which damaged his shoulders considerably.

He made his stage debut in school as the demonic lead in "Rumpelstiltskin", a sign of things to come.

As Darth Tyranus, he plays the first Sith apprentice to act in both body and voice.

Both he and his fellow Star Wars Sith Lord, David Prowse, have played Frankenstein's Monster opposite Peter Cushing: Lee in The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), and Prowse in Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974).