# The Christopher Lee Thread



## Eledhwen (Mar 15, 2005)

I'm reading his autobiography at the moment (Lord of Misrule), so I thought I'd add a Christopher Lee thread. Here's an interesting line from it that backs up something I read from another LotR cast member.



> My habit of throwing things had condensed into a passon for accurate knife-throwing. I threw knives as other people throw darts. I carried targets and sheath-knives about with me everywhere. I could even throw scissors with tolerable accuracy. .... Some people took exception to my knife throwing .... The most angry of these was our friend Mr Steele, who forbade me entry to the house after I had forced his beautiful daughter Penelope to stand against a door while I threw knives all around her. I said that I was very accurate, and that the point of it was to _miss_ her, and that it was ridiculous to be angry about that. Nobody cared for my logic.


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## Morgul Agent (Mar 21, 2005)

I'll just pipe in here, and say that *CHRISTOPHER LEE IS AWESOME! THE COOLEST 80-SOMETHING YEAR OLD EVER! *

I love the joke in ROTK:EE, about the Saruman death scene. Apparently Lee insisted that he knew the exact sound a man makes when stabbed in the back...so he didn't need any direction for his performance. Jackson says this apparently had to do with Lee's top secret service for the British Government, some time in Lee's past!


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## Eledhwen (Mar 21, 2005)

Christopher Lee's messed up his first acting role where he had to die. He had seen deaths during his time in the RAF/Intelligence Section/Rhodesian Police force (seconded), and simply died the same way he had seen in real life. Unfortunately, cinema isn't real life, and he soon became a dab hand at the art of dying on film. A good job too, as most of his roles were the evil genius wanting to take over the world types, who always get deaded in the end. Apparently he used to get a new script, and his little daughter would ask "How are you going to die this time daddy?"


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## Greenwood (Mar 21, 2005)

I have been a fan of Christopher Lee since his days in the old Hammer horror films (usually as Dracula), but I must say I sympathize with Mr. Steele in his objection to Lee throwing knifes at his daughter. Would you want Dracula tossing knifes at your child?


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## Hammersmith (Mar 21, 2005)

Christopher Lee is a great actor. His voice..._that voice!_

He seems to represent everything noble and sophisticated in humanity, smooth and proud, richly accentuated and perfectly in control. And then he expertly allows us a sudden glimpse of a distorted tyrant beneath, the monster within, as it were. And when he gets angry! Oh! How wonderfully his cloak of dignified evil is shrugged aside, never quite abandoned and always present, yet the genuine wrath in his voice, the madness in his eyes that has prior only been dancing beneath the hooded lids as he drawls his words out in a feast of class and style.

Could you imagine anyone more deserving to take the staff of Saruman?


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## Wolfshead (Mar 22, 2005)

Lee is easily one of my favourite actors - he will forever be Dracula  Is his autobiography a good read? I might get it.


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## Eledhwen (Mar 24, 2005)

You could make a film of his life, he's packed so much into it. And the people he's met!!!  Not to mention the ones he's related to. This is a man who has had some of the most interesting parts in one of the most interesting centuries of this world.


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## Wolfshead (Mar 24, 2005)

So, worth reading then?


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## Eledhwen (Mar 29, 2005)

I'm always reluctant to recommend books, but I found this one a very good read; even though I don't normally read biographies.


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## Eledhwen (Jun 13, 2009)

*ARISE, SIR CHRISTOPHER! (Lee awarded knighthood)*

It's Sir Christopher Lee. The Queen's summer honours list has been announced, and I am looking forward to seeing the ancient ceremony on TV, when The Queen places the sword on each of Christopher Lee's shoulders as he kneels before her. It's almost like a scene out of The Lord of the Rings itself.

Congratulations, Sir Christopher.


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## chrysophalax (Jun 13, 2009)

*Re: ARISE, SIR CHRISTOPHER! (Lee awarded knighthood)*

An excellent choice! How cool is that?


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