Translate

Friday 12 June 2015

Fangs For The Memory

I was very sorry to hear of the death of the fine British actor Christopher Lee yesterday ....

Christopher Lee is 'Dracula'
 
He was always the definitive vampire Count Dracula, and his performances in that role formed part of the mosaic of music, and films that were the backdrop of my teens and early manhood. 
Of course he was more than just a set of false vampire teeth ..... He was also something of an idealist, going to Finland and volunteering at age 17 to fight for the Finnish army during the Winter War in 1939. He didn't actually fight, being kept away from the actual fighting along with the other British volunteers, and after a fortnight, they were all returned home, but that was hardly his fault. He later became a member of the Long Range Desert Patrol, (later the SAS) in North Africa. Oddly, he also met J.R.R. Tolkien once after the war, making him the only person involved in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy to have done so ....

His acting career was incredibly long and varied, spanning nearly seventy years. Its amazing to consider that his first film role was way back in 1947 in Corridor of Mirrors. However it wasn't until he took the role of the monster in Hammers The Curse of Frankenstein in 1957, that he became noted by a wider audience, an audience that much later included all at PC Towers.

Christopher Lee Became Dracula In 1958

In 1958, he was in the starring role in the film Dracula (known as Horror of Dracula in the United States) .... and the rest as they say is history. Oh sure he was 'Fu Manchu', Lord Summerisle in the classic 'Wicker Man', the Comte de Rochefort in the Musketeer movies, Francisco Scaramanga in a Bond movie, Saruman in the The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, and again in the prequel film The Hobbit, Count Dooku in the in the Star Wars series, and in many many other roles, as well as making a number of heavy metal records.

But for me, and many more men of a certain age, he will always be the Count Dracula (Gary Oldman is a close second).
 
Christopher Lee Is Dracula

2 comments:

  1. Excellent summary of a long and distinguished career.
    I wonder, was he cremated and where are his ashes . . . ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Just to be on the safe side, don't spill any blood on the ground LOL.

      Delete

All comments are welcomed, or even just thanks if you enjoyed the post. But please make any comment relevant to the post it appears under. Off topic comments will be blocked or removed.

Moderation is on for older posts to stop spamming and comments that are off topic or inappropriate from being posted .... comments are reviewed within 48 hours. I don't block normal comments that are on topic and not inappropriate. Vexatious comments that may cause upset to other commentators, or that are attempting to espouse a particular wider political view, are reviewed before acceptance. But a certain amount of debate around a post topic is accepted, as long as it remains generally on topic and is not an attempt to become sounding board for some other cause.

Final decision on all comments is held by the blog author and is final.

Comments are always monitored for bad or abusive language, and or illegal statements i.e. overtly racist or sexist content. Spam is not tolerated and is removed.

Commentaires ne sont surveillés que pour le mauvais ou abusif langue ou déclarations illégales ie contenu ouvertement raciste ou sexiste. Spam ne est pas toléré et est éliminé.

Followers

Blog Archive

Its a Pucking World

Its a Pucking World
Dreamberry Wine Cover

About Me

My photo
A middle aged orange male ... So 'un' PC it's not true....