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Airdate: The Life and Deaths of Christopher Lee

Christopher Lee's family, friends and some of the world’s greatest living filmmakers reflect on the man behind a cineamtic icon.

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Here’s one for film buffs….

Documentary special The Life and Deaths of Christopher Lee screens on SBS tomorrow.

For eight decades and across almost 300 films, one man defined what it was to be a screen villain for generations of cinema-goers. Despite being instantly familiar to, and beloved by, film fans from 10 to 100, the unbelievable true story of the man behind the macabre has never really been told. Until now.

The Life and Deaths of Christopher Lee is a wildly entertaining look at the real-life and cinematic adventures of cinema’s best-loved baddie. His family, friends and some of the world’s greatest living filmmakers have been brought together to explore who he really was and what made him that way.

Sunday, 31 March at 8.30pm on SBS.

6 Responses

  1. Def watching this, I am a huge Hammer film fan, which Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing made a number of dark, broading horror films featuring Dracula and Frankenstein between the late 50s and mid 1970s. As well lee did the brillant Wicker man with Edward Woodward in the early 70s, and of course LOTR and Star Wars, One of the best actors from the UK.

  2. Thanks for the heads up, David. During my radio career I had the good fortune of interviewing two actors (Charles Tingwell and Dennis Waterman) who each appeared in two of Hammer’s Dracula films opposite Lee. I asked each of them “what was Lee really like?” They both replied that Mr Lee was a wonderful actor but took himself a little too seriously. It was obvious though they both held him in high esteem. Also got to meet Vincent Price!

  3. Two of my favourite horror movie actors are Christopher Lee and Vincent Price. They were both born on the same day, have deep voices and their careers affected by being too tall. Lee once stormed into a dressing room and angrily shouted “I haven’t got any lines!” His long-time friend Peter Cushing replied “You’re lucky, I’ve read the script.” Apparently he appeared in The Wicker Man (1973) for free. Both Lee and Price have interesting bio’s on IMDB.

  4. Agree on Lee being a mesmerising actor but the history is a little off.

    In Horror of Dracula in 1958 he did have dialogue but only around six lines. When he was asked back to do Dracula Prince of Darkness in 1965 he hated the script so much that he asked for all his character’s dialogue to be removed which they did. (He does snarl and gasp a bit but that’s all.) In the later sequels he does agree to speak the dialogue.

    (Sources: Commentary track for Dracula Prince of Darkness and Lee’s autobiography Prince of Misrule.)

  5. His first portrayal of Dracula in 1958, he never spoke a word, but it is a scary,mesmerising performance, but when Hammer asked him to do the next Dracula he insisted on dialogue, which he got.
    Then there’s The Wicker Man, wow, be here for hours on all his other great acting roles
    A truly great actor, we will be watching

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