It is not just the fangs that are notable as Count Dracula, portrayed by Christopher Lee, stares out from the screen open-mouthed. The piercing, dark, bloodshot eyes are almost as scary. Those eyes are responsible for the story of how Lee’s wartime service took an unexpected turn which, in some measure, was to inform his acting career.
Acting had never been his life’s ambition but, for someone born (albeit in a different year) on the same day as Vincent Price and a day after Peter Cushing, perhaps his fame as a horror movie star was somehow pre-ordained.
Lee’s family background, while having only remote theatrical elements hardly suggestive of the acting profession as a likely career choice, was, nevertheless, rather exotic. His mother was an Italian contessa, Estelle Maria Carandini, a descendant of the Borgias and whose parents founded the first Australian opera company. His father, Geoffrey Trollope-Lee, was a Lieutenant-Colonel in the 60th King’s Royal Rifles who had seen action in the Boer War and First World War and was, Lee claimed, descended from a band of gypsies from Hampshire. Rather different from his mother’s lineage which, according to Lee, could be traced back to Charlemagne.
Christopher Frank Carandini Lee was born on May 27, 1922, in Belgravia. He was brought up in the home of his stepfather, Harcourt Rose, a banker and uncle of Ian Fleming, his parents having divorced when he was four years old. Years later Lee would play one of Fleming’s Bond villains, Scaramanga, in the film of The Man With The Golden Gun. There was a staff of butler, footmen, cook and chauffeur to look after the household. Lee was privately educated, winning a scholarship to Eton but later transferring to Wellington College where he shone as a classics scholar as well as being fluent in French, Italian, Spanish and German, later having also a working knowledge of Russian, Greek and Swedish. His gilded upbringing came to an abrupt halt when his alcoholic stepfather was declared bankrupt and, at the age of 17, Lee was obliged to leave school to earn a living.
Young adventures
A dreary spell as an office clerk persuaded Lee to take the opportunity of travelling through Europe. While in France in 1939 he was able to attend the guillotining at Versailles of a murderer, Eugen Weidmann, the last public execution in that country. But with war imminent, he returned to London. Still only 17, he was too young to enlist in the Armed Forces so, eager for action, he volunteered with some friends to fight with the Finnish in their campaign against the Russians. ‘We could shoot pretty well but couldn’t ski,’ Lee explained. ‘We were thanked for our help, and didn’t of course get anywhere close to the lines. But that was a good thing. Otherwise I wouldn’t probably be here.’
In 1941 Lee joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve. Eventually selected for pilot training, he was posted to Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) under the Commonwealth air training scheme. He was a keen flyer but, having almost completed his training prior to being allowed to fly solo, he experienced the episode that was to dash his hopes of qualifying as a pilot – but which probably saved his life, such was the attrition rate of RAF pilots during the war (Bomber Command alone lost nearly 45 per cent of its 125,000 aircrew).
During his penultimate training flight in a Tiger Moth aircraft he began to experience headaches and blurred vision. According to Lee, as described in his autobiography, Lord of Misrule: The Autobiography of Christopher Lee (Orion, 2003), the medical officer made a tentative diagnosis of ‘failure of the optic nerve’ with the result that Lee was banned from flying henceforth.
A period of drift followed his unsuccessful appeal to be reinstated to flying, with moves around various airfields and not much to do. As an attempt to ‘do something constructive’ he applied for transfer to the RAF Intelligence Branch. This led to a commission as pilot officer and a posting as intelligence officer to 260 Squadron in Egypt.
Christopher Lee made a virtue of his intense stare
For a time he was attached to the Long Range Desert Group, the covert unit created to gather intelligence behind enemy lines in North Africa. Later, he was able to use his extensive language skills during a secondment to the equally secretive Special Operations Executive, carrying out reconnaissance missions in occupied Europe. Lee spoke little about those times: ‘Let’s just say I was in Special Forces and leave it at that,’ he said in 2011. ‘People can read into that what they like.’
But he certainly saw some horrific sights, not least the horrors of the concentration camps. ‘When the Second World War finished I was 23 and already I had seen enough horror to last me a lifetime,’ he reflected. That experience was put to good use when, years later, he played Saruman in the Lord of The Rings movie trilogy. Discussing the scene in which Saruman was to be stabbed in the back the director, Peter Jackson, decided that he wanted the character to scream out. ‘Peter,’ said Lee, ‘have you ever heard the sound a man makes when he’s stabbed in the back?’ Jackson had to admit that he hadn’t. ‘Well I have, and I know what to do.’ Lee went on to explain that when a victim is stabbed in the back his lungs are punctured so he can’t scream; rather he lets out a soft groan.
Iconic performances
Back in London after the war, Lee considered his options: he had a fine singing voice that could have led to a career as an opera singer; the Diplomatic Corps was another possible choice given his experience and languages. But a family connection persuaded him to try acting, helping him into a job with the Rank Organisation. He secured a succession of small roles but, to begin with, his height (6’ 5”) counted against him. After his Rank contract ended he secured a part as the Creature in Hammer’s 1957 film, The Curse of Frankenstein, playing opposite his friend, Peter Cushing. The following year the pair teamed up again in what was to be Lee’s big break, his defining role as Dracula in Hammer’s eponymous movie.
Lee went on to hold the Guinness World Record for most screen credits by a living actor in 2007, after which he made a significant number more films; he always said he would not consider retiring and wanted to ‘die with his boots on’. Apart from Dracula, he played other iconic parts such as James Bond’s nemesis, Scaramanga, in The Man With The Golden Gun, Saruman in The Lord of the Rings and Count Dooku in two Star Wars films. He was honoured with a British Film Institute Fellowship in 2013, which was presented by his fellow actor and friend, Johnny Depp. Depp coincidentally is one of a number of actors, like Lee, afflicted with eye conditions. In his case he has been virtually blind from birth in his left eye and very myopic in his right: ‘Everything is just very, very blurry, I’ve never had proper vision,’ Depp has explained.
Lee and Depp are far from the only actors to suffer eye problems. Dame Judi Dench has admitted to having to cope with age-related macular degeneration (AMD), while Roseanne Barr of TV series Roseanne fame suffers from both AMD and glaucoma. Mila Kunis suffered for some years with chronic iritis and cataract in one eye, while the loss of an eye to retinoblastoma did not prevent Peter Falk having a long and varied career, including his best-known role as Columbo.
Despite the number of blind characters portrayed in film and TV, rarely has a blind or partially-sighted actor made it onto the screen. Jack Birkett, the British-born actor and singer, who appeared in some Derek Jarman films, is one, while another, stage actor Steve Gladstone, who became blind through retinitis pigmentosa at the age of 17, commented that most of the roles he has played were sighted characters. In 2009, Kitty McGeever, who lost her sight through diabetic retinopathy in her 30s, became the first blind actress to appear in a British soap opera when she was cast in Emmerdale.
Christopher Lee was knighted for services to drama in 2009 and died, aged 93, in 2015. He had previously received a CBE and been appointed a Commander of the Order of St John and, in France, a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters. Lee enjoyed a full life well-lived, perhaps thanks in some part to the troublesome optic nerve that curtailed his nascent wartime flying career.