He was a physically towering British movie actor with distinguished good looks, a Shakespearean voice, and aristocratic presence. His breakthrough film was the horror movie “The Curse of Frankenstein.” Though closely associated with horror, he maintained that of his roughly 250 movie and television roles, only 15 or so had been in horror films. Even into his 70s and 80s, he could strike fear in the hearts of moviegoers. He played the treacherous light-saber-wielding villain Count Dooku in the “Star Wars” installments, and the dangerously charismatic wizard Saruman in the “Lord of the Rings” and “Hobbit” movies. Today’s dead celebrity is Christopher Lee.

Famous & Gravy is created and co-hosted by Amit Kapoor and Michael Osborne. This episode featured Morgan Honaker as guest host, and was produced by Jacob Weiss. Sign up for our newsletter at famousandgravy.com and also enjoy our mobile quiz game at deadoraliveapp.com

If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like Episode 34 “Zombie Mastermind” (George Romero) and Episode 35 “Likable Villain” (Alan Rickman). 

Links:
 Transcript of this episode
New York Times Obituary for Christopher Lee
Famous & Gravy official website
Christopher Lee BAFTA award
Jingle Hell
Famous & Gravy on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter
Dead or Alive Quiz Game
Half Price Books
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices