Star Wars legend Christopher Lee passes on at 93

A Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Council Spokesman confirmed in the early hours of Thursday morning that iconic actor Sir Christopher Lee had passed on.The villain of famed cult horror classics, Hammer Horrors and Wicker Man known for his piercing eyes, booming voice and chilling movie presence sadly passed on at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London on Sunday morning after three weeks of treatment.He had been battling heart failure and respiratory disease, but his widow decided to withhold the news until today so family and friends could be informed.

Since the news of his passing, endless tributes have been pouring in, honouring the great actor who was also a dear husband, father and friend, not to mention role model to many accomplished actors in his time and ours.
Of the many that have mourned his passing, one of the first to pay tribute was former James Bond actor Roger Moore who said, “It’s terribly sad when you lose an old friend, and Christopher Lee was one of my oldest. We first met in 1948.”
His Lord Of The Rings co-star Dominic Monaghan also said: “So, so sorry to hear that Christopher Lee has passed away. He was a fascinating person.”
Tim Burton, who Lee worked with on five films including Sleepy Hollow (1999) and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), described him as “an enormous inspiration.”
Actor and writer Mark Gatiss , “The great, always criminally underrated Sir Christopher Lee has left us,

“A Titan of Cinema and a huge part of my youth. Farewell.”
Born into affluence in London in 1922, Sir Christopher traced his lineage to Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor.

After public school he served in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve during the Second World War, where he was mentioned in dispatches.
His screen career began when he joined the Rank Organisation in 1947, training as an actor in their so-called “charm school.”
It was his association with British studio Hammer that made him a household name, playing characters such as Frankenstein’s monster, The Mummy and Dracula in the late 1950s.
Sir Christopher would go on to reprise the trademark vampire role in a number of sequels, before finally laying him to rest in the 1970s.
He appeared in 1976’s “lTo the Devil a Daughter,” the last horror movie of Hammer’s original era, but returned to the Hammer stable for its 21st Century relaunch in 2011’s The Resident, which starred Hilary Swank.
His 6ft 4in frame and pointed features often typecast him as a bad guy. His distant cousin Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond books, wanted him to play Dr No in the film of the same name – but that role went to Joseph Wiseman.
Lee eventually starred as Scaramanga in 1974’s The Man With The Golden Gun.
He also played Fu Manchu in a series of films in the 1960s.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Star Wars prequels – in which he played the nefarious Count Dooku – were the
most successful films of his career from a commercial standpoint.
He also demonstrated his versatility in comedies like 1941 and Gremlins 2.
His other films included 1959’s The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Three Musketeers (1973), and Jinnah – which he considered to be one of his most important films (1997).
A lover of opera, Sir Christopher launched his singing career in the 1990s, with an album of Broadway tunes, including I Stole The Prince from Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Gondoliers, and Epiphany from Sweeney Todd.
He also enjoyed an unlikely heavy metal career. In 2010, his album Charlemagne: By the Sword and the Cross won a Spirit of Metal Award from Metal Hammer magazine.
He marked his 92nd birthday by releasing an album of heavy metal cover versions.
He was knighted for services to drama and charity in 2009 and received a BAFTA Fellowship in 2011.
The Hammer Films icon was also presented with a prized British Film Institute Fellowship by his Sleepy Hollow co-star, Johnny Depp, at the 2013 London Film Festival.
Depp described him as a ‘national treasure’ and said working with Lee was a ‘childhood dream come true’.
Often hailed as ‘legendary’, Sir Christopher once joked: “To be a legend, you’ve either got to be dead or excessively old.”
Sir Christopher was happily married to Danish model Birgit Kroencke for 53 years and they had a daughter named Christina Erika Carandini Lee.
Although he will probably be most remembered for his portrayal of a bloodsucking vampire, the true story of his life is actually more strange and fascinating than any of the films he starred in.
Below are some of the movie highlights of the iconic actor’s career over 60 years-
1957: The Creature in The Curse of Frankenstein
1958: Count Dracula in Dracula
1959: Sir Henry Baskerville in The Hound of the Baskervilles
1959: Kharis, the Mummy in The Mummy
1962: Sherlock Holmes in Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace
1965: Dr Fu Manchu, right, in The Face of Fu Manchu
1966: Count Dracula in Dracula: Prince of Darkness
1966: Rasputin in Rasputin, the Mad Monk
1973: Lord Summerisle in The Wicker Man
1974: Francisco Scaramanga in The Man with the Golden Gun
1977: Martin Wallace in Airport ’77
1979: Capt. Wolfgang von Kleinschmidt in 1941
1990: Dr Catheter in Gremlins 2: The New Batch
1994: Cmndt. Alexandrei Nikolaivich Rakov in Police Academy: Mission to Moscow
1998: Mohammed Ali Jinnah in Jinnah
1999: Burgomaster in Sleepy Hollow
2001: Saruman in Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
2002: Count Dooku in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
2002: Saruman, below, in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
2005: Dr Wilbur Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
2007: First High Councillor in The Golden Compass
2011: Monsieur Labisse in Hugo
2012: Saruman in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey