FILM-MINIONS/CHRISTOPHER LEE Sandra Bullock, "Minions" director pay tribute to Christopher Lee

Record ID: 151172

  • Title: FILM-MINIONS/CHRISTOPHER LEE Sandra Bullock, "Minions" director pay tribute to Christopher Lee
  • Date: 11th June 2015
  • Summary: LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (FILE - DECEMBER 10, 2001) (ORIGINAL 4:3) (REUTERS) ***WARNING CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** LORD OF THE RINGS BANNER OVER ODEON LEICESTER SQUARE LEE ARRIVING LEE TALKING TO THE MEDIA
  • Embargoed: 26th June 2015 13:00
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  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA4DSUBJRLA3TCYP6CQWBL2WEIM
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: EDIT CONTAINS CONVERTED 4:3 MATERIAL
    EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: THIS EDIT CONTAINS MUTE MATERIAL
    Hollywood star Sandra Bullock and "Minions" co-director Pierre Coffin paid their respects to British acting legend Christopher Lee at their film premiere in London on Thursday (June 11).
    Bullock said: "I mean I haven't seen his work in a really long time but 93, I hope he lived a really good life, 'cause you think at 93 someone's lived a life that they want."
    Coffin said he was a fan of Lee's work in the Hammer horror films: "I'm sort of speechless. Like a great guy, great. I remember like all these Hammer movies he was in and those movies were part of like inspiration of stuff that we wanted to do like later on in life also. Like 'oh man, wouldn't it be cool'. I used to watch as a kid, all the horror movies from the Hammer and it was great. I mean - speechless that's what I meant. Sad day."
    Christopher Lee, who devoted his long career to portraying horror film villains and later appeared in the blockbuster "Star Wars" and "Lord of the Rings" series, died at the age of 93.
    Lee died last Sunday in hospital where he had been undergoing treatment for respiratory problems, British media reports said. Lee's agent, in an emailed statement, said his family "wishes to make no comment".
    The London-born actor achieved fame from the late 1950s into the 1970s playing characters such as Dracula, Frankenstein's monster and the Mummy for Hammer Films.
    With his deep, mellifluous voice and ramrod 6-foot 4-inch (1.93 metre) frame, Lee was the last English-language horror movie star in a line that traced back to silent era luminary Lon Chaney and included Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Vincent Price and Peter Cushing, Lee's regular Hammer Films co-star.
    Many leading directors sought out his talents, particularly in the latter stages of his career.
    He played the fiendish criminal genius Fu Manchu in five films, the villain Scaramanga in the James Bond movie "The Man with the Golden Gun" (1974) and, in a rare departure from cinematic wickedness, gave life to the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes in a couple of films.
    He won new generations of fans after the turn of the century in some of the biggest money makers in film history. He played the evil Count Dooku, fighting Jedi knights in "Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones" (2002) and "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith" (2005).
    Lee portrayed the power-hungry wizard Saruman in director Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy in 2001, 2002 and 2003 and in "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" (2012) and "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies" (2014).
    As part of his late-career flourish, he also appeared in Martin Scorsese's "Hugo" (2011) and Tim Burton's black comedy "Dark Shadows" (2012) with Johnny Depp.
    Christopher Frank Carandini Lee was born on May 27, 1922 and took up acting on the suggestion of a cousin after serving in the Royal Air Force in World War Two.
    He made his film debut in 1947, launching a career that eventually spanned more than 200 movies.
    Lee was most closely associated with the role of Dracula, dispensing with the nobility Lugosi had given the role and adopting a more beastly, lustful bearing as he dispensed with various buxom victims.
    He played the blood-sucking count in movies including "Dracula" (1958), "Dracula: Prince of Darkness" (1966), "Dracula Has Risen from the Grave" (1968), "Count Dracula" (1970), "Taste the Blood of Dracula" (1970), "Scars of Dracula" (1970), "Dracula A.D. 1972" (1972), "The Satanic Rites of Dracula" (1973) and "Dracula and Son" (1976).
    Lee brought to his monsters a sense of pitifulness that he called "the loneliness of evil." Despite being a master of the horror genre, Lee did not even like the word.
    "It implies something nauseating, revolting, disgusting - which one sees too often these days. I prefer the word 'fantasy,'" he told the New York Times in 2002.
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