Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee, (born May 27, 1922) is a legendary and prolific English actor known for his versatility, his professional longevity, and his distinctive basso delivery.

Christopher Lee as evil wizard Saruman in the epic ‘Lord of the Rings’.

Lee is best known for his portrayals of villains; he became famous for his role as Count Dracula in a string of Hammer Horror films. Other notable roles include Lord Summerisle in The Wicker Man and Francisco Scaramanga in The Man with the Golden Gun. Lee is now over eighty years old, and has recently appeared in films such as The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones and Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Lee considers his most important role to have been his portrayal of Pakistan’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah in the biopic Jinnah (1998). Lee has performed roles in over 220 films since 1948. At six feet five inches, he is listed in The Guinness Book of World Records for the world’s tallest leading actor, a record he shares with Vince Vaughn, and just beating Stephen Fry (Wilde) by ½ an inch. Despite a critically acclaimed career that spans over seven decades, he has never been nominated for an Academy Award.

Lee’s first film for Hammer was The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) in which he played Frankenstein’s monster, with Peter Cushing as the Baron. Later, Lee costarred with Boris Karloff in Corridors of Blood (1958), but Lee’s own appearance as Frankenstein’s Monster also led to his first appearance as the Transylvanian vampire in the 1958 film Dracula. Lee returned to the role in Hammer’s Dracula: Prince of Darkness in 1965. Lee’s performance is notable in that he has no lines, merely hissing his way through the film. Stories vary as to the reason for this: Lee states he refused to speak the poor dialogue he was given. Lee has gone on record to state that he was virtually ‘blackmailed’ by Hammer into starring in the subsequent films; unable or unwilling to pay him his going rate, they would resort to reminding him of how many people he would put out of work if he did not take part.

His performances in Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968), Taste the Blood of Dracula (1969) and Scars of Dracula (1970) all gave the Count very little to do, but were commercially successful. Lee’s other work for Hammer included performances as The Mummy (1959). Lee also portrayed Rasputin in Rasputin, the Mad Monk , and Sir Henry Baskerville to Cushing’s Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959).

Since the mid 1970s, Lee eschewed horror roles almost entirely. Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond spy novels, and his step-cousin, had offered him the role of the title character in the first Bond film Dr No. Lee enthusiastically accepted, but the producers had already chosen Joseph Wiseman for the part. In 1974, Lee finally got to play a James Bond villain when he was cast as the deadly assassin Scaramanga in The Man with the Golden Gun.

Lee was a natural choice for the Lord of the Rings films, where he plays the role of Saruman (although he is known to have vied for the role of Gandalf, which was given to Ian McKellen). Lee had met Tolkien once, and makes a habit of reading the novels at least once a year. In addition, he performed for the album The Lord of the Rings: Songs and Poems by JRR Tolkien in 2003; this was unrelated to the film trilogy.