Thursday, June 11, 2015

Christopher Lee RIP


Seemed like Christopher Lee would be with us forever. His departure spurs random memories.

I was always glad to see Lee in new roles. It was exciting to see him as part of the Lord of the Rings, which had captured my imagination in my teen years as novels around the same time I came to appreciate Lee as an actor.

Perhaps a few years before I discovered Rings, I read a cool interview with Lee in The Monster Times, a great horror newspaper in the early '70s. He spoke of his work on Dracula and in other horror fare. I was impressed with his statement that he read a book a day.

I couldn't manage that then, and I can't now.

The horror short story collection From the Archives of Evil still rests on my bookshelf. It features Lee's face in a spooky all-red photo and includes great introductions at least attributed to him.

In the early '90s, he hosted a Halloween horror fest on the Sci Fi Channel, as it was known in those days. It was great to see him leading into to all of the Universal Fright Flicks over multiple nights. I got to see some of the Universal Films for the first time since my childhood days that week.

Adieu, Dracula, Mr. Holmes, Frankenstein's creature, Lord Summerisle, Saruman, Count Dooku, Scaramanga and all the rest.

1 comment:

Charles Gramlich said...

Yes, sorry to see him go. he was having a ball these past few years it seems so I'm happy for that.

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