5 reasons Christopher Lee was more badass than any of his roles
Sir Christopher Lee has died. The man who was Dracula, Scaramanga, Count Dooku and Saruman has gone on to his greater reward.
But the 93-year-old led a long, eventful life that was the embodiment of “Seize the day”. Here’s five reasons Sir Christopher Lee was far more badass than any role he ever played.
1. He was a World War II commando
It’s telling that 70 years after the end of WWII, Lee’s service records are still sealed. What we do know is that he served with the UK’s Long Range Desert Patrol - the forerunner of the elite Special Air Service.
He then joined the Special Operations Executive a.k.a the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.
By the end of the war, Lee had been decorated for battlefield bravery by the Czech, Yugoslavian, English, and Polish governments. So make of that what you will.
The great man himself even said once: “I’ve seen many men die right in front of me - so many in fact that I’ve become almost hardened to it.”
2. He hunted Nazi war criminals
In the final months of his military service, Lee hunted Nazi war criminals on behalf of the UN’s Central Registry,
in a 2009 interview with The Times of London, he said: “We were given dossiers of what they’d done and told to find them, interrogate them as much as we could and hand them over to the appropriate authority. In view of the fact that there were Palestinians with us — which simply means Jews, because of course Israel was not its own country until 1948 — you can imagine how they felt. We saw these concentration camps. Some had been cleaned up. Some had not.”
There aren’t many people alive who can claim this, but Lee actually met Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien in the 1950s.
In fact, Lee is the only member of the LOTR cast to have done so: “Quite by chance, really. I met him with a group of other people in a pub in Oxford he used to go to, The Eagle and Child. I was very much in awe of him, as you can imagine, so I just said, “how do you do?”
4. He recorded several heavy metal albums
Yes, this isn’t a joke. Lee, a classically trained singer, began recording heavy metal albums while in his 80s.
His first album was entitled Charlemagne: By the Sword and the Cross. And here’s the kicker: Lee actually was a descendant of the Frankish king Charlemagne, on his mother’s side.
5. He was a master fencer who did his own stunts
From rapier to cutlass to light saber, Lee did it all. He was a member of three stuntman unions, and was injured several times too.
Rest in peace, Sir Christopher Lee. You are a true legend.
Source: Badassoftheweek.com, Listverse, Times of Israel, The Guardian
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