Aron scraba biography of christopher lee

Christopher Lee may have become famous for his iconic performance as a young, suave, debonair Dracula, but his work went far beyond the Hammer Horror roles he is most often associated with. With a commanding voice, penetrating eyes and his imposing height six feet, five inches , he often found himself cast as the villain, but like Vincent Price and his other horror contemporaries, the villains Lee played were often the most interesting and layered performance in the film.

Following a long and expansive career that began with uncredited roles in the s, he worked later in life with the biggest names in the industry, appearing in major franchises like The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. Beyond his work on the screen, Lee led a fascinating life. Before his acting career he served in the Royal Air Force and the details of his military career are still shrouded in a degree of secrecy.

From a young age, he wanted to be an opera singer and in his later years he released heavy metals albums, becoming the oldest person to have a top 20 hit on the Billboard music charts. Decades before playing the wizard Saruman in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Lee spent an evening in a pub with author J. His feature work includes the excellent documentaries Elstree , about the actors behind the masks in the original Star Wars , and Hollywood Bulldogs: The Rise and Falls of the Great British Stuntman.

The College of Arts and Sciences has invested strongly in the institution achieving Carnegie R1 status while maintaining strong academic programs that.

His docu-series Reel Britannia explored the history of British cinema. Mixing traditional documentary filmmaking with animation and puppetry, The Life and Deaths of Christopher Lee brings Lee back from the dead thanks to an elaborate marionette, voiced by Peter Serafinowicz to tell his own story. The result is an amusing, eclectic documentary revealing a complex, comprehensive portrait of a cinematic icon.

Tell me about the journey of documenting Christopher Lee. Jon Spira JS : It's a really interesting question. I don't often look back and think of it in that kind of way. We work very, very closely together. The thing about the way we work is that we're very open to the process.