With a career that spanned 70 years in both television and film, there was certainly plenty of opportunity for Sir Christopher Lee to accumulate more ties with franchises than any other actor. And though he started acting from a young age, it wasn't until 1947, one year after ending his service in the R.A.F. did he make his television debut in "Corridor Of Mirrors" .
DRACULA
It's noteworthy to mention that Lee’s first film for the Hammer horror studio was "The Curse of Frankenstein" (1957) in which he played Frankenstein’s monster with Peter Cushing as Victor Frankenstein. This first tango together would extend into another 19 appearances that would create a professional and personal life-long friendship. Lee first appeared as Count Dracula in the film "Dracula" aka ("Horror Of Dracula") in 1958 and Lee and the film were both lauded by critics and audiences. Amongst the pantheon of portrayals of the fanged one, Lee's performance in "Dracula" has been regarded as one of the better depictions, however, further outings as Dracula were not so well received by Lee himself and he is cited as saying that the writers seemed to come up with a variety of stories and then try to fit Dracula in them somewhere. Subsequent portrayals had him doing and saying very little and that must have been frustrating, as he went on to play Dracula another 9 times.
SHERLOCK HOLMES
Sometimes an actor can belong to a character or a universe that aren’t officially connected by a studio or producer. Lee first became involved in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s world of Sherlock in 1959 playing Sir Henry Baskerville in "The Hound Of The Baskervilles" which was also a Hammer production. Then Lee got to play the lead as Sherlock Holmes himself in a French-German production: "Sherlock Holmes & The Deadly Necklace" and then in 1970, Lee played Sherlock's smarter sibling Mycroft in "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes" directed by veteran director Billy Wilder.
FU-MANCHU
It is quite interesting to see how many characters Lee has played that are based on characters from books and Dr Fu Manchu from author Sax Rohmer is probably the unlikeliest on Lee's roster. In total, Lee made five films depicting the stoic criminal mastermind, the first of the series being "The Face Of Fu Manchu" (1965).
THE MUSKETEERS
In 1973 Lee would appear in director Richard Lester’s "The Three Musketeers" as Rochefort. He would then reprise his role another two times in "The Four Musketeers" (1974) and "The Return Of The Musketeers" in 1989. There was a little bit of controversy surrounding his third outing, as Rochefort was supposedly killed in the first sequel.
LORD OF THE RINGS / THE HOBBIT
First playing the villainous version of Saruman in the LOTR trilogy, Lee reintroduced himself to generations of audiences seeing him do what he does best; playing a villain of grandeur who can switch from being somewhat charming and seducing to a quiet menace. On the flipside, we also saw him play the untainted version of the wizard, before he was corrupted by the big bad Sauron in The Hobbit films. Out of the 6 films he appeared in 5, "The Desolation Of Smaug" being the only one he was absent. The first trilogy grossed $2,918,000,000 and the prequel trilogy made $2,935.500,000. Lee also did voice work for the video game "Lord Of The Rings: The Battle For Middle Earth".
STAR WARS
After only the first instalment of LOTR was released, Lee then appeared as the fallen Jedi Count Dooku in the prequel Star Wars films. If younger audiences didn’t know about the veteran actor circa 2000, they definitely knew about him now. Lee played Count Dooku twice in “Attack Of The Clones" (2002) and "Revenge Of The Sith" (2005). And once again, Lee provided voice work for the feature animation "Star Wars: The Clone Wars".
Legacy
Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee may just be the king of franchise kings, if we were to solely look at his roles and not the gross of the movies he has been in. What is more astounding, is that outside of these roles, his other non-franchise projects stand up on their own merits and some of them also belonged to other well known franchises. Most notably are the characters of Rasputin in "Rasputin The Mad Monk" (1966), as Kharis the Mummy in "The Mummy" (1959), as Francisco Scaramanga in James Bond "The Man With The Golden Gun" (1974) and as Lord Summerisle in "The Wicker Man" (1973). Sir Christopher Lee is credited as playing 208 roles...for film - not including TV roles and other media and so Sir Christopher Lee we salute you as a major Franchise King.
Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee may just be the king of franchise kings, if we were to solely look at his roles and not the gross of the movies he has been in. What is more astounding, is that outside of these roles, his other non-franchise projects stand up on their own merits and some of them also belonged to other well known franchises. Most notably are the characters of Rasputin in "Rasputin The Mad Monk" (1966), as Kharis the Mummy in "The Mummy" (1959), as Francisco Scaramanga in James Bond "The Man With The Golden Gun" (1974) and as Lord Summerisle in "The Wicker Man" (1973). Sir Christopher Lee is credited as playing 208 roles...for film - not including TV roles and other media and so Sir Christopher Lee we salute you as a major Franchise King.
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