JOIN USMaster of the macabre Christopher Lee, who portrayed Dracula in outrageous Hammer Films horror classics but became known to later generations for roles in “Star Wars” and as the wizard Saruman in the “Lord of the Rings”, has died aged 93.
Lee died last Sunday in hospital, where he had been undergoing treatment for respiratory problems, a copy of his death certificate posted online showed. Lee’s agent, in an email, said his family “wishes to make no comment”.
Roger Moore, who played James Bond in “The Man with the Golden Gun” (1974) in which Lee was the villain Scaramanga, paid tribute to Lee on Twitter and offered condolences to his wife of 54 years, the former Danish model Birgit Kroncke, their daughter Christina and her husband, Juan Francisco Aneiros Rodriguez. “It’s terrible when you lose an old friend, and Christopher Lee was one of my oldest,” Moore said. “We first met in 1948.”