Christopher Lee is as impressive in public as he is on the screen. His mannerism is impeccable and his personality is both professional and charming. A man who has played Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula, Fu Manchu and, of course The Man with the Golden Gun. He and his wife were in Washington to promote his updated autobiography, TALL, DARK AND GRUESOME at Midnight Marquee’s MONSTER RALLY ’99. Here is an exclusive interview of one of horror and science fiction’s last great icons.

 

Dr. Shatterhand: I understand you have written an autobiography.

Christopher Lee: Well, it is an extension of a book I wrote in 1977. It is the last twenty years. The book begins at my birth in 1922 until 1997 when I finished the book and it first came out in Britain.

DS: May I ask you a few questions about the Hammer Horror films?

CL: Yes, if I can remember them, it was a long time ago.

DS: Recently I have seen a few of them on cable such as THE MUMMY...

CL: Yes, that was an uncomfortable movie for me.

DS: Of the entire Hammer films, which do you consider your favorite?

CL: Well of all the Hammer films that I have appeared in, I think my favorite was one, which is black and white, and I think in the United States it is called SCREAM OF FEAR. It is a brilliant picture. Sadly, I think I’m the only person in the cast who is still here. And, even the director, is no longer with us. I still think it is the best Hammer film I appeared in. A lot of people may differ and think its another movie. But, for me, as an actor, that was the best picture. And it was an unforgettable experience because when I was doing a rehearsal of a scene one-day, in the studio after lunch, I looked up and I saw Gary Cooper standing by in the camera. As you can imagine, I forgot my lines.

DS: The one Hammer film that frightened me as a child was DRACULA: PRINCE OF DARKNESS. This was the one where you fell through the ice at the end.

 

A chilling moment in DRACULA: PRINCE OF DARKNESS.

CL: Yes, it was a little awkward because the ice closed over my head at one point making it a little difficult to come out. But that picture was unique because I never said a word in it. Not a word.

DS: What about the non-Hammer films, such as THE THREE MUSKETEERS and THE FOUR MUSKETEERS?

CL: Those were remarkably entertaining movies. They were very hard work because we were using real swords. And they were very heavy and very sharp.

DS: And you had an eye patch.

CL: And I had an eye patch so I could not see anything coming from the left. And it was not easy and the heat was over 100 degrees in Spain, in summer, in August and wearing all those clothes and on high heels and uneven ground and flies all around you. It was a tough film but very entertaining, very amusing, but a tough picture to make. Mind you there were compensations, Faye Dunaway was my lady friend and we had a wonderful cast.

DS: Were you friends with the late Oliver Reed (former Hammer star and Three Musketeers co-star)?

 

Oliver Reed

CL: Oh, yes, yes. I knew Oliver from virtually the beginning of his career. I’m not sure if he made his first film with me, but he certainly made three or four of his first few films with me in which he was playing very small roles. And I use to give him a ride down to the studio everyday in my old second hand car. This is going back a long time, and he was very young and very thin and very unsure of what his future was going to be, the one he chosen, whether he ought to continue as an actor and so on. And I use to try to calm him down and cheer him up and say "You’ll be all right, you’ll be all right" I think I was all right there too.

DS: Your friend Peter Cushing.

CL: Ah, yes.

DS: You did many films with him, do you have any fond memories?

 

Adversaries on screen but the best of friends off screen, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee in DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE.

CL: They’re all fond memories. I find it rather difficult to talk about Peter without feeling very emotional quite frankly. Because, he not only was a wonderful actor, a wonderfully skillful actor, he was also a marvelous human being and we were very close and I still miss him very much. He died in 1994. That’s five years ago, but he is still very much alive in my heart.

DS: One of my favorites you did with him was THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES.

CL: (Laughing) Oh, yes. In which I was savaged by the dog at the end, and I was too. It bit me.

DS: In 1974, you appeared as James Bond’s nemesis Francisco Scaramanga in THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN. You also were a distant cousin of Ian Fleming.

CL: That’s correct and it was a pleasure for me to do a Bond film. It is always for an actor a wonderful experience, there is no expense spared in every direction. It is a unique experience. I remember saying to my wife, "Let us make the most of this because it is not going to last forever and we may never get a production like this again." I have been in productions like that since, but that was great fun.

DS: Do you recall any fond or hilarious moments with Roger Moore or Cubby Broccoli?

 

A duel of titans.  Francisco Scaramanga prepares to trick James Bond into a deadly game of cat and mouse in THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN.

CL: I knew Cubby before because I did a picture called THE COCKLESHELL HEROES. Which he and former partner Irving Allen produced many many years before. He was the ideal producer to work for we were on an island in the middle of the Andaman Sea in the middle of no where. In those days off the Thailand coast there were pirates, real ones. Drug runners I presume things like that sort. They’re still there because my wife and I was there a couple of years ago and I showed her the island. Which has changed because now it is all souvenir booths and stores and things to sell. A fleet of boats goes out there everyday; it’s called the James Bond Island. Of course, when we were working there it was a very small village and there was nobody. We were not allowed to take wives or any female members of our families down there, it was not considered safe. I enjoyed doing that film enormously because, as I said just now, any Bond film is great to be in. And of course Roger Moore, who I have known for 50 years, has never changed. He has always been exactly the same. Delightful person, marvelous to be with and it never went to his head ever. There were many hilarious moments, I think probably the most vivid were the problems of putting the gun together.

DS: Was that during the scene where you shot Hai Fat or at the dinner table with Bond?

CL: Both actually. Because it was not easy to put this thing together, particularly when you are not looking down you’re looking at the person you are talking to, but it turned out all right.

DS: You did a splendid job on that film as well.

CL: Well, thanks. It was a wonderful part to play. I always refer to it as the dark side of Bond, because Scaramanga, and incidentally, I have met somebody with that name, Scaramanga, it’s a Greek name. And the reason for the name, Scaramanga in the film is very simple. When Ian Fleming was in Eton college, in Britain. There was a man there called Scaramanga, whom he disliked intensely and so he made him into his villain. And in fact, the dockyards of Athens now are called Scaramanga.

DS: The third nipple, which you wore in the film, and mentioned in the novel.

CL: Yes, not too unusual according to the doctors.

DS: Really?

CL: Apparently not. I asked my doctor, before I did the film. I said, "Is this a kind of freakish thing? And he said, "Oh, no you’ll be surprised. It’s not nearly as unusual as you might think."

DS: Was it difficult to wear?

CL: No, they just stuck it on.

DS: Were you there when they did the rotating car jump?

 

The famous spiral car jump was only performed once.

CL: Yes, I was indeed. I was standing on the edge of the canal or as they call out there ‘klongs’. And it was the most extraordinary thing I have ever seen because it had to be worked out on the computer. The exact speed of the approach to the broken part of the bridge, which was at an angle, the angle had to be worked out. And when the car went up into the air, the speed in the air to be worked out because it did a 360-degree turn in the air and landed on the other side of the canal at a different angle of course and at a certain speed. The man who did it, a man called 'Bumps' Williard, did it so perfectly in one take with all the ambulances and cranes and everything. Everybody was watching with bated breath. It was a very, very touchy moment. Anything could have gone wrong. But as I said if it could be worked out on a computer, I think it was exactly 31 mph he had to go at, he did it so perfectly. I think they had two or three cameras on it. One of which was slow motion. But the director, Guy Hamilton, said, "You know everybody is going to think this was done by a model. They’re not going to think it was real, it was so perfect. Would you do it again?" And the stuntman said, "No, I will not. This was the first time I have ever done it. I’m not doing it again." (laughter)

CL: Well, I played the oceanographer, it was my first film made in Hollywood after I went to live there in 1976. It was the first film I made at Universal. They told me, "There is a scene where you drown in the hold of the 747 which is underwater. You’ll have to practice this because you will have to do it because there will be no cut. We shall start close-up on you and then the camera will draw back. There is no question of a double." And I said, "Oh yes, well that’s no problem." So I trained in the pool at Universal with a great underwater expert called Manfred Zendar. And 10, 11, 12 feet down I thought, "Well, this is easy, this is a breeze."  Came the day when I actually did it and we were 30 feet down. So I spent 3 days underwater, almost the entire day. Doing the scenes inside the hold to Jack Lemmon after the water had come in when my equipment has been blown off. So I had to open my eyes, open my mouth, close my throat so no bubbles came out. And you saw it was a live person so to speak. And I was able to hold my breath for over a minute at the beginning of the day and for about 10 seconds by the end of the day. It was not easy and everytime I went up to the surface, it was in a tank, the crew would speak through a loud hailer to me. Since sound travels very well underwater, they would shout, "Exhale, exhale, exhale" as I drifted up to the surface. Well I didn’t have much to exhale anyway. I didn’t realize that if I hadn’t emptied my lungs, it is possible at that depth to get a bubble in your blood and it could kill you. So when I finally surfaced up on the third day the stuntman came forward and presented me with a belt buckle with the Stuntman’s Union. Which is probably the greatest honor paid me in all my career as an actor. They said, "You’ve earned it", because it was a stunt. I don’t think I would do it now.

The many faces of Christopher Lee.  Clockwise from upper left: Veronica Carlson is about to be fangful  for DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE.  As Scaramanga THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN.  An extreme case of acne in THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN.  As Dr. Fu Manchu and as Von Kleinschmidt in 1941.

After our interview concluded Mr. Lee and an impressive crowd of horror and science fiction movie stars gathered onto the stage to the warm applause of nearly 1000 people.

Michael Ripper and Christopher Lee enjoy a standing ovation at the MONSTER RALLY 1999 in Washington DC.  This was the first trip to Washington for Mr. Ripper.  He past away a year later.

He then singled out a former co-star, Michael (The Mummy’s Shroud) Ripper, from the group and said how thrilling it was to see his old friend after so many years.

The same can be said from this fan.