Sir Christopher Lee, the British actor who mastered
horror and Dracula roles before his turns as a Bond villain and
the wizard Saruman in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, died this
week, a London borough spokesman said Thursday.
Lee, 93, died Sunday, the spokesman for the Royal Borough of
Kensington and Chelsea said.


The great, always criminally underrated Sir Christopher Lee has
left us. A Titan of Cinema and a huge part of my youth.
Farewell.


— Mark Gatiss (@Markgatiss) June 11, 2015
Lee initially made his name in horror films, playing Count
Dracula and Frankenstein in a series films for Britain's Hammer
studios from the 1950s until the 1970s.
It's terribly when you lose an old friend, and Christopher Lee
was one of my oldest. We first met in 1948.


— Sir Roger Moore (@sirrogermoore) June 11, 2015
He had numerous movie and TV roles beginning in 1948,
including more than 150 on film, often as a villain. In one such
role, he appeared as James Bond's nemesis Francisco
Scaramanga in 1974's "The Man with the Golden Gun."
His more recent film credits include the menacing Saruman in
the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy and fallen Jedi knight Count
Dooku in the "Star Wars" prequels.


In his last few years, the white-haired actor took to a tongue-in-
cheek heavy metal career, releasing the holiday albums "A
Heavy Metal Christmas" and "A Heavy Metal Christmas Too" in
2012 and 2013.


He earned a number of high honors in a film career reaching
nearly seven decades, including being named a knight of the
British Empire in 2009.

RIP Saruman