Christopher Lee

Christopher Lee got paid for sixty-years to be what any Cracked reader would sell his soul for in an instant: a Jedi, a secret agent, a king, a wizard, freakin Dracula (brides included)... you name it. If there existed a more badass character in his films, Lee's character either had him on his payroll, dropped mountains on him, sported way-cooler weapons, or got busy seducing his girlfriend as a wolf/bat/whatever the hell that thing in the Coppola movie was.

WTF?

In short: Christopher Lee won BIG at the roulette game of life.

Before stealing every scene he ever shared with actors half his age and shorter than his chin, Lee's already impressive list of contacts included J.R.R. Tolkien, James Bond-author Ian Fleming, and Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne. Lee probably could have started acting at an even earlier age, but decided that the Nazis overrunning Europe were a cause more worthy to fight for than Classics. He left school in 1939 to help the Finnish fight the Soviet Union in the war where the Molotov-cocktail got its name from... and found it boring.

Not badass enough for Christopher Lee.

For a man who eventually built an entire career off drinking blood, Lee admitted that fighting the Reds wasn't all he had hoped, so he transferred to the Royal Air Force, and then the more badass sounding Long Range Desert Group. It was there Lee honed one of his greatest talents: killing Nazis.

Guitar-case included.

After making life hell for the thousands of Nazis and Italians he caught pissing in the sands of North Africa, an awakened, blood-frenzied Lee was deemed tough enough to join Britain's Special Operations Executive, aka, "The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare." (No, seriously.)

Lt. Christopher Lee

While this may sound like England's WWII equivalent to a certain league peopled by extraordinary gentlemen, the truth is actually closer to a much better movie. Though their exact function in WWII remains classified to this day, what we do know is that Britain's Special Operations Executive was tasked by Winston Churchill himself to "set Europe ablaze." That's right, Christopher Lee was a founding member of the original 'Inglourious Basterds'.

(Based on a true story... about Christopher Lee.)

After obtaining the necessary 100 Nazi scalps to finally make Webelos, Christopher decided to enter the realm of acting since no worthy adversary remained for him in reality. However, after finding that no worthy adversary could be found in fiction either, Lee decided to establish himself as the ultimate villain of cinema by starring in just about every horror movie Hammer Film Productions could steal from Abbot and Costello. He became the most iconic actor to portray Dracula since the legendary (and weird as hell) Bela Lugosi, partaking in Hammer's more liberal approach towards on-screen blood, violence, and female nudity along the way. To bolster his already daunting villainous stature, it was decided on a space-station-easily-mistakable-for-a-small-moon that the only man mad enough to take on Lee's Dracula was Grand Moff Tarkin himself, Peter Cushing.

League of Extraordinary Evil, '57 mixer.

That's right, the guy who blew up Alderaan and its two billions inhabitants actually plays the good guy in these movies. That'd be like casting Heath Ledger's Joker as Ronald McDonald in 'Mac and Me'.

I'm lovin' it!

Unfortunately, Lee proved to be so good at "pretending" he was Dracula that Hammer Studios refused to let him do anything else. Lee has gone on record that he was "blackmailed" by Hammer (who probably knew what he did with all those Nazi scalps: wear them) into continuously making films, for loads of money, that required him to suck on the necks of exotic actresses with heaving bosoms. This alone should warrant Lee for a third Guinness World Record: "Best. Blackmail. Ever."

However, once his "cousins" in the League notified him that fellow-cousin Ian Fleming's spy novels were being adapted to film, Lee knew he had finally found the adversary he was waiting for: James fucking Bond.

"I've been looking forward to this."

Christopher Lee wanted a piece of James Bond before the first film, Dr. No, even entered production. (Please note that he did NOT want to play Bond; just kill him in front of Ursula Andress.) Even Ian Fleming wanted to see if James Bond could last an evening on a radioactive island with Dracula. I mean, who wouldn't want to see that now more than ever?

'Twilight of Solace'?

Unfortunately, Hammer refused to release Lee from his prison of endless wealth, fame, and cleavage, so instead all he got was a big, fancy mirror to watch the film from his ceiling. However, once that sex-panther Sean Connery got replaced by creepy-uncle-looking Roger Moore, Lee realized that he couldn't play pelvic pinochle a minute longer. James Bond had to die.

So, after unleashing what can only be surmised as some "ungentlemanly" secret-service shit on Hammer execs, Lee broke free and finally got to star in 'The Man With the Golden Gun,' as 'Himself.'

Not a movie.

However, Bond flicks tend to have much less female nudity than Lee had grown accustomed to in films like 'The Wicker Man' (the good one). As such, Lee found this job almost as boring as killing Commies for Finland. Eager to get the stupid film over with, Lee let Moore take a shot at him with his harmless, non-silver PP7. The film tanked as a result of its silly ending, and Roger Moore became firmly established as the 'Adam West' of Bond actors. As for Lee, his career was a lot like himself: impossible to kill. Not only does he remain one of the most versatile actors in history, but one of the most bomb-proof as well. (I mean, have you actually seen '1941'?)

Even John Williams sucked.

Now that his days of ripping bodices and drinking blood were over until 2012, Christopher Lee spent the next 30 years of his life becoming England's much cooler equivalent to Kevin Bacon. Armed with a vast resume, booming voice, and MONSTER eyebrows, he performed many of his own stunts and swordfights, earning honorary membership into three badass stuntmen's unions which will probably evolve into the Masons of tomorrow's Americas. He then landed the biggest break of his career when he was "offered" - more on that in a minute - the role of lead-villain in Peter Jackson's 'The Lord of the Rings Trilogy'. (Let's face it, that CGI eyeball was kinda weak.)

An entire motion picture trilogy about jewelry.

Unfortunately, this projected was marred from the very beginning once Jackson went against the dying wish of J.R.R. Tolkien by not casting Christopher "the only man on this set who fucking KNEW Tolkien!" Lee as Gandalf. Nevertheless, Lee stayed true to his lifelong legacy of one-upping his adversaries by portraying Saruman the White as a wizard who brutally outclasses Gandalf in combat...

community organizing...

AP Chemisty...

'intelligent design'...

...and most importantly, the 'blizzard' spell from Warcraft.

Noob.

In hindsight, it may have been a good thing for Lee that Peter Jackson told Tolkien's friends and fans to fuck off. When you compare the role of Gandalf to Saruman, Lee definitely got the better half of the baby. Lee's Saruman welded more power in Middle-Earth than a maxed-out mage from Dalaran, while Gandalf's powers appeared limited to playing flashlight-tag with Nazgul, crashing parties hours before they started, and smoking all his best friend's finest weed. He was essentially everyone's least favorite college roommate.

He then watched Merry and Pippin do his fucking laundry.

However, after mercifully sparing audiences Saruman the Many Coloured's coming-out party in 'The Return of the King', Peter Jackson followed with one of the biggest dick moves in modern cinematic history. Just days before the film's release, Jackson cut Christopher Lee's six-minute scene to make room for the 11-Academy Award nominated picture's 11 Academy Award winning endings (and to make a little money on the side through DVD sales since, apparently, $2.9 billion buys you only so many handjobs in New Zealand.) When asked if he would still attend the film's premiere, Lee's bitch-slap to Peter Jackson became required reading for every Lord of the Rings nerd on the planet: "No, what's the point? What's the point of going? None at all."

This man-child won more Oscars than Hitchcock, Kurosawa, Scorsese, and Kubrick put together.

'Return of the King' may have won universal acclaim, 11 Oscars, and grossed more than $1.1 billion worldwide, but Christopher Lee got to tell his wife on Oscar night that he made a better movie by duct-taping an expired driver's license to a bootleg copy.

After blowing off some steam by kicking Obi-Wan's ass across two Star Wars prequels, Christopher Lee entered the eighth decade of his life more powerful and popular than ever. He got to enjoy a more prominent death as Count Dooku in 'Revenge of the Sith,' assumed the mantle vacated by Vincent Price in Tim Burton movies, and was recently knighted after 86 years of being awesome. He considers his portrayal of Muhammad Ali Jinnah the most important role of his career, so buy a copy of 'Jinnah' instead of 'Return of the King' when they re-re-re-release it onto Blu-ray.

In closing, Sir Christopher Lee has outlived all his real-life adversaries (including Hitler), is respected in his neighborhood, feared by teenagers, and can still count on the endless admiration of fans and well-wishers for the remaining 700 years of his life (or until he crosses 'The Great Seal').

Where Christopher Lee keeps his car keys?