{"id":9985,"date":"2010-01-20T16:34:45","date_gmt":"2010-01-21T00:34:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/?p=9985"},"modified":"2010-01-21T19:43:22","modified_gmt":"2010-01-22T03:43:22","slug":"christopher-lee-metal-god-and-so-much-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/christopher-lee-metal-god-and-so-much-more\/","title":{"rendered":"Christopher Lee: Metal God (and so much more)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>“…the older Christopher Lee gets, the cooler Christopher Lee gets.”<\/p>\n

— Steve Tompkins, “The Voice of Saruman, Speaking the First Age Into Being”<\/a><\/p>\n

While I’d heard whispers of a new Christopher Lee project on the Official Robert E. Howard Forum,* it was this\u00a0fine\u00a0blog entry by Jeff Sypeck<\/a> on the Quid Plura?<\/em> site which motivated me to get up off the parliamentary side o’ me arse and compose a blog entry of my own.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

As it turns out, come March\u00a0of this year, Sir Christopher\u00a0will be speaking the Carolingian Age into being<\/a>. All indications point to\u00a0the project being a bit\u00a0light in the “metal” department, but how does that really matter when we will all\u00a0get the chance to hear the mighty deeds of Charles the Great recounted by one of\u00a0his own descendants? Besides, Mr. Lee already has the metal end of the musical spectrum covered due to his stalwart contributions to the catalogs of Manowar<\/a> and Rhapsody<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Lee’s\u00a0audio legacy is a bit more diverse than simply lending gravitas to albums from metal bands. In the ’70s, he lent his incomparable voice to a “musical interpretation” of Dunsany’s The King of Elfland’s Daughter<\/em><\/a>. A worthier project (in my opinion) was\u00a0Lee’s recent appearance on a cd released by The Tolkien Ensemble entitled At Dawn in Rivendell<\/a> <\/em>(my personal favorite being his reading of “Warning of Winter”).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Of course, Lee’s finest hour (so far) in the audio realm is his\u00a0narration of The Children of H\u00farin<\/em><\/a>. A pity that he will not\u00a0declaim Tolkien’s skaldic verses in\u00a0the forthcoming\u00a0audiobook version\u00a0of The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Lee’s film legacy<\/a> goes without saying to most readers of\u00a0The Cimmerian<\/em>. On top of his appearances in hundreds of films, by some reckonings\u00a0the box office receipts for his films outstrip those of any other actor, living or dead.\u00a0According to\u00a0his own estimation,\u00a0Lee has spent more time onscreen engaged in swordfights (he counts lightsabers)\u00a0than any actor (take that, Flynn).\u00a0All of which\u00a0doesn’t count his non-sword-wielding contributions to films near and dear to the\u00a0hearts of adventure-lovers like Olivier’s Hamlet<\/em>\u00a0as well as screen iterations of\u00a0 The Three Musketeers<\/em>, Ivanhoe<\/em> and Treasure Island<\/em>.\u00a0Sean Connery could only wish for a track record which boasts as many quality<\/em> productions where swords hold sway.<\/p>\n

Throughout his career, Lee’s choices of roles have marked him as an actor with a\u00a0love\u00a0for works in the\u00a0“genre” category (a label I hate; as if “romantic comedy” or “contemporary drama” aren’t also “genres”). Horror, historical adventure, fantasy, science fiction… Christopher Lee has done them all.<\/p>\n

Sir Christopher is conspicuous in the film community for putting his reading \"\"<\/a>glasses where his mouth is. That is, he doesn’t just act the roles he chooses but reads them as well, along with “genre” literature for its own sake. His love for Tolkien (Lee actually met the man once)\u00a0is well-attested. I have no doubt that he is also a fan of Dunsany. However, how many readers of The Cimmerian<\/em> know that Lee once\u00a0introduced a horror collection containing\u00a0Robert E. Howard’s “The Black Stone”? <\/a>I have no idea if he actually chose the tales contained therein (I wouldn’t bet against it), but I’m willing to\u00a0give the man props nonetheless.<\/p>\n

Christopher Lee is a man who has lived\u00a0a life most of us can\u00a0only dream of.\u00a0In 1939, at\u00a0the age of seventeen, he volunteered (and was deployed) to fight on the side of the Finns against the onslaught of the Soviet Union. By the end of World War\u00a0Two, he was serving as an operative for the Special Operations Executive. From there, it was films,\u00a0books, albums and\u00a0marriage to a Danish fashion\u00a0model.<\/p>\n

What strikes this blogger most about Christopher Lee (other than his talent, guts and taste)\u00a0is his open-mindedness and willingness to keep exploring new realms of expression long after most “senior citizens” decide to wallow in nostalgia. Hollywood could use ten more like ‘im.<\/p>\n

Oh yeah, I think he would’ve made the best Solomon Kane ever<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

*My thanks to Lee Mark Dotson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“…the older Christopher Lee gets, the cooler Christopher Lee gets.” — Steve Tompkins, “The Voice of Saruman, Speaking the First Age Into Being” While I’d heard whispers of a new Christopher Lee project on the Official Robert E. Howard Forum,* it was this\u00a0fine\u00a0blog entry by Jeff Sypeck on the Quid Plura? site which motivated me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,44,46,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","category-horror","category-robert-e-howard","category-tolkien"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9985"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10436,"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9985\/revisions\/10436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}