Sad news today as legendary actor Christopher Lee has died. Lee was admitted to the hospital during the weekend because of respiratory problems and heart failure and passed away on Sunday, June 7th. The reason for the delay is because his wife of 54 years, former Danish model Birgit Krøncke Lee, wanted to inform family first before making a public announcement.
Lee’s acting resume is of course impressive, covering over 275 titles. On the big screen, he was known for many roles. Some of his earliest were part of the Hammer Horror film series, performing as Dracula in 7 of those films. He also played the villain Francisco Scaramanga in The Man with the Golden Gun, a movie from his step-cousin Ian Fleming’s James Bond franchise. And more recently, he had been part of the Lord of the Rings franchise, performing as Saruman the White in all six Peter Jackson movies.
But as we gamers know, it wasn’t just his movie performances that he was known for. Lee had lent his voice for a number of video games, starting in 1994 with Ghosts. For original games, Lee voiced characters in EverQuest II, Freelancer (which is getting a spiritual successor in Star Citizen), and Conquest: Frontier Wars. He also reprised his roles of Scaramanga and Saruman in video games for their respective franchises. And in addition to those roles, he is also known as the original English voice of Ansem the Wise from the Kingdom Hearts franchise, voicing the character in Kingdom Hearts II and Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days.
Our thanks go out to the family of Christopher Lee for sharing him with the world, whether as the Prince of Darkness, the man with one of the greatest guns, a powerful wizard, a wise sage and ruler, or any number of the many roles he has played.
