Last week Christopher Lee passed away at 93. It was sad, but his was a life well lived--both on and off the screen.
Rule 5 and FMJRA
Christopher Lee and his wife Birgit Krøncke, they were married since 1961
Mark Steyn did a great post about Lee and had this promotional still from his Dracula movie
Christopher Lee and Maude Adams
They say he hated doing the Drac flicks, but, cl;early, there were compensations.
ReplyDeleteFound out something weird, but interesting - Christopher Lee was considered for the role of Dr No, partly on the strength of - get this - he was a cousin of Ian Fleming
ReplyDeleteWhich may partly explain how he did so much spec ops in WWII; the Brits' Old Boy Network, which often failed them in WWII, was heavily influenced by family connections.
Christopher Lee was involved in special operations for several reasons but none of them pertained to family connections; he initially joined the RAF to move away from his fathers line of work and joined their intelligence wing because of an optical issue which disqualified him from flying. It was the expertise he learnt here and his fluency in French, German, Italian and Spanish with proficiency in Swedish, Greek and Russian, combined with his vital role when paired with the Gurkhas that made him involved in special operations. Furthermore, the failure of the Old Boy Network is more of an issue in WWI when command was assumed by those who had family connections but little or no military experience, which was vastly different by WWII as the value of meritocracy within the military ranks had been established as a priority over social standing. Despite this many of the junior officer in the British Army during WWII were upper middle class or upper class which may have had an impact on the quality of command - however this is not emphasised by any prominent military historians or war studies professors I can recall.
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