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Christopher Lee: Heavy Metal, Horror, Wizardry; The Occult?

Written by

Mike Tuttle

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When Christopher Lee died recently at the age of 93, the memorials and biographical news segments came pouring.

We learned that Christopher Lee was in the British Special Forces We learned that Lee was not only in a James Bond film, he was related to Ian Fleming by marriage.

While Lee was famous for his later life roles, such as Saruman in the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit series, as well as Count Dooku in the Star Wars prequels, he had a large body of work prior to those. Many did not know that Christopher Lee had an entire career in horror films long before his Saruman days.

Lee starred in a long series of horror films in the 1950s and ’60s for Hammer Film Productions.

These “Hammer Horror” films are cult classics to this day. In the Hammer Horror films Lee played Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula, Sir Henry Baskerville, Rasputin, and many other roles.

Then there was the heavy metal music that Christopher Lee jumped into when he was already in his 80s. Not “in the 80s,” in HIS 80s.

Lee had sung on albums before, particularly opera and musicals. But he got into heavy metal in 2004 on an album by metal band Rhapsody. Lee released his own album in 2006 called Revelation. After that came Charlemagne: By the Sword and the Cross in 2010, and Charlemagne: The Omens of Death in 2013.

Christopher Lee also did two heavy metal Christmas albums, followed by the EP Metal Knight.

Lee said he got a kick out of giving his metal fans some fun with the Christmas albums.

“It’s light-hearted, joyful and fun… At my age, the most important thing for me is to keep active by doing things that I truly enjoy. I do not know how long I am going to be around, so every day is a celebration and I want to share it with my fans.”

He did horror films and heavy metal music, but was Christopher Lee involved in the occult?

There were many long-standing rumors that Christopher Lee was a big proponent of the occult. Some claimed that Lee had a library of over 20,000 books on the occult.

Lee dismissed these rumors as ridiculous.

“Somebody wrote I have 20,000 books. I’d have to live in a bath! I have maybe four or five [occult books].”

In fact, Christopher Lee was very wary of occult involvement, telling students, “I warn all of you: never, never, never. You will not only lose your mind, you’ll lose your soul.”

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