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Was Christopher Lee's Life More Interesting Than Michael Caine's?

Was Christopher Lee's Life More Interesting Than Michael Caine's?

He was a serious bad ass.

Mel Ramsay

Mel Ramsay

Featured image credit: Getty

A few days ago I wrote a very, very long article about Sir Michael Caine's life and made a bold claim - that he is the most interesting man who has ever lived.

From killing people in the Korean War to the fact that he had a secret brother, he certainly is up there.

However, I read some of the comments on Facebook and saw that a large percentage of you were like: 'Yeah okay. He's interesting. But nowhere near as interesting as Christopher Lee'.

For example:



Well, believe it or not, here at theLADbible we actually do listen to you. No, really. So here's a follow up on the legend that was Sir Christopher Lee.

First of all, I need to say that Sir Christopher is the first major celebrity I've heard of who fucking LOVED heavy metal. And I'm made up. As a metal fan myself, that makes me happier than a pig in shit.

Anyway, we'll get to that later. Let's delve into the crazy life of Sir Christopher. The most impressive thing is that he was an SAS veteran and a Nazi hunter.

Now, the details around this are pretty vague. In fact, the Daily Mail has even gone as far to say that Sir Christopher made a lot of it up. I'm not here to speak ill of the dead so I'm going to report on his life as he would have.

Before he turned 23, he said that he had 'already seen enough horror to last me a lifetime.'

When war broke he joined the RAF and won six campaign medals. He was mentioned in despatches and he was then decorated by Poland, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia.

He was then part of a group called the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) who were a precursor to the SAS. Apparently, he went behind enemy lines and destroyed Luftwaffe aircraft and fields before being seconded to the army and serving with a Gurkha movement.

In an interview with the Telegraph, he said: "I was attached to the SAS from time to time but we are forbidden - former, present, or future - to discuss any specific operations.

"Let's just say I was in Special Forces and leave it at that. People can read in to that what they like."

It was then that he became a 'Nazi hunter'. He was assigned to the Special Operations Executive and conducted reconnaissance in occupied Europe.

He visited several concentration camps after they were abandoned. In 2009, he revealed that some had been cleaned up, while others had not. I don't even want to begin to imagine what kind of things he saw.

During the war, he nearly died twice, but sadly we don't have much more information than that.

Sir Christopher was fluent in Italian, French, Spanish, and German, and was moderately proficient in Swedish, Russian, and Greek, which we can safety assume helped when he was taking part in his super-secret missions.

When he turned 25, he decided to try his hand at acting. Yes, unbelievably all of his James Bond-esque exploits had taken place before he was 25.

He began getting roles in horror films, such as The Curse of Frankenstein, Corridors of Blood and eventually Dracula. This role led to many more Dracula movies. He began feeling a little typecast as a Dracula actor, so moved into roles in the Wicker Man and even James Bond.

There's a very famous story about when Sir Christopher was filming Lord of the Rings. Peter Jackson (the director) was helping with a scene where Wormtongue (Brad Dourif) stabs Saruman (Sir Christopher) in the back. Jackson began going into a long explanation about how he wanted him to react when he was stabbed. Sir Christopher then responded by saying: "Have you any idea what kind of noise happens when somebody's stabbed in the back? Because I do."

Bad. Ass.

Speaking of Lord of the Rings, Sir Christopher was an absolutely massive fan. He read all of the Lord of the Rings books and The Hobbit at least once a year for the majority of his life. He actually received Tolkien's blessing to play Gandalf in any future movies when he ran into him randomly in a pub. He was the only member of the cast to actually meet the Tolkien.

Sadly, as we all know, Sir Christopher never actually got to play Gandalf. According to Gizmodo, he was so keen to star in the movies that when he heard they were being made, he took a role as a wizard in 1997 TV series The New Adventures of Robin Hood just so he could show that he'd had experience in that kind of role. The thing is, he'd played baddies for so long that he naturally was the better fit for Saruman.

He got the blessing of the King of Sweden to marry his fiancee. In the 1950s, Sir Christopher was engaged to Henriette von Rosen - she just so happened to be the daughter of Count Fritz von Rosen. He wasn't particularly pleased with the match, so told Lee that he needed permission from the King of Sweden. And he did.

If all of this wasn't impressive enough, he was also an opera singer and a world champion fencer. Oh, and he won a Guinness World Record for having more on-screen sword fights than any actor ever before.

But on to the heavy metal. Sir Christopher was a massive fan of metal and when he was 91 he became the oldest artist to make the charts after releasing a Christmas single called Jingle Hell.


Credit: Getty

Well. Fuck me. I can't decide who had a more interesting life. Sir Michael Caine or Sir Christopher Lee. So, as a compromise, I'll say that Sir Michael Caine is the most interesting man alive.

RIP Sir Christopher Lee, what a legend.

Words by Mel Ramsay

Featured Image Credit:

Topics: Interesting life