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Calvin wrote:Sir Christopher Lee

93 but still a real shock as he seemed to be going strong. A huge and very sad loss.

Absolutely - and what a career largely bookended by his signature roles of Dracula and Saruman. I think Cushing was probably the better actor overall, but Lee had astonishing presence - which I can testify was not limited to just on the screen. Too many great roles to single out more than a couple - his Jekyll / Hyde in I, Monster is in a different league to the film around him, and his role as Jinnah should really have been a serious award contender.

Sad to see him go but he led a full life and left behind a wealth of film roles that will carry on his memory

I think just as important as his Dracula, even if that is the role he played multiple times, is the way that he and Cushing redefined a whole number of archetypal duelling horror roles in the early Hammer films, particularly his monstrous roles in The Mummy and the creature against Cushing's Baron in The Curse of Frankenstein. While Dracula was also almost a wordless part, it is just perhaps a more seductive version of Lee's other roles of monsters suddenly bursting in on our heroes, smashing into the scene to wreak havoc! Presumably they wanted someone of Lee's size to tower over everyone! And his title role in Rasputin: The Mad Monk is particularly underrated I think, while his more disturbingly urbane roles in the Dennis Wheatley adaptations The Devil Rides Out and To The Devil A Daughter are more in the Wicker Man vein. (I'm also a fan of the early 60s Hammer take on the Diabolique thriller Taste of Fear, in which he plays a shifty doctor!).

It does seem strange to read the Guardian obituary that makes it seem as if it was just the Dracula Hammer films, then The Wicker Man defining his horror reputation. While Hammer might not have used Lee's Dracula character very well (especially in those pretty ropey modern day, 70s-set films Dracula A.D. 1972 and The Satanic Rites of Dracula in which he's used more as a totem than anything else. Faced with those roles it is no wonder Lee said no more!), there was a whole run of fantastic horror roles that he had for other production companies in the 1970s of which The Wicker Man was just one: Horror Express, The Creeping Flesh, Death Line and Nothing But The Night.

And this is just scratching the surface without getting into the European films with the likes of Jess Franco and Mario Bava, his string of Fu Manchu films, Rochefort in the two 1970s Richard Lester directed Three Musketeers films, Holmes in Billy Wilder's The Private Lives of Sherlock Holmes, making a great villainous pairing with Bette Davis in the Disney Return From Witch Mountain film (which I think was probably the first film I saw him in as a kid!), and his fantastic mad doctor in Gremlins 2: The New Batch!

(Plus his scene parodying the dinosaurs in the kitchen section of Jurassic Park in the otherwise ordinary boarding school set A Feast At Midnight. His prowling teacher is even named Raptor!)

Aw, fuck.

colinr0380 wrote:and his fantastic mad doctor in Gremlins 2: The New Batch!

I love the story about how shocked Lee was by his treatment on the set, where Dante's crew of film lovers treated him with awed reverence and respect that he'd apparently never experienced and it really opened his eyes to the positive effect he'd had

colin wrote:While Hammer might not have used Dracula very well (especially in those pretty ropey modern day, 70s-set films Dracula A.D. 1972 and The Satanic Rites of Dracula in which he's used more as a totem than anything else. Faced with those roles it is no wonder Lee said no more!), there was a whole run of fantastic horror roles for other production companies in the 1970s of which The Wicker Man was just one: Horror Express, The Creeping Flesh, Death Line and Nothing But The Night.

It was odd that Hammer chose to rely mostly on his physical presence in those Dracula films (ala his Frankenstein and Mummy turns) given his commanding voice! Few were more suited for intoning dire speeches.

One of his more undersung Hammer roles was in The Devil Rides Out, itself an underrated Hammer. He saves the film from its goofier elements by lending it a sense of urgency and moral seriousness.

Mr Sausage wrote:One of his more undersung Hammer roles was in The Devil Rides Out, itself an underrated Hammer. He saves the film from its goofier elements by lending it a sense of urgency and moral seriousness.

Agreed - and I know this was one of his favourites. When I saw him at the Barbican in about 2000 he was supposed to be starting filming a long planned remake directed by Joe Dante. Lee felt he was now he right age and, with the advances in special effects, for the climactic battle to be suitably impressive.

Let's not forget some fine TV work as well - the flawed but intriguing adaptation of Gormenghast, gloriously severe in the 90s Ivanhoe and, of course, Death in various Terry Pratchett Discworld series.

His autobiography by the way is enormous fun - but he certainly doesn't suffer from false modesty!

Ornette Coleman. Ouch. That one really stings.

Aw man. He actually appeared at his tribute show in Prospect Park last summer - no one was sure if he would even appear due to his health, but not only did he show up, he performed as well, and Sonny Rollins was even there to introduce him. Rollins didn't play though, but it was still a tremendous moment, I think everyone knew that it was possibly a last chance to see these two towering figures of jazz on the same stage together. Very few of them left now.

Ornette was one of my jazz hero's. I saw him a few times in the 90s but less so in the 2000s.

antnield wrote:Ron Moody.

he was fantastic in mel brooks' the 12 chairs

Ron Moody is also another British horror film actor gone today: he features in Freddie Francis's Legend of the Werewolf as the zookeeper who adopts and raises the wolfboy in the early section of the film.

copen wrote:

antnield wrote:Ron Moody.

he was fantastic in mel brooks' the 12 chairs

And Mouse on the Moon. Damn unfortunate to lose out on two of Britain's best today.

My only exposure to Ornette Coleman prior to today had been his great work on the Naked Lunch score. Today a friend posted a link to Skies Of America on Facebook & I am loving it.

Dusty Rhodes

PfR73 wrote:My only exposure to Ornette Coleman prior to today had been his great work on the Naked Lunch score. Today a friend posted a link to Skies Of America on Facebook & I am loving it.

Apart from his groundbreaking early work, Science Fiction is essential.

mfunk9786 wrote:Dusty Rhodes

Official WWE obit. He was an announcer when I was growing up watching wrestling, but having watched his sons do very well for themselves (something not often possible for 2nd generation guys when their parent was that big) it speaks to his talent and the measure of who he was as a man.

Drucker wrote:

PfR73 wrote:My only exposure to Ornette Coleman prior to today had been his great work on the Naked Lunch score. Today a friend posted a link to Skies Of America on Facebook & I am loving it.

Apart from his groundbreaking early work, Science Fiction is essential.

I Wikipedia'd Skies Of America & was intrigued by that album title when I saw it as the previous album in his oeuvre. I'll check it out!

flyonthewall2983 wrote:

mfunk9786 wrote:Dusty Rhodes

Official WWE obit. He was an announcer when I was growing up watching wrestling, but having watched his sons do very well for themselves (something not often possible for 2nd generation guys when their parent was that big) it speaks to his talent and the measure of who he was as a man.

I'm incredibly saddened to hear this today. I grew up watching Dusty Rhodes wrestle in the mid 80's and then be a commentator for WCW on TBS Saturday Night or like he called it, "The Mothership". It was incredible to see him succeed after not having the body of a Hulk Hogan or even Ric Flair. He really left an incredible legacy on the business.

The Grim Reaper really went at it today with all these deaths.

Drucker wrote:

PfR73 wrote:My only exposure to Ornette Coleman prior to today had been his great work on the Naked Lunch score. Today a friend posted a link to Skies Of America on Facebook & I am loving it.

Apart from his groundbreaking early work, Science Fiction is essential.

SONG X, his 1985 collaboration with Pat Metheny, is one of the high points of avant-garde jazz, as is DANCING IN YOUR HEAD.
In ORNETTE: MADE IN AMERICA, you see him conducting a performance of SKIES OF AMERICA, but the arrangements sound different. I
wonder if a live recording of that will ever become available.

Drucker wrote:Ornette Coleman. Ouch. That one really stings.

Really sad to see him go. What a visionary.

Vincent Mussetto

headline writer and entertainment editor and sometime film reviewer for the New York Post.
famous for the headline "Headless Body in Topless Bar"

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