It’s no secret that the who played SARUMAN was a HUGE fan of Middle Earth. Also no secret he was an absolute LEGEND through and through. BEFORE we get started I’d like to throw some respect at this guy. He deserves every honorable mention below. My dude conquered life, his main quest and any side quest he stumbled across/onto:
A few reasons Christopher Lee is B.A.
- He was Dracula
- He was a Bond Villain.
- He was Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes.
- He was Death.
- He was Lucifer.
- He was Count Dooku.
- He was Saruman.
- He was Lord Summerisle.
- He recorded a heavy metal concept album about Charlemagne.
- He hunted Nazis during WWII.
- He was part of a secret agent unit called The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.
- When told by Peter Jackson to imagine how a man being stabbed in the back sounds, he told him he didn’t have to imagine it.
Languages: He’s fluent in English, Italian, French, German, and Spanish; “moderately proficient” in Swedish, Russian, and Greek, and “conversational” in Mandarin Chinese.
Before his death, Lee often spoke of his love for Middle-earth. He was the only actor in the movies who had the fortune of meeting Tolkien. In an interview, he talked about meeting the author at a pub in Oxford in the 1950s. Lee said he saw Tolkien walk in and he “nearly fell off (his) chair.” -Source via REPORTULTRA.com
So we just started and already I’m veering off topic. Better get that sorted REAL QUICK…… BACK TO LOTR:
He also made it a habit to read the trilogy every year. He absolutely was enamored by the master piece TOLKIEN had created….even going so far as to spend his final hours in the metaphorical shires of his memories while filming……
Quick aside: Checkout his HEAVY METAL ALBUMS if you get a chance
—–> The reason you’re here (aka ‘The Scoop’) <—–
Today I found out that Christopher Lee, spent his last evening on regular earth watching The Lord of the Rings. ( this reports comes from ‘Yahoo Movies UK’ who reported via a new documentary from Sky on the actor’s life titled The Life and Deaths of Christopher Lee) and I just happened to be stumbling through the internet and boof’d upon this REPORT ULTRA article, so naturally I did what I do when I read something amazing….. I immediately come on here to talk about it! hahahahaha
In this documentary, apparently (cannot substantiate YET as I haven’t seen it, can only ‘verify’ through second hand sources at this time), Lee’s son-in-law, Juan Aneiros, who is married to Lee’s only daughter, Christina, was featured in the documentary. According to the article he goes on to share that while Lee was in Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, one of the films from the original Lord of the Rings trilogy was being shown on television. Lee suggested they watch because he wanted to tell the nurses who were caring for him how the film was made. I can personally identify with this because I get UBER excited about cinema and love sharing that affinity with others (often to their annoyance).
Going Gentle into that good night?
“That night he said, ‘The Lord of the Rings is on TV so we’ll watch (it) with the nurses. I’ll explain how the movie (was made),’ because he loved that movie,” Aneiros said. He watched The Lord of the Rings with the nurses, and we went home and we were already thinking, okay, he’s coming back. Lee died June 7, 2015, from heart failure. He was 93 years old.
“It actually hit us really hard,” Aneiros said of Lee’s passing. “Because we thought, I actually thought he was eternal. I thought he would go past 100, I really did think so, so it was a shock…but he just passed away, that was it. It was peaceful, he didn’t suffer, he just went to sleep,” -Source via REPORTULTRA.com
The family thought that Lee was on his way to recovery and would be well enough to go home soon. But, that was not the case. As quoted from the doc, “He watched that night The Lord of the Rings with the nurses, and we went home and we were already thinking, okay, he’s coming back. Then that night all of a sudden I was asleep and (then) I saw Christina stressed, and she said, ‘Daddy is gone.’” -Source via REPORTULTRA.com
MY takeaway here:
It’s chilling…. I can’t even imagine going to visit somebody like my grandpa or even an aging mother or father and having a grand old night and leaving with that person in good spirits. Sitting there, driving home and reflecting how everybody is feeling great and how meaningful the evening was and what looked like declining health may have just been a passing shadow so to say, but alas, life is cruel.
Just goes to reminds us that life is short, time is precious, there are no DO-OVERS, and you should share your passions with people…… We never know when alot of our FIRSTS will happen and the same goes with LASTS, so bittersweet things like things often remind us of that in the best happy/sad ways.
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