Christopher Lee interview

fascinating people now you turned your height as you said into a great advantage nonetheless early on it was apparently the custom for actors to be obliged to remain on the set is that correct that you were not given the many breaks he put in the book that you spent many hours waiting to be called on or much more leisurely pace in those days I mean I couldn't remember one particular cameraman was dead now so I can mention his name he was a genius in fact he was the cameraman of the third man I think and some of our the other cavalry films Bob Kraske I made films with him I remember him taking well over an hour to light a close-up because they had this battery of different kinds of lights and things so things took much longer they didn't seem to be this immense pressure this terrific hurry all the time with very young men and in some cases very ignorant walking on the set every five minutes of doing this and looking over to and doing this looking over to you probably weren't looking at me but it was wait a minute you know it's well past 11:00 or whatever we've got to get off this set today then when he done one shot that's what happens today so it's a atmosphere of not always restrained panic almost all the time what I'm used to this pressure because I've had to make films in conditions you wouldn't believe particularly in countries like Italy where you're on the set the doors are open the planes are flying past people are talking smoking moving walking about and you still have to deliver and this happened in a sense when I went to live in America in 1976 I walked onto the set at Universal to do this film Airport 77 which I've been a nearly drowned and nobody said anything really they just said Oh morning you know first did the same go through the day and at the end of it all the crew are coming out to me and saying great to meet you we've all seen your movies over the years and so on so forth the implication being okay we know who you are but you show us here that was your judgment point oh yes only and another thing that's very important in America is that if you say you could do something I don't know driving a chariot or working under water or whatever it may be well whatever and if you say you can do it they will give you the opportunity but you better deliver you you though had another passion in those early days or another craft that you learned because you've got have a wonderful voice you were passionate about opera and you spent many hours wiling away the time learning about opera Denis oh yes I mean the first topper I've ever saw in my life was in 1944 in Naples to start to the fall of the city and it was the famous Barber of Seville which is the first topper I would take anybody to anyway because it's such fun and it's easy to associate with and I saw that with some very great singers and that really started my love of opera so that's 53 years ago then I found out about my great camp and then I discovered by chance in Sweden and that I actually had a singing voice well I was singing away student songs you know in private in a house in which everybody did in Sweden not no no with a lot of other people and a man came up and took me by the sleeve and I turned around and I was absolutely flabbergasted as I knew he was and he said you got a voice he had the strong Swedish accent so he said you've got the voice you know the greatest tenor of his time you see building and he said to come to the Opera tomorrow morning at 11 o'clock and sing and I said but Mr bearding I'm not a singer I'm not a trained singer no but you have the voice I want to hear it other people want to hear it just make the songs so I did and they said well you know if you want to we can take you in train you you become a member of the company ladder no I didn't say now I had to say no because they did say of course you've got to keep yourself I didn't have the money it's as simple as that it's the one great regret of my life on the other hand I don't think I would be singing as an opera seventy-five and whereas you can act until anymore now Frankenstein I know you consider to have been not so much a landmark in your career but perhaps one that held you back or gave you that reputation for being just a villain that was the first horror movie I was ever in word I had to test and so do all of us who've made that kind of film what well I'm quoting Boris Karloff now and I'm quoting non-chinese senior it's a kind of degenerate derogatory words and it suggests something obscene and foul and and revolting and so on some of these films are there question about that it's well mannered to know lists but you have to make the unbelievable believable done sure you're not dealing with reality there and we made in some cases classic films but to me there were really fairy stories they were fantasies terrorism without risk if you like slightly enchant Oh appears in front of you and says look nothing up the sleeve nothing up that sleeve come with me into the magic world and of make-believe or whatever you like that's what we do you actually say that for you it's almost became the curse of Dracula yes that's true it did for time it wasn't the way I thought I'd make my name I don't know how I thought I would but it certainly wasn't what I expected however I realized the enormous importance of this and that's why I took it because nobody's events very much interest in me appearing as myself and I thought well if I make myself unrecognizable completely and it works maybe if people were saying wonder what he really looks like and then see what happens so of course in the curse of Frankenstein which was the beginning of an era for the British cinema and certainly hammer was the most successful independent British production company in history it was the beginning of what I call my graveyard period and I went from that to playing Dracula and somewhere I did look Mallis the way I did look and it started a whole new career like liftoff from the launching pad for me there's always a danger in this sort of situation the penalty of success that the other side of the coin that you become so associated with what's made you known people think that's all you do and it is true to say that between 1957 and about 1969 or 70 I was typecast but I haven't been typecast for the last 27 years and the proof is on the screen I spent all these years doing things in front of a camera which people didn't expect doing things which surprised them doing things that were perhaps unconventional in relations the characters playing but above all I have proved people wrong the producers the directors the executives the casting directors who say of course he only does one kind of picture you know and it just kills people and so on so forth I have proved them wrong again and again and again and they don't like it at all and I know that gives you a great deal of satisfaction when you're talking about more of those incidents in a moment we're pausing for a quick break on VIP but stay stay with me because Christopher Lee will be here after the break [Music] welcome back to VIP I'm here with actor Christopher Lee whose memoirs tall dark and gruesome have just been published now Christopher one of the things of course that I have garnered from the book is that when it came to making the second Dracula film we weren't altogether pleased with the script in fact you said you only hissed and spat in it pretty well yes because I read the script and I did say to someone I forget who I really cannot say these lines I didn't visit well I didn't visualize myself suddenly materializing in front of the camera and saying I am the apocalypse and not to tell anybody would even understand what it meant I don't think that one of the four horsemen perhaps but I said I can't say these lines I can't say these lines but then you see I used to say this all the time to have a and it's an of fact I've said it many times and it's the truth I used to say that why don't you use Bram Stoker's Minds his words because you don't you write these stories and then you think oh how am I gonna fit the character in and as I made quite clear in that book I turned down the last five I said I don't want to do them you know the stories has come completely berserk there's nothing connected with Stoker at all and they said we've got to do it across the terrace and I said no I don't have to do it I don't have to do it this went on and on and on eventually Jimmy Carreras who was the head of Hammer rang me up in the terrible state said I must world together all this stress and tension and trauma and worry and I said I know what you're talking about Jim but I don't want to do this picture you've got to you've got to you've got to it's happened five times and I said why he said because I've already sold it to America with you in the lead and think of the people who put out of work if you don't do it nonetheless one of the positive things that did happen because of the Hammer movies was your relationship with Peter Cushing friendship I should say I miss him I miss him terribly now I always will we've got a picture of him here that was another thing that yes I think that sums up how we feel about each other and that picture was taken after the death of his wife so he didn't have very much - yes he didn't have very much to smile about he was a wonderfully saintly person yeah what was it about working with him do you think that sort of made that so special one of those very fortunate coincidence is that it just happened the chemistry the mmm it was just there from the very beginning and the humor because I used to make him laugh a lot and he used to make me laugh a lot right to the end of his life I would ring him up and say certain things which I can't say now to anybody else usually as Sylvester the cat or your semi to Sam or something like that and I only had to make a sound even on the telephone he meets you at work immediately and what I was going to say well we had a relationship which lasted from 1957 to 1994 so it's 37 years and as I said I miss him greatly because there isn't anybody left with whom I can share that particular kind of idiotic humor if you like but we loved it and I loved him there was no question everybody did Kristopher another great villain you played with Scaramanga in man with the Golden Gun James Bond epic of course yes I was very glad to appear in that film for a variety of reasons one is that a Bond film is unique and no expense is spared except perhaps the salaries of the other actors and including me unlike the director films oh yes what weird fortunes of course there's enormous sums of money seven hundred pounds I think I got four playing at the first time there's a great picture I just want to share this is wonderful there you are holding the Golden Gun looking very threatening and menacing indeed I haven't got it I haven't got the gun that is the gun that pictures don't haven't got it there was three made I don't really know I suppose the company kept one somebody else told me that one of the was stolen one could be put together it was a great gadget wasn't accepted oh yes it was very difficult to do actually without sort of looking you know fiddling on the table and putting things together another one was solid like perhaps that one and then another one actually was able to produce a flash from a cap inside when I fired was it was the process though of making those films because of all the gadgets and everything was it very different from what you'd experience with a minimal amount of paraphernalia yes in in the days of the Hammer films which my point of view lasted I would say basically approximately 15 years look I did do one form in 1975 special effects were somewhat in their infancy and I think the successes of those films depended on everybody in tark crew and entire cast the technical expertise from behind the camera and around it and the performances of the actors and actresses involved the special effects were there the makeups were there but they didn't overpower the actors they do today but you flirted nonetheless with Hollywood because obviously that's where most actors need to go to make their name well I didn't have to go there to make my name already done it I'd already done it I went there for one very good reason and there was a definite danger that if I stayed here I would become typecast they offer the same kind of part not necessarily the same one but in the same kind of movie always doing away with people or whatever terrorizing people and so on and so forth that would have happened if I'd stayed here every major executive I knew in America every producer every actor the last one being Richard Widmark finally convinced me that I should not stay here but I should go to America to live the reason was simple greater opportunities to me as an actor far more production for far more diversification in terms of the type of film made and the type of part available to me and I spent 10 years there and I proved my point and there was nothing left to prove but what was perhaps in your mind your greatest sort of achievement and your greatest role or perhaps the one you enjoyed the most the greatest role I think I've ever had until recently very recently I've always said was not summer on in the Wicker Man and probably the best film I've ever been in in my opinion because it was written for me and that doesn't happen very often that was 25 years ago but recently last March April May this year I have hid in a picture in Pakistan in which I played the founder of the nation Muhammad Ali Jinnah Jinnah in a film called Jinnah and that was the greatest responsibility I have ever had as an actor I went to the country that he created and I was in front of thousands and thousands of people and thousands of people watching every gesture every and listening to every word with obviously a better informed than I was in some respects and Here I am playing the founder of their nation in their country in front of them and the responsibility was absolutely gigantic we've got a clip so let's take a look you for forgiveness or any part I've had and what does it happen to him no no said III bless you with all my heart Pakistan zindabad Pakistan Pakistan very emotional scene scene crying that the most emotional scene I've ever played in 50 years as an actor in all the films I've been in all the work I've done because that was not acted he goes to visits this refugee column and which is based of course entirely on historical fact the Muslims of India leaving India to go to Pakistan he's already seen the mother of this little girl killed but of course he doesn't know it's her mother and he goes down to talk to the people and he talks to the little girl and says Pakistan was made for you you will be happy there was that effect and there's a brave girl and somebody still doesn't quite know that her mother has been killed and the one he saw being killed but then the father says well she lost her mother and he suddenly realizes what has happened a father who saw there a very fine Pakistani actor he was so moving and the little girl who of course is not a professional naturally and the people all ran there was so involved but when he said but it is not your fault we we were behind you well you saw what he said and eventually ends up saying Pakistan zindabad long live Pakistan and then Qaeda Azam which is the leader in the nation the father of the nation zindabad and it got to me it really got to me that when he was doing this I was so overcome that that was not acting I was really crying and every time we played that scene I really did cry and I felt the historical responsibility presumably as an actor of carrying that moment tremendous but then I spent my whole career living by challenge and it's not a bad thing you know well I think in the book there are many great anecdotal stories many challenges and at the end you say what do I do for an encore mm what do you think you will do for an encore I don't know really just go on and still try to do things I haven't done before if I can find them still try and convince people sometimes that I'm not maybe six weeks too old for a part I want ambition fulfilled I know is that you've released your own CDs it's true I have something racist yes well not entirely but I have sung in films and in fact I sang a song written for me by the Rocky Horror people it's a brilliant song all about drinks called name your poison and I did the king and I which is coming out with soon and so on and a plenty more on cause yes because you see in this record I did something which I don't think anybody's done in history in musical history or recorded history I was 74 years old and a lot of trained singer I can't read music and I sang these 15 songs in five days in Los Angeles last year and they go from Gilbert and Sullivan and Sweeney Todd some time and two Cowboys western songs some of the ways to make seem like they're you know where kind of thing and then it goes into French opera German Italian and Russian it's quite a mixture it's a curiosity certainly but at least I got the chance to show that I could do it and well I guess it's never too late many times in your life thank you very much indeed for joining us today on VIP thank you we're out of time sadly on VIP but my great thanks to my special guest tonight Christopher Lee join me again next time for more chat with celebrities and newsmakers who around the world [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: TheTVisions

Views: 217,880

Rating: 4.9540558 out of 5

Keywords: christopher lee, hammer films, horror, dracula, peter cushing, frankenstein

Id: VQ-rx7-FOME

Length: 20min 20sec (1220 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 06 2017