How Many Times Christopher Lee Played Count Dracula (& Why He Stopped)

How Many Times Christopher Lee Played Count Dracula (& Why He Stopped)

Christopher Lee is a horror icon as Count Dracula, and here’s every time he played the part in the Hammer movies and why he decided to stop.

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How Many Times Christopher Lee Played Count Dracula (& Why He Stopped)

Here’s how many times the great Christopher Lee played Count Dracula in movies. While Christopher Lee played many heroic characters through his decades-long career, including Horror Express or The Devil Rides Out, he’s most famous for his many villain roles. These include Lord Summerisle from The Wicker Man – which was one of Lee’s own favorite performances – Count Dooku in the Star Wars prequels or Saruman in The Lord Of The Rings films.

Lee has any number of classic bad guy roles to his name, but Count Dracula is easily the most legendary. While there have been many famous interpretations of Irish author Bram Stoker’s vampire from Bela Lugosi to Gary Oldman, Lee’s is arguably the most popular. He’s also, to date, the actor who has played the role the most onscreen. He made his debut in 1958’s Dracula for Hammer, which offered a greatly condensed take on the original novel, but from Lee’s imposing presence – including red contact lenses and blood dripping fans – to his surprising sexual magnetism in the role, his take terrified viewers.

While co-star Peter Cushing would soon return as Van Helsing to battle more bloodsuckers in 1960’s The Brides Of Dracula, Lee himself wouldn’t return to the role until 1966’s Dracula: Prince Of Darkness. While Hammer convinced Lee to return for Prince Of Darkness, he famously disliked the dialogue written for the Count that he doesn’t speak at all in this sequel. Lee would then have a streak of Hammer Dracula sequels, returning for 1968’s Dracula Has Risen from the Grave, Taste the Blood of Dracula (1969), Scars of Dracula (1970), Dracula A.D. 1972, and The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973).

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Christopher Lee played Dracula in seven Hammer films in total, but he was always unhappy with how those films treated the role. He later got to play a much more faithful take in 1970’s Count Dracula, but despite remaining closer to Stoker’s story, it received lukewarm reviews. In the same year, Lee cameoed as Dracula in Jerry Lewis’ comedy One More Time and played the title role one final time in the 1976 French comedy Dracula and Son. Counting his appearances inside and out of the Hammer series, Lee played Dracula a total of ten times.

Sadly, Christopher Lee had something of a fraught connection to both the character and the Hammer series. He feared being typecast in the role – which he was to a certain extent – and tried to turn down the Hammer movies following the Prince Of Darkness experience. He was somewhat blackmailed into each successive sequel, with the heads of Hammer telling him the movies had been pre-sold on his name, and wouldn’t happen without him. If he turned them down, he’d be putting film crews out of work, they would claim. This is why he kept returning as Count Dracula despite disliking many of the later films. He opted out of Hammer’s final Dracula movie The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires, and no doubt for career reasons never reprised the part after Dracula and Son.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/dracula-christopher-lee-every-movie-appearance-stopped-reason/

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