Christopher Lee
Born: 27 May 1922
Where: London, England
The veteran actor was originally infamous for portraying Dracula before winning a new audience as Saruman in Lord of the Rings and Count Dooku in Star Wars.
The son of a career soldier, Lee took a scholarship at Eton and Wellington colleges where he was a classical scholar in Greek and Latin.
After leaving school, he worked as an office boy and messenger (for one pound a week) before serving with the RAF during World War II.
When he was demobilised in 1946, he joined the Rank Organisation in, training as an actor in their "Charm School" and playing a number of bit parts in such films as Corridor of Mirrors.
However, he was viewed as too tall and foreign looking (although he made a brief appearance in Laurence Olivier's Hamlet alongside his future partner-in-horror Peter Cushing).
Lee landed his big break in 1957 when his portrayal of the monster in The Curse of Frankenstein led to him being signed up for future roles by Hammer Films.
Re-teaming with Cushing - who became a good friend - the two of them more often than not played contrasting roles, where Cushing was the protagonist and Lee the villain.
This arrangement was most striking as Van Helsing and Dracula respectively in 1958's Dracula or John Banning and Kharis the Mummy in The Mummy the following year.
He went on to play classic debonair bloodsucker Count Dracula in a number of sequels up until the early 1970s, when he finally retired from Hammer Productions.
Subsequent mainstream appearances included The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes and the menacing Comte de Rochefort in The Three Musketeers and its 1973 sequel.
In 1974, he joined the rarefied club of Bond villains where he played Scaramanga - the baddie with the third nipple - in The Man With The Golden Gun.
His success prompted a move to Hollywood where he didn't fare so well and returned to Britain and roles in the likes of Gremlins 2: The New Batch and Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow.
After nearly 300 TV and film appearances, The Guinness Book of World Records listed him as the international star with the most credits to his name.
He is also recognised as holding the world record for more sword fights on camera than any other actor and is the only actor to have played both Sherlock Holmes and his brother Mycroft.
In 2001, the 79-year-old actor undertook the role of Saruman the White in director Peter Jackson's all-conquering Lord of the Rings trilogy.
A year later he was cast by George Lucas as duplicitous Sith leader Count Dooku in the Star Wars prequels Attack of the Clones and Reveng of the Sith.
He has been married to Danish model and painter Gitte Kroencke for almost fifty years and they have one daughter, Christina.
Recent work has included the role of Willy Wonka's father in Tim Burton's adaptation of Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
