Both Doris Day and Christopher Lee got type cast, and it hurt both their careers. Day was seen as the Virgin Queen; Lee as the great Hollywood Bad Guy. While they both excelled in these roles, their talents went much deeper. Here are a couple of (perhaps unexpected) examples of their deeper and less remarked on capabilities.
One of Day's greatest films was, Love Me Or Leave Me. She was so, so not the Virgin Queen:
Ten cents a dance. Oof.
And Christopher Lee - cast as Dracula, The Man with the Golden Gun, and Saruman - his basso profundo (and very classically trained voice) never failed to impress. He really was the actual Most Interesting Man In The World:
The world is diminished by their passing, Day this past week and Lee these four years ago. But a short time on Youtube listening to Lee's Heavy Metal or watching Day's finer performances will be a breath of fresh air in this later day of jaded "entertainment" options.
Requiescat in pace.
4 comments:
Day may have been playing herself in The Man Who Knew Too Much, but she did a great job doing it.
I just saw Love Me or leave Me last year and was really surprised.
Christopher Lee was a complete bad ass! Agree with the Most Interesting Man in the World comment. He was also friends with Tolkien and cousin to Ian Flemming.
Remember story I heard about Lee in a movie where a guy gets stabbed in the chest with a sword. The director wanted Lee to make certain noise after getting stabbed but Lee resisted saying people don't make that noise when they get stabbed in the chest. "How do you know" asked the director? Oh I know responded Lee.
Heard a story the other day that Lee and Peter Cushing were once kicked out of a movie theater for "laughing too hard" at a Looney Tunes short.
I'd have paid big money to see two dignified actors like them laugh that hard.
Chris, that's a very cool story.
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