Sid James

After one experience during a gig there, the comedian Les Dawson refused to play the venue again. Lee's great grandparents formed Australia's first opera company, performing before miners in towns in the outback. Later it was rumoured that a ghost of Sid was in the dressing room he occupied on the night of his death. Lee will reprise his Star Wars role as Count Dooku in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. He suffered a heart attack on the opening night of The Mating Season at the Sunderland Empire and died on the way to hospital at the age of 62. Lee was a natural choice for the Lord of the Rings movies, where he plays the role of Saruman, as he makes it a habit of reading the novel at least once a year. He later enjoyed success at the head of casts of TV situation comedies, notably George and the Dragon, Taxi and Bless This House. Also, he narrated the Dark Secret EP by Italian power metal band, Rhapsody.

films all together. Lee appeared on the cover of the Wings album Band on the Run along with other people, including Clement Freud. James ultimately made 19 Carry On.. Lee would eventually play another Bond villain, Francisco Scaramanga, in The Man with the Golden Gun. star, but he had been dropped after just one film due to a complex contractual embarrassment (he was contracted to the ABC film studio who had never used him). Julius No. It was intended that Ray would become a recurring Carry On.. Author Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, is his cousin and wanted Lee to play the first James Bond film villain, Dr.

When Hancock had Sid dropped from the show, Sid returned to films to become a leading member of the 'Carry On' team, originally to replace Ted Ray who had appeared in Carry On Teacher in 1959. This calculation uses a modification of the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game. The show was one of the most popular comedy series in Britain on both television and radio. As an indication to his profligacy and longevity, Lee has, according to the Oracle of Bacon at Virginia (http://www.cs.virginia.edu/oracle/), an average Bacon number of 2.684104 (as of December 2003), making him second on the list of most suitable centres of the Hollywood universe. In the final series, the show was renamed simply Hancock and Sid was not included in the cast. He appeared as Flay in the BBC television miniseries Gormenghast, based on Mervyn Peake's novels. James was soon getting as many laughs as his partner. Lee has played roles in over 220 films since 1948, and has had many notable television roles.

When this was turned into a television series his part was greatly increased to the extent that some viewers considered it to be a double act. From then on, Lee was periodically featured in numerous horror roles for various studios. In 1954 he began working with Tony Hancock in BBC radio's Hancock's Half Hour playing a character with his own name, who was a criminal who would usually manage to con Tony. That led to his first Dracula film, Horror of Dracula, in 1958. In 1956, he co-starred in the science-fiction film Quatermass 2. His first film for Hammer, made in 1957 with Peter Cushing, was Curse of Frankenstein, in which he played, "The Creature". In the same year he also appeared in Lady Godiva Rides Again and The Galloping Major. Throughout the next decade, Lee made nearly 30 films, playing mostly stock action characters.

His first major comedy was The Lavender Hill Mob: with Alfie Bass he made up the bullion robbery gang headed by Alec Guinness and Stanley Holloway. He made his film debut in Terrence Long's Gothic Romance, Corridor of Mirrors, in 1948. Initially he worked in repertory before being spotted by the nascent British post-war film industry, making his first appearance in 1947 in the film Night Beat. He was educated at Wellington College, he volunteered to fight for the Finnish forces during the Winter War against the Soviet Union in 1939, then served in the Royal Air Force and intelligence during World War II. He came to Britain in 1946 on the back of his service gratuity. Lee is now over 80 years old, and still appearing in films such as The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, and Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. During World War II, he was enlisted in an entertainment unit, and subsequently took up acting as a career. He is viewed by many as the quintessential film villain. Other notable films include The Wicker Man and The Man with the Golden Gun.

Sid James (Sidney Joel Cohen) was born in Natal in South Africa. Lee became famous for his role as Count Dracula in a string of Hammer Horror films. Sid James (May 8, 1913 - April 26, 1976) was a film and television actor. He should not be confused with Christopher Lee, historian. Christopher Frank Carandini Lee (born May 27, 1922 in London) is a prolific British actor known for his versatility and film longevity.