Christopher Lee names the most important moment of his career: “My life changed”
There’s only so long any actor can keep doing the same thing over and over until stagnancy and boredom begin to set in, which placed Christopher Lee in the middle of what stood every chance of being a career-defining crossroads.
By the end of the 1970s, he was already one of the most recognisable faces in British cinema, notably for antagonising Roger Moore’s James Bond as the villainous Scaramanga in The Man with the Golden Gun and his lengthy tenure as the face of Hammer’s prolific horror output.
Playing a bad guy in a 007 blockbuster and going down in the history books as one of the most iconic Draculas in all of cinema wasn’t something Lee was ashamed of, but he was nonetheless becoming increasingly wary of being pigeonholed as an ominous and foreboding type who’d never be allowed to broaden their horizons.
He did venture out to Europe towards the end of the decade, but even at that, he was playing largely to type in fluff like German thriller Albino and French horror comedy Dracula and Son. It was time for a change, which saw Lee up sticks and relocate to America to try his hand at Hollywood for the first time in his career.
His first Stateside venture came under incredibly star-studded circumstances in the disaster sequel Airport ’77, which saw Lee sharing an ensemble with Jack Lemmon, James Stewart, Olivia de Havilland, and George Kennedy. It was a massive hit at the box office, but an unexpected television gig changed everything.
Reflecting on his journey across the pond with Total Film, Lee confessed that he “became totally disillusioned with the British film industry.” The year after his first Hollywood film had been released, he was drafted in to serve as a guest host on an episodic comedy sensation, which proved to be transformative.
“I hosted Saturday Night Live, which was without a doubt the most hilarious experience I’ve ever had,” he said. “Because I was working with [John] Belushi, [Bill] Murray, and [Dan] Aykroyd at the height of their powers.” Beyond that, though, it got him noticed by one of the biggest directors in the business.
“SNL was also the most important thing I’ve ever done in my career because people like Steven Spielberg were in the audience thinking, ‘Hang on, this man can be funny,'” Lee continued. “As a result, Spielberg asked me to do 1941.”
It didn’t quite go according to plan when the wartime romp turned out to be the first notable disappointment of Spielberg’s career, but Lee couldn’t have cared less. Fronting SNL showed everyone – industry players included – that he had a knack for comedy, which opened up doors in America that would have probably remained shut at a time when he was both new to America and still best known for his work in horror.
