Christopher Lee^†

He spent a decade playing tall, nameless background characters because casting directors thought his height made him impossible to frame. That changed when Hammer Horror realized his six-foot-five frame made him a natural for monsters. He didn't just play Dracula, he stripped the character of the cape-swishing camp and replaced it with a predatory, silent intensity. By the time he did The Curse of Frankenstein, he'd locked in a career playing every classic villain the studio could throw at him. He hated the typecasting, but those early horror films are the reason he stopped being an extra.

Most actors peak in their thirties, but he managed to become a fixture for a new generation well into his eighties. He played the scenery-chewing villain in both Lord of the Rings and the Star Wars prequels, proving he could out-menace actors a third of his age. He carries a reputation for being the ultimate authority on everything he touches. He's the guy who corrected Peter Jackson on the sound a man makes when he's stabbed in the back. He started releasing heavy metal concept albums about Charlemagne at 87, and was still putting out metal singles and EPs into his nineties, mostly because he didn't care about being a legacy act.

His real life was significantly more absurd than his filmography. He served in the RAF during World War II and was attached to Special Operations Executive units as a liaison officer, though he spent the rest of his life refusing to be specific about any of it. He was also a step-cousin to Ian Fleming, which makes his turn as a Bond villain in The Man with the Golden Gun feel like a family business. He claimed to have met J.R.R. Tolkien in a pub once (he was the only cast member who had) and used that encounter to maintain his status as the resident Middle-earth expert on the set.

His wife delayed the public announcement of his death for four days so she could notify family members privately. Prime Minister David Cameron and Roger Moore issued statements on Twitter once the news broke. He was knighted in 2009 by Prince Charles for services to drama and charity, and at 87 was excused from the traditional requirement of kneeling. He held the Guinness World Record for most screen credits for a living actor, and kept adding to it, appearing in at least 266 feature films by the time he died. Production on his final film project, The 11th, was still in pre-production at the time of his death.