Christopher Lee’s initial appearance in Dracula, in 1958, was a shock. Before that moment, the fabled vampire was more associated with Max Schreck’s demonic Nosferatu from the classic German silent picture — a pale creature closer to Gollum from today’s Tolkien movies. The vampire was something stunted, bestial, insidious.

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But when Lee’s Count Dracula first walked down to the stairs to greet his visitors in the first Hammer movie version it was a revelation. He was tall (six foot five), handsome and well-built, with an easy athleticism and a frank, direct manner. His deep, melodious voice completed the effect: commanding. There was nothing unwholesome-looking about this vampire, not at first: he looked more like a British or at any rate Central European version of Gary Cooper. So it was even more powerful and shocking when this patrician figure disclosed his Satanic qualities: and that face became pale and contorted, when the lips peeled back to reveal the fangs, the eyes turned red and the lips dripped with blood — and his whole being oozed with forbidden sexuality. Christopher Lee was Dracula; he had taken over the character as clearly as Sean Connery took over James Bond.

Christopher Lee in The Wicker Man Photograph: Sportsphoto Ltd./Allstar

He took the role in a string of other Dracula sequels, which became increasingly seedy and humiliatingly preposterous for this sensitive and thoughtful actor. But there was no doubt about it. Along with his similarly refined colleague Peter Cushing, Lee had virtually invented the lucrative Hammer horror brand. He made other pictures for a studio with which he was associated for 20 years, before getting out in the late 70s to avoid typecasting. Modern PR types call it detoxifying your image. This was more like devampirifying it.

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Despite coming to loathe the silliness of Dracula, Lee’s favourite role, perhaps his greatest role, was in a movie made in this same era with obvious debts to the great vampire legend. Lee played Lord Summerisle in the horror classic The Wicker Man in 1973, written by Anthony Shaffer and directed by Robin Hardy. He was the “leader”, or chieftain, of a remote Hebridean island still in thrall to pre-Christian pagan rituals, where Edward Woodward’s pious police officer comes to investigate the disappearance of a young girl. Like Dracula, Summerisle is an aristocrat, and also a big beast: a physically and vocally imperious leader who looms over everyone. He is like a human and rational version of Dracula, but every bit as sinister. The film is of course noted for the burning wicker man statue itself. Every time I see the film, that outline looks like an occult reflection of the larger-than-life figure of Summerisle — and Lee.

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Actually, when I first saw Christopher Lee on the big screen it was in neither of these two classic roles. It was at the Hendon Odeon in London in 1975, to see The Man With the Golden Gun. Roger Moore was 007 and Lee was his opponent Scaramanga — and he was a terrific villain, one of the the best, elegant, worldly, menacing in the classic style. And with a classic, if sub-Transylvanian deformity: a third nipple. When he opened his shirt to show this, I remember I actually said very loudly in my cracking teenage voice: “UGH, he’s a FREAK.” Not very sophisticated.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Christopher Lee, left, with Roger Moore in The Man With the Golden Gun Photograph: PR

Christopher Lee continued a career of great professionalism and industry which was not noted for any great stardust or magic until the end of the 90s, when the Star Wars prequel trilogy and the Tolkien movies called on him, with his increasingly legendary personal aura and Merlin-like appearance.

Yet just before this renaissance, there was his personal passion project: Jinnah (1998) starring Lee himself as Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the historic founder of the modern state of Pakistan. It was a film which can only be described as “sincerious”, but plagued by controversy: objections were raised, not to a European actor playing a South Asian character, but to someone associated with Count Dracula portraying a Pakistani national icon. Yet the finished product was heartfelt, and Lee gave a resoundingly decent performance as a leader who believed in a Muslim state but stood up for the rights of Christians and Hindus. It was respectfully received in Pakistan, but UK critics found it laborious. It never gained a full cinema release, and never came within a mile of Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Christopher Lee as Saruman The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Photograph: EPA

But it was with George Lucas and JRR Tolkien that Lee achieved a kind of pop culture deity status as the new century dawned. He was the evil Count Dooku in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith and Saruman in the Lord of the Rings trilogy: now an old man, but still powerfully resonant and mellifluous. Lee had become a walking folk memory of popular cinema: an actor of muscular intelligence and grace with a staggering career, who pulled off the difficult trick of surpassing his great early role without ever needing to be embarrassed by it.