The acclaimed actor died on 7 June, 2015 from heart failure at the age of 93.

Christopher Lee as Saruman in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, the actor re-watched the film the night he died it has been revealed. (New Line Cinema)

What did you miss?

Christopher Lee spent his final night watching The Lord of the Rings, it has been revealed in a new Sky documentary about the actor.

The acclaimed actor died on 7 June, 2015 from heart failure at the age of 93. He had been in Chelsea and Westminster Hospital receiving care when one film from the trilogy was being shown on TV, his son-in-law Juan Aneiros shared, and Lee suggested they watch it for fun so he could tell the nurses looking after him how the film was made.

Lee’s life and career is explored in great detail in The Life and Deaths of Christopher Lee — which aired on Sky Arts on Thursday, 24 October — with his friends and family members sharing anecdotes from his life.

What, how, and why?

Christopher Lee’s life is being explored in a new documentary with friends, family and legendary filmmakers speaking of his life and career. (Sky)

Aneiros, who is married to Lee’s only daughter Christina, appeared in the documentary to talk about the actor’s career from his early struggle to get roles to his breakout with Hammer films, and his work in the James Bond, Lord of the Rings, and Star Wars franchises. But it was a touching anecdote about Lee’s final moments that was the most surprising.

“That night he said ‘The Lord of the Rings is on TV so we’ll watch [it] with the nurses, I’ll explain to you how the movie [was made]’, because he loved that movie,” Aneiros said of the actor, who he believed would soon be well enough to return home.

“He watched that night The Lord of the Rings with the nurses, and we went home and we were already thinking okay he’s coming back. Then that night all of a sudden I was asleep and [then] I saw Christina stressed and she said ‘daddy is gone’.”

 

“It actually hit us really hard,” Aneiros went on. “Because we thought, I actually thought he was eternal. I thought he would go past 100, I really did think so, so it was a shock… but he just passed away, that was it. It was peaceful, he didn’t suffer, he just went to sleep.”

What else happened on The Life and Deaths of Christopher Lee?

In the documentary, Christopher Lee’s son-in-law Juan Aneiros revealed: ‘That night he said “The Lord of the Rings is on TV so we’ll watch [it] with the nurses, I’ll explain how the movie [was made]”‘ (NewLine Cinema)

Lee portrayed Saruman in the Lord of the Rings, the villainous white wizard who allies with Sauron and is defeated at the end of The Two Towers. The actor was a huge fan of JRR Tolkien’s books, and was keen to be part of the movies when they were first announced but he originally wanted a very different role: Gandalf.

The wizard was eventually portrayed by Ian McKellen, but Lee was so keen to be considered for the role that he asked director Peter Jackson if he could audition for the part, even though he had been approached directly to play Saruman.

Jackson shared the story in the documentary, saying: “What surprised us was it wasn’t just a conversation about us trying to persuade him to do the role we want him for, he was super enthusiastic because he was a huge Tolkien fan. He said ‘well I’ll be happy to do Saruman, of course, but did you ever consider me for Gandalf?’ Which we hadn’t done, it put us on the spot a bit because we hadn’t done. I said ‘we really want you to play Saruman’.

Christopher Lee originally wanted to play Gandalf and even auditioned for it, Peter Jackson revealed. (NewLine Cinema)

“But I understand why, Gandalf was pushing him as an actor. Everyone knows he can do Saruman he’s perfect for that. He said, ‘I prepared a scene, can you film me I’d like to do Gandalf, I’d like to show you.’ He actually auditioned for us, which is the last thing we wanted Christopher Lee to do, audition to us for the role of Gandalf.

“He was good as Gandalf but better as Saruman, and what we realised is we had other possibilities for Gandalf, other actors in different ways could do Gandalf and we were talking to Ian and he was certainly top of the list. But there is no other actor we thought that could do Saruman, he was our only choice.”

Aneiros shared how being cast in the movie was “a dream come true” for Lee because of how much he loved Tolkien’s Middle Earth. But even though he was delighted to be part of the production there was one thing that upset him, being cut out of the third film The Return of the King.

Peter Jackson said: ‘He was good as Gandalf but better as Saruman… there is no other actor we thought that could do Saruman, he was our only choice.’ (NewLine Cinema)

Jackson explained that the decision was a hard one to make, but that he and the creative team behind it “were struggling with the edit” and realised the best way to cut time would be to remove Lee’s scenes from the movie.

“When we had the sequences of him in Return of the King and we had to take time out we thought ‘well this is really not advancing the storyline, it’s like clearing up a loose end from The Two Towers’, looking at it brutally,” he explained. “So a really tough decision was made that we could delete his appearance in Return of the King, even though we’d already shot it.”

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Filmmaker John Landis, a friend of Lee’s, said that the actor was “terribly upset about it” but he helped to reassure him: “I remember saying to him at the time saying, ‘hello, you’re an essential part of Lord of the Rings, now you’re part of Star Wars. Relax!'”

Although he was largely removed from the theatrical cut of The Return of the King, the extended edition of the movie features his scenes including the dramatic moment that Saruman is killed by Gríma Wormtongue (Brad Dourif). He later reprised the role in The Hobbit trilogy.

The Life and Deaths of Christopher Lee is streaming on Sky and NOW.