<Li> Allied invasion of Italy </Li> <Li> Battle of Monte Cassino </Li> <P> Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee CBE CStJ (27 May 1922--7 June 2015) was an English character actor, singer, and author . With a career spanning nearly 70 years, Lee was well known for portraying villains and became best known for his role as Count Dracula in a sequence of Hammer Horror films . His other film roles include Francisco Scaramanga in the James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), Saruman in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy (2001--2003) and The Hobbit film trilogy (2012--2014), and Count Dooku in the second and third films of the Star Wars prequel trilogy (2002 & 2005). </P> <P> Lee was knighted for services to drama and charity in 2009, received the BAFTA Fellowship in 2011, and received the BFI Fellowship in 2013 . Lee considered his best performance to be that of Pakistan's founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah in the biopic Jinnah (1998), and his best film to be the British horror film The Wicker Man (1973). He frequently appeared opposite Peter Cushing in Hammer Horror films, and late in his career had roles in six Tim Burton films . </P>

Who plays sauron in lord of the rings