The actor who played Saruman in the Peter Jackson The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movies, Christopher Lee, spent his last evening watching The Lord of the Rings. Yahoo Movies UK reported via a new documentary from Sky on the actor’s life. The documentary, titled The Life and Deaths of Christopher Lee, aired on Sky Arts, a British TV channel, on October 24.

In the documentary, Lee’s son-in-law, Juan Aneiros, who is married to Lee’s only daughter, Christina, was featured in the documentary, and shared that while Lee was in Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, one of the films from the original Lord of the Rings trilogy was being shown on television.

Lee suggested they watch because he wanted to tell the nurses who were caring for him how the film was made. “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),’ because he loved that movie,” Aneiros said.

Christopher Lee’s Family Thought He Would Recover

The family thought that Lee was on his way to recovery and would be well enough to go home soon. But, that was not the case. As quoted from the doc, “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.’”

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.

Lee died June 7, 2015, from heart failure. He was 93 years old. “It actually hit us really hard,” Aneiros said of Lee’s passing. “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,” Aneiros said.

Christopher Lee Met Tolkien in the 1950s

Before his death, Lee often spoke of his love for Middle-earth. He was the only actor in the movies who had the fortune of meeting Tolkien. In an interview, he talked about meeting the author at a pub in Oxford in the 1950s. Lee said he saw Tolkien walk in and he “nearly fell off (his) chair.”

In the Lord of the Rings films, Lee’s portrayal of Saruman, a wizard who has fallen to evil and now serves the will of the dark lord Sauron, would become iconic. As a main antagonist in the movies, Saruman breeds Uruk-hai, which he then uses to destroy those who live in Rohan and to thwart the Fellowship.

However, at first, Lee wanted to play the wizard Gandalf. In a 2022 interview, director Peter Jackson said Lee wanted to play Gandalf due to his extensive knowledge of Tolkien lore. Jackson said he gave Lee a role in the movie not long after meeting him, but added, “I realized in horror that he’d come to talk to us about playing Gandalf!” However, the crew already had Sir Ian McKellen in mind for the role.

Lee also had memorable roles in films like Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002) as Count Dooku and in 1973’s The Wicker Man as Lord Summerisle.