Christopher Lee has played some of the most iconic bad-guys in history. From Sarumon, Scaramanga, and Count Douko, to Frankenstien’s Monster and Dracula. He even played the Mummy! You seriously can’t beat that. So, obviously, Christopher Lee is the best bad-guy ever.

But there’s another side to Lee. He was a real hero long before he was an actor who played the bad-guys. He joined the RAF 1940 and worked as an intelligence officer—breaking German codes and doing other things which still haven't been declassified. He fought in Africa and was part of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), the forerunner to the SAS. Lee saw the horrors of the concentration camps first hand. And after the war, he hunted Nazi’s for a brief time.

It really is ironic that one of the best villain actors of all time, was one of Hollywood's few, legitimate real-life heroes.

When he was awarded the Bafta Fellowship, Lee said about his apparent emotionless, that when one had been through five years of war, you tend to save tears for reality. He also said of war:“That is real horror and blood. When the Second World War finished I was 23 and already I had seen enough horror to last me a lifetime. I’d seen dreadful, dreadful things, without saying a word. So seeing horror depicted on film doesn't affect me much.”

He wenton to say that the only time a soldier typically cries is when a soldier dies.

“Very difficult to keep them [tears] back.”

Lee was certainly one of the best villains ever seen on film. More importantly, he was one of the last standing heroes, from America's greatest generation, in real life.

Our respects to Sir Christopher Lee.