Johnny Depp , who shared the screen with Christopher Lee in five films directed by Tim Burton , remembers the late actor as “hypnotic and commanding, as noble and gallant as he was wise.” Lee, who died June 7 in London at age 93, made his mark as Dracula in a series of Hammer Films beginning with 1958’s Dracula and going on to such signature roles as the evil wizard Saruman in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movies and the light-saber-wielding Count Dooku in Star Wars II: The Attack of the Clones and Star Wars: Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith. Depp says Lee was “a brilliant mind with a beautiful heart whose strength of spirit will, in turn, live on in the hearts and minds of many, many generations to come.”
