Saruman From Lord of the Rings Was a WWII Intelligence Operative
Sir Christopher Lee (1922 – 2015) had a long and accomplished acting career that spanned seven decades. Best known for his villain roles, Lee’s baddie characters, which ranged from Dracula to Count Dooku to Saruman, often horrified, revolted, and sent chills down audience spines. The son of a British Army officer and an Italian countess, a teenaged Lee volunteered to fight for Finland against Soviet invaders in the 1939-1940 Winter War. He and other British volunteers were employed in guard duty, but kept away from the front lines. Lee returned to Britain, and in 1941, volunteered to join the Royal Air Force. He trained as a pilot, but before he got his wings, Lee began to suffer from blurred vision and severe headaches. Medical tests eventually revealed problems with his optic nerve, and he was yanked out of flight school and told he could never fly.
As Lee recalled years later, washing out of pilot training was one of the most devastating experiences of his life. He cast about for something else to do, and eventually ended up in RAF intelligence. There, he was attached at times and worked with some of the war’s most elite outfits, such as the Special Operations Executive (SOE), Special Air Service (SAS), and the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG). He narrowly escaped death on numerous occasions. Lee was almost killed when his squadron’s airfield was bombed during the North African Campaign. In the Italian Campaign, he was attached to the Gurkhas during the Battle of Monte Cassino when a plane crashed, and he tripped over one of its live bombs. After the war, he was seconded to the Registry of War Criminals and Security Suspects, and helped track down Nazi war criminals.
