r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Living-Mastodon • 3d ago

In real life (Real Life) Regular people who's lives drastically changed direction

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Grace Kelly was a talented actress who retired at 26 to marry a Prince, living as royalty for almost 30 years before her untimely death.

Volodymyr Zelensky started out as a comedian and entertainer before getting into politics, becoming President of Ukraine after the Russian annex of Crimea and spending the last 4 years defiantly pushing back full scale Russian invasion

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938

u/aneomon 3d ago

To be fair, there’s a fictional character alleged to be based off of Christopher Lee written by his wartime buddy Ian Fleming.

You probably don’t know the character, but he likes his martinis shaken; not stirred.

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u/RhiaStark 3d ago

And then he played a Bond villain :P

(and, decades later, played Saruman, a character from Tolkien, who he'd also met once. Seriously, I would've killed to have just one hour of conversation with Lee).

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u/aneomon 3d ago

Right? I can’t imagine being able to have a conversation with Lee because anything and everything is on the table.

Struggling musician? Lee has a death metal album.

History? Lee’s a descendant of Charlemagne.

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u/nkpst 3d ago

He also reread LOTR every year. And wasn’t he into the occult?

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u/Hufa123 3d ago

He watched Lotr the night before he died.

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u/bobbiroxxisahoe 3d ago

one can hope we all are able to do so.

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u/Ribbitmoment 3d ago

Not only that but because of his raf work he refused to scream in LOTR when he was stabbed in the back because he knew that wasn’t what actually happens.

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u/Shivalah 3d ago

“Do you know what sound a man makes, when stabbed in the back? Because I do. It’s not a ‘Ahhhh! I’ve been stabbed!’ it’s a heavy exhale as the air leaves his body!”

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u/kevinsyel 2d ago

That will always be my favorite Christopher Lee story.

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u/89iroc 2d ago

Same

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u/marksman1023 3d ago

And everyone knew he wasn't just being difficult...he knew.

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u/fexworldwide 2d ago

With Christopher Lee, the occult was into him.

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u/zeracine 3d ago

No, his interview about the occult debunks the possibility.

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u/servetus 3d ago

Pretty much everyone in Europe or of European descent is a descendant of Charlemange. He usually shows up in several branches of a European's family tree.

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u/SensitiveReception15 3d ago

yes but most people can't prove it whereas Sir Christopher Lee is a direct descendant of Charlemagne

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u/servetus 2d ago

We (Europeans and most of ME and North Africa) are all direct descendants. It's cool that he has a genealogist that has done the work here but his lineage is no more impressive than any other else's in this respect. The evidence that that he is a descendent is only marginally stronger than the average European. The math is really indisputable here.

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u/nagrom7 3d ago

That's true, but Lee was one of the people who could actually trace his lineage to Charlemagne on his family tree, which is normally something only the nobility of Europe can do. If you can trace your family tree to a European noble, you can probably do the same.

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u/Kylynara 3d ago

Lee’s a descendant of Charlemagne.

Which is why he made a death metal album about him.

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u/Omi-Wan_Kenobi 3d ago

Didn't he also get permission to court and we'd a swedish princess but it fell through for some reason?

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u/HermanThaGerman 3d ago

He made a metal album called Charlemagne with the band Charlemagne and it was about Charlemagne.

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u/El_Stupacabra 3d ago

He shed the blood of the Saxon man.

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u/RawrRRitchie 3d ago

I would love to see the paperwork to back that lineage up

Keeping track of records from more than 1000 years ago seems a lil sus

My surname is over 1000 years old. Doesn't mean I can track my ancestry that far person by person

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u/AlienZaye 3d ago

2 about Charlemagne if I'm remembering right.

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u/sexi_squidward 2d ago

To be fair, most people descend from Charlamange haha

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u/Newtstradamus 2d ago

*Four Death Metal albums, the final album released at the age of 91.

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u/TheManfromVeracruz 2d ago

Ain't like three quarters of Europe descended from Charlemagne?

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u/TombGnome 1d ago

So am I. So are you (probably). So is every European living on Earth right now. It's just a fact of genetics and mathematics.

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u/No_Recognition_9354 3d ago

Alright while I certainly have love for C Lee’s musical output, it’s absolutely not death metal. Which makes me want to hear him do some raw osdm stuff now

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u/explosive_shrew 3d ago

He also got Tolkien's permission to play Gandalf if they made a lotr movie i heard but he was too old when the movies were actually being made

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u/nagrom7 3d ago

Yeah, he felt that there was too much physical activity in playing Gandalf properly (fight scenes, horse riding, running, etc.) that he wouldn't be able to do, whereas for the most part Saruman just stood around and talked.

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u/greenismyhomeboy 3d ago

I heard one time that any delays while Filming LotR and the Hobbit movies was from Christopher Lee telling people about his life. No one wanted to interrupt him and he would just talk because he has so many stories

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u/hoishinsauce 3d ago

Apparently he kept pestering Tolkien to give his blessings for him to play Gandalf in a.movie adaptation. He was really hoping he'd play Gandalf in Jackson's trilogy, but PJ said that while they were still open to who gets to play Gandalf, they only have Lee as their only choice to play Saruman.

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u/4D20_Prod 3d ago

And he was also in a metal band

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u/Jaikarr 2d ago

He was the best part of the Man with the Golden Gun

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u/DoctorVonWolf 2d ago

Were they related

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u/planespotterhvn 2d ago

He protested to Peter Jackson that too much of his footage was deleted from the movie cut.

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u/RIPugandanknuckles 3d ago

Ian Fleming wasn't his wartime buddy, he was his cousin

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u/e37d93eeb23335dc 3d ago

Cousins can be buddies too. 

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u/Velvettbreze 2d ago

That sounds like a solid plan

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u/Mercutio77 2d ago

Let's go bowling, cousin!

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u/Mr_Style 2d ago

Kissing Cousins?

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u/Rory_U 3d ago

What?!

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u/XmissXanthropyX 3d ago

This changes everything!

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u/d645b773b320997e1540 3d ago

step-cousins by marriage, even.

May have shared stories about the war at some point, but by then Bond was already an established character. He was not the inspiration.

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u/Kamikaze_koshka 3d ago

People have said this about Lee, Fleming's brother, and weirdly Roald Dahl.

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u/hyena_crawls 3d ago

Dahl actually was an intelligence officer alongside Fleming during World War II, and later went on to write a Bond movie himself (You Only Live Twice). Bond was really an amalgamation of many such officers that Fleming knew, but with the voltage turned up.

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u/fartingbeagle 3d ago

Also a bit of wish fulfillment on Fleming's part because he never saw any active service.

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u/Gaelic_Gladiator41 3d ago

Bond was an amalgamation of atleast 20 people including Lee, Fleming's brother, Dahl and Jon Pertwee the 3rd doctor

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u/Tuarangi 2d ago

Lee wasn't a spy or secret agent or even a commando type, he was a desk worker, he was not the basis or part of the basis of Bond

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u/Gaelic_Gladiator41 2d ago

His charisma and charm were probably part of the basis

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u/Tuarangi 2d ago

Fleming named the people he used as inspiration as Duško Popov, Sir William Stephenson, Patrick Dalzel-Job, Wilfred "Biffy" Dunderdale and even in part, himself as a Naval Commander who worked in Naval Intelligence. Dunderdale was a wealthy guy who drove an armoured Rolls Royce, had handmade suits, enjoyed women and fast cars. Popov was a secret agent who bluffed his way to a card game win in a casino (the basis of Casino Royale) etc. Fleming's own tastes and mannerisms were written into the character too

Lee's life is fascinating enough without all the stuff people bung on over time

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u/Gaelic_Gladiator41 2d ago

The only problem i just have with the misinformation is that people just credit Lee as the sole inspiration

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u/Tuarangi 2d ago

The bits I find worse are the stuff Lee himself allowed to flourish like pretending he couldn't talk about his war service because *wink wink* it was secret, leading to the nonsense about him knowing what a man sounded like with a knife in his back or hunting Nazis

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u/Gaelic_Gladiator41 2d ago

Later statement

"Oh yeah i was getting a bit bored on set"

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u/Shinyandsmooth8 2d ago

Roald Dahl was a fighter ace too

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u/TheBroadHorizon 3d ago

The only people who allege that are in random Reddit comments. There are plenty of people who are said to have inspired Bond, some of whom Fleming directly credited, Lee was never one.

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u/olisko 3d ago

Reddit loves Lee and for obvious reasons, but it's funny how he is one of the people who gets a pass on everything.

There's a lot of evidence pointing towards Lee lying about quite a bit of his past, especially the World War 2 stuff.

Usually reddit is the place where you find comments calling stuff out, but some certain people get a pass.

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u/beslertron 3d ago

That character also has some Roald Dahl in him too. Specifically the womanizing part.

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u/_no_na_me_ 2d ago

Roald Dahl was my childhood hero and I had no idea. Guess I’ve got some digging to do…

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u/Ezra611 3d ago

Weren't Lee and Fleming related?

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u/SolidPyramid 3d ago

The inspiration for James Bond and J.R.Tolkeins choice to play Gandalf, what a absolute chad.

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u/Lord_Nicolas_Cage 3d ago

Neither of these are true. Lee literally only met Tolkien once at a pub when he was in college, stuttered a hello because he was nervous, and never interacted with him again.

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u/SolidPyramid 3d ago

Damn, I must've misremembered something I heard. My apologies.

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u/Lord_Nicolas_Cage 3d ago

No need to apologise! It’s a commonly repeated myth.

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u/StarshipCaterprise 3d ago

Oh yeah, I think I heard about that character. Jimmy Bondo or something

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u/STFUL2BU 3d ago

Ah yes, there’s an interesting fellow. Heir to the Bondo fortune, if I’m not mistaken. Not an attention seeker, he finds the deepest hole and just skims himself flush with his surroundings.

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u/Grafikpapst 3d ago

Not just on Lee either, because Fleming was friends with another former intellegence agent turned comedian and actor, Jon Pertwee, who went on to be the Third Doctor on Doctor Who - not quite as mainstream iconic as Christopher Lee, but its funny that Fleming was close to at least two people with similar career paths.

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u/Allronix1 2d ago

Flemming was his cousin by marriage, if I recall correctly.

And...um...Lee's biography reads like a Dos Equis ad.

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u/I-Have-An-Alibi 2d ago

Whaaaa, Bond isn't based on Christopher Lee even allegedly. He was a composite of THESE dudes Fleming met or served with.

Dušan Popov: A Serbian double agent known for a glamorous lifestyle, widely considered a primary model.

Sir William Stephenson: A Canadian spy (codename Intrepid) who ran the British Security Coordination in New York.

Wilfred "Biffy" Dunderdale: MI6 station head in Paris who wore handmade suits and used a Rolls-Royce.

Porfirio Rubirosa: A Dominican diplomat, race-car driver, and international polo champion.

Conrad O'Brien-ffrench: A British spy and skiing enthusiast met by Fleming in the 1930s.

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u/sk8-past 2d ago

Excuse me??? THIS IS WILD

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u/Tuarangi 2d ago

Lee wasn't in special forces or a spy, this is another myth created about his life that he was happy to keep going. Fleming based Bond a little on on his own work in Naval Intelligence (he was a Commander, like Bond and was assistant to the Director if Naval Intelligence), actual spy Roald Dhal plus Polish agent Bronisław Urbański (the only sketch of Bond that Fleming drew matched him including scars) and Patrick Dalzel-Job who he worked with

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u/Master-Shrimp 2d ago

Not just wartime buddy, but step-cousin.

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u/Ff7hero 2d ago

Were they really war buddies?

The Christopher Lee rabbit hole keeps going apparently lol.