Favorite Christopher Lee story: the script for The Return of the King had Saruman screaming as he fell to his death after Grima stabbed him. Lee asked Peter Jackson, "Have you ever seen a man get stabbed in the back?" Jackson replied "no" and Lee said, "well, I have, and they don't scream." And the scream was gone. He was such a legendary badass.
Oh, and here's a really funny clip of him from an awful movie, The Return of Captain Invincible: