Lee van Cleef

Actor

1 title

Date of Birth: 1925-01-09 (Passed away at age 64)
Nationality: United States
Place of birth: Somerville, New Jersey, USA

Mini Bio

Clarence LeRoy "Lee" Van Cleef Jr. (January 9, 1925 – December 16, 1989) was an American actor best known for his roles in Spaghetti Westerns such as For A Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Hatchet-faced with piercing eyes, he had declined to have his nose altered to play a sympathetic character in his film debut, High Noon, and was relegated to a non-speaking outlaw as a result. For a decade he was typecast as a minor villain, his sinister features overshadowing his acting skills. After suffering serious injuries in a car crash, Van Cleef began to lose interest in his apparently waning career by the time Sergio Leone gave him a major role in For a Few Dollars More. The film made him a box-office draw, especially in Europe. Despite suffering from heart disease from the late 1970s and having a pacemaker installed in the early 1980s, Van Cleef continued to work in films until his death on December 16, 1989, at age 64. He was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, Hollywood Hills, California, with an inscription on his grave marker referring to his many acting performances as a villain: "BEST OF THE BAD".

Backstage

He was involved in a car accident in 1959 in which he lost his left kneecap. Doctors told him he would never be able to ride a horse again because of the injury. Within six months he was back in the saddle.
When still working as an accountant, Van Cleef was offered an acting job "starting on Monday." He protested that he needed to give his employer two weeks' notice, only to be told that he started on Monday or didn't start at all. When Van Cleef's employer heard this, he promptly fired him, removing the need for any notice period.
Served in the US Navy from 1942-46.
He had almost given up his acting career in the mid-'60s and turned to painting when he was cast by Sergio Leone in For a Few Dollars More (1965) . It made him a superstar in Europe and restarted his career in the US, making him again a recognizable and bankable name.
His death certificate gave throat cancer as a secondary cause of death.
He was hetero-chromatic with one eye being blue and the other green.
He had three children from his first marriage: Alan (B. 1947), Deborah (B. 1948), and David. In 1960, when Lee married his second wife Joan Miller. They adopted a daughter, Denise.
Like fellow western baddie, Jack Elam, he had worked as an accountant.
Was the inspiration for the character Revolver Ocelot in the "Metal Gear" series of games.
Producer Stuart Cohen recently revealed that Van Cleef was considered for the role of Garry in John Carpenter 's The Thing (1982) , since Carpenter had recently worked with him on Escape from New York (1981) .

Movies

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