Many people knew the great character actor Christopher Lee as a master villain. With roles like Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, Francisco Scaramanga and Count Dooku under his belt, he was ooooh so good at being oooooh so bad.

But Sir Christopher Lee had another side. He was a classically trained singer, who loved his metal!

With his operatic bass voice, Lee got his first opportunity to sing on the soundtrack of the movie The Wicker Man, performing a psych folk composition, "The Tinker of Rye". Lee also sang the closing credits song of the 1994 horror film Funny Man, but arguably, his most notable musical work on film, appears in the superhero comedy/rock musical The Return of Captain Invincible in which Lee performs a song and dance number called "Name Your Poison".

In 2006, Lee bridged two very disparate genres of music by performing a heavy metal variation of the Toreador Song from the opera Carmen, with the band Inner Terrestrials. The song was featured on his album Revelation in 2007. The same year, he produced a music video for his cover version of the song "My Way". His first complete metal album was Charlemagne: By the Sword and the Cross, which was critically acclaimed and awarded with the "Spirit of Metal" award from the 2010 Metal Hammer Golden Gods ceremony,where he described himself as "a young man right at the beginning of his career". It was released on 15 March 2010. In June 2012, he released a music video for the song "The Bloody Verdict of Verden".

On his 90th birthday (May 27th 2012) he announced the release of his new single "Let Legend Mark Me as the King" from his upcoming album Charlemagne: The Omens of Death, signifying his move onto "full on" heavy metal. That makes him the oldest performer in the history of the genre. The music was arranged by Richie Faulkner from the band Judas Priest and features World Guitar Idol Champion, Hedras Ramos.

In December 2012, he released an EP of heavy metal covers of Christmas songs called A Heavy Metal Christmas. Lee released a second in December 2013, entitled A Heavy Metal Christmas Too. With the song Jingle Hell, Lee entered the Billboard Hot 100 chart at #22, thus becoming the oldest living performer to ever enter the music charts, at 91 years and 6 months. The record was previously held by Tony Bennett, who was 85 when he recorded "Body and Soul" with Amy Winehouse in March 2011. After media attention, the song rose to #18.

More From KLAW-FM