A set of medals awarded to the late British actor Christopher Lee (1922-2015) will be offered at Spink London on November 1.

Lee was one of the best-loved performers of his generation.

Christopher Lee served in the British Army during the second world war

He spent much of his career playing villains, from Count Dracula in the Hammer Horror series to Saruman in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, but in real life he was anything but.

During the second world war he served as an RAF intelligence officer in Egypt and Italy, which included postings with the SAS and the Ghurkhas.

On the set of Lord of the Rings, he’s said to have instructed an actor in the correct noise to make when being run through with a sword with the words: "Have you any idea what kind of noise happens when somebody’s stabbed in the back? Because I do.”

After the war he joined a taskforce dedicated to tracking down Nazi war criminals.

Later he would say: “When the second world war finished, I was 23, and already I had seen enough horror to last me a lifetime. I'd seen dreadful, dreadful things, without saying a word.”

The £5,000-valued lot ($6,592) includes an Africa Star and a 1939-1945 Defence Medal, as well as the CBE Lee was awarded for his services to stage and screen in 2001.

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