Lee Van Cleef Overview:

Character actor, Lee Van Cleef, was born Clarence Leroy Van Cleef Jr. on Jan 9, 1925 in Somerville, NJ. Van Cleef died at the age of 64 on Dec 16, 1989 in Oxnard, CA and was laid to rest in Forest Lawn (Hollywood Hills) Cemetery in Los Angeles, CA.

MINI BIO:

Lean, dark-haired, narrow-eyed American actor, almost entirely confined to westerns. After he switched to acting instead of taking over his father's accountancy business, he spent more than a decade in films as ugly villains (with the occasional American Indian thrown in) with itchy trigger fingers. Then he lost his hair, grew a mustache and, recovered from a severe car crash in 1959, pleasantly surprised his fans by becoming a star of spaghetti westerns in the wake of Clint Eastwood. Died from a heart attack.

(Source: available at Amazon Quinlan's Film Character Actors: an Illustrated Directory).

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Lee Van Cleef Quotes:

[Indio and his gang have been dispatched]
Col. Douglas Mortimer: My boy, you've become rich.
Monco: You mean *we've* become rich, old man.
Col. Douglas Mortimer: No, it's all yours. I think you deserve it.
Monco: What about our partnership?
Col. Douglas Mortimer: [smiles] Maybe next time.


Jack Voyle: I'll take care of Haney - for nothin'!
Frank Emmett: That's why you ain't a success. You work too cheap.


Monco: Tell me, Colonel... Were you ever young?
Col. Douglas Mortimer: Yup. And just as reckless as you. Then one day, something happened. It made life very precious to me.
Monco: What's that? Or is the question indiscreet?
Col. Douglas Mortimer: No. The question isn't indiscreet. But the answer could be.


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Lee Van Cleef Facts
Interviewed in "Bad at the Bijou" by William R. Horner (McFarland, 1982).

He had three children from his first marriage: Deborah, Alan and David.

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).

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