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).

HONORS and AWARDS:

.

BlogHub Articles:

No article for at this time. Submit yours here.

Lee Van Cleef Quotes:

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.


Teresa: [Showing off the earings she wants him to buy as 'souvenirs'] Tony, you're not even looking at how pretty they are and only 11 American dollars!
Tony Romano: [Looking at her knowingly] Everything around here's 11 bucks!
Teresa: Tony, you like?
Tony Romano: Charge it with the rest.
Teresa: [Happily] Gracias, Tony!
Tony Romano: [Knowingly] See ya later!


Tony Romano: It don't take no big thinking to figure a couple of guys like us ain't in this bananaville on a vacation!


read more quotes from Lee Van Cleef...



Share this page:
Visit the Classic Movie Hub Blog CMH
Also a Capricorn






See All Capricorns >>
Lee Van Cleef Facts
During one summer in the early 1950s he was a camp counselor in NYC for Marc Furstenberg.

According to the book "Weird NJ" (Sceurman, Mark and Mark Moran, Barnes and Noble Books, 2004 ISBN 0-7607-3979-X) he was a descendant of the Morris County Van Cleefs who were infamous in the area for their strange living and "procreational" efforts. In fact, one trait that Lee had was that he had one green eye and one blue eye. According to the book, "this telltale characteristic was corrected in the movies with colored contact lenses".

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.

See All Related Facts >>