Lee Van Cleef
Lee Van Cleef
Clarence Leroy "Lee" Van Cleef, Jr., was an American actor whose sinister features overshadowed his acting skills and typecast him as a minor villain for a decade before he achieved stardom in Spaghetti Westerns such as The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Hatchet-faced with piercing eyes, he declined to have his hook nose altered to play a sympathetic character in his film debut, High Noon, and was relegated to a non-speaking outlaw as a result. Van Cleef had suffered...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionActor
Date of Birth9 January 1925
CountryUnited States of America
I think the Europeans are a lot more spontaneous, more artistic to some degree. But I don't think they have the technical talent we do here in the states. Here people have been trained much more specifically - they know exactly what they're doing. The Europeans are perhaps slower, but in the end damn near as good.
Movies are full of leading men, most of whom aren't working. It's much harder to find a good villain.
If I could direct it [films] I would be very happy. But the economics of business don't always allow you to do what you want.
I tried to learn the languages - Italian, Spanish, and German - not to successfully. Working on a European set isn't a hell of a lot different from working on an American set.
A lot of actors think that the more lines they have the more attention they get. That's bullshit. I make people look at me. I don't have to say a lot of words.
I'd like to do more comedy, but i think my forte is still in the heavy. I'd love to do a comic lead, a musical.
You go where the work is. It can be in my own back yard, Israel, Spain, or Yugoslavia. We may have the greatest technical efficiency in the world, but our artistic values are not necessarily the best.
One day, something happened. It made life very precious to me.
Audiences just naturally hate me on screen. I could play a role in a tuxedo, and people would think I was rotten. You can do much more with a villain part.
I'll never kick dogs, I'll never hurt a child, I'll never slap a woman - three things I won't do on film.
Bad guys have always been my bag... I look mean without even trying.
I don't care where I work. Films are an international business - not an American institution.
Being born with a pair of beady eyes was the best thing that ever happened to me.