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Lee Van Cleef

Acting

Lee Van Cleef

Jan 9, 1925 – Dec 16, 1989145 titles 92 movies · 53 TV
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Biography

Clarence LeRoy "Lee" Van Cleef Jr. (January 9, 1925 – December 16, 1989) was an American actor best known for his roles in Spaghetti Westerns such as For A Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Hatchet-faced with piercing eyes, he had declined to have his nose altered to play a sympathetic character in his film debut, High Noon, and was relegated to a non-speaking outlaw as a result. For a decade he was typecast as a minor villain, his sinister features overshadowing his acting skills. After suffering serious injuries in a car crash, Van Cleef began to lose interest in his apparently waning career by the time Sergio Leone gave him a major role in For a Few Dollars More. The film made him a box-office draw, especially in Europe. Despite suffering from heart disease from the late 1970s and having a pacemaker installed in the early 1980s, Van Cleef continued to work in films until his death on December 16, 1989, at age 64. He was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, Hollywood Hills, California, with an inscription on his grave marker referring to his many acting performances as a villain: "BEST OF THE BAD".

Also known as

Clarence Leroy Van Cleef Jr. · 李·范克里夫 · 리 밴 클리프

Born

Jan 9, 1925 – Dec 16, 1989

Somerville, New Jersey, USA

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Photos

Profile images from TMDB · click to enlarge

8 images

Roles across career

Titles counted once; a person can act and direct on the same film (roles merged).

145

Acting credits

0

Directing

0

Writing

0

Other crew

Most critically rated

Highest TMDB score (min 100 votes)

Most commercially successful

Highest TMDB vote count (attention / reach proxy; not box office)

Career timeline

By release / first air year · movie & TV merged

Orbit ↑

1949 1 title(s)

1950 1 title(s)

1951 3 title(s)

1952 7 title(s)

1953 10 title(s)

1954 10 title(s)

1955 12 title(s)

1956 7 title(s)

1957 19 title(s)

1958 10 title(s)

1959 14 title(s)

1960 3 title(s)

1961 1 title(s)

1962 2 title(s)

1963 1 title(s)

1965 4 title(s)

1966 1 title(s)

1967 3 title(s)

1968 2 title(s)

1969 1 title(s)

1970 2 title(s)

1971 3 title(s)

1972 2 title(s)

1973 1 title(s)

1974 1 title(s)

1975 1 title(s)

1976 2 title(s)

1977 2 title(s)

1978 1 title(s)

1979 1 title(s)

1980 2 title(s)

1981 1 title(s)

1984 5 title(s)

1985 2 title(s)

1986 1 title(s)

1988 1 title(s)

1989 1 title(s)

1990 1 title(s)

2000 1 title(s)

2014 1 title(s)

2024 1 title(s)