Sir Christopher Lee (*27. Mai 1922 in London, † 7 June in London) was probably one of the last extraordinary gentlemen of our time. You may ask yourselves why that is – well, let me enlighten you with a couple of highlights from his life of spectacularism.
Lee’s father was a British officer who fought in the Second Boer War as well as the First World War. His mother, Marie Carandini di Sarzano, was part of the noble family of Count Carandini, with roots that can apparently be traced back to Charlemagne!
When the Second World War began, Lee wasn’t merely a soldier. He was an agent of the Special Organisations Executive, also known as the Ministry for Ungentlemanly Warfare. Following the end of the war, he hunted down Nazis and other war criminals. After quite a number of fights he got involved with UNICEF, and then he decided to try his hand at being an actor.
He portrayed archetypical villains such as Dracula (the very same role that made him into an icon), Bond villains, Count Doku and Saruman. Aside from that, he was acquainted with Tolkien on a first-name basis, and when Peter Jackson asked him if he could accurately portray a man who had been stabbed with a knife, he sternly told the director that he knew exactly how a man looked like in those agonizing last minutes…
Not only was Lee an asset for the film industry, he also enlightened thousands of people with his wonderful voice. His last musical project was for a metal band, and his very first work in this genre was a concept album about the life of Charlemagne; a project which had been supported by several bands as well as a 100-man orchestra. It doesn’t end here – this spectacular man was also fluent in several languages including German, Russian, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Swahili, some of which he apparently studied autodidactically.
On the 17th of June 1939, Christopher Lee, aged 17, witnessed something that would mark his life permanently. He visited a friend in Paris and experienced the execution of Eugen Weidemann, also known as the very last public execution done with a guillotine.
In 1961, the charismatic gentleman married former model Birgit Kroenecke, with whom he later had a daughter.
“The last adventurer of the century” – this is a title that Sir Christopher Lee truly deserved!
