Christopher Frank Carandini Lee (photo ©Siebbi) was born May 27, 1922 in London, England.

Christopher Lee’s parents divorced when he was 4 and his mother took him and his sister to live in Switzerland. At Wengen he attended an academy in which he started learning the art of acting. When his family returned to London, Lee attended the Wellingon College.

In 1939, Christopher Lee was a volunteer in the war between Finland and the USSR, even if he never participated in any combat. In World War II he worked for the RAF and the British intelligence services.

After the end of the war, Christopher Lee started his career as an actor, backed by a cousin on his mother’s side who was the Italian ambassador. His debut came in 1948 in the movie “Corridor of Mirrors”. In the same year, he appeared in an uncredited part in the film “Hamlet” by Laurence Olivier.

After spending years playing mostly action characters, Christopher Lee started the phase in his career that made him famous for participating in horror movies. In 1957 he starred in “The Curse of Frankenstein” together with his colleague and friend Peter Cushing. His height of 1.96 meters (6’5″) was a great advantage in playing the creature star of the movie.

In 1958, Christopher Lee starred in “Dracula” (“Horror of Dracula” in the U.S.A.), a highly successful classic which influenced all subsequent movies about the famous vampire. In the next years he played Dracula in a number of sequels.

In the ’70s, Christopher Lee gradually abandoned horror movies. He played other famous characters such as Sherlock Holmes in a number of movies but also the villain Francisco Scaramanga in James Bond movie “The Man with the Golden Gun”.

For several years Christopher Lee had roles in movies that mostly weren’t particularly good but in recent years he appeared in hit movies such as the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Star Wars prequels.

Although he participated in many movies, Christopher Lee has also found the time to appear in several television shows including some historical ones such as “The Alfred Hitchcock Hour” and “The Avengers”.

Since 1961, Christopher Lee is married to the Danish model and actress Birgit Kroencke. In 1963 they had their daughter Christina. The actress Harriet Walter is his niece, being his sister’s daughter.

In 1981, Christopher Lee was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) and in 2009 he was knighted.

Although no longer a boy, Christopher Lee keeps on performing and has some projects for the future so expect to see him in a number of new movies.