Jack of all trades Sir Christopher Lee lived a sorted and fascinating life. The upcoming documentary “The Life and Deaths of Christopher Lee,” directed by Jon Spira, will try to separate fact from fiction via interviews with friends, family, and other entertainers. Spira has access to Lee’s scrapbooks and 100 interviews from the British Film Institute‘s library to make this documentary. He believes that Lee’s life is an “incredible story” to tell.
“The Life and Deaths of Christopher Lee” will feature interviews with directors John Landis, Joe Dante, Sir Peter Jackson, and his niece, actress Harriet Walte. “Peter Jackson was very prepared to talk about the emotional side,” Spira said. “About how amazed he was as a film fan, in awe of Christopher Lee, and couldn’t believe he got to work with him. He discovered his unique insecurities, like many actors have. He was a really complex person who was very emotional, and had this austere image. He had a lot of frustrations in his life – we explore that.”
Lee In Film
As an actor, Lee starred in over 250 movies across eight decades, becoming a staple in Hammer Horror films. Lee worked with directors like Orson Welles, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and Tim Burton. He was a swordsman alongside Errol Flynn in the 1955 film “The Dark Avenger.” He was also the only person in the “Lord of the Rings” films who had personally met author JRR Tolkien.
But his accomplishments didn’t just extend to film. As a musician, Lee was the oldest person to get on the Billboard music charts with his heavy metal album. He was an expert knife thrower, a witness to the last public execution by guillotine, and met Rasputin‘s assassins as a boy.
A Basis For James Bond?
Lee even spent some time in the military during World War Two. “Because he could speak fluently a range of different languages he got pulled into the secret service doing missions of which the facts have never fully come out,” Spira explains. “His cousin was Ian Fleming, and a lot of people think the character of James Bond was based on him. He certainly didn’t do anything to disavow people of that.”
Can you blame him? Who wouldn’t want their life to be the basis for one of the most beloved fictional spies ever created?
The film will also pay tribute to some of these flights of fantasy. The documentary will be hosted by a string puppet version of Lee, voiced by Peter Serafinowicz. There will even be a stop-motion sequence directed by “Sandman” illustrator Dave McKean.
Spira is currently crowdfunding on Kickstarter for pre-orders of “The Life and Deaths of Christopher Lee.” You can check out the special edition Blu-Ray sets here.
