Sir Christopher Lee documentary to tell untold story of actor's life

Sir Christopher Lee's military career is still shrouded in mystery

The untold story of Sir Christopher Lee is set to be revealed in an upcoming documentary film.

The Life and Deaths of Christopher Lee features interviews with friends, family members and famous directors.

Jon Spira, from Headington, Oxford, had access to Lee's scrapbooks and 100 interviews from the British Film Institute's library.

The filmmaker tells the BBC the actor's life was an "incredible story" waiting to be told.

Lee starred in more than 250 films across eight decades, including the Hammer Horror, James Bond, Lord of the Rings, and Star Wars franchises.

The Life and Deaths of Christopher Lee explores the actor's family life through interviews

But as Spira's film explains, he had a military career during World War Two still shrouded in mystery, and helped track down Nazi war criminals.

"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.

"You could almost do this as two films. That's why we called it The Life and Deaths of Christopher Lee, because his life is one story and his career is another."

Christopher Lee often found himself in unexpected situations

Did you know that Sir Christopher Lee was...

• Born into Italian aristocracy

• A witness to the last public execution by guillotine

• Introduced to Rasputin's assassins as a boy

• A swordsman in an Errol Flynn film

• The only person in the Lord of the Rings films to have met JRR Tolkien

• An expert knife thrower

• The oldest person to get on the Billboard music charts (with a Heavy Metal album)

Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson speaks about being a fan of the Saruman actor

On-screen he worked with esteemed directors such as Powell and Pressburger, Orson Welles, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and Tim Burton.

The documentary features interviews with three more - John Landis, Joe Dante, and Peter Jackson - as well as actress Harriet Walter, who is also Lee's niece.

"Peter Jackson was very prepared to talk about the emotional side," Spira recalls.

"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."

John Landis was a life-long friend of Christopher Lee

The documentary also takes some flights of fantasy.

It is narrated by a string puppet of Christopher Lee made by the team behind Wes Anderson's animated movies, and voiced by Peter Serafinowicz.

A stop-motion sequence is directed by Sandman illustrator Dave McKean.

A Christopher Lee string puppet narrates the film

Spira is crowdfunding for its Blu-ray release because he believes less effort has been made with physical media of late.

He said: "There's a whole market of people who are being forgotten that really love film, want to own it, and maybe don't trust that these things will always be streaming."

He has launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise £40,000 "to do something really special" for collectors.

Director Jon Spira has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the film's Blu-ray release

Lee named The Wicker Man and Jinnah as among the best films he was in, but when Spira is asked, he opts for cult 1983 Australian musical The Return of Captain Invincible.

"If you do one wonderful thing with your day, I suggest you watch Christopher Lee sing Name Your Poison," he says.

"He wanted to be an opera singer all his life…. This was his one stunning moment to perform on film, and eating the scenery doesn't do it justice. You can see how much fun he's having."

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