Lee is a direct lineal descendent of Charlemagne through his mother's side.

Is there a source for this? christopherleeweb.com [1] states that the Carandini family is believed to have had close connections with the Emperor Charlemagne instead of claiming descendance.

Anon. 01:14, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Lee served in the military during World War II, where he acquired the knowledge of the noise a person makes when stabbed in the back. He put this to use when filming The Lord of the Rings, as can be seen on the Extended Edition DVD of The Return of the King.

Could we have a source for this? It seems like a macabre joke.

Mihoshi 14:31, 22 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It isn't a joke - Peter Jackson mentions it in the commentary, reminiscing about the filming of a particular scene where Lee, an ex-secret service man adds the benefit of his experiences. sheridan 17:42, 2005 May 23 (UTC)

Cool. Thanks for clearing that up---Mihoshi 20:45, 31 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

" He volunteered to fight for the Finnish forces during the Winter War against the Soviet Union in 1939,"

This is another point for which I would like to have a source. I have a list of all the volunteers and his name does not appear on the list. I also have a list of those Britons who volunteered but did not actually arrive to to Finland. Lee's name is not on that list either. Furthermore I would think that if such a famous person would have fought with the Finns agains the Soviets, everybody in Finland would known about it. This is not the case. --Chino 02:37, 26 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The statement is a bit of an exaggeration, but the source is his autobigraphy- he was quite young and apparently paid his own third class passage with some friends, showed up, and they weren't quite sure what to do with him so sent him somewhere away from any fighting. He went home, apparently, after a few weeks. This is from memory, I'll look it up when I find the book again. -- Yrfeloran 15 November 2005

When a man is 6ft 5in tall, descended from Italian aristocracy, educated at an English public school, a brilliant fencer and golfer, loves opera, speaks French, German, Spanish and Italian, and can "get along" in Swedish, Russian and Greek, you know he is destined for evil.

— Leo Benedictus, The Guardian 24 June 2005 [[2]]

Someone on imdb says that Christopher Lee is related to Civil War General Robert E. Lee. Despite the similar last time, I've never heard of this. I didn't think he had any relatives, or in particular any ancestors, who were American, as all of Robert E. Lee's descendants have been. In particular, two of General Lee's descendants are Harper Lee and Robert Duvall. The imdb poster also said that, in numerous interviews, Lee said that he and Duvall were cousins. Has anyone else ever read this?(Kenobifan 04:52, 22 January 2006 (UTC))[reply]

• See Talk:Harper Lee for a refutation of the widely-circulated claim about her kinship (circulated by, among others, the Encyclopedia Britannica): "General Robert E. Lee has very few descendants, considering that he had seven children. None of his daughters married and only two of his sons had children." (family tree) --Dystopos 00:02, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Strangely enough there does seem to be some resemblance between Christopher Lee and Robert E Lee's family. Christopher Lee's family were also the same class, upper middle-gentry and served as officers in the military. Lee's grandfather was Ellis Lee, an army Colonel, and his father was a Henry Lee jun. of Finsbury Square, London who was presumably son of another Henry Lee Arniep 00:19, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, obviously we can't rely on original research here. Shall we look for an authoritative source? --Dystopos 00:49, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There are a few biographies of Lee that might contain some more info on his family, I'll see if I can order them through my library. There is also a book on the Lee family of Virginia: Edmund Jennings Lee, Lee of Virginia 1642-1892, (1895; reprinted., Baltimore, 1983) which might mention an English branch. Arniep 01:07, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Since Lee is most closely associated with playing Dracula in the Hammer movies, shouldn't there be a picture of him in the role?Willerror 21:14, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently he speaks several languages, specifically French and German but can get by with the basics in another few European languages. Moreover, he did eventually end up in the army and has spoken more than once in general terms about being in combat. His advice, btw, is don't go into combat!

I just chopped out a lot of unnecessary external links and sorted out a few references while converting it to the new notes system. I added the fact template to many of the claims too. It's worth noting too, that the Tiscali biography calls his father Jeffrey, this article calls him Geoffrey. The Carandini pedigree calls him Geoffrey too... so maybe that raises some concerns about the accuracy of the Tiscali biog. Also, IMO, the Trivia section is way too long. It is a mix of stuff that should be in the article body, irrelevancies, and in places it strays into being a filmography. Addition: if anyone would like to add references to replace the fact templates, see: Wikipedia:Footnotes for instructions on the new system. - Motor (talk) 01:43, 26 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Tiscali bios are generally pretty good, I don't think a small spelling mistake is an indication of general inaccuracy. Jeffrey is the spelling that is usually found on most other bios (I only found that it was Geoffrey as I traced his ancestry). Arniep 02:42, 26 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]