Lifetime Achievement Award in Germany

[Charles Prepolec]

Over this past weekend, February 3-4, 2001 Mr. Lee appeared in Munich, Germany to receive a well-deserved Lifetime Achievement Award at the Deutscher Videopreis (German Video Awards) 2001 Gala. The prestigious award recognizes the importance of Mr. Lee’s standing in the German Video Association and celebrates his lifelong contributions to the industry, which is bigger than motion pictures and television in Germany. Mr. Lee received the only standing ovation of the evening and is one of the few foreigners to ever win an award of this type.

On hand to present the award was none other than the lovely Senta Berger, who co-starred with Mr. Lee in 1962’s Sherlock Holmes und das Halsband des Todes (Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace). In her introduction of Mr. Lee, she said:

"A legend is a legend. And Christopher Lee is Christopher Lee. And thank God he is a very ‘living’ legend. Which you will soon see in his latest two movies ´The Lord of the Rings´ and ´Star Wars Episode II´. He is a comedian, a cosmopolitan, a crowd puller and a Star.”

The obviously pleased and very dapper Mr. Lee then made the following acceptance speech in German:

"I would like to say thank you very much to you all, for honoring me in this special way. And also thank you very much to the German Video Association, for inviting me to Munich. In our modern times, it is especially the Video industry, which carries on the classic tradition of cinema and makes it available to a wide, new public. It fills me with happiness and pride, that because of this; especially the younger generations get, through the Video industry; the opportunity to watch so many of my movies. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for this honor and for this great Award. Thank you."

After the awards Mr. Lee spoke to a reporter about his relationship with Munich and joked that his career ”isn’t over yet”.

Video clips of the event are available here and here. A montage of clips of Mr. Lee’s films in German can be seen here.

All images and video footage is courtesy of www.Filmstadt.de and is copyright Filmstadt 2001. Special thanks to member Stefanie Meyer for providing the translations used in this article.