31/01/2026 General News
Nowadays celebrities are less likely to be accosted by fans brandishing an autograph book than by adorers holding a mobile phone, writes Emily Turner. The selfie is very much the sought-after souvenir of having met a famous person today. But don’t think that the power of signed celebrity memorabilia has diminished – far from it.
In the saleroom, film, music and sporting memorabilia is very much in demand, especially if autographed by the celebrity in question. We have a number of such items in our February Popular Culture, Music, Film and Sporting Memorabilia Sale, including framed photographs of three 20th century screen icons: Christopher Lee, Vincent Price and Lynda Carter (better known as Wonder Woman).
Sir Christopher Lee (he was knighted for services to drama and charity in 2009) was an actor and singer whose career spanned an incredible six decades.
He was born in London in 1922 into a glamourous Belgravia family. His father Lt Col Geoffrey Trollope Lee had fought in both the Boer and First World Wars; his mother, Countess Estelle Marie Carandini di Sarzano, was an Edwardian beauty who was a muse for several famous artists including Sir John Lavery and Oswald Birley.
This led to an esoteric childhood, during which he even met Prince Yusupov and Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, the men who assassinated Rasputin, whom Lee would go on to play many years later. Meanwhile, after his parents’ divorce, his mother married the uncle of James Bond author Ian Fleming (whose character Scaramanga he would also portray on the screen).
After serving in Africa and Italy as a member of RAF Intelligence during the Second World War, Lee decided to take up acting (he had been an enthusiastic performer in school productions), and managed to secure a seven year contract with Rank, with his first film being the 1948 Gothic Romance Corridor of Mirrors.
He made nearly 30 years in the following decade, but it was in 1957 when he left Rank for Hammer Film Productions that his career really took off. He played a variety of iconic roles, often starring alongside actors such as Peter Cushing and Boris Karloff, including Frankenstein’s monster and Dracula – and it was this character for which he is best remembered.
But it isn’t just for horror that he is well-known: he played Bond villain Scaramanga in the Man with the Golden Gun, appeared in two Star Wars films, and portrayed Saruman in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy. He died in London in 2015, aged 93.
There is a vibrant market for Christoper Lee memorabilia; unsurprisingly after such a long and varied career, there are plenty of examples. Most prized are items linked to his early Hammer Films career, as well as autographed items from his Lord of the Rings and Star Wars appearances. Even smaller items such as ticket stubs or festival programmes still sell in the saleroom.
Lee’s friend Vincent Price was another actor best known for his horror roles, and the two did in fact appear opposite each other in a handful of movies. Price even shared the same birthday as Lee (27th May), although he was born 11 years earlier, in 1911.
He appeared in more than 100 films, as well as huge numbers of stage, TV and radio productions. His first film was the Boris Karloff-directed Tower of London in 1939; his last was Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands in 1990. He died in 1993, aged 82.
Lynda Carter’s breakout role was Wonder Woman, apart she secured in 1975 aged just 24. Prior to this she was crowned Miss World USA in 1972. It is rare that one actor’s portrayal dominates popular culture to the extent that comic afficionados identify them so entirely with the character, but Carter simply is Wonder Woman as far as fans are concerned.