Remembering Peter Lee Lawrence

Peter Lee Lawrence was born Karl Hyrenbach on February 21, 1944 on Lindau Island, Bodensee, Bavaria, Germany. Karl had three sisters and two brothers. He lived in Nice, France for several years with his mother and then moved to Rome, Italy with his wife and Karl [1965- ]. He was also cast in photo novels under the name Pierre Clément.

 
He started his film career as the brother-in-law of Lee Van Cleef in “For a Few Dollars More”. He went on to star in 16 more Spaghetti Westerns from 1967 to 1973. He was also credited in several of these films as Arthur Grant. Some of these films were huge hits in Europe including “Killer Caliber .32” (1967), “Days of Violence” (1967), “The Fury of Johnny Kid” (1967), “A Few Bullets More” (1967), and “Killer Adios” (1968). He was a particularly popular actor in Cuba.
 
He married actress Cristina Galbó [1950- ] in 1969 and the two appeared in several films together and had a son named David in 1970.
 
In 1972 Lawrence began suffering from headaches. Once filming finished on “Los Caballeros del Botón de Ancla” in 1974, he was admitted to the Foundation Jimenez Diaz Hospital in Madrid, where he was operated on by Dr. Sixto Obrador. The surgery was a success, but the biopsy report revealed it was glioblastoma. He moved to Zurich, where, under the auspices of Professor Wolfgang Horst, he began both chemo and radium treatment. On the 25th of March 1974, Lawrence was admitted to the Villa Stuart Clinic in Rome with severe stomach pains. He died on Saturday, April 20, 1974, at ten past three in the morning. Rumor has persisted for years that because of the brain tumor he had committed suicide but this is false and his death in the Rome hospital has been confirmed by his wife Cristina Galbó and his son by his first marriage Karl Baudoin.
 
In all Peter appeared in over 25 film, 17 of which were Euro-westerns in his short nine year film career. He rose to be one of the major stars of the Spaghetti western genre and is remembered with great fondness by many fans throughout the world. Today would have been his 70^th birthday.