Max Ciampoli was born in Paris in 1922 and baptized at the Vatican. Max was not yet three years old when he and his parents moved to Monaco, where his father owned nightclubs.

Max learned fluent German and Italian from his live-in tutor, a retired Austrian cavalry colonel.

Max often visited his godfather in Cap d’Antibes, where he encountered his godfather’s vacationing neighbor, Winston Churchill painting in front of a friend’s villa.

At the age of seven, Max was sent to a Jesuit boarding school in Nice where he completed his high-school education at fourteen and entered university to become a dentist.

Max quit the university to serve his country in the elite Alpine Ski Troop of the French army as an officer even though he was underage.

Soon after France was defeated, Max’s godfather called Mr. Churchill and told him that “little Max” had grown into a responsible, resourceful and determined young man who wanted to rid France of the Nazis.

Churchill decided to have him trained as a secret agent.

After the war, Max immigrated to the United States. He became a US citizen in 1956.

Max met Linda Rhodes, in Marina del Rey, California in 1986, and they were married five years later.