Love him or hate him, it was impossible not to respect author and journalist Christopher Hitchens, who died Thursday at the age of 62.

As fans of his work mourned his death from pneumonia stemming from oesophageal cancer, RadarOnline.com reveals the man behind the famous byline who spoke out against Mother Theresa, Hilary and Bill Clinton, and even God.

Born in Portsmouth, England in 1949 to parents who were both in the Royal Navy, young Christopher was educated at a boarding school in Cambridge where he later confessed to having experimented with relationships with other male students, and even fell in love with a boy named Guy, who he exchanged poems and "white-hot snatched kisses" with.