Inhalt

Copyright

Contents

Introduction

Chapter One - Before Bond

Chapter Two - Becoming Bond

Chapter Three - Live and Let Die

Chapter Four - The Man with the Golden Gun

Chapter Five - The Spy Who Loved Me

Chapter Six - Moonraker

Chapter Seven - For Your Eyes Only

Chapter Eight - Octopussy

Chapter Nine - A View To A Kill

Chapter Ten - The End of An era

Chapter Eleven - Moore Never Less

Photo Credit

References

INTRODUCTION

According to Rotten Tomatoes, the worst three Bond films are The Man with the Golden Gun, Octopussy, and A View To A Kill. Here's the thing though. If I was at home for the night I'd much rather watch any of these three films than No Time to Die or Quantum of Solace. I'd also rather watch any of these three films than Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough or Die Another Day. Come to think of it I'd probably rather watch The Man with the Golden Gun, Octopussy, or A View To A Kill than Spectre or Skyfall too. Sure, Skyfall got good reviews and is an interesting enough film but I know for a fact that I'm definitely going to have way more fun watching ANY Roger Moore film than Skyfall.

The era of James Bond under Roger Moore contains many of my most golden and cherished Bond memories. The croc escape in Live and Let Die, Bond's magnetic watch, the Lotus chase in The Spy Who Loved Me, Richard Kiel as Jaws, the freefall parachute jump in Moonraker, the Acrostar jet PTS in Octopussy, Bond's fight on the train with Tee Hee - and so on. And yet, I am constantly encountering modern articles about how terrible Roger Moore and his Bond films were! How can an era which contains many of my most indelible Bond memories be terrible? The Roger Moore era was never terrible. The Roger Moore era was fantastic. It was fun.

Back in the early 1970s there was considerable doubt that the Bond franchise had any sort of future without Sean Connery. It was only expected to wheeze on for a couple more films after Connery departed (again) in the wake of Diamonds Are Forever. At this tricky time, Roger Moore was cast as James Bond in 1972. He was 45 years old and had just made the lightweight but diverting television show The Persuaders with Tony Curtis. Roger later confessed that even he thought the Bond goose was cooked. He felt it was unlikely that he would actually get to make the three films he was now under contract to appear in.

However, this did not turn out to be the case at all. Roger Moore did something that was hitherto regarded to be nigh on impossible. He proved that the Bond franchise could survive, flourish even, way beyond Sean Connery. For new generations of Bond fans Roger Moore became the Bond they grew up with. Roger made seven films and ensured that the series would survive way beyond the 1970s. That is a remarkable feat for any actor isn't it? Roger, who was always so unfairly derided as an actor, had sufficient screen presence, charisma, wit, and intelligence to put his own personal stamp on James Bond and move it ever so slightly out of Sean Connery's mighty shadow. Roger made the character his own by doing it his way.

And yet, if you glance at lazy modern casual Bond retrospectives, Roger rarely seems to get any respect at all. Many of his films seem to end up at the bottom of subjective Bond ranking lists and Roger is too often casually dismissed as some geriatric comedian who blighted the Bond franchise and turned it into something akin to the Carry On series. Now, I would concede that Roger probably made one or two films too many and I can understand why his Bond wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea (in the same way that, for different reasons, Timothy Dalton and Daniel Craig aren't everyone's cup of tea) but I can't help feeling that Roger's era, which was often highly entertaining and lavish, is sorely and unfairly underrated by this casual disdain.

If you watch Live and Let Die, Roger Moore is arguably the most youthful of the Bond actors. He is positively boyish in that film! Roger in The Spy Who Loved Me is for me one of the great Bond performances by any actor. Roger looks fantastic in that film and his ability to remain a witty and commanding anchor for a picture that big and that crazy is a testament to his screen presence. Granted, the comedic elements in Roger's films got out of hand at times but notice how good he is whenever he is given a 'straight' scene to play. The moment where Bond emerges from the out of control centrifuge in Moonraker, all sweaty and rattled and unable to talk, is a great piece of acting. Despite all the self-deprecation and brickbats, Roger was always much better than either he or critics gave him any credit for.

The Bond franchise is elastic enough to encompass different interpretations and as such I think Roger's lighter take on Bond in the 1970s was perfectly valid, enjoyable, and in many cases iconic. Roger's era had John Barry, Ken Adam, Lewis Gilbert, Derek Meddings, Richard Maibum, Tom Mankiewicz, Maurice Binder, and Cubby Broccoli. In retrospect it was something of a golden era for Bond. The success of The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker was almost a throwback to the gilt edged Bondmania of Connery and the 1960s.

One could argue that, in light of his age, Roger might have been best served being the 'seventies Bond' and making way for a Lewis Collins, Timothy Dalton, or Michael Billington at the dawn of the 1980s but the reason they kept bringing Roger back was because he was established as Bond and also popular with audiences. If people hadn't enjoyed Roger's Bond they wouldn't have made seven films with him! If he was even half as bad as these modern commentators make out then Roger would have been dumped long before 1985.

In the book that follows we shall take a deep dive into the Roger Moore era of Bond and explore his tenure from start to finish. We'll assess the strengths and weaknesses of both Roger's Bond and his films but most of all this book is a celebration of Roger Moore's James Bond and the years he spent suavely karate chopping baddies in a selection of safari suits and cream flares. Roger's amazing contribution to the Bond franchise is far too often derided and mocked these days. This book will hopefully serve as an entertaining and robust defence of Roger and his incarnation of James Bond.

CHAPTER ONE - BEFORE BOND

Roger George Moore was born on the 14th of October 1927 in Stockwell, London. Despite his urbane image as the archetypal English gentleman, Moore came from a fairly humble background and was a policeman's son from South London. He lived through some of the Luftwaffe's London Blitz before evacuation to Devon, did national military service (where he eventually earned the rank of captain), and had early ambitions to become an animator. It was of course though acting which became his career. Roger eventually went to Rada where he met Lois Maxwell, who was later to play Miss Moneypenny in the Connery and Moore Bond films.

Like any jobbing young actor, Roger Moore experienced provincial theatres and tatty boarding houses as he sought to carve out a career. His good looks eventually earned him a contract with MGM - though big screen stardom was still elusive for a long time. He was married to the singer Dorothy Squires (who was rather eccentric it seems) for a time and appeared on the screen with some very famous faces. Roger's early roles included uncredited parts in films and some small roles in television shows and television movies. He made his film debut in the 1954 film The Last Time I Saw Paris. The Last Time I Saw Paris was based on the F Scott Fitzgerald short story Babylon Revisited. Despite his studio contract, MGM seemed to show little interest in activating their option on Roger until this film arrived.

Roger was asked to report to Culver City Studios in Hollywood where the Irving Thalberg building dominated the landscape. Roger Moore was 26 years-old and awed by the studio with its collection of lots - all with spectacular backdrops to use in films. New York City streets, railway tracks, cowboy towns, lakes, rivers. The stars of The Last Time I Saw Paris were Elizabeth Taylor and Van Johnson with Roger some way down the cast list as a minor supporting player. The talented director Richard Brooks would further enhance his reputation with films like Blackboard Jungle, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Elmer Gantry. Roger - looking incredibly young - flits into the film as a tennis playing gigolo who has a fling with Helen and makes Van Johnson jealous. Roger doesn't have an awful lot to do in the film but you can see why his good looks encouraged studios to have him on a contract just in case they needed a dashing young actor for any particular part.

In 1955, Roger appeared in a supporting role in Interrupted Melody - a biopic of Australian opera singer Marjorie Lawrence. Lawrence valiantly battled polio after huge success in the 1930s and the film is an adaptation of her book about her ups and downs and experiences around the world as a famed singer. Lana Turner, Greer Garson, and Kathryn Grayson were considered to play Lawrence but it was Eleanor Parker who won the role. Glenn Ford was cast as Marjorie's doctor husband Thomas King while Roger plays her brother Cyril. The voice of Lawrence singing was supplied by Eileen Farrell. Interrupted Melody is regarded to be a fine biopic of the era and arguably the highlight of Eleanor Parker's career.

1955 also saw Roger appear in The King's Thief. The King's Thief is a Hollywood swashbuckler with many British actors in the cast. The film was roasted by critics and isn't fondly remembered (even Roger jokes about how awful the film was in his autobiography) but the picture was important to Roger on a personal note because he became great friends with David Niven through it. The production was notable for some behind the scenes intrigue with Edmund Purdom frequently holding everyone up with constant telephone calls due to his affair with Linda Christian. Another British cast member, George Sanders, was prone to falling asleep in his dressing room. It's a wonder the film was ever finished!

The following year Roger Moore appeared in another movie - Diane. Diane is a historical drama about the life of Diane de Poitiers. Diane de Poitiers was a noblewoman and courtier at the courts of kings Francis I and his son - Henry II. She became notorious as the latter's favourite and developed much influence and power at the French Court. The leading lady in Diane was Lana Turner, a huge Hollywood star but now slightly on the downward slope. It was the last film of Turner's MGM contract.

Diane was also Roger's final film as part of his MGM contract and he takes on the part of Prince Henri. Co-star Pedro Armendáriz would go on to become well known to James Bond fans for his role as Kerim Bey in From Russia with Love with Sean Connery. Diane was not a huge financial success but the production values of the film were praised and it served as a respectable last hurrah for Lana Turner's MGM years. Roger is very dashing and handsome as Henri - although he doesn't seem completely comfortable in period clobber. He and Turner work together relatively well and do their best to stir some passion into the picture. The age difference between the characters is less of a factor in this interpretation but Roger does look very baby-faced and young compared to the statuesque Turner.

In 1958/59, Roger appeared in 39 episodes as the lead of the ITV show Ivanhoe. Big screen stardom might have thus far eluded Roger but he was a great leading man on television and good at playing heroic and dashing heroes. One of his Ivanhoe co-stars was Robert Brown - who many years later would play M in his last Bond movies. Ivanhoe was the first time Roger had been a leading man in anything. He did many of his own stunts in Ivanhoe and picked up a number of injuries as a result. The show was made by ITV and aimed primarily at children.

Roger Moore's flexibility, in that he was willing to work in either film or television and on both sides of the Atlantic too, meant that he was never short of work. In 1959/1960, Roger appeared in 37 episodes of the Western television show The Alaskans and also found the time to appear in the anthology show Alfred Hitchcock Presents. The Alaskans was Roger's first experience of American television and he absolutely hated it. Roger described the show as 'appalling' and felt that the actors were frequently placed in unnecessary danger with the stunts, fires, and (a particular bugbear) fake plastic snow. Roger's marriage was also strained by him having an affair with his Alaskans co-star Dorothy Provine. It's safe to say that The Alaskans was not an especially happy time for Roger.

Roger, much to his annoyance, also appeared in the fourth season of the Western show Maverick as Beau Maverick. Roger replaced James Garner - who quit the show over a contract dispute. Roger was told he was going to be in Maverick while he was in the make-up chair on The Alaskans. He was irritated by this because he had some film offers in the pipeline and felt the writing on Maverick was atrocious. Roger made fourteen episodes of Maverick before he decided he'd had enough and quit. Sean Connery actually turned down the part of Beau Maverick before it was given to Roger Moore. Connery and Moore would forever be entwined in cinema history thanks to an altogether different role in the future.

Roger also appeared in the 1959 film The Miracle. The film is adapted from The Miracle (1911) by German playwright Karl Vollmoeller. Volmoeller based the play on a Middle Ages legend of a Virgin Mary statue replacing a nun who flees a convent with a knight. The film was supposed to be made in the 1940s but was long delayed and only arrived in 1959.

The story here moves the legend to the Napoleonic era and has Carroll Baker as the lead. Baker, a famous sex symbol of the era, (unwittingly) created controversy in Elia Kazan's suggestive Baby Doll a few years before. It was speculated that her playing a postulant in a convent in a moral message film was an attempt to quash the controversy that still lingered from censorious religious groups! She simply didn't want to be typecast.

The Miracle was intended as a Bette Davis vehicle but she wasn't interested. Roger's part as a British officer was initially offered to Dirk Bogarde but he wasn't interested either. Bogarde suggested to the studio that Roger play the role instead. When Roger later tried to personally thank Dirk Bogarde for suggesting him he found it completely impossible to get a meeting with the reclusive actor! The Miracle met with a tepid reception both from audiences and critics. It wasn't helped by opening against Ben-Hur and also suffered in comparison to Audrey Hepburn's The Nun's Story.

Roger would appear in three more films in the early 1960s before taking a long hiatus from movies thanks to his role as Simon Templar in The Saint on television. The Sins of Rachel Cade was part of Roger's contract with Warner's and saw him appear with Angie Dickinson and Peter Finch. Roger was still shooting the television show The Alaskans and only arrived on the set of The Sins of Rachel Cade as Finch was preparing to leave so they didn't spend much time together. Roger's friend Gordon Douglas directed the picture. The Sins of Rachel Cade is a so-so melodrama that is competent enough but perhaps not the most memorable of the early films that Roger acted in.

The Sins of Rachel Cade is a very late fifties/early sixties soap opera-ish drama with the Belgian Congo quite obviously a few sets out the back of the Warner's lot rather than a real jungle. Some stock footage from The Nun's Story was also used in the film. The same year Roger also appeared in Gold of the Seven Saints. Gold of the Seven Saints is a Western that features Roger alongside the brawny Clint Walker. The director Gordon Douglas and Walker had already made 1958's Fort Dobbs and 1959's Yellowstone Kelly together and Gold of the Seven Saints was their final Western collaboration. Walker is the lead and Gold of the Seven Saints feels like an attempt to make the hulking actor (then appearing in the popular television series Cheyenne) and Roger stars on the big screen.

One could forgive Roger if he was starting to tire of Westerns somewhat after his television experiences but Gold of the Seven Saints turned out to be a decent enough picture. Gold of the Seven Saints is sometimes dubbed an inferior The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and while, yes, it's true that Sierra Madre is a much better film, Gold of the Seven Saints is an interesting and well made picture with some beautiful black and white photography by Joseph F Biroc.

The final film role Roger took at this was time was Romulus and the Sabines. Romulus and the Sabines (Il ratto delle sabine) is an Italian/French swords and sandals picture directed by Richard Pottier. A film inspired by the mythological Rape of the Sabine Women. Roger was persuaded to participate by his agent at the time - despite the fee on offer seeming rather modest. Appearing in European films was seen as a way to boost one's profile and stay busy. It certainly worked for Clint Eastwood.

Romulus and the Sabines was not a huge success though and has largely been forgotten today. It was a cheapjack production with not much money to go around. Roger was supposed to make another Italian picture after this but he had so much trouble getting his money for Romulus and the Sabines he decided not to bother. In his memoir, Roger reflects that it was an interesting experience making the film, especially as the actors spoke in their native languages and were simply dubbed afterwards.

In 1961, Roger was cast by Lew Grade as Simon Templar in a new adaptation of The Saint, based on the novels by Leslie Charteris. Moore played the debonair troubleshooter Simon Templar and often directed the episodes too. Roger would play this role for seven years. NBC picked up The Saint and so the show, much more than any of the movies Roger had been in, made him something of an international star. Roger never really escaped from the suave eyebrow raised image of Simon Templar - though this didn't unduly bother him.

In his memoir, Roger Moore recalls cold winter days in Elstree shooting The Saint and always having to pretend on minimal budgets that Templar was in some exotic land far away. Roger was suave and handsome as Templar and convincing as an aristocratic hero who is very sure of himself. Templar had fistfights, romanced women, and drove posh cars. Simon Templar was a lot like James Bond in many ways so it probably wasn't surprising that Roger was touted as a potential James Bond quite a lot in the 1960s when the 007 franchise was born. Going from Templar to Bond felt like a fairly natural progression.

The first screen adaptation of James Bond was a 1954 CBS version of Casino Royale as part of Climax Mystery Theater. Barry Nelson portrayed 'Jimmy' Bond - an American card shark. This one hour production obviously wasn't tremendously faithful to Ian Fleming. Bond eventually managed to escape from such curiosities and become a juggernaut movie franchise on the silver screen. The James Bond film franchise (based of course on the popular series of spy thrillers written by Ian Fleming) launched in 1962 is a very special and unique series quite unlike any other. When it began no one could have possibly dreamed of the success and longevity it would enjoy. There had been franchises before Bond - like Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes, Charlie Chan, The Falcon, Jungle Jim, Frankenstein, Lassie, Rin Tin Tin, Bulldog Drummond, Hopalong Cassidy, and many others. As the Bond series began, thrifty but fun franchises like Godzilla and the Carry On films were already becoming popular in their respective countries.

The Bond franchise created by producers Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman however was completely different. Previous film series operated strictly on the law of diminishing returns and lowered the budgets accordingly. They sought to extract every last penny out of their licenced property without actually spending any money. The Bond series reversed this tradition. Each new Bond film was bigger than the one that came before. More lavish, more expensive, more spectacular. It was a gamble that paid off handsomely. Adjusted for inflation, the most successful James Bond film of all time is 1965's Thunderball. Thunderball marked the peak of sixties Bondmania but the series would still go on and on with enduring success and seemingly without end.

The James Bond books were turned into a movie franchise in 1962 by New York born film producer Albert 'Cubby' Broccoli and Canadian producer Harry Saltzman. Before he became a film producer, Cubby Broccoli had a spell selling coffins. He was also a Christmas tree salesman at one point. Dr No was eventually chosen to be the first film adaptation.

"Harry Saltzman held the option on Ian Fleming’s James Bond stories," said Broccoli, "and I offered him a partnership. He considered them a bit of nonsense. I thought they offered all the basics in screen entertainment: a virile and resourceful hero, exotic locations, the ingenious apparatus of espionage and sex on a sophisticated level. It’s true they had been around for a long time, and none of the leading British and American producers had made a serious pitch for them."

Cubby Broccoli used to be a business partner with the famous American producer Irwin Allen. When Cubby told Allen he wanted to option the Bond books, Allen told him the Fleming novels were awful and wouldn't even be worthy of television. He was obviously completely wrong about that. Ian Fleming's James Bond books were very popular because their blend of sex, sadism, and dangerous adventure felt like something new and even risque at the time. British readers loved the James Bond books in the 1950s because the exotic nature of the novels was an escape from the lingering post-war austerity they still experienced.

Fleming once wrote that the James Bond books were written for 'for warm-blooded heterosexuals in railway trains, airplanes and beds'. Bond's code number '007' was apparently inspired by a bus route in Kent which was often taken by the author Ian Fleming. The literary Bond suffers from "accidie" - this is Fleming's definition of boredom and the deadliest of all sins for James Bond. The profile of the Bond novels got a huge boost when President John F. Kennedy named From Russia With Love as one of his books of the year.

As part of the deal with Ian Fleming to bring James Bond to the big screen, it was agreed that EON (the company created by Broccoli and Saltzman to produce the movies - EON means Everything or Nothing) would have permission to write original Bond films if they exhausted the Fleming stories. This was obviously a shrewd agreement on the part of the film producers. When the Bond movie franchise began, Ian Fleming was allowed to sit in on production meetings and had final script approval. The James Bond movie franchise tended to cherrypick titles, character names, and scenes from the Fleming books rather than adapt them wholesale.

Broccoli and Saltzman finally managed to put in a deal in place for the first Bond movie to be produced but now they had the not inconsiderable task of finding the right actor to play Bond. This would be their first experience of what you might describe as the 007 casting circus. The casting of a new Bond involves hundreds of interviews, readings, auditions, and screen tests. There is no particular science about it. The process simply has to find an actor who everyone (the producers and the studio) can agree upon. The lack of a specific criteria for what sort of person they wanted was evident in the eclectic sweep of the Dr No casting calls. Mature and famous actors were approached to play James Bond in Dr No but so were inexperienced unknown young actors too. No one really seemed to have a firm idea of who they wanted.

When the first James Bond film was being planned, Ian Fleming sent Broccoli and Saltzman a memo with his own thoughts about the approach they should take. 'Atmosphere: To my mind, the greatest danger in this series is too much stage Englishness,' wrote Fleming. 'There should, I think, be no monocles, mustaches, bowler hats or bobbies or other "Limey" gimmicks. There should be no blatant English slang, a minimum of public school ties and accents.' Fleming wanted the Bond films to feel modern and bold. Broccoli and Saltzman shared this vision. Cubby Broccoli's own take was that Bond films should be set 'five minutes into the future'. They should exist in a world that is more or less our own but heightened slightly.

It is often said that Ian Fleming wanted Roger Moore to play James Bond in Dr No but any evidence for this is hard to verify. Moore said that he wasn't approached for Dr No at all - although Cubby Broccoli wrote in his memoir that Roger was a person they briefly discussed in casting discussions but then dismissed because they felt he still looked too boyish and callow. At the time Roger Moore was in his early thirties and on the lower rung of the studio system in Hollywood. Roger's attempt to become a star in the United States, despite frequent work, did not gain much traction and so he eventually returned to England to play Simon Templar on television - thus setting him on a 'long way around' path to James Bond in the future.

The problems in casting James Bond in Dr No felt like divine intervention in the end because it paved the way for the right candidate to finally emerge. That candidate was a 30 year-old Scottish actor named Sean Connery. Connery had been an artist's model, body builder, and coffin polisher before he took up acting. It was apparently the 1959 Disney film Darby O'Gill and the Little People which put Connery on the EON radar. Cubby Broccoli's wife Dana saw Connery in this film and told her husband that Connery was sexy. When the producers met Sean Connery they were impressed by the macho magnetism he seemed to project.

'One face kept coming back into my mind,' wrote Cubby Broccoli in his memoir. 'He was Sean Connery, a tall, personable man, projecting a kind of animal virility and just the right hint of threat behind that hard smile. I was convinced he was the closest we could get to Fleming’s super-hero. We sent footage to United Artists in New York, who’d put up the $1 million. They sent back a telegram: ‘NO – KEEP TRYING.’ We wired back, insisting that Connery was the man we wanted and we weren’t searching any further.'

Connery was scruffy and laid-back when he met the producers. He wasn't someone to put on heirs and graces. "I had first met Sean in Cubby's office back at the beginning," said Moneypenny actress Lois Maxwell. "He had that wonderful atmosphere of menace and moved, as Cubby said, like a panther. But he was still a poor young actor in rumpled corduroys who looked like he lived in a bedsit." Connery was even reluctant to do a test for Bond. He said the producers should simply decide if they wanted him or not on the strength of his other work (which was limited at the time as Connery had only been acting for several years).

Terence Young hated the choice of Sean Connery at first ("Disaster!" Young is said to have declared when he heard Connery was cast) but quickly realised that Connery could be very good if he was cleaned up somewhat. Terence Young played a big role in the transformation of Connery. Young had his tailor cut sharp suits for Connery and taught him how to be more elegant and refined onscreen. Young got Sean Connery a Saville Row suit for Dr No and told him to sleep in it! Young wanted Connery to feel like an expensive suit was like a second skin. The friendship between Terence Young and Sean Connery on the early Bond films mitigated the fact that Connery didn't like the Bond producers very much. When he was cast as James Bond, Connery worked with a dance teacher named Yat Malmgren so he could learn how to be more graceful and panther like in his movements and gestures.

Ian Fleming also initially hated the choice of Sean Connery to play James Bond. Fleming thought that Connery was too rough and not refined enough to play his hero. He even compared him to a truck driver. However, Fleming changed his mind when he saw Connery in action. He thought Connery was fantastic. Ian Fleming lived long enough to see Dr No and From Russia With Love made into movies but - sadly - he died just before the release of Goldfinger. Fleming therefore never quite got to experience the peak Bondmania that his famous character created in the 1960s with Goldfinger and Thunderball. Peter Hunt, the editor on the early Bond films, said they only realised what a sensation they had on their hands when they screened Dr No for an audience. Before that, they genuinely didn't know if audiences would like Dr No or not.

Sean Connery said he enjoyed making the first few Bond films but it became a drag in the end. "The first two or three were fun. The cast made it fun. Jumping out of planes was entertaining although it was tough on my hair piece. It eventually became too dominant in everything I was doing. There was no way to compete with it and try to get any justifiable balance." The Bond films soon got bigger and bigger as the money rolled in. Thunderball was so popular in Britain that some cinemas sold all their seats and then sold extra tickets to customers who were willing to stand! Demand for Thunderball was so great that they had two simultaneous premieres in London full of celebrities, glitz, and huge crowds of fans. Sean Connery never turned up to either of them.

All of the later James Bond actors have had to stand in the shadow cast by the Sean Connery. George Lazenby once said that the post-Connery Bonds were essentially all impostors trying to play a role that belonged to Sean. Connery had screen presence, charisma, perfect timing, machismo, acting ability, and wit. He was the complete package. None of the other Bond actors (whatever their individual strengths) were quite able to tick every box in the way that Sean Connery did (and with considerable ease too). Connery's Bond could be cruel and ruthless but he was also charming and funny. No other Bond actor was able to project an irresistible blend of power and panache in the fashion that Connery could. Connery's Bond was dangerous but he was also fun. That was the perfect template for the cinematic version of Ian Fleming's character.

Sean Connery has to take a generous portion of the credit for the Bond films becoming such a phenomenon that they still exist today. The 60s Bonds were the foundation upon which an apparently indestructible film franchise was built. Dr No made nearly $60 million from a budget of only one million and the profits on the following films would be even more spectacular. Goldfinger was so popular that its soundtrack knocked the Beatles off the top of the American albums chart. Production began on Goldfinger before From Russia with Love had even been released to cinemas. The producers were super confident (even at this early stage) that they had a winning formula.

In 1964, Roger Moore unofficially played James Bond for the first time in a sketch on the comedy show Mainly Millicent with Millicent Martin. The sketch was obviously played for laughs but it indicated how Roger was already being associated with James Bond in the eyes of the public and media. Because of his suave hero image as Simon Templar, people were already speculating about the possibility of Roger taking over as James Bond should Sean Connery ever decide to depart for pastures new.

Sean Connery would make five Bond films in the 1960s. It was as if the union of this actor and this character was always destined to happen. You couldn't really imagine anyone else playing the sixties Bond. Connery was perfect. Though the role catapulted Connery to the A' list it did not bring him artistic happiness. Sean Connery quickly tired of the fame and attention afforded to him by Bondmania in the 1960s. Connery called James Bond his Frankenstein's Monster. In the period between Thunderball and You Only Live Twice, Connery did an interview in which he said - "The Bond pictures have become like comic strips dependent on bigger and better gimmicks. That’s all that sustains them. There are even dolls with spikes that protrude from their shoes. It’s a lot of rubbish."

One of the main reasons why Connery left the franchise was that he felt it was constrictive playing the same character all the time. He wanted to embrace new challenges as an actor and get away from his Bond image. Connery was frustrated that the Bond films became increasingly elaborate and lengthy productions because this made it more difficult for him to find the time to play other more rewarding (from his point of view) roles. There are other reasons too why Sean Connery tired of playing James Bond. For one, he felt like he had no privacy anymore. Wherever he went he was besieged by fans. Connery couldn't even go out for a quiet meal without being asked for an autograph (his annoyance was frequently made worse by people asking him to sign autographs 'James Bond' rather than Sean Connery). Around the time that Thunderball was released,

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 19.11.2022
ISBN: 978-3-7554-2553-3

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