The spy everyone loved
SIR Roger Moore always made sure to laugh at himself before the audience could.
With a mere arch of an eyebrow, Moore, whose wit was drier than James Bond’s martinis, could convey a scepticism of his accidental profession, disarming good looks and the suave characters he often played, from Bond to Simon Templar, all while saving the day and charming a scantily clad girl in the process.
Sporting a posh accent and square jaw, Moore, who died on Tuesday at age 89, looked the part of a movie star and a debonair international spy.
But beneath the surface, the policeman’s son from South London, a sickly child and plump kid who always chose a joke over a street fight, saw the inherent ridiculousness of 007 – and left an indelible mark on the role, and a generation, because of it.
“You can’t be a real spy and have everybody in the world know who you are and what your drink is,” Moore often said. “That’s just hysterically funny.”
A large part of his charm is Moore never set out to be an actor. As a teenager, on a lark, he tagged along with some friends doing crowd work on the Vivien Leigh and Claude Raines film Caesar and Cleopatra and caught the eye of someone who thought he should meet the director.
“He said I think you should be trained. I said, ‘ Oh how wonderful’,” Moore recalled in an interview. “So I rushed home and told my mother I was going to be Stewart Granger.”
The long- running TV show The Saint about the witty and charming romantic hero Simon Templar, many noted, was not unlike Moore himself – and would inform how he chose to play James Bond over the course of seven films, starting with Live and Let Die from 1973 and ending with A View to a Kill in 1985.
For many, The Spy Who Loved Me, from 1977, is one of the greatest Bond films, and certainly the best for Moore – even though praise at the time was almost backhanded.
Moore insisted Sean Connery’s Bond, more macho and a killer, was the best interpretation.
In fact, most of Moore’s accolades, including his knighthood, came from his work off- screen humanitarian with UNICEF, which he found through his friend Audrey Hepburn.
“He does not regard everything as a laugh, but he would die rather than let you see,” said his friend Michael Caine.
But he carried on the act, like a good soldier, throughout his life. Even recently, when asked what audiences can expect from his wellreviewed one- man stage show, Moore hesitated only to laugh.
“Two hours good sleep,” he said.
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