Composer of Bond theme fought legal battles to be acknowledged as its writer

Monty Norman had several stage musicals to his name when he was summoned to meet Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman at their London office, where they told him of their plans to turn Ian Fleming’s James Bond adventures into a film. Norman, who had never read a Fleming novel, was unsure about getting involved. ‘‘Harry said to me, ‘We are doing Dr No in Jamaica. Why don’t you come with us, get a feel for the music and the place and bring the wife?’ ’’ he recalled.

Saltzman mentioned that all his expenses would be covered. ‘‘That was the clincher for me,’’ said Norman, who has died aged 94. ‘‘I thought, even if

Dr No turns out to be a stinker, at least we’d have sun, sea and sand to show for it.’’

As he was leaving, a production assistant whispered: ‘‘See if you can get a good theme for this, because I reckon we’ve got two films and a television series out of this.’’

Once there, Broccoli wanted a song for when Ursula Andress’ Honey Ryder emerges sylph-like from the sea, watched by Sean Connery’s Bond. The result, Underneath the Mango Tree, was sung on the film by Diana Coupland, Norman’s then wife.

The producers also wanted a number for the opening, which features three blind assassins. ‘‘I thought, this is Jamaica, this is the place for calypso, I’ll do Three Blind Mice as a calypso,’’ Norman said of Kingston Calypso, which was a hit on the island.

When it came to the theme tune, Norman tried various ideas, but none seemed quite right. Then he remembered Bad Sign, Good Sign, a number he had composed for an abandoned staging of VS Naipaul’s novel A House for Mr Biswas, directed by Peter Brook. ‘‘It was good but too ethnic, with this Indian feel,’’ he said of the song’s sitar twang. ‘‘But I got the idea of splitting the notes and putting them to a guitar. From that moment I was sure I had the right James Bond sound.’’

The arrangement failed to convince Broccoli and Saltzman, who instead got John Barry to arrange Norman’s composition. The result became one of the most familiar themes in the history of cinema – as well as one of the most bitterly fought over, with differing accounts of who wrote what and when. ‘‘There’s an old saying in showbiz,’’ Norman later mused. ‘‘Nobody argues over a flop.’’

The argument ended up in the courts more than once, including when Norman sued The Sunday Times over the paper’s suggestions that Barry, who wrote music for several more Bond films, had been the original composer. ‘‘I became a nervous wreck,’’ Norman recalled. ‘‘If we didn’t win, I would have lost everything.’’ The verdict was unanimous: he was awarded £30,000 damages with costs estimated at £500,000. The case served to show how important the Bond franchise had become.

Monty Noserovitch was born in Stepney,

‘‘There’s an old saying in showbiz. Nobody argues

over a flop.’’

Monty Norman on the legal disputes over the James Bond theme

Monty Norman

composer b April 4, 1928 d July 11, 2022

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Do you know someone who deserves a Life Story? Email obituaries@dompost.co.nz east London. He was the only child of Abraham Noserovitch, a Jewish cabinet maker from Latvia, and his wife Ann, a seamstress. One of his favourite childhood photographs was an image of him in their landlady’s garden holding her guitar. At the same time, he ‘‘never forgot what it was to feel hungry’’.

During the war he was sent out of the city, but the family returned to London and in 1944 his mother bought him his own instrument. ‘‘I’ve still got that guitar, a 1930s Gibson,’’ he wrote. ‘‘I never use it, but I keep it as a talisman.’’

Having anglicised his surname to Norman, he began working as a barber, which he continued during National Service. He served alongside Barry Took and Vidal Sassoon, along the way acquiring an interest in singing. On demobilisation he performed with big bands.

While performing as the ‘‘singing barber’’ on BBC television he met Coupland; they were married in 1956 and had a daughter, Shoshana, an interior designer, who survives him. The marriage was dissolved in 1975 and in 2001 he married Rina Caesari, a social worker who also survives him.

By the late 1950s Norman had turned to songwriting, winning best musical award in 1959 for Make Me an Offer, written with David Heneker and Wolf Mankowitz. Two years later Broccoli put up the money for another Norman-Mankowitz musical, Belle or The Ballad of Dr Crippen, which was inspired by the story of the notorious murderer. It ran for only seven weeks, but when Broccoli needed someone to write the music for Dr No he turned to Norman.

Off stage, Norman cut a debonair figure. He followed Tottenham Hotspur FC, worshipped at the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in St John’s Wood, northwest London, and enjoyed practising his culinary skills in the kitchen, tajine being his favourite dish.

His other musicals included Stand and Deliver (1972), which was panned by The Times as ‘‘a feeble imitation of The Beggar’s Opera’’. He had more success with Songbook (1979), which transferred to Broadway, and Poppy (1982), an ‘‘adult pantomime’’.

In time he came to accept that the Bond theme would overshadow his other achievements. ‘‘I hope when the time comes, people will remember that I’ve done quite a few things,’’ he said. ‘‘But the fact that James Bond is so iconic in everybody’s mind – you can’t argue with that and nor would I want to.’’ – The Times