Indian connection
In 2003, the actor was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II, not for his acting, but for his humanitarian work
Roger Moore visited India twice; the first time was a trip in 1982 for the shooting of Octopussy. His second visit came 23 years later in 2005 as a Unicef Goodwill Ambassador promoting the use of iodised salt. Some scenes of Octopussy, which was released in 1983, were shot in Udaipur in Rajasthan (pictured). In 2005, Moore was accompanied by his wife to India and they visited a school. ir Roger Moore saw more to life than a wellmixed martini.
“I felt small, insignificant and rather ashamed that I had travelled so much making films and ignored what was going on around me,” he would say years after starring in seven movies and upon accepting a role that his friend Audrey Hepburn inspired him to take on, goodwill ambassador for Unicef.
Moore, who died on Tuesday at age 89, didn’t seem to take Bond that seriously even while playing him. Burdened with following Sean Connery as Agent 007, Moore kept it light, using a wry, amused tone and perpetually arched eyebrow as if he had landed on the set by accident. Connery embodied for millions the role of Bond as the suave drinker, womaniser and disposer of evil. Moore didn’t so much inhabit the character as look upon him with disbelief.
“To me, the Bond situations are so ridiculous, so outrageous,” he once said. “I mean, this man is supposed to be a spy and yet, everybody knows he’s a spy. Every bartender in the world offers him martinis that are shaken, not stirred. What kind of serious spy is recognised everywhere he goes? It’s outrageous. RogerMoorein 1950s-60sTV show‘Maverick’. So you have to treat the humour outrageously as well.” The handsome, dark-haired actor had long, full lives before and after his debut as Bond, in 1973. He was remembered warmly by fans of the popular US 1950s-60s TV series as Beauregarde Maverick, the English cousin of the Wild West’s Maverick brothers, Bret and Bart. He also starred in the 1959 US series .In England, he had a long-running TV hit with playing Simon Templar, the enigmatic Moore(left) VanJohnsonand ElizabethTaylorin ‘TheLastTimeI SawParis’(1954). Moorewithhis knighthoodin2003. ‘Diane’ (1956).
action hero who helps put wealthy crooks in jail while absconding with their fortunes. By the time the series, which also aired in the United States, ended in 1969, his partnership with its producers had made him a wealthy man.
He succeeded even as critics scorned. His performance opposite Lana Turner in the 1956 movie
was likened by