They told me I was too fat, too unfit and too hairy to be 007
Warm, witty, packed with gossip and as stylish as he was – starting today, the exclusive memoirs of the best-loved Bond . . .
THE first rule when i took over as James Bond was: no martinis, either shaken or stirred. producer cubby Broccoli had just handed me a contract to play 007 and i was ecstatic about it.
IT was 1972, i was 44 years old and although i had enjoyed huge TV success with the Saint, i was not a cinema star.
this role had been a long time coming. although i hadn’t known it at the time, i had apparently been on the shortlist for Bond a decade earlier for the first film, Dr no. the part went to some Scottish guy called Sean.
then, when Sean was getting fed up in the mid-Sixties, my name came up again. this time, an australian underwear model called George [Lazenby] got the nod. So when Bond was up for grabs once more, i was determined not to rock the boat.
Director Guy Hamilton banned that trademark martini line because he was anxious that i shouldn’t have any lines that were associated with Sean. ‘Of course,’ i said smoothly. a little later my phone rang, with a message for me from Broccoli’s co-producer, Harry Saltzman: ‘cubby thinks you need to lose a little weight.’
Well, i’d been filming the TV series the persuaders with tony curtis, whose love of the good life had rubbed off on me. ‘ OK,’ i said, and started a strict diet.
the phone rang again: ‘cubby thinks you’re a little out of shape.’ So i started a tough fitness regimen. again the phone rang, and this time it was cubby: ‘ Harry thinks your hair is a little too long.’
‘Why didn’t you just cast a thin, fit, bald fellow in the first place and avoid putting me through this hell?’ i replied.
Filming on Live and Let Die began that October in new York before moving to new Orleans, where i was to suffer my first — but by no means last — injury as Bond, in the big jet-boat chase.
the thing about jet boats is, although they are lovely to drive, to turn them you have to pile on the speed.
i did quite a few run-throughs to practise my technique and while banking on one such run, i realised that there wasn’t much fuel left in the tank — as the engine cut out. i had no steering! i therefore continued in a straight line... directly into a wooden boathouse.
On
impact, i flew out of the boat and into a wall, cracking my front teeth and twisting my knee badly. i needed a walking cane for days afterwards, but fortunately most of the schedule involved me sitting down in the boat.
there i was, a fearless 007, hobbling on a cane to my boat and then pretending to be indestructible for the cameras. Who says i can’t act?
Our last sequence in new Orleans was the airfield one, where Bond gives an unorthodox flying lesson to mrs Bell. On my last scene, i suddenly felt a terrible pain in my groin. i asked to be excused and went to lie down in my trailer for a while.
a short time later, assistant director Derek cracknell came calling, took one look at his heroic star with knees under his chin — i was in such pain — and sent me to hospital, where they decided it was a kidney stone problem.
all sorts of painkilling drugs were administered. i was doped to the eyeballs when an officious little chap walked in with a clipboard.
‘name?’ he asked. ‘Roger moore,’ i moaned. ‘Who do you work for?’ ‘Eon productions,’ i said. ‘What’s their address?’ ‘i don’t know,’ i said, wondering what the hell this had to do with my recovery.
‘You don’t know who you work for?’ he snapped incredulously. ‘Where do you live?’
‘ Sherwood House, tilehouse Lane, Denham,’ i replied.
‘What number?’
‘i don’t have a number, my house has a name.’
He was really beginning to annoy me, delirious or not.
‘OK, then,’ he added smartly, ‘how does the mailman find you without a number?’
‘Because i’m f***ing famous!’ i shouted, in the hope of silencing him once and for all.
‘ Oh. Oh!’ he said sheepishly, sliding sideways out of my room, never to be seen again. that evening they discharged me and i went back to my hotel with my various painkillers and other medications. One in particular — a methylene-based drug — had the side- effect of turning my urine bright blue, you’ll no doubt be thrilled to hear.
Well, i really was quite zonked out and in unfamiliar surroundings, so when i got up for a pee at two in the morning, i opened what i thought was the bathroom door and relieved myself. i later discovered it had, in fact, been the wardrobe door i’d opened, as all my lovely clothes had turned various shades of patchy blue.
Back at pinewood Studios we completed work on the many interior sets, including that of James Bond’s flat, where i spent a very happy morning in bed with the exquisite madeline Smith, who played italian agent miss caruso.
this scene featured my favourite Bond gadget of all, the magnetic watch, which i used to unzip maddy’s dress.
i must admit that not all the gadgets in Bond films actually work. to achieve the impression that this one did, special- effects supremo Derek meddings fixed a metal wire inside maddy’s dress and to the back of her zip.
He then placed his hand up her dress and gently pulled as i ran my watch down her back saying ‘sheer magnetism’.
i believe maddy dispensed with the services of special effects men in subsequent
romantic interludes. The film was to premiere on July 6, 1973. It was when I was on the way to the premiere press conference that I felt my first nerves.
It finally dawned on me that my first James Bond adventure was going to be put to the ultimate test: the viewing public. But I was fairly philosophical. I imagine it’s like having a baby — there’s nothing you can do to stop it, the baby is going to come out no matter what.
‘Ah, well,’ I thought. ‘I can always go back to modelling sweaters.’ The film, which was budgeted at $ 7 million, took $ 126 million (£98 million) at the worldwide box office. Not a bad return, is it? I think everyone was pleased.
KEEN to capitalise on our success, Cubby and Harry fast-tracked the next Bond film, The Man With The Golden Gun, into pre-production.
filming started in Hong Kong in the summer of 1974, and that’s when I met my two lovely Swedish leading ladies, Maud Adams and Britt Ekland.
We stayed at the Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong. It was there that I first met Hervé Villechaize, the inimitable 3ft 11in villain Nick Nack. Hervé loved the ladies and would often go to the city’s strip clubs, picking out the girls he wanted with a torch: ‘You, you and you... no, not you... yes, you,’ before taking them back to his hotel room.
One night he tried it on with Maud, who played the villainous Scaramanga’s mistress. Hervé walked over to her in the hotel lobby, his head only reaching the bottom of her skirt, and announced: ‘Tonight, Maud, I am going to enter your room, climb under your sheets and make wild, passionate love to you.’
‘Yes,’ said Maud, without missing a beat, ‘and if I find out that you have, I’ll be very angry.’
After Hong Kong the film moved location to Bangkok, where we filmed another boat chase, this time on the khlongs, the waterways threading around the city.
The word went round that, if we fell in, under no circumstances should we let any of the filthy water pass our lips. I did fall in though — twice, in fact. The first time was deliberate but the second time I took a bend on the river — near an undertaker’s — just a bit too tight and lost my balance.
I stayed under to avoid the propeller but made the mistake of opening my eyes — and discovered what the undertaker did with some of the poorer people’s bodies.
When I look back on the sequence now, I cringe when I think of pushing the little boy who climbed into Bond’s boat trying to sell a wooden elephant, into the khlong.
The final scene I filmed, by the way, appeared early on in the movie, where I meet a belly dancer in an attempt to retrieve a golden bullet. I was wearing a rather nice silk suit and looking forward to snaffling it for myself at the end of the day.
As we filmed, I couldn’t understand why our producer, Cubby, had dragged a stepladder on stage. He was perched at the top, looking down on us, just out of shot. But when the director shouted, ‘That’s a wrap!’ I found out.
A huge bucket of paste came down on top of me and all over my lovely new suit. Cubby looked down at what he’d achieved, howling with laughter. ON EVERY Bond film I was in we made a tape of the funniest moments and the next Bond film I made, The Spy Who Loved Me, was no exception.
One moment, however, was not so funny for me at the time. It was my final scene with our wonderful villain Curt Jurgens.
Sitting at his dining table, he beckoned Bond to sit at the other end while reaching for his gun, which was attached to the underside. I was supposed to stand behind a chair which, in turn, was to blow up when he fired.
‘Wouldn’t it add more suspense if I sat in the chair?’ I suggested to the director, Lewis Gilbert.
‘Yes, dear, that sounds like an idea,’ he said.
So I did. Unfortunately for me, our special-effects man was a bit too quick on the button and my backside was only an inch off the chair when he blew it up. MY REAR end caught fire and it was pretty painful, as was my language. I had to change the dressing twice a day for weeks.
It was in The Spy Who Loved Me that Jaws made his first appearance. On location in Egypt, at the Temple of Karnak, there was a wonderful fight scene between Bond and the 7ft 2in giant of a henchman, resplendent with steel teeth and played by Richard Kiel.
Despite being so tall, Richard was terrified of heights. When Lewis told him he would have to cross some scaffolding high above the Temples, he went pale.
‘I don’t even like being this tall,’ he said.
In Cairo I had another fight scene on the roof of a museum. Milton Reid was cast as the henchman who takes on 007. On the day of the fight, our stunt arranger Bob Simmons explained to Milton that he had to fall off the roof, with me snapping him away after he held on to my tie to prevent his fall.
‘You’re going to have to fall off this roof, Milton,’ Bob said. Milton — a burly and rather
menacing-looking chap — took a peek over the edge. ‘Oh! But it’s six storeys, Bob! I can’t do that.’
‘No, we’ll pile up boxes to the fourth storey, Milton. You just fall two,’ added Bob, now determined to wind him up. ‘Can’t I fall just one storey?’ ‘No, no, we need a long scream.’ ‘Well,’ reasoned Milton. ‘Can’t I do a short fall and long scream?’
Poor Milton, they did wind him up so much.
With villains defeated, Bond getting his girl and the adventure over, we called a wrap. The film was certainly lighter than my previous two Bond efforts but it suited my style and persona. It was certainly my favourite of the Bonds I made.
My contention about my ‘light’ portrayal of Bond is this: how can he be a spy, yet walk into any bar in the world and have the bartender recognise him and serve him his favourite drink? Come on, it’s all a big joke.
JAWS returned in Moonraker. some scenes were shot in Venice, but before the authorities would allow us to stage gunfights on the canals and drive a speedboat- cum-hovercraft across st Mark’s square (those startled tourists are real, by the way, not extras), I had to agree to attend a ‘save Venice’ charity function at a huge house just off the Grand Canal.
Ken adam, the production designer, offered to come with me. We eventually found the bar and soon realised we were the youngest people there.
We had just taken a sip of our drinks when a white-haired old lady, in a very strangulated upperclass English country voice, asked: ‘ What are you doing here in Venice?’ ‘We’re making a film,’ I said. ‘Oh, a fillum, eh? What sort of fillum?’ ‘It’s James Bond, 007.’ ‘Ohhh! and what do you do?’ she asked.
Ken was now snorting with laughter behind her back. I could have killed him.
‘Well, I sort of try to play James Bond,’ was my considered reply.
she paused, moved back, looked me up and down, then announced: ‘You’ll be very good. I know Ian Fleming, you know.’
I wonder if she realised he’d been dead 15 years?
I was plagued again by kidney stones during the making of Moonraker. It was tough on my co-star Lois Chiles, who played Dr Holly Goodhead and had her schedule badly messed about by my frequence absences for hospital treatment.
Finally, after I’d treated myself with painkillers, booze and muscle relaxants, then gone to a party (none of which was a good idea), my kidney stone worked its way out. Our publicist issued an outrageous press statement: ‘ The good news is that Roger Moore has passed his kidney stone. The bad news is that Lois Chiles has swallowed it.’
MY LAST Bond film was a View To a Kill, in which my co- star was the eccentric singer Grace Jones. I liked her boyfriend Dolph Lundgren, but I’m afraid my diplomatic charm was stretched to the limit by Miss Jones.
Every day in her dressing room she played very loud rock music that made the walls shake. an afternoon nap was out of the question. I did ask her several times to turn it down, to no avail.
One day I snapped. I marched into her room, yanked the plug out, then flung a chair at the wall. The dent is still there.
still, we had yet to do a love scene together. I slipped between the sheets. she slid in beside me, bringing with her an enormous black sex toy. Very funny.
I daresay I should have used a stunt double, but who would have volunteered? The truth is that, of all the ladies in my seven Bond films, the only one I think of with regret is the wonderful Lois Maxwell — and that’s because she never received the promotion she deserved.
Lois and I had worked on The saint and The Persuaders, but the public always thought of her as Miss Moneypenny, the unflappable MI6 secretary.
after Bernard Lee, who played secret service chief ‘M’, died in 1981, Lois suggested to Cubby that she was his natural heir. Moneypenny would simply become ‘M’.
Cubby gave her a patronising smile and assured her a woman could never run MI6. apparently Dame Judi Dench, who was ‘M’ to my successors Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig, didn’t get that memo. What a shame for Lois... the ultimate Bond Girl.
My Word Is My Bond by Sir roger Moore, published by Michael o’Mara at £9.99. To order this book for £7.49 (25pc discount) until June 3, 2017, go to www.mailbookshop.co.uk or call 0844 571 0640, p&p is free on orders over £15.