From Saint to sinner
Roger Moore, 86, has special place in his heart for bad boy Bond
There are some people whose conversational style calls out to be recorded in a typeface called “ironic,” and Sir Roger Moore, who played James Bond in seven films between 1973 and 1985, turns out to have a sense of humour even drier than his louche secret agent’s martinis.
“Call me Charlie,” he says when I address him as Sir Roger. He has always been unfailingly modest about his achievements and quite happy to admit that the knighthood, which he has had since 2003, was bestowed for services to the charity UNICEF — not for his acting. Nevertheless, his latest stage show — An Audience With Sir Roger Moore — which starts later this month in the U.K., quite pointedly includes his title and is billed as a conversation (with his biographer, Gareth Owen) about “his astonishing life and career.
“I’ve got a massive ego, of course,” the actor says, when I ask for an explanation. “Actually, it’s rather fun,” he continues, “going around parts of the country I’ve never seen and meeting people that I’ve never met before.”
Of course, at 86, he could be putting his feet up in Monaco or Crans-Montana, Switzerland (he divides the year between his two homes), with his fourth wife, Kristina.
“It’s nice to be in the U.K.,” he says. “I get over when I can and it’s possible now that I don’t get taxed for being there.”
Ah, the tax thing. Moore has been vocal about this in the past, complaining about rules that force foreign residents to pay tax when they visit Britain.
But it’s noticeable that while one of his 007 predecessors, Sean Connery, has never quite been forgiven by the British public for being a tax
‘The audience knows he will survive after getting into some wonderful scrapes. It has cars, gadgets, beautiful women, humour — a very potent mix.’
SIR ROGER MOORE On playing James Bond
exile in the Bahamas, Moore has always held a warmer place in our hearts.
As well as his work on The Saint (1962-69) and The Persuaders (1971-72) for television, a significant proportion of his new show is about his Bond years.
Moore remembers the role fondly, even though he didn’t like the noise and whiz-bangs on set and, surprisingly for someone who once was a keen skier and tennis player, he didn’t do his own stunts but was “very, very good at getting people to look like me.”
Tanned and dressed in an open-necked white shirt, he looks in very good health. Does he miss living the high life?
“No, but if I was told I had 24 hours to live I would have a dry martini, made with Tanqueray gin and three olives on the side.” Fill in your own shaken but not stirred line here …
Moore is still a keen fan of the Bond franchise and has spoken of his “tremendous pride” when the incumbent, Daniel Craig, appeared with the Queen as part of the Olympics opening ceremony last year. “I thought: ‘What other series of films would be able to get the Queen to agree to appear?’ ”
He credits the brand’s enduring popularity to its fairytale quality.
“There’s a castle somewhere and someone needs to be rescued, and Bond will be in danger, but the audience knows he will survive after getting into some wonderful scrapes. It has cars, gadgets, beautiful women, humour — a very potent mix.”
Moore is very complimentary about Craig’s Bond (although he says Connery has been the best so far) and, while having some reservations about Craig’s first two outings — in Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace — both of which “missed some elements,” he raves about last year’s Skyfall.
“Skyfall was marvellous, the best Bond film ever made,” Moore says.
“Technically and visually, it was stunning, while Bond’s relationship with M (played by Judi Dench) was quite wonderful and very moving. I thought everything about it was terrific and I was delighted that it won a couple of Oscars.”
Craig’s Bond has a rather more complex relationship with women than Moore’s did. How does he think his suave but no-less-sexy agent — who went through women at breakneck speed — would be perceived today?
“I think he would be looked at with pity, and considered an ignorant so-and-so,” says Moore, who was born in south London, where his father was a policeman and his mother a housewife.
I can’t resist asking if Moore, like so many celebrities, bought his Spitting Image puppet, with its creaking wooden eyebrows.
“No,” he says, “but I would love it.”
He continues: “The eyebrows thing was my own fault. I was talking about how talentless I was and said I have three expressions — eyebrow up, eyebrow down and both of them at the same time. And they used it — very well, I must say.”