Though James Bond doesn’t return next weekend with Quantum of Solace, Sir Roger Moore has with his new book My Word Is My Bond, which is in bookstores now. The 81-year-old still holds the record as the longest to ever portray Ian Fleming’s superspy. Moore appeared as Bond in seven films over the course of 12 years from 1973-1985. He was on both ABC’s The View and NBC’s Today Thursday to discuss the book, but also gave positive notices on new Bond Daniel Craig.
On The Today Show, he talked with Matt Lauer on fans being terroritial of Bond. For instance, when it came time to Craig being chosen to replace Pierce Bronson due to the fact that he’s blond, who’s the best onscreen Bond, and Moore not reading what’s being written about him in blogs.
Moore is the second actor to step into the coveted role of the suave secret agent who likes his martinis shaken, not stirred. His portrayal of Bond was a bit more of a ladies’ man with a dry sense of humor yet still has a license to kill. However, critics and fans stated that later installments like 1983’s Octopussy made Bond a cartoon character. A View To A Kill was Moore’s last assignment as Bond in 1985; he was reaching 60.
Moore’s new book chronicles his first rough days of being Bond that began with 1973’s Live and Let Die:
“Jimmy Bond had a big jet boat chase in ‘Live and Let Die'” he writes. “I did quite a few run-throughs to practice and whilst banking on one such run, the engine cut out. I had no steering! I therefore continued in a straight line … directly into a wooden boat house.
“There I was, as 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?”
His account of meeting a young Steven Spielberg at a hotel in Paris:
“He was a huge Bond fan and said that he would love to direct one of the films” Moore continues. “He’d recently had great success with ‘Jaws’ and ‘Close Encounters’ and was considered a very hot property. I was rather excited at this news and went looking for (film producer Albert R. ‘Cubby’ Broccoli) to tell him.
“[But] It’s always been policy that no Bond director ever got a slice of the box office profits. So, Spielberg went off and made ‘Indiana Jones’ who I reckon to be a period of James Bond.”
Moore is even saving the world in real life — as a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF since 1991, which led him to being named Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2003.
“I was proud”, he said when accepting the citation, “because I received it on behalf of UNICEF as a whole and for all it has achieved over the years.”
But will Roger Moore ever be called back into Hollywood? “Maybe if there is a rich producer willing to put up with an old ex-Bond” he said to USA Weekend.
