On This Day

RichardTheBruce

July 30th

1945: Maud Russell writes about Ian Fleming in her diary.

Spies, affairs and James Bond... The
secret diary of Ian Fleming's wartime
mistress

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/spies-affairs-james-bond-secret-diary-ian-flemings-wartime-mistress/

Monday 30 July, 1945

I. has refused the new job. He feels he must break away.
So Jamaica is on again. I am sure he is right not to let himself
grow old, unhealthy and apoplectic sitting for ever in London
on mysterious committees and having no leisure, no freedom,
no unbuttoning.

1964: Bons baisers de Russie (Good Kisses From Russia) released in France.

1987: The Living Daylights released in Luxembourg.
1989: 007 Vendetta privata (007 Private Vendetta) released in Italy.

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1997: Tomorrow Never Dies films Wai Lin's capture by Carver’s men.

2006: Another fire at Pinewood Studios.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/5229624.stm

2014: Guernsey Post releases a set of stamps and other limited edition items that celebrate Ian Fleming.

More at: https://www.jamesbondlifestyle.com/news/guernsey-post-celebrates-ian-flemings-life-stamps

2019: Abigail Gardner and Ros Jennings in Aging and Popular Music in Europe propose a reclamation of Fleming material through Shirley Bassey and Kanye West.

Aging and Popular Music in Europe, Abigail Gardner and Ros Jennings, 2019.
Chapter 7 - ‘Shine on you crazy diamond/s’

Abstract: This chapter is concerned with Shirley Bassey and Kanye West’s coverage of the song ‘Diamonds Are Forever’ from the perspective of age, inheritance and post-colonial hauntings of race and identity. It presents a new generic Time Space of age that is related to hip-hop and the recycling of older materials. West headlined the iconic Pyramid Stage at the Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Arts in the summer of 2015. By using Bassey’s voice, and referring to her influence on him and her presence within the contemporary song, West thus pulls into his version, the universality and the non-place that Daub and Kronengold argue for. Bassey’s vocal and performative emphasis of the song narrates an erotic desire for wealth in the form of diamonds. In West’s use of Bassey’s vocal performance in ‘Diamonds from Sierra Leone – Remix’ and ‘Diamonds from Sierra Leone’, West is ‘restorying’ Ian Fleming, giving voice to those Black characters demeaned in the original.

RichardTheBruce

July 31st

1944: Maud Russell writes about Ian Fleming in her diary.

Spies, affairs and James Bond... The
secret diary of Ian Fleming's wartime
mistress

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/spies-affairs-james-bond-secret-diary-ian-flemings-wartime-mistress/

Monday 31 July, 1944

I. dined and talked to me about the German new ‘secret’ weapon:
the rocket. Said he thought it wasn’t ready and might never be
ready in time but one couldn’t know and if it started I was to
get out at once. I was to keep a bag packed and leave London
immediately without warning the Admiralty or anyone. I said,
‘What about you?’ He said Winston had decided the govt and
the ministers weren’t to be evacuated. It would look too bad
vis-à-vis the people.

1955: Nick Finlayson is born--Ely, Cambridgeshire, England.
(He dies 21 January 2019 at age 63--Esher, Surrey, England.)

Nick Finlayson

22nd January 2019
The special effects technician who served on 10 Bond films passed away this month
https://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/articles/biography-nick-finlayson

Nick Finlayson

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0278014/

Filmography

Special effects (43 credits)

2019 Spider-Man: Far from Home (senior special effects technician)
2019 Pokémon Detective Pikachu (senior special effects technician)
2019 The Kid Who Would Be King (special effects lead senior technician)
2018 Mary Poppins Returns (senior special effects technician)
2017/I Life (senior special effects technician)
2016 Assassin's Creed (senior special effects technician)
2016 Ben-Hur (senior special effects technician)
2016 The Legend of Tarzan (senior special effects technician)
2014 Fury (senior special effects technician)
2014 Edge of Tomorrow (senior special effects technician)
2013 World War Z (senior special effects technician)
2012 Skyfall (senior effects technician)
2012 Wrath of the Titans (senior special effects technician)
2011 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (senior special effects technician)
2011 Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (senior special effects technician)
2010 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (senior special effects technician)

2008 Quantum of Solace (senior special effects technician)
2008 The Dark Knight (senior special effects technician)
2007 Fred Claus (senior special effects technician)
2007 Hannibal Rising (special effects lead technician)
2006 Casino Royale (senior special effects technician)
2005 Batman Begins (special effects senior technician)
2003 Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (senior special effects technician)
2002 Die Another Day (workshop supervisor)
2002 Below (senior special effects technician - uncredited)
2001 Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (special effects technician)
2000 102 Dalmatians (special effects senior technician)

1999 The World is Not Enough (special effects workshop supervisor)
1999 The Mummy (senior special effects technician)
1998 Firestorm (senior special effects technician)
1997 Tomorrow Never Dies (special effects crew - as Nicholas Finlayson)
1997 The Fifth Element (special effects technician)
1995 GoldenEye (special effects crew - as Nicholas Finlayson)
1993 Cliffhanger (uncredited)
1992 Far and Away (senior special effects technician - uncredited)
1991 Highlander II: The Quickening (senior special effects technician)
1989 Licence to Kill (special effects technician)
1988 Willow (senior special effects technician)
1987 The Living Daylights (special effects technician - uncredited)
1986 Aliens (senior special effects technician)
1985 A View to a Kill (special effects technician - uncredited)
1982 Pink Floyd: The Wall (aircraft subcontractor)
1980 Hopscotch (special effects assistant - uncredited)

Visual effects (2 credits)

1990 Memphis Belle (modeller and technician: model unit)

1983-1985 Terrahawks (TV Series) (HOD model workshop - 26 episodes)

Art department (1 credit)

1985 Lifeforce (modeller)

Self (7 credits)
2002 The Bond Essentials (TV Special documentary short) - Himself
2002 Die Another Day: Shaken and Stirred on Ice (Video documentary short) - Himself
2002 5th Gear (TV Series documentary) - Himself
- Episode #2.7 (2002) ... Himself
2000 The World Is Not Enough: James Bond Down River (TV Special documentary) - Himself
1999 The Making of 'The World Is Not Enough' (Video documentary short) - Himself (uncredited)
1999 The Bond Cocktail (TV Movie documentary) - Himself
1999 Comme au cinéma (TV Series documentary) - Himself
- Episode dated 18 November 1999 (1999) ... Himself

1960: Ian Fleming begins a second series of articles in The Sunday Times, the first on Hamburg, later to become part of Thrilling Cities published by Jonathan Cape.

1971: Sean Connery and cast film in Amsterdam.

1985: A View to a Kill released in Colombia.
1987: The New York Times reports Richard Maibaum and Michael G. Wilson sought to take the latest film to the origins of Bond, but producer Broccoli disagreed. They did agree on presenting a more serious film.
1987: The Living Daylights released in the US. Daily Variety (4 August) calls its first three day earnings the best ever for the franchise. Also the widest release on 1,728 screens.

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1987: 007 vaaran vyöhykkeellä (Danger Zone) released in Finland.

2007: Goldfinger re-released in the UK.

2010: Tom Mankiewicz dies at age 68--Los Angeles, California.
(Born 1 June 1942--Los Angeles, California.)

Tom Mankiewicz obituary

See the complete article here:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/aug/04/tom-mankiewicz-obituary

Screenwriter from a Hollywood dynasty best known for his work
on James Bond
Ronald Bergan | Wed 4 Aug 2010 13.43 EDT

Roger Moore with Jane Seymour as Solitaire in Live and Let Die (1973), Moore’s first appearance as 007, with screenwriting by Mankiewicz, below
Photograph: Allstar; Al Seib/Photoshot

For most film buffs, the name Mankiewicz immediately recalls Joseph L, the director and screenwriter of All About Eve (1950). For others, it evokes that of his older brother, Herman J, most celebrated as the writer of the screenplay of Citizen Kane. However, Joseph L's son, Tom Mankiewicz, who has died of cancer aged 68, is cherished by James Bond fans as the screenwriter of Diamonds Are Forever (1971), Live and Let Die (1973) and The Man With the Golden Gun (1974), as well as having worked on rewrites of The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker (1979).

Tom Mankiewicz

At the beginning of his career, Mankiewicz admitted that he probably got work because of his father. "You suddenly started to realise that people were asking you because it was you," he explained. Unlike his father's best films – literate, dialogue-based vehicles – when a director called "action" on a Tom Mankiewicz-scripted movie, he really meant it.

He was born in Los Angeles, where his father was an MGM producer before becoming the Oscar-winning director of Letter to Three Wives (1949) and All About Eve. (His mother, the Austrian-born actor Rose Stradner, killed herself when Tom was 16.) It seemed natural that the boy should follow the family tradition, so he majored in drama at Yale University. Before graduation, aged 18, he worked as production assistant on The Comancheros (1961), a western starring John Wayne. In 1964 he was credited as production associate on The Best Man, Gore Vidal's sharp look at morality in politics.

His first screen credit as a writer was on The Sweet Ride (1968), a pseudo-philosophical movie about three beach bums. It was not a success, nor was the Broadway musical Georgy (1970), for which Mankiewicz's book was based on the 1966 British film Georgy Girl. Nevertheless, the producers Albert R Broccoli and Harry Saltzman hired him for two weeks to doctor the Richard Maibaum script of Diamonds Are Forever. He stayed for six months, receiving a co-screenplay credit.

Differing greatly from the Ian Fleming book of the same name, the script had 007 (Sean Connery) bounding from London to Amsterdam, LA to Las Vegas, on the trail of a huge diamond-smuggling operation, behind which lurks his arch-enemy, Blofeld (not in the novel). Bond has a good fight in an elevator, is pestered by two vicious gay men, and attracted by two beauties named Tiffany Case and Plenty O'Toole.

Connery, who had been enticed back to the role after four years away by a $1m fee, plus a weekly salary of $10,000, had not altered his droll style and sexual allure, although there was some change in his girth. When Roger Moore followed him in the part, Mankiewicz was entrusted to write the screenplay for Moore's first 007, Live and Let Die.

The film, which did well at the box office, proved that Connery was not irreplaceable as Bond. While Mankiewicz stuck to the winning formula – the film had spectacular set pieces, particularly an incredible speedboat chase through the Louisiana bayous – it leaned rather more on the humorous side, honed to Moore's more lightweight personality.

According to Mankiewicz, "the difference between Sean and Roger was that Sean looked dangerous. Sean could sit at a table with a girl at a nightclub and either lean across and kiss her or stick a knife in her under the table and then say, 'Excuse me waiter, I have nothing to cut my meat with.' Whereas Roger could kiss the girl, if he stuck a knife in her it would look nasty because Roger looks like a nice guy."

Although The Man With the Golden Gun, which Mankiewicz and Maibaum adapted from Fleming's last novel, had the usual stunts, exotic locales, a master criminal and sexy women popping up from time to time, it sometimes verged on self-parody. In fact, there is a tongue-in-cheek seam running through most of Mankiewicz's work.

In 1976 three films with Mankiewicz as writer were released: Mother, Jugs & Speed, starring Bill Cosby as a stoned ambulance driver; The Cassandra Crossing, a disaster movie with an all-star cast; and The Eagle Has Landed (based on the Jack Higgins novel), an entertaining but far-fetched thriller with Michael Caine as a German colonel infiltrating an English village in 1943 with the aim of kidnapping Winston Churchill.

In 1977 the director Richard Donner recruited Mankiewicz to work on the script of Superman, for which he received the credit of creative consultant, a fancy name for script doctor. He got the same credit for Superman II (1980), directed by Richard Lester, who added rather too much camp humour to footage that Donner had shot. Mankiewicz claimed to have written most of both pictures. He later helped Donner reconstruct Superman II, restoring all of the original footage that had been altered by the producers.

In between fixing other people's films, he co-wrote the screenplay for Donner's Ladyhawke (1985), a handsome-looking medieval fable of cursed lovers turning into animals. After directing 13 episodes of the TV adventure series Hart to Hart (1979-82), starring Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers, he directed two movies, Dragnet (1987) and Delirious (1991) – the former being a mildly amusing spoof of Jack Webb's 50s TV series; the latter about a writer (John Candy) trapped in his own soap opera.

Mankiewicz is survived by his brother, Christopher, a producer and actor, and his sister, Alexandra.

• Thomas Francis Mankiewicz, screen-writer and director, born 1 June 1942; died 31 July 2010

2012: Skyfall full trailer seen in theaters plus online.

Javier Bardem's blond Bond villain
unveiled

See the complete article here:

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-19066966

Entertainment & Arts
31 July 2012

Bardem won an Oscar in 2008 for his role in
No Country for Old Men

A new trailer for the latest James Bond film Skyfall has given fans their first glimpse of Oscar-winning actor Javier Bardem's blond villain in action.

Bardem's character, named Silva, is seen confronting a manacled Bond, played by Daniel Craig, and is later shown disguised as a British policeman.

The trailer features actor Ben Whishaw as "The New Q" and explosive action in various London locales.

It also shows Bond being "killed" in action and M typing up his obituary.

Played by Dame Judi Dench, 007's boss is then seen being chastised by Ralph Fiennes' character Gareth Mallory for losing a disc drive containing details of undercover British agents.

Subsequent scenes depict an explosion at MI6's Thameside HQ and a Tube train plummeting into an underground vault.

The trailer reveals previously unknown plot points, one of which appears to have been drawn from Ian Fleming's novel You Only Live Twice.

The 1964 book concludes with an obituary for Bond written by M after the secret agent is believed to have been killed during a mission in Japan.

The latest trailer comes shortly after Craig's cameo appearance during the Olympic Opening Ceremony in a short film that showed Bond escorting the Queen to the Olympic Stadium.

Audiences in the US were treated to a teaser of the new footage during NBC's telecast of the London 2012 launch.

Daniel Craig's James Bond features in
another newly released Skyfall

Other scenes unveiled on Tuesday include one showing British actress Naomie Harris, in her role as field agent Eve, "shooting" Bond off the roof of a moving train in Turkey.

Skyfall, to be released in the UK on 26 October, marks Craig's third big-screen appearance as Fleming's legendary spy.

The 44-year-old was previously seen in the role in 2006's Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace in 2008.

Spanish actor Bardem won the best supporting actor Oscar in 2008 for his villainous role in No Country for Old Men.

The 43-year-old, who is married to fellow Spaniard Penelope Cruz, was also Oscar-nominated in 2001 and 2011.

2019: Last day to view the Thunderball-used Aston Martin at Sotheby's.

https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/james-bonds-1965-aston-martin-db5-goldfinger-rm-monterey-auction

Automobiles | RM Sotheby's | Jun 12, 2019
Calling All Secret Agents: James Bond’s 1965 Aston Martin DB5 Is Up
for Auction
By Sotheby's

RM Sotheby’s, the official auction house of Aston Martin, is offering perhaps the most iconic Aston Martin of all time to lead ‘An Evening with Aston Martin,’ a special single-marque sale session at the 2019 Monterey auction on 15 August. Featuring thirteen functioning Bond modifications, the James Bond 007 Aston Martin DB5 is one of just three surviving examples commissioned in period by Eon Productions and fitted with MI6 Q Branch specifications as pictured in Goldfinger.

Upcoming Auction
RM Sotheby's: Monterey
15–17 August 2019 | Monterey

No one could have predicted the fabulously successful multi-decade synergy that would develop when production designer Ken Adam and special effects man John Stears visited Aston Martin’s Newport-Pagnell plant in late 1963. The two men were on a mission to source a pair of the latest Aston Martin models for use in Eon Productions’ third adaptation of an Ian Fleming novel, again about the MI6 superspy with a license to kill, James Bond. The film was called Goldfinger.

Monterey 2019: The Most Famous Car in the World

Two near-identical cars were built and loaned to Eon Productions for filming, with each fulfilling various roles; one for stunt driving and chase sequences and therefore needing to be lightweight and fast, and the other for interior shots and close-ups, to be equipped with functional modifications created by Stears. As Desmond Llewelyn’s legendary weapons-master Q would go on to explain to Sean Connery’s 007, the Snow Shadow Gray-painted DB5 was equipped with front and rear hydraulic over-rider rams on the bumpers, a Browning .30 caliber machine gun in each fender, wheel-hub mounted tire-slashers, a raising rear bullet-proof screen, an in-dash radar tracking scope, oil, caltrop and smoke screen dispensers, revolving license plates, and a passenger-seat ejection system. Although never used during the film, the car was also equipped with a telephone in the driver’s door to communicate with MI6 headquarters and a hidden compartment under the driver’s seat containing several weapons.


The 1965 Aston Martin DB5 Bond Car to be offered at RM Sotheby’s Monterey sale.
Estimate $4,000,000–6,000,000. (Simon Clay 2019 Courtesy of RM Sotheby’s)

The smash success of Goldfinger was also a success for Aston Martin, which saw DB5 sales surge to fuel an unprecedented level of production. The producers at Eon also took notice of the enormous appeal and potential marketing opportunities. In preparation for Thunderball’s release, the company ordered two more DB5 saloons, receiving chassis nos. DB5/2008/R, the example on offer at RM Sotheby’s Monterey sale, and DB5/2017/R. The two cars were fitted with all of Stears’ Goldfinger modifications and were shipped to the United States for promotional duties for Thunderball.


A look at the interior gadgets in the Bond DB5 (Simon Clay 2019 Courtesy of RM Sotheby’s)

Following the tour, the two cars were no longer required as the next two Bond films debuted with different, more current automobiles in the hero roles and, accordingly, they were quietly offered for sale in 1969. The cars were soon purchased as a pair by well-known collector Anthony (now Lord) Bamford, whose British registration for chassis no. 2008/R remains on file. The Aston Martin build record lists Eon Productions as the original purchaser, with the important designation of being a “(Bond Car)” noted. Bamford then sold DB5/2008/R to B.H. Atchley, the owner of the Smokey Mountain Car Museum in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. The Aston Martin was featured as the museum’s centerpiece, remaining in a pristine state of display for 35 years, receiving regular start-ups for exercise. In 2006, RM Sotheby’s (previously RM Auctions) was privileged to offer this very Bond DB5 for public sale, in a largely unrestored state.


The smoke screen dispenser on the DB5 is engaged (Simon Clay 2019 Courtesy of RM Sotheby’s)

Since that time, a well-documented, no-expense spared restoration by Switzerland’s esteemed Roos Engineering was completed. Roos Engineering is one of 13 specialist facilities whom Aston Martin have appointed as official Heritage Specialists. Not only were the chassis and body completely refinished to proper standards, but all thirteen of the John Stears-designed Bond modifications were properly refurbished to function as originally built.

The Bond DB5 will be on view at Sotheby's New York from 28 June through 31 July.

RichardTheBruce

August 1st

1930: Lionel Bart is born--Stepney, London, England.
(He dies 3 April 1999 at age 68--Hammersmith, London, England.)

Obituary: Lionel Bart

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-lionel-bart-1085282.html
Tom Vallance | Monday 5 April 1999 00:02

IF HE had written only Oliver!, the composer Lionel Bart would have earned an honoured place in the history of British musicals, but he was far from a one-show wonder. His other work included shows such as Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be and Maggie May, plus many pop songs including "Living Doll" (Cliff Richard's first No 1 hit), Tommy Steele's "A Handful of Songs", Anthony Newley's "Do You Mind?" and Matt Monro's "From Russia With Love".

He epitomised the start of the Sixties in Britain, which he uniquely captured in song and spirit, and he was one of the few composers to deal uncondescendingly with the working classes, transposing their life styles and vernacular to the musical stage. "Nobody tries to be la-de-da or uppity, there's a cuppa tea for all," sings the Artful Dodger to Oliver, while Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be remains a time capsule of a world in which folk talked of their "birds" and their "manor" and dreamed of being able to afford furniture that was "contempery". It was like a musical EastEnders, but far more joyous and celebratory, without the unremitting angst suffered by the inhabitants of Albert Square.

Bart also epitomised the Sixties in a less happy way - like many who flourished in that era he was seduced by sudden success into a world of drink, drugs and hedonism, squandering his money and his youth.

Bart was one of the 11 children of an East End tailor. He was born Lionel Begleiter, in 1930, and he had no formal musical training. He displayed a flair for drawing, however, which brought him at the age of 16 a scholarship to the St Martin's School of Art in London. (His bus journey, which took him each day past St Bartholomew's Hospital, inspired him to adopt Bart as his professional surname.) He worked in a silk-screen printing works and commercial art studios before an attraction to the theatre brought him work at the left-wing Unity Theatre, where he worked as a set painter. He started writing songs in response to a sign asking for musical material for one of the theatre's productions. Unable to write music, he would tap out the melody with one finger and someone else would orchestrate it.

It was a time when popular music was undergoing a drastic transformation due to the influence of such stars as Elvis Presley and Bill Haley, and Bart was one of many musicians and singers (most of them Presley-influenced) who frequented the 2 I's coffee shop in Soho, where he met the rock singer Tommy Steele. With Michael Pratt and Steele, Bart wrote Steele's first hit, "Rock with the Caveman" (1957), and later that year Bart won three Ivor Novello Awards, presented by the Songwriters Guild, for outstanding song of the year ("A Handful of Songs"), best novelty song ("Water, Water") and outstanding film score (The Tommy Steele Story).

Another habitue of the 2 I's was a cherubic youngster named Harry Webb, and when he made his first film, Serious Charge (with his new name Cliff Richard), it was Bart who provided the songs, including "Living Doll", which topped the Hit Parade for eight weeks. (Bart claimed that he wrote the song in six minutes on a Sunday morning.) The same year Bart wrote a complete musical, Wally Pone of Soho, based on Ben Jonson's Volpone, but could not get it produced, but Joan Littlewood, who had been a producer at the Unity and was now running the enterprising Theatre Workshop in Stratford, London, asked him to provide the music and lyrics for a new musical written by a former convict, Frank Norman, Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be.

Bart and Norman complemented each other beautifully and produced a brash, funny, unpretentious working-class musical. Blessed with a cast aptly assembled by Littlewood, including Miriam Karlin, Barbara Windsor, James Booth, Yootha Joyce, Toni Palmer and George Sewell (who was to play Bill Sykes in Oliver!), it played to packed houses and eventually moved to the Garrick Theatre in the West End, where it ran for two years. Bart's ingratiating score included an infectious (if derivative) title tune, a Presley-type rock number "Big Time" (recorded by Adam Faith) and a plaintive lament for a prostitute, "Where Do Little Birds Go?", delivered with a show-stopping guilelessness by Windsor, who credited the number with changing her life and career.

Like Norman's libretto, Bart's songs perfectly captured a time of change - of the Wolfenden Report, massage parlours replacing street-corner pick- ups; and a time when "ordinary people" had started going to Paris for the weekend instead of Southend.

Later in 1959 Bart had another success when Lock Up Your Daughters, a musical version of Henry Fielding's Rape Upon Rape, opened at the Mermaid with lyrics by Bart to Laurie Johnson's music. He had also provided songs for Tommy Steele's film Tommy the Toreador and at the end of the year won four Novello Awards - for the year's best-selling song ("Living Doll"), the outstanding score of the year (Lock Up Your Daughters), outstanding novelty song ("Little White Bull") and a special award for "outstanding personal services to British music".

Bart was now on the threshold of the biggest success of his life. Based on a much-loved Dickens novel, and Bart for the first time providing his own libretto as well as music and lyrics, Oliver! seemed far from a certain success - a dozen managements had turned it down - but its first night at the New Theatre (now the Albery) on 30 June 1960 was something that none of us present will ever forget. Of British musicals, only Sandy Wilson's The Boy Friend, which premiered seven years earlier, could be said to have had such a roof-raising, rapturous reception in the last half-century.

The show received 23 curtain-calls, and Bart's score was lauded next day for its richness and variety, from rousing show-stoppers like "Consider Yourself" and "I'd Do Anything" to the character songs such as Fagin's "Pick a Pocket or Two" and "Reviewing the Situation", and Nancy's "It's a Fine Life" and the torchy ballad "As Long As He Needs Me". (Bart later said that, when composing his songs, he always thought of Judy Garland singing them.) It won Novello Awards for outstanding score of the year, outstanding song of the year and best-selling song (the last two both for "As Long As He Needs Me"). Oliver! ran for 2,618 performances in London, and was a hit on Broadway where it opened in 1963 and ran for 774 performances, winning Bart a Tony Award.

Bart was said to be earning pounds 16 a minute from Oliver! in 1960 and his life style reflected his wealth. He entertained vigorously, his friends including Noel Coward, Brian Epstein, Judy Garland, Alma Cogan and Shirley Bassey, and he spent weekends in Mustique with Princess Margaret, who was later, according to Bart, to call him a "silly bugger" for mis-handling his finances. Bart himself would later place some of the blame on his upbringing. "My father gambled," he said, "and there were endless arguments about it. I hated money and had no respect for it. My attitude was to spend it as I got it."

Though there may be some truth in this, Bart's friends attest to his constantly altering the facts of his childhood and frequently taking liberties with the truth. When he was looking for a writer to help ghost his memoirs, several noted authors turned him down, one of them telling me bluntly, "He's such a liar!"

The American composer Richard Rodgers, who had not found a permanent lyricist partner since the death of Oscar Hammerstein, asked Bart to collaborate with him, but Bart refused and for his next show chose a subject close to his heart, the way East Enders coped with air-raids in World War II. Blitz! (Bart had a fondness for exclamation points in his titles) was a gargantuan production which never quite jelled (Bart directed the show) and its score was less inspired than that of Oliver!, though it had a show-stopping children's chorus, "Mums and Dads", and Bart persuaded Vera Lynn to record for the production his cod-wartime ballad "The Day After Tomorrow". Its strongest talking-point was the massive set by Sean Kenny (who had also done sterling work on Oliver!) which literally self- destructed during a bombing raid.

For his old friend Joan Littlewood, Bart next composed a title song and theme music for her film Sparrows Can't Sing (1963) starring Barbara Windsor and James Booth, and he had a hit with the title song for the James Bond film From Russia With Love (1964), recorded by Matt Monro.

Bart wrote the music and lyrics for his next stage musical, Maggie May (1964), but collaborated on the book with Harvey Orkin. Starring Rachel Roberts and Kenneth Haigh, it was a moderate success but produced no major song hits, though Judy Garland recorded four of the songs for an EP and it won the Novello Award as outstanding score of the year and the Critics' Poll as best new British musical.

Bart was by now experimenting with LSD and other drugs and was drinking heavily. By the late Seventies his drinking had brought on diabetes and by the time he managed to quit alcohol it had destroyed one-third of his liver. Much of his income was being dissipated, according to his friends, by his generosity to hangers-on and by the ease with which casual sex partners could rob him. (Though known in the profession to be gay, it was not until the Nineties that Bart described himself as "out at last".) His career reached a low point in 1965 with his musical about Robin Hood which he backed with a fortune of his own money. Twang! was a short-lived disaster and to finance it Bart had rashly sold his rights to Oliver! He later estimated that relinquishing those rights lost him over a million pounds.

In 1968 Carol Reed's film verion of Oliver! opened and was a huge success, winning several Oscars including Best Picture, plus nominations for Ron Moody (the original Fagin repeating his fine performance) and Jack Wild (as the Artful Dodger). Bart's score was kept virtually intact, and the soundtrack album was a best-seller. Columbia, the studio financing the film, had wanted an internationally known star (Peter Sellers) in the lead, but Reed and Bart fought to keep Moody. Their choice of Shirley Bassey to play Nancy was vetoed by the studio, who felt that if Bill Sykes was shown killing a black girl it could offend some audiences.

Four years after Twang! a new show by Bart was produced. Based on the Fellini film La Strada, it was staged on Broadway where it ran for only one night, though Bart never gave up on it and was working on plans for a revival at the time of his death.

He also wrote the score for a television version of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde starring Kirk Douglas (never shown in Britain) and an unproduced stage musical, Quasimodo! based on The Hunchback of Notre Dame. In a 1995 interview with The Independent, Bart recalled that he sent some of the script for Quasimodo! to Noel Coward, who said, "Brilliant, dear boy, but were you on drugs when you wrote it? It seems a bit abstract here and there." "I suppose it was," said Bart.

In 1972 Bart declared himself bankrupt - he had debts totalling pounds 73,000. In 1975 he was banned for a year for driving under the influence of drink, and in 1983 banned again for two years. Regarding the changes in the style of musical theatre, he told the musical historian Mark Steyn that he would never have written a through-sung musical because in my case it would be slightly pretentious. I'm not a composer, I just make tunes and sing them, and I sing harmonies, and some of my chord progressions are not logical, but often they work. For Oliver! I thought in terms of people's walks. The Oliver theme was really the Beadle's walk, a kind of dum-de-dum . . . Fagin's music was like a Jewish mother clucking away. But I don't want to get high-falutin' about it. Music is important, fair enough. But just to have some kind of drab tune fitted to even more drab dialogue seems rather pointless to me.

Though Bart's final years were unproductive (a 30-second commercial for the Abbey National Building Society was his most notable achievement of the last decade), and he could be exasperatingly demanding of his friends, he was equable about his change in fortunes - he once had homes in London, New York, Malibu and Tangiers but had been living in a small flat in Acton. Cameron Mackintosh, who successfully revived Oliver! at the London Palladium in 1994 and gave him a percentage of the profits, said,

Of all the people I know in this business who have had ups and downs, Lionel is the least bitter man I have ever come across. He regrets it but, considering that everyone else has made millions out of his creations, he's never been sour, never been vindictive.

Andrew Lloyd Webber said, "Lionel's genius has in my view never been fully recognised by the British establishment. The loss to British musical theatre caused by his untimely death is incalculable."

Tom Vallance

Lionel Begleiter (Lionel Bart), composer, lyricist and playwright: born London 1 August 1930; died London 3 April 1999.

1930: Geoffrey Holder is born--Port of Spain, Trinidad.
(He dies 5 October 2014 at age 84--New York City, New York.)

Geoffrey Holder, Dancer, Actor,
Painter and More, Dies at 84

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/07/arts/geoffrey-holder-dancer-choreographer-and-man-of-flair-dies-at-84.html
Geoffrey Holder, Dancer, Actor, Painter and More, Dies at 84
By Jennifer Dunning and William McDonald | Oct. 6, 2014

Mr. Holder, the multitalented artist, and ebullient performer died Sunday at 84.CreditErin Combs/Toronto Star, via Getty Images

Geoffrey Holder, the dancer, choreographer, actor, composer, designer and painter who used his manifold talents to infuse the arts with the flavor of his native West Indies and to put a singular stamp on the American cultural scene, not least with his outsize personality, died on Sunday in Manhattan. He was 84.

Charles M. Mirotznik, a spokesman for the family, said the cause was complications of pneumonia.

Few cultural figures of the last half of the 20th century were as multifaceted as Mr. Holder, and few had a public presence as unmistakable as his, with his gleaming pate atop a 6-foot-6 frame, full-bodied laugh and bassoon of a voice laced with the lilting cadences of the Caribbean.

Mr. Holder directed a dance troupe from his native Trinidad and Tobago, danced on Broadway and at the Metropolitan Opera and won Tony Awards in 1975 for direction of a musical and costume design for “The Wiz,” a rollicking, all-black version of “The Wizard of Oz.” His choreography was in the repertory of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and the Dance Theater of Harlem. He acted onstage and in films and was an accomplished painter, photographer and sculptor whose works have been shown in galleries and museums. He published a cookbook.

Mr. Holder acknowledged that he achieved his widest celebrity as the jolly, white-suited television pitchman for 7Up in the 1970s and ’80s, when in a run of commercials, always in tropical settings, he happily endorsed the soft drink as an “absolutely maaarvelous” alternative to Coca-Cola — or “the Uncola,” as the ads put it.

Long afterward, white suit or no, he would stop pedestrian traffic and draw stares at restaurants. He even good-naturedly alluded to the TV spots in accepting his Tony for directing, using their signature line “Just try making something like that out of a cola nut.”

Geoffrey Lamont Holder was born into a middle-class family on Aug. 1, 1930, in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, the youngest of five children of Louise de Frense and Arthur Holder, who had immigrated from Barbados. Geoffrey attended Queen’s Royal College, an elite secondary school in Trinidad. There he struggled with a stammer that plagued him into early adulthood.

“At school, when I got up to read, the teacher would say, ‘Next,’ because the boys would laugh,” he said in an oral history interview.

Growing up, Mr. Holder came under the wing of his talented older brother, Arthur Aldwyn Holder, known to everyone by his childhood nickname, Boscoe. Boscoe Holder taught Geoffrey painting and dancing and recruited him to join a small, folkloric dance troupe he had formed, the Holder Dancing Company. Boscoe was 16; Geoffrey, 7.

Geoffrey Holder’s career mirrored that of his brother in many ways. Boscoe Holder, too, went on to become a celebrated dancer, choreographer, musician, painter and designer, and he, too, left Trinidad, in the late 1940s, for England, where he performed on television and onstage.

His brother’s departure put Geoffrey Holder in charge of the dance company, as its director and lead performer, and he took it to New York City in 1954, invited by the choreographer Agnes de Mille, who had seen the troupe perform two years before in St. Thomas, in the Virgin Islands. She arranged an audition for the impresario Sol Hurok. To pay for the troupe’s passage, Mr. Holder, already an established young painter, sold 20 of his paintings.

After dropping his bags at an uncle’s apartment in Brooklyn, he fell in love with the city.

“It was a period when all the girls looked like Janet Leigh and Elizabeth Taylor, with crinoline petticoats and starched hair,” he told The New York Times in 1985. “The songs of that period were the themes from ‘The Moulin Rouge’ and ‘Limelight,’ and it was so marvelous to hear the music in the streets and see the stylish ladies tripping down Fifth Avenue. Gorgeous black women, Irish women — all of them lovely and all of them going somewhere.”

Mr. Holder had the good fortune to arrive in New York at a time of relative popularity for all-black Broadway productions as well as black dance, both modern and folk. Calypso music was also gaining a foothold, thanks largely to Harry Belafonte.


Mr. Holder at the opening of the Broadway musical “The Lion King” in 1997 accompanied by his wife, the dancer Carmen de Lavallade. He made his own Broadway debut in 1954. Credit Nancy Siesel/The New York Times

For a while Mr. Holder taught classes at the Katherine Dunham School, and he was a principal dancer for the Metropolitan Opera Ballet from 1956 to 1958. He continued to dance and direct the Holder dance company until 1960, when it disbanded. In the meantime, at a dance recital, he caught the attention of the producer Arnold Saint-Subber, who was putting together a show with a Caribbean theme.

Thus did Mr. Holder make his Broadway debut on Dec. 30, 1954, as a featured dancer in “House of Flowers,” a haunting, perfumed evocation of West Indian bordello life, with music by Harold Arlen and a book by Truman Capote, based on his novella of the same name. Directed by Peter Brook at the Alvin Theater, it starred Diahann Carroll and Pearl Bailey, and among its dancers was a ravishingly pretty young woman named Carmen de Lavallade. She and Mr. Holder married in 1955, had a son, Léo, and sometimes shared the stage. Both wife and son survive him. Boscoe Holder died in 2007.

One character Mr. Holder played in the musical was the top-hatted Baron Samedi, the guardian of the cemetery and the spirit of death, sex and resurrection in Haitian Voodoo culture. Mr. Holder relished Samedi: he played him again in the 1973 James Bond film, “Live and Let Die” (the first of the Bond franchise to star Roger Moore), and featured him in his choreography — in his “Banda” dance from the musical “House of Flowers,” and in “Banda,” a further exploration of folk themes that had its premiere in 1982.

His Voodoo villain in “Live and Let Die” was of a piece with much of his sporadic film career: with his striking looks and West Indian-inflected voice, producers tended to cast Mr. Holder in roles deemed exotic. In “Doctor Dolittle” (1967), he was a giant native who ruled a floating island as William Shakespeare (the 10th). In Woody Allen’s “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * but Were Afraid to Ask” (1972), he played a sorcerer. In “Annie” (1982), he was the Indian servant Punjab. (An exception was the 1992 romantic comedy “Boomerang,” in which he played a randy director of commercials working for Eddie Murphy’s playboy advertising executive.)

Mr. Holder was multitasking before the term gained currency. In 1957, he landed a notable acting role playing the hapless servant Lucky in an all-black Broadway revival of Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot,” directed by Herbert Berghof. The show, just seven months after the play’s original Broadway production, closed after only six performances because of a union dispute, but the role, with its rambling, signature 700-word monologue, lifted Mr. Holder’s acting career.

That same year, he choreographed and danced in a revival of the George and Ira Gershwin musical “Rosalie” in Central Park. And he received a Guggenheim fellowship in painting.

Painting was a constant for him. Whether life was hectic or jobs were scarce, he could usually be found in the SoHo loft he shared with Ms. de Lavallade, absorbed in work that drew on folk tales and often delivered biting social commentary. On canvases throughout the studio, sensuous nudes jostled for space with elegantly dressed women, ghostly swimmers nestled beside black Virgin Marys, bulky strippers seemed to burst out of their skins, and mysterious figures peered out of tropical forests.

His work was shown at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington and at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. And then there was his photography, and his sculpture.

His visual creativity extended to costume designs, “The Wiz” being just one showcase. Another was John Taras’s 1982 production of “The Firebird” for the Dance Theater of Harlem, in which the Russian fairy tale was relocated to a tropical forest. Mr. Holder designed both the sets and the costumes, one of which was a blend of 30 or 40 colors. He earned another Tony nomination for best costume design for the 1978 Broadway musical “Timbuktu!,” an all-black show based on the musical “Kismet.” He also directed and choreographed “Timbuktu!”

Mr. Holder’s dance designs were equally bold. Reviewing a 1999 revival of “Banda” by the Dance Theater of Harlem, Anna Kisselgoff wrote in The Times, “Mr. Holder is a terrific showman, and his mix of Afro-Caribbean rituals, modern dance and even ballet’s pirouettes is potent and dazzling.”

Other Holder dance classics were “Prodigal Prince” (1971), a dreamlike re-creation of the life and work of Hector Hyppolite, the Haitian folk painter, for which he also composed the musical score; and “Dougla” (1974), an evocation of a mixed-race Caribbean wedding. (Dougla refers to people who are of African and Indian descent.)

In 1959, he published a book on Caribbean folklore, Black Gods, Green Islands, written with Tom Harshman and illustrated by Mr. Holder; in 1973, he produced Geoffrey Holder’s Caribbean Cookbook. He himself was the subject of books and documentaries, including “Carmen & Geoffrey” (2009), by Linda Atkinson and Nick Doob.

Mr. Holder said his artistic life was governed by a simple credo, shaped by his own experience as a West Indian child who had yet to see the world.

“I create for that innocent little boy in the balcony who has come to the theater for the first time,” he told Dance magazine in 2010. “He wants to see magic, so I want to give him magic. He sees things that his father couldn’t see.”

Correction: Oct. 6, 2014
An earlier version of this obituary misstated Mr. Holder’s age. He was 84, not 83. (His date of birth was correctly given as Aug. 1, 1930.) It also misstated his middle name. It was Lamont, not Richard.
Correction: Oct. 6, 2014

An earlier version of a picture caption with this obituary misstated Mr. Holder's surname as Holden.
Correction: Oct. 14, 2014

An obituary last Tuesday about the dancer, choreographer and actor Geoffrey Holder misstated his tenure as a principal dancer for the Metropolitan Opera Ballet. It was from 1956 to 1958, not 1955 and 1956. The obituary also misstated the number of siblings Mr. Holder had. He was the youngest of five children, not “one of four children.”
A version of this article appears in print on Oct. 7, 2014, Section A, Page 19 of the New York edition with the headline: Geoffrey Holder, Multitalented Artist, Dies at 84. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Geoffrey Holder
Filmography
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0390305/

Actor (31 credits)
2008 Butterfield (Short) - Mr. Emory
2008 The Little Wizard: Guardian of the Magic Crystals - Narrator
2005 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Narrator (voice)
2005 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Video Game) - The Narrator (voice)
2002-2003 Cyberchase (TV Series) - Master Pi
- Double Trouble (2003) ... Master Pi (voice)
- Problem Solving in Shangri-La (2002) ... Master Pi (voice)
1997-2002 Bear in the Big Blue House (TV Series) - Ray the Sun (Total 41 episodes)
2002 Bear in the Big Blue House LIVE! - Surprise Party (Video) - Ray (voice)

1999 Goosed - Dr. Bowman
1998 Chance or Coincidence - Owner of Soutine's Bar
1995 Hell: A Cyberpunk Thriller (Video Game) - Jean St. Mouchoir (voice)
1992 Boomerang - Nelson

1987 Where Confucius Meets the New Wave - Narrator
1987 Ghost of a Chance (TV Movie) - Johnson
1986 John Grin's Christmas (TV Movie) - Ghost of Christmas Future
- 1983 Great Performances (TV Series) - Cheshire Cat
- Alice in Wonderland (1983) ... Cheshire Cat
1982 Annie - Punjab
1980 ABC Weekend Specials (TV Series) - Jupiter
- The Gold Bug (1980) ... Jupiter
-
1976 Swashbuckler - Cudjo
1975 The Noah - Friday
1973 Live and Let Die - Baron Samedi
1973 The Man Without a Country (TV Movie) - Slave on ship
1972 Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask - Sorcerer
1970 It Takes a Thief (TV Series) - Paul Trion
- Nice Girls Marry Stockbrokers (1970) ... Paul Trion

1968 Krakatoa: East of Java - Sailor
1967-1968 Tarzan (TV Series) - Mayko / Zwengi
- A Gun for Jai (1968) ... Mayko
- The Pride of the Lioness (1967) ... Zwengi
1967 Doctor Dolittle - William Shakespeare X
1967 Androcles and the Lion (TV Movie) - Lion

1959 Porgy and Bess - Dancer (uncredited)
1958 The DuPont Show of the Month (TV Series) - Genie
- Cole Porter's 'Aladdin' (1958) ... Genie
1957 Carib Gold - Voodoo Dancer (as Geoffery Holder)
1957 The United States Steel Hour (TV Series) - Calypso Singer
- The Bottle Imp (1957) ... Calypso Singer

1942: Giancarlo Giannini is born--La Spezia, Liguria, Italy.

1965: Samuel Alexander "Sam" Mendes, CBE, is born--Reading, Berkshire, England.

1970: Robert Brownjohn dies at age 44--London, England.
(Born 8 August 1925--Newark, New Jersey.)

Robert Brownjohn
American, 1925–1970

https://www.moma.org/artists/816?locale=en

While best known for his title sequences for the James Bond films From Russia with Love and Goldfinger, Robert Brownjohn had a short but influential career, which integrated design, advertising, film, photography, and music. A major figure in the New York advertising and design scene of the late 1950s, he later moved to London, where he was at the epicenter of the burgeoning music, art, and fashion scene of London’s “swinging ’60s.”

Born in New Jersey to British parents, Brownjohn later moved to Chicago, where during the mid-1940s he studied under former Bauhaus teacher Laszlo Moholy-Nagy at the Chicago Institute of Design. He quickly caught the attention of his teachers, who later brought him on as an instructor at the school. After moving to New York in 1951, he spent five years as a freelance designer for clients including George Nelson and Bob Cato. In 1956, he formed a partnership with Ivan Chermayeff, a designer and son of the modernist architect Serge Chermayeff (with designer Tom Geismar joining a year later). Brownjohn, Chermayeff & Geismar quickly grew into one of the most innovative design and advertising firms in New York. Brownjohn’s many personal problems, caused primarily by the heroin addiction that later claimed his life, ultimately soured his New York relationships, precipitating his move to London in 1960.

In London, Brownjohn rapidly established himself as a designer of note. While working for the firm McCann Erickson, he designed the opening credits for the second James Bond film, From Russia with Love, his first foray into film. The following year he directed the film titles for Goldfinger. For both title sequences, he employed a surprising and attention-grabbing approach in which the credit texts and scenes from the films were projected onto scantily clad women, initiating the long-running Bond film tradition of elaborate title sequences featuring seductive women. Brownjohn’s treatment of type as dynamic, abstract forms in the title sequences illustrated both his mastery of graphic design and the enduring influence of Moholy-Nagy’s use of type and photography. His combination of sexually suggestive images and wry humor was a fitting accompaniment to the James Bond mythos. The broad acclaim he received for the Bond film titles led to more film and commercial work for clients ranging from Pirelli to Midland Bank to the Rolling Stones. Though he continued to produce original and challenging work, in the latter half of the 1960s, his life became increasingly unstable. He was moving from one partnership to another until he died in 1970, at the untimely age of 44.

Introduction by Paul Galloway, Collection Specialist, Department of Architecture and Design, 2016

Robert Brownjohn (1925–1970)
Miscellaneous Crew | Actor | Art Director
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0115226/
Filmography

Miscellaneous Crew (6 credits)

1969 Michael Kohlhaas - Der Rebell (titles)
1967 The Night of the Generals (title sequence designer)
1966 The Tortoise and the Hare (Short) (title designer)
1966 Where the Spies Are (title designer)
1964 Goldfinger (titles designed by)
1963 From Russia with Love (titles designed by)

Actor (1 credit)

1969 Otley - Paul

Art director (1 credit)

1963 A... is for Apple (Short)

1979: Moonraker released in Colombia.
1979: 太空城 鐵金剛勇破 (Tiě jīngāng yǒng pò tàikōng chéng; Iron King Space city) released in Hong Kong.

https://talkcinema.wordpress.com/2017/08/16/大堂海報：手作版與原裝版/



http://playitagain.info/site/1979/moonraker/

[img][/img]

https://www.bilibili.com/video/av12518630/

1984: A View to a Kill principal photography kicks off at Pinewood with Roger Moore.

1990: Hodder & Stoughton publish John Gardner's Bond novel Brokenclaw.

Brokenclaw

BROKENCLAW is John Gardner's
ninth novel featuring Ian Fleming's
James Bond.

Bond is bored sitting at his desk,
pushing paper, and feels that M has let
him down, has left him to rot. When M
suggests that he take a holiday, Bond is
displeased but, in the California hills,
he catches sight of a man who intrigues
him immediately. His name is
Brokenclaw Lee.

When Bond discovers that the
enigmatic Brokenclaw heads a vast
conglomerate of underworld
operations, he wonders if M's idea that
he should go on holiday was the clear-
cut proposal it seemed. What has
happened to the five scientists whose
highly sensitive, secret work is crucial
to the security of the American state?
Why are Bond's investigations
compelling American agents to handle
him as though he were a common
criminal?

As ever, Bond finds a worthy partner in
a beautiful female agent -- Chi-Chi.
This time, however, he has the support
of the indomitable Ed Rushia of the
CIA. Just how much help will these two
be able to give Bond when he is pitted
against one of America's most powerful
villains?

BROKENCLAW is an intriguing and
stimulating thriller which will delight
old and new fans of Bond. It takes our
hero through the slimiest parts of San
Francisco to Brokenclaw's lair, a puzzle
house crammed with technological
devices, to a spellbinding ending in the
heartland of the American Indians.

John Gardner has written eight James
Bond books: Licence Renewed, For
Special Services, Icebreaker, Role of
Honour, Nobody Lives Forever, No Deals
for Mr Bond, Scorpius, Licence to Kill,
and, in 1989, Win, Lose or Die. All
these titles are available in Coronet
paperback.

1991: This month Eclipse Comics releases Permission to Die #2.
Mike Grell, Dameon Willich and Mark Jones, artists. Mike Grell, writer.

Permission to Die #2

https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=135651

Story and cover by Mike Grell. Part 2 of 3. Art by Mike Grell, Dameon Willich and Mark Jones. Refusing to return to London after his mission has been compromised, James Bond uses all of his knowledge to get Edaine Gayla out from behind the Iron Curtain. He is sure of success until he learns that one of the worlds deadliest assassins is on their trail. 48 pages. Full color.

1992: This month Marvel Comics releases James Bond Jr #8 "Wave Goodbye to the USA".
Mario Capaldi, artist. Featuring Odd Job and Walker D. Plank.

James Bond Jr #8 "Wave Goodbye to the USA"

https://comicvine.gamespot.com/james-bond-jr-8-wave-goodbye-to-the-usa/4000-36055/

Creators
Colin Fawcett - inker
Mario Capaldi - penciler
Sophie Heath - colorist
Stuart Bartlett - letterer

Characters
Captain Walker D. Plank
Goldfinger
Gordo Leiter
James Bond Jr
Odd Job
Tracey Milbanks

1992: This month Dark Horse Comics releases James Bond 007: Serpent's Tooth #2.
Paul Gulacy, artist. Doug Moench, writer.

James Bond 007: Serpent's Tooth #2

https://www.darkhorse.com/Comics/92-104/James-Bond-007-Serpents-Tooth-2

Beautiful girls and a maniacal villain who wants to change the face of the planet are all in a day's work for James Bond. The second part of this thrilling three-part story pits Bond against a savage South American jungle's most dangerous game -- a hungry dinosaur! Written by Doug Moench (Batman: Red Rain), with art by Paul Gulacy (Terminator: Secondary Objectives) and color by Steve Oliff (John Byrne's 2112), James Bond 007: Serpent's Tooth delivers Bond the way only Dark Horse can!

Creators
Writer: Doug Moench
Artist: Paul Gulacy
Letterer: Pat Brosseau
Colorist: Steve Oliff
Editor: Jerry Prosser
Cover Artist: Paul Gulacy

Genre: Action/Adventure
Publication Date: August 01, 1992
Format: FC

https://www.comicsroyale.com/dark-horse/r97ubeqpmg192vlwmr6jijqiryeu6r


https://comics.ha.com/itm/original-comic-art/panel-pages/paul-gulacy-james-bond-007-serpent-s-tooth-2-page-28-original-art-dark-horse-acme-comics-1992-/a/121930-17086.s
[img][/img]

RichardTheBruce

August 1st Continued

1993: Dark Horse Comics cancels A Silent Armageddon #3, which would have released this month.

https://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/comics/asa.php3

Cancelled Issues - Official Synopsis
Issue #3 - A deadly computer virus demonstrates its lethal potential through automatic teller machines, hospital equipment, and prison cell locks in New York City. James Bond and Terri are determined to find out whether the Omega computer program is responsible for the mayhem, but the son of an old nemesis is even more determined to see Bond dead!

https://www.comicsroyale.com/dark-horse/cslpf7lonvt9q7jxvy1pd53jjvywuo

https://www.comicsroyale.com/goldeneyetopps-comics#/a-silent-armageddon/

A Silent Armageddon - Unreleased Issue Synopses and Artwork

Simon Jowett’s Bond story was never completed which is a shame because it’s an interesting tale with beautiful painted artwork by John M. Burns, but delays in said artwork meant that readers were left with a cliffhanger and a story was lost to the ether.

According to Jowett, issue #3 was completed, artwork and all, and submitted but never saw publication. If you have information or access to this comic then we Bond fans would love to see it so feel free to contact me!

In this gallery you’ll find issue synopses for the unfinished arc and cover artwork tests by the very talented Burns. And although issue #3 is still a mystery, thanks to friend of the site Colin Brown we have pencils and layouts for the unpublished issue #4!

For more Bond action by Jowett, you can track down the thankfully completed two-issue series James Bond 007: Shattered Helix, featuring art by David Jackson and David Lloyd. For more fine artwork by John Burns, check out the John M. Burns Art Facebook page!

2013: Cover reveal for William Boyd's Bond novel SOLO to be published by Random House.

2015: 007 Walk of Fame opens at Piz Gloria.

007 Walk of fame on the Schilthorn
https://myswitzerland.com/en-us/007-walk-of-fame-on-the-schilthorn.html

Secret Agent 007 is about to leave new traces on the Schilthorn, when Schilthorn Cableway opens the 007 Walk of Fame on 1 August 2015. This new attraction – a world first – will be inaugurated in the presence of stars and contributors to «On Her Majesty's Secret Service».

Personalitites from the world of Bond movies will be immortalized at the Schilthorn summit. Each protagonist will feature on an individual information plaque, displaying their photograph, signature and hand imprint in weathering steel, a personal message about the film's impact on their careers, and anecdotes and impressions of their time in Mürren and on the Schilthorn. These plaques will form a short circular trail that runs from the summit building to the Piz Gloria View vantage point back.

Guests:

George Lazenby (James Bond 007)
Terence Mountain (Raphael)
Sylvana Henriques (The Jamaican Girl)
John Glen (Regisseur)
Catherina von Schell (Nancy)
Jenny Hanley (The Irish Girl)
Stunt double Vic Armstrong (has doubled for all Bond actors with the exception of Daniel Craig)

Public Opening

1 August 2015

[/quote]

August 2nd

1910: Jack Whittingham is born--Scarborough, North Yorkshire, England.
(He dies 3 July 1972 at age 61--Valletta, Malta.)

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

The Name’s Whittingham, Jack Whittingham

See the complete article here:

http://therapsheet.blogspot.com/2008/07/names-whittingham-jack-whittingham.html

EDITED BY J. KINGSTON PIERCE

With Sebastian Faulks’ Devil May Care sitting pretty atop British bestseller lists, espionage fiction seems to be all the rage. There is, however, another book, also featuring iconic British secret agent James Bond, that’s had an evolution almost as complex as one of Ian Fleming’s plots. That book is of course the revised second edition of Robert Sellers’ The Battle for Bond, a controversial work detailing the legal wrangling over the rights to Thunderball (1961).

The first edition, which contained a foreword by Raymond Benson (who was the last Bond writer prior to Faulks), was withdrawn from sale shortly after its 2007 release due to legal action from the Fleming family and estate. There a few copies of this collector’s item knocking around, but you’ll need a big checkbook to secure one. If you haven’t done so yet, though, I am pleased to report that Sellers and the independent publisher Tomahawk Press have finally released the second edition, sans the sections that caused the Fleming estate to complain. This revision features a foreword Len Deighton, who concentrates in his essay on long-ago charges of plagiarism leveled against author Fleming. This is a topic that should be familiar those of you who pay attention to the Rap Sheet, since we recalled the case in an obituary of Kevin McClory, the Thunderball collaborator who died in 2006. That case’s resolution included a provision stipulating that all future editions of the novel Thunderball include the writing credit “based on a screen treatment by Kevin McClory, Jack Whittingham, and Ian Fleming.”

Very little has been written about the relatively enigmatic Whittingham. But earlier this week the London Times carried a longish report focusing on his daughter, Sylvan Whittingham Mason, who apparently provided much of the background mosaic for Seller’s book. As writer Giles Hattersley explains:

Like a latterday Ms. Moneypenny, she holds the secrets of James Bond. Her name is Whittingham. Sylvan Whittingham.

Is she Ian Fleming’s daughter? God, no. Fleming’s name is anathema here. Her father was Jack Whittingham, a celebrated screenwriter of the 1950s and 1960s. It was Jack, she claims, who gave us Bond as we know him.

In 1959, Whittingham’s father had been brought in by the film producer Kevin McClory to work on an original screenplay based on Fleming’s famous secret agent. (Fleming had had an earlier bash at writing his own, but forgot to put any action in it.)

The problem of how to film Bond had rumbled on for years. What passed for steely cool in the books would come off as charmless froideur on screen. But man-about-town Jack turned out to be the fire to Fleming’s ice. In a tobacco-stained study at his Surrey home, the dashing, hard-drinking ladies’ man produced a thrilling tale called Thunderball. And he injected Fleming’s uptight gentleman spy with quippy humour, arch sexuality and plenty of action. Rather like Jack, in fact.

“I always say that Daddy was an honourable man,” says Whittingham, now 64, in a voice that seems to come courtesy of Diana Rigg. “Except when it came to women, of course.” She smiles.

“But he was a marvellous writer and they’d had real trouble with Fleming’s novels. The violent, sadistic, colder, misogynistic Bond of the books didn’t work on the big screen. The audience, back then, didn’t want it. There was no humour, no charm. Daddy turned Bond into the suave hero they needed.”

This is a fascinating article, really, detailing the playboy similarities between Bond, Fleming, and Wittingham. In the Times, Mason quite clearly credits her father (who died in 1972) with molding 007 into the man who could support a successful long-running film franchise.

... Jack had been toughened by a Bond-like life of fast cars and faster women. Born the son of a Yorkshire wool merchant, he had oozed confidence as a young man and made a splash with the ladies when he went up to Oxford.

“He met Betty Offield there, heir to the Wrigley’s gum fortune,” says Sylvan. “They fell in love and she invited him over to America to stay. They used to go shark-fishing off her island in California. Later, he bought a solitaire diamond ring and went to Chicago to propose--but by the time he got there, she’d fallen for somebody else.

“In a bar, drowning his sorrows, he met a female gangster called Texas Guinan--a glamorous blonde--who took him on. She sent him all over town with deliveries for her, probably drugs. He became her pet for a while, before he sold the ring so he could afford to get home.”

After a stint in Iceland during the war--where he was permanently sloshed and would often fall down on parade--Jack returned to England and his wife, Margot, whom he had married in 1942. He was never faithful. “My mother was stunningly beautiful, with a frightened-rabbit look in her eyes, which were violet. She was a lost soul: mental problems, breakdowns, depression,” Sylvan says.

Posted by Ali Karim at 11:53 AM

1949: Madeline Smith is born--Garfield, Sussex, England.

1961: First flight of the Wallis WA-116 Agile, a British autogyro.

http://www.jamesbondlifestyle.com/product/little-nellie-wallis-wa-116-agile-series-1-gyroplane

1974: The Man With the Golden Gun films the final game of cat and mouse in Scaramanga's funhouse.
1976: The scheduled date for The Spy Who Loved Me to begin filming, after Kevin McClory's failed legal attempts to block that production and receive rights to Bond material beyond just remaking Thunderball.

1982: Octopussy lead actress Maud Adams tells the Los Angeles Times she screen tested with James Brolin.

2016: Funny or Die releases James Bond: Secret Pokémon Go Agent.

2017: Dynamite Entertainment releases James Bond comic Black Box #6 of 6 available in print and online.

JAMES BOND #6

https://www.dynamite.com/htmlfiles/viewProduct.html?CAT=DF-James_Bond_Black_Box
Cover A: Dominic Reardon
Cover B: Jason Masters
Cover C: Patrick Zircher
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Art: Rapha Lobosco
Genre: Action/Adventure, Media Tie-In
Publication Date: August 2017
Format: Comic Book
Page Count: 32 Pages
ON SALE DATE: 8/2

James Bond #6, "Blinded"

In the action-packed finale of the Black Box story arc, James Bond descends into the secret headquarters of Saga Genji -- deep below the Fukushima nuclear reactor -- where he finds himself lost in a labyrinth of dark tunnels and political deceptions. He must overcome both his cyber terrorist adversaries and American and British allies to destroy the black box of vulnerable data that threatens to upend the world.

2020: London Walks offers their virtual tour Spies and Spymasters at 3pm London Time. (Next 13 & 30 August.)

Spies & Spymasters of London – Virtual Tour

https://www.walks.com/our-walks/spies-spymasters-of-london-virtual-tour/

St James’s and Mayfair were at the heart of London’s murky world of espionage. This tour explores the area as it was from the beginning of the 20th Century to the 1960s. We look at the origins of the Secret Service Bureau in 1909, the clubs that were at the heart of the intelligence recruiting and networking, the buildings, both vanished and surviving, which gave birth to some of the most remarkable operations ever devised, and which housed both dedicated officers and remarkable traitors. The place where Anthony Blunt had a narrow escape from exposure as a Soviet agent. The square where Donald Maclean found his ‘shadows’ a little too close for comfort. The fine old office which housed wartime departments of the British Secret Intelligence Service alongside their US counterparts the Office of Strategic Services. The hotel where SOE heroine Nancy Wake enjoyed ‘a bloody good drink’. Ian Fleming’s wartime haunts and the club where James Bond played a nerve-wracking game of bridge at M’s request. Somerset Maugham, who was not allowed to tell, even as fiction, all he did in the First World War. David Niven on his way to MI5. And who else but John Le Carré’s immortal George Smiley, always just around the corner.

Walk Times
Day 2 August 2020
Walk Type Special
Start Time 3 pm
End Time 4 pm

Video
https://www.walks.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/The-Magic-of-London-Promo-1.mp4?_=1

LONDON WALKS
[email protected]
Telephone 020 7624 3978
PO Box 1708, London NW6 4LW

RichardTheBruce

August 3rd

1937: Steven Berkoff is born--Stepney, London, England.

1977: The Spy Who Loved Me released in the US.

US Lobby Cards

1981: Warner Brothers releases "For Your Eyes Only" as a 7" single.

B-side instrumental.

1989: Licence to Kill released in Iceland.

2004: A US District Court decides the copyright infringement case involving "The World Is Not Enough".

‘The World Is Not Enough’ US court – copyright infringement case

See the complete article here:

https://www.garbagediscobox.com/2004/08/the-world-is-not-enough-us-court-copyright-infringement-case/

August 3, 2004

Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Tennessee at Nashville.
No. 01-00158—William J. Haynes, Jr., District Judge.
Argued: June 9, 2004
Decided and Filed: August 3, 2004
Before: MARTIN and SUTTON, Circuit Judges; HOLSCHUH, District Judge.(*)
________________
COUNSEL

ARGUED: W. Gary Blackburn, BLACKBURN & McCUNE, Nashville, Tennessee, Adam Siegler, THE SIEGLER LAW GROUP, Beverly Hills, California, for Appellants. Timothy L. Warnock, BOWEN, RILEY, WARNOCK & JACOBSON, Nashville, Tennessee, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: W. Gary Blackburn, BLACKBURN & McCUNE, Nashville, Tennessee, Adam Siegler, THE SIEGLER LAW GROUP, Beverly Hills, California, for Appellants. Timothy L. Warnock, Jay S. Bowen, BOWEN, RILEY, WARNOCK & JACOBSON, Nashville, Tennessee, for Appellees.
_________________
OPINION
________________
SUTTON, Circuit Judge. Plaintiffs Frank P. Fogerty and Nathan Crow appeal the district court’s order granting summary judgment and awarding attorneys’ fees to defendants (collectively, “MGM”) in this copyright infringement case. As we agree with the district court that plaintiffs have not presented a sustainable theory of relief, we affirm that ruling. As we disagree with the district court’s award of attorneys’ fees, we reverse that ruling.

I.

Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, the current producers of the James Bond films and principals of Eon Productions, Ltd., sought a composer to write the musical score for the nineteenth Bond film—“The World Is Not Enough.” In September 1998, Wilson and Broccoli selected David Arnold, a London-based composer, a Grammy award winner for the musical score for “Independence Day,” and the author of the end theme song for the Bond film “Tomorrow Never Dies.” Arnold maintains a private recording studio in London, where he composed the theme song and gave it the same name as the film. In writing the song, Arnold collaborated with lyricist Don Black, who also lives in London and who has written the lyrics to the theme songs for four previous Bond films. Arnold and Black met several times in November and December of 1998 to discuss the lyrics for “The World Is Not Enough,” and they exchanged phone calls, faxes and e-mails during that time in collaborating on the song.

Arnold also contacted Shirley Manson, the Scottish-born lead singer for the rock-group “Garbage,” and asked her to record the song. She agreed.

Between late October and November of 1998, Arnold played the melody of “The World Is Not Enough” over the phone to his personal assistant Trish Hillis, before whom he often informally auditioned his songs. According to Arnold, he “strung some la-la’s together, and all of a sudden the [song] came to life, and [he] thought [that was] probably it.” JA 229. On December 26, 1998, Arnold again played “The World Is Not Enough” for Hillis, this time on a piano at his London home. When Arnold played the music for Hillis, he had completed the song and lyrics, save for the bridge—a brief transition of approximately eight bars in the middle of the song. In December 1998, Arnold also played the melody for Geoff Foster and Isabel Griffiths, employees of Air Studios, on a grand piano in the studio’s main hall.

In early January 1999, Arnold completed the song and created a “demo” recording of it on his computer at his private recording studio. Arnold’s computer shows January 6, 1999 as the last day he modified the demo recording.

At roughly this time, Arnold played “The World Is Not Enough” for Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, the producers of the upcoming film. They liked the song. On January 8, 1999, Arnold traveled to Pinewood Studios in England and played the song for Michael Apted, the director of “The World Is Not Enough,” who “was extremely pleased with [the song].” JA 233.

Arnold next asked Trish Hillis to deliver a copy of the demo to Shirley Manson, who (as noted) had agreed to record the song. On January 19, Hillis’s phone log shows that she contacted Ian Wesley, the general manager of Mushroom Records, Garbage’s record label. Wesley told Hillis that Manson was staying at the Royal Garden Hotel in London and to deliver the recording to the hotel at 10 a.m. the next day. On January 20, after Hillis arrived at the Royal Garden Hotel, she called Harold Kohl, Garbage’s tour manager, who told her to leave the recording at the front desk. A bill from the Royal Garden Hotel indicates that Shirley Manson stayed there on January 20, 1999, and Manson later recalled receiving the song from Kohl in January 1999 while staying at the hotel.

Arnold next sent a recording of the song to his American agent, Vas Vangelos, who lives in Los Angeles. An invoice shows that Air Studios billed Eon Productions for a shipment to Vangelos on February 2, 1999. Michael Sandoval, then an executive vice president at MGM, requested a copy of “The World Is Not Enough” from Vangelos. Sandoval received “The World Is Not Enough” on February 4, 1999, and he played the song for other MGM executives. No one apparently liked the song initially because it was a ballad and because they had hoped for a theme song with a different tempo.

On the same day (February 4, 1999), Nathan Crow visited Michael Sandoval at MGM and delivered a recording of his song “This Game We Play,” which he had co-written with Frank P. Fogerty. According to Crow, Sandoval liked the song, suggested that he might consider it for the 1999 film “The Thomas Crown Affair” and kept a copy of the recording. Arnold’s “The World Is Not Enough,” it turns out, shares an identical four-note sequence with Crow’s “This Game We Play.”

Before Manson recorded the commercial version of “The World Is Not Enough,” MGM contacted Arnold in March of 1999 and suggested that a “three-note motif” in “The World Is Not Enough” was too similar to a motif in earlier Bond theme songs. Arnold agreed to remove the three-note sequence, which all agree is unrelated to the four-note sequence that “This Game We Play” and “The World Is Not Enough” have in common.

In June and August of 1999, Shirley Manson and her band recorded “The World Is Not Enough.” Manson requested one lyrical change in the song because the line—“I know when to kiss and I know when to kill”—did not meet her tastes. JA 228. Arnold and Black changed the lyrics, and she completed the recording.

II.

Convinced that Arnold and MGM had copied the four-note sequence from “This Game We Play” in composing “The World Is Not Enough,” Fogerty and Crow filed a copyright infringement action in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee. The parties conducted discovery, and MGM moved for summary judgment, claiming that the undisputed facts showed that Arnold independently created “The World Is Not Enough.”

The district court granted MGM’s motion, concluding that Arnold had independently written the tune to the song:

Defendants and composers of [“The World Is Not Enough”] did not have access to [“This Game We Play”] [through] any of the avenues postulated by Plaintiffs because a review of the record indicates that the melody and significant portions of [“The World Is Not Enough”] . . . were completed prior to the dates that any alleged access by Defendants to [“This Game We Play”] could have occurred.

D. Ct. Op. at 17 (Mar. 14, 2003). The district court also rejected plaintiffs’ alternative claim that the two songs are “strikingly similar,” an independent theory of liability that warrants relief even when the plaintiff cannot prove access. Id. at 19–20. “There is no evidence adduced by Plaintiffs,” the court concluded, “to support the proposition that the two works are so strikingly similar that copying is the only plausible explanation of the similarities.” Id. at 20.

In the aftermath of this ruling, MGM moved for attorneys’ fees under § 505 of the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 505, and for nontaxable costs under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(d). Alleging that plaintiffs’ claims were “objectively unreasonable,” MGM sought $170,519 in attorneys’ fees and $11,647.60 in non-taxable costs. The district court granted MGM’s motion for attorneys’ fees “in the interests of justice and in furtherance of the objectives of the Copyright Act.” D. Ct. Op. at 8 (June 17, 2003). “Plaintiffs[’] claims were objectively unreasonable,” the district court observed, “in that Plaintiffs pursued litigation despite multiple third-party declarations establishing independent creation of [“The World Is Not Enough”] before any of the Defendants had access to Plaintiffs’ original work,” and “Plaintiffs offered no direct evidence to support one of the two basic elements of copyright infringement.” Id. at 8–9. The district court, however, “conclude[d] that a 30% reduction in the billed hours . . . is appropriate . . . in light of the overstaffing of this litigation, the redundant billing, and vague entries on the firm’s invoices,” id. at 15, and awarded MGM $85,507.16 in attorneys’ fees, id. at 19. Holding that fees for “(1) legal research; (2) federal express charges; (3) messenger service; (4) phone/telecopy; (5) postage; (6) out of town travel; and (7) copies” were not allowable, the district court denied MGM’s request for nontaxable costs of $11,647.60. Id. at 20. For routine taxable costs, the district court awarded $4,847.58. Id. at 23.

III.

Summary judgment is appropriate when “the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c). “Where the record taken as a whole could not lead a rational trier of fact to find for the non-moving party,” the Supreme Court has held, “there is no genuine issue for trial.” Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587 (1986) (quotation omitted). A district court’s summary-judgment decision receives de novo review. See Farhat v. Jopke, 370 F.3d 580, 587 (6th Cir. 2004).

The Copyright Act gives copyright owners exclusive rights to reproduce, prepare derivative works from, distribute, and publicly perform or display a copyrighted work. See 17 U.S.C. § 106. To the ends of protecting these rights, the Act allows “[t]he legal or beneficial owner of an exclusive right under a copyright . . . to institute an action for any infringement of that particular right.” 17 U.S.C. § 501(b). A claim of copyright infringement requires proof of “(1) ownership of a valid copyright, and (2) copying of constituent elements of the work that are original.” Feist Publ’ns, Inc. v. Rural Tel. Serv. Co., 499 U.S. 340, 361 (1991); see also Ellis v. Diffie, 177 F.3d 503, 506 (6th Cir. 1999).

Because claimants rarely have direct evidence of copying, they typically try to establish an inference of copying by showing “(1) access to the allegedly-infringed work by the defendant(s) and (2) a substantial similarity between the two works at issue.” Ellis, 177 F.3d at 506. “Access,” we have held, “is essentially hearing or having a reasonable opportunity to hear the plaintiff[s’] work and thus having the opportunity to copy” and “may not be inferred through mere speculation or conjecture.” Id. (quotations omitted). The “substantial similarity” analysis first requires a filtering of the unprotectable aspects of the protected work, then asks whether an “ordinary observer” would perceive the original and the alleged copy as substantially similar. See Kohus v. Mariol, 328 F.3d 848, 855–57 (6th Cir. 2003). Once a plaintiff establishes access and substantial similarity, the defendant may rebut the presumption of copying by showing independent creation of the allegedly infringing work. Ellis, 177 F.3d at 507; see also Susan Wakeen Doll Co. v. Ashton Drake Galleries, 272 F.3d 441, 450 (7th Cir. 2001). Lastly, even without proof of access, a plaintiff still may prevail by showing a “striking similarity [between the works], precluding all possible conclusion but that the work was copied.” Murray Hill Publ’ns, Inc. v. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp., 361 F.3d 312, 325 (6th Cir. 2004).

In applying these principles to this case, the parties share considerable common ground. MGM does not dispute that Fogerty and Crow own a valid copyright in “This Game We Play,” and plaintiffs concede that they failed to produce direct evidence of copying. For purposes of this appeal, the parties also agree that Fogerty and Crow proved that MGM had access to their work after February 4, 1999, and that the two songs are substantially, but not strikingly, similar.

The question under these circumstances is whether David Arnold independently created “The World Is Not Enough” before February 4, 1999, and whether the undisputed evidence establishes that fact. We believe it does.

Fogerty and Crow concede that David Arnold did not have access to “This Game We Play” until Crow delivered a recording of the song to Michael Sandoval at MGM on February 4, 1999. Before that date, deposition testimony and personal calendar entries show that David Arnold and Don Black collaborated on “The World Is Not Enough” in November and December 1998. Arnold performed the song twice for his personal assistant Trish Hillis between October and December of 1998. He also performed the song for Geoff Foster and Isabel Griffiths of Air Studios in December 1998, and the film producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson heard the song in early January 1999. Arnold also made a demo recording of the song, and his personal computer at Air Studios indicates that he last modified the recording on January 6, 1999. The next day, Arnold delivered a copy of the song to Pinewood Studios where the film’s director, Michael Apted, listened to the song.

Arnold and Hillis also testified that Hillis delivered a copy of the recording to the Royal Garden Hotel in London where Shirley Manson was staying. Hillis produced her phone log showing that she made several calls concerning the delivery on January 19, 1999, and her personal calendar indicated that she planned to go there on January 20 to deliver Arnold’s song. MGM also produced a hotel receipt indicating that Shirley Manson stayed at the Royal Garden Hotel on January 20. Hillis testified in her deposition that she left the recording at the hotel desk for Harold Kohl, Garbage’s tour manager, and Manson recalled receiving the recording from Kohl at the hotel.

Aside from a lyrical change to the song (the removal of one line to accommodate Shirley Manson) and one change to the score (the removal of the “three-note motif” to accommodate the MGM executives), the witnesses that testified or gave declarations agree that the song they heard before February 4, 1999 did not otherwise change after that date. In the face of this evidence that Arnold and Black independently created “The World Is Not Enough” before MGM first had access to “This Game We Play” on February 4, 1999, plaintiffs raise a series of arguments designed to show that they nonetheless should be able to present their claim to a jury. Each is unconvincing.

First, they suggest that they can respond to this evidence simply by claiming that a jury might choose to disregard it or might find it unpersuasive. That is not true. See Cox v. Ky. Dep’t of Transp. 53 F.3d 146, 150 (6th Cir. 1995) (“[A] nonmoving party may not avoid a properly supported motion for summary judgment by simply arguing that it relies solely or in part upon credibility considerations . . . . nstead, the nonmoving party must present affirmative evidence to defeat a properly supported motion for summary judgment.”); Curl v. Int’l Bus. Machs. Corp., 517 F.2d 212, 214 (5th Cir. 1975) (“[T]he party opposing summary judgment must be able to point to some facts which may or will entitle him to judgment, or refute the proof of the moving party in some material portion, and . . . the opposing party may not merely recite the incantation, ‘Credibility,’ and have a trial on the hope that a jury may disbelieve factually uncontested proof.”) (quotation omitted); Eaton v. Nat’l Broad. Co., 972 F. Supp. 1019, 1024 (E.D. Va. 1997) (“[A] copyright plaintiff cannot base her opposition to summary judgment entirely on the hope that a fact finder will disbelieve the persons who have submitted affidavits on issues of access.”); cf. Matsushita, 475 U.S. at 586 (“When the moving party has carried its burden under Rule 56(c), its opponent must do more than simply show that there is some metaphysical doubt as to the material facts.”) (footnote omitted).

Second, in the absence of affirmative evidence rebutting MGM’s pre-access chain of events, plaintiffs claim that inconsistencies in MGM’s evidence by themselves create a genuine issue of material fact. They note, for example, that MGM executives disliked “The World Is Not Enough” but liked “This Game We Play” in early February 1999. The different reactions, plaintiffs urge, show that the two songs were not substantially similar on February 4, 1999, and show that Arnold must have copied “This Game We Play” after February 4, 1999 because the songs are substantially similar today. Too many competing inferences, however, separate this premise from plaintiffs’ proposed conclusion. Fogerty and Crow neglect to mention that MGM executives listened to each song for different reasons—in Arnold’s case to determine if the song would work for the new Bond film, in plaintiffs’ case to see if their song would work for another film. Because the MGM executives listened to each song in different musical, artistic and commercial contexts—with one solicited for the Bond movie and the other unsolicited and at most considered for another film—this theory of infringement is too speculative to warrant a jury trial on its own.

Fogerty and Crow next scrutinize Arnold’s and Black’s testimony. Arnold’s declaration indicates that he made “an initial demonstration recording” of the “The World Is Not Enough” on January 6, 1999. Black’s declaration, however, indicates that he made a recording with Arnold in November or December 1998. Neither version of events, however, places creation of the demo recording after February 4, 1999. A factfinder could believe Arnold; it could believe Black; or it could believe parts of each individual’s testimony. But it could not rationally come to the conclusion that the recording was made after February 4, 1999, especially in light of plaintiffs’ inability to refute the delivery of a recording of the song to Manson at the Royal Garden Hotel on January 20, 1999.

Fogerty and Crow point to one other alleged discrepancy between Arnold’s and Black’s testimony that deserves mention. Posturing as someone working with James Horner, the composer of the “Titanic” sound track, Crow contacted Don Black by phone and asked whether Black would be interested in writing the song lyrics for the film “Oceans 11.” During the tape-recorded conversation, Crow asked Black questions about “The World Is Not Enough,” including when he received the song to write the lyrics. Black, who later explained that he was trying to impress someone whom he believed to be a major composer, indicated that he received the song approximately two months before the movie’s release date, which was December 1999. As Crow admitted (after the phone call), “the entire thing [was] deceptive . . . [and] intentional[],” JA 310, because he was trying “to trick them into telling [him] the truth,” JA 311.

The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure do not provide for this form of discovery. And it is not clear whether the Federal Rules of Evidence would permit the admission of such a phone call. But even assuming the admissibility of this evidence and even assuming that Fogerty and Crow would unveil this antic to a jury, the statement at issue—that Black (the lyricist) purportedly received the music to the song just two months before its release—does not establish a cognizable cause of action. In order to credit this statement, a jury would have to believe that Black wrote the lyrics to “The World Is Not Enough” in October 1999—two months after Garbage finished commercially recording the song. No rational trier of fact could rely on this statement in finding for Fogerty and Crow.

Plaintiffs next point to several letters written by Trish Hillis to individuals seeking to collaborate with David Arnold while he composed the musical score for “The World Is Not Enough.” The nub of these letters is that Arnold continued working on the musical score for the entire movie after the February 4, 1999 date of access. Absent from the letters, however, is any reference to the theme song, which is all that is at issue here. The most potent letter, dated April 16, 1999, reads: “[Arnold] has also been commissioned to write both [the theme and end] songs, which were finished a few weeks ago.” JA 594. At most, however, this statement shows that both songs (as opposed to only “The World Is Not Enough”) were not complete until after February 4, 1999, which does not create a fact dispute that the theme song had not been completed before that date.

Shirley Manson’s testimony also contains several inconsistencies, none of which casts doubt on MGM’s claim of independent creation. Manson and Arnold failed to recall consistently the details of when Manson first heard the song and when she and Arnold first communicated after she heard the song. In his declaration, Arnold claimed that he spoke with Manson on the phone January 20, 1999 (the day Hillis delivered the song to the Royal Garden Hotel) and that she loved the song. In Arnold’s deposition, he said that he received an e-mail from Manson on an unknown date. Manson essentially could not recall when she first listened to the demo recording and had “no idea” if she listened to it prior to February 4, 1999. JA 215. But these inconsistencies do not alter the unrefuted evidence that Hillis left a copy of the song for Manson at the Royal Garden Hotel on January 20, 1999, and that it was this copy of the song that Manson eventually heard. In this setting, the district court’s decision to disregard the inconsistencies in Manson’s other testimony does not amount to an improper weighing of the evidence. See Street v. J.C. Bradford & Co., 886 F.2d 1472, 1480 (6th Cir.1989) (“The trial court has at least some discretion [at summary judgment] to determine whether [plaintiffs’] claim is ‘implausible.’”).

Crow also made a false-pretenses phone call to Shirley Manson, much like the one he made to Don Black. During the call, Manson indicated that she first received the song in August of 1999. While Manson’s band did not finish commercially recording the song until that date, the parties do not dispute that the first recording session of the song occurred in June 1999. In other words, to believe plaintiffs’ interpretation of Manson’s statement, a jury would have to conclude that Manson first heard “The World Is Not Enough” two months after she began recording the song. No rational jury would accept that sequence of events.

Fogerty and Crow next take aim at the declarations of Wilson and Broccoli. In their declarations, Wilson and Broccoli noted that “[a]side from some minor lyrical changes, the song David played us in his attic room that day was the same song we ultimately recorded for the film,” but failed to mention that Arnold later removed the “three-note motif” that the initial recording of the music shared with earlier Bond songs. This oversight, according to plaintiffs, makes the declarations unreliable. We are not persuaded. The change was a minor one; it had nothing to do with the four-note sequence that parallels “This Game We Play”; and it does not alter the fact that Arnold played “The World Is Not Enough” for others (including Wilson and Broccoli in early January 1999) well before the date of access.

The dates of the contracts between Arnold, Black and MGM also have little value. True, each written contract went into effect after February 4, 1999. But the undisputed evidence shows that Wilson and Broccoli selected David Arnold to write the musical score for “The World Is Not Enough” in September 1998. And in his own deposition, Crow acknowledges that on February 4, 1999, when he met with Sandoval of MGM, Sandoval told him that Arnold had a “lock on this,” JA 299, “that Mr. Arnold had been hired to write an original score for the film,” JA 298, and that “Mr. Sandoval made it very clear that Mr. Arnold had been hired to write the score,” id.

Plaintiffs also point to the fact that Arnold never produced the demo recording that he made on January 6, 1999. Arnold testified that his computer at Air Studios showed that he last modified the recording on January 6, 1999, but offered no explanation as to why he could not produce a recording. According to Fogerty and Crow, “a party having control of information bearing upon a disputed issue may be given the burden of bringing it forward and suffering an adverse inference from [the] failure to do so.” Appellant Br. at 21. Here, however, MGM is the party, not David Arnold, and it did produce an original copy of the demo recording from Don Black. Plaintiffs do not refute the authenticity of Black’s copy of the song, and at all events never explain why they did not seek discovery of Arnold’s computer to determine if the January 6th demo could still be retrieved.

Fogerty and Crow, lastly, question the reliability of MGM’s declarations based on the “excessive hours spent” in drafting them. Appellant Br. at 22. MGM’s attorneys “spent approximately 80 hours drafting and revising these declarations,” plaintiffs argue, and “t does not take 80 hours to write a few pages of the truth.” Id. at 22–23. But this argument does not prove that the affidavits are false or even suggest as much. Whether the scrivener of the affidavits was quite deliberate, was inefficient or merely was confronted with a voluminous record, extensive time in drafting affidavits (or even excessive time in drafting them) does not indicate that they are false.

IV.

Plaintiffs next argue that even if it was appropriate to grant summary judgment, the district court erred in awarding fees to MGM. We agree.

Section 505 of the Copyright Act provides:

In any civil action under this title, the court in its discretion may allow the recovery of full costs by or against any party other than the United States or an officer thereof. Except as otherwise provided by this title, the court may also award a reasonable attorney’s fee to the prevailing party as part of the costs.

17 U.S.C. § 505. Under this provision, a district court may “impose attorney[s’] fees in frivolous and objectively unreasonable lawsuits.” Murray Hill Publ’ns, Inc. v. ABC Communications, Inc., 264 F.3d 622, 639 (6th Cir. 2001). A district court’s decision to award attorneys’ fees should be based on such factors as “[the] frivolousness of the claim,” the “motivation” of the claimant, the “reasonableness” of the claim and the goal of “deterr[ing]” frivolous claims. Coles v. Wonder, 283 F.3d 798, 804 (6th Cir. 2002). We review a district court’s decision to grant or deny fees for an abuse of discretion. ABC Communications, Inc., 264 F.3d at 639.

While plaintiffs’ claim ultimately proved meritless, that does not make it “objectively unreasonable” as a matter of law or fact. See id. at 639–40 (reversing an award of attorneys’ fees under 17 U.S.C. § 505 because “at the time [the] litigation was before the district court, the law on certain relevant aspects of [the] lawsuit was unsettled”); cf. Protective Life Ins. Co. v. Dignity Viatical Settlement Partners, L.P., 171 F.3d 52, 58 (1st Cir. 1999) (“The mere fact that a claim ultimately proves unavailing, without more, cannot support the imposition of Rule 11 sanctions.”). At the time Fogerty and Crow filed their complaint, they knew only that Crow delivered “This Game We Play” to Michael Sandoval and, ten months later, MGM used a very similar song as the theme song for “The World Is Not Enough.” Nowhere does MGM contend that filing a complaint on this basis was objectively unreasonable. See Matthew Bender & Co. v. West Publ’g Co., 240 F.3d 116, 122 (2d Cir. 2001) (“[T]he imposition of a fee award against a copyright holder with an objectively reasonable litigation position will generally not promote the purposes of the Copyright Act.”).

As discovery progressed, other facts surfaced that legitimately prompted plaintiffs to pursue their claim. They obtained an expert opinion that the two songs were substantially similar; they learned—quite remarkably—that Crow delivered his song to an MGM executive (Sandoval) on the same day that Arnold delivered his song to Sandoval; they learned that Arnold could not produce a demo of the January 6, 1999 version of the song; and they learned of inconsistencies in Manson’s and Arnold’s recollections of when Manson first heard “The World Is Not Enough” and communicated her comments to Arnold. All told, this evidence gave plaintiffs objectively legitimate reasons for pursuing discovery in the case and for seeing the case through to summary judgment.

The two reasons given by the district court for awarding fees do not alter this conclusion. The court first noted that “Plaintiffs[’] claims were objectively unreasonable in that Plaintiffs pursued litigation despite multiple third-party declarations establishing independent creation of [“The World Is Not Enough”] before any of the Defendants had access to Plaintiffs’ original work.” D. Ct. Op. at 8 (June 17, 2003). But the declarations contained several inconsistencies and all of them were submitted by individuals with a personal and professional stake in the answer to whether David Arnold copied a song that he represented as original. While those inconsistencies proved immaterial, plaintiffs were entitled to depose the individuals and determine whether their recollections of the facts collectively made sense.

The second factor offered by the district court is no more persuasive: “Plaintiffs offered no direct evidence to support one of the two basic elements of copyright infringement.” Id. at 8–9. This ambiguous reference points to one of two things. Either plaintiffs failed to produce direct evidence of copying or plaintiffs failed to provide evidence of access (they did provide an expert’s opinion that the songs were substantially similar). As to the former explanation, direct evidence of copying is a rarity and accordingly the failure to provide such evidence by itself never supplies an independent basis for awarding attorneys’ fees. See Ellis, 177 F.3d at 506 (“Direct evidence of copying is rare, so frequently the plaintiff will attempt to establish an inference of copying [with indirect evidence].”); see also Segrets, Inc. v. Gillman Knitwear Co., 207 F.3d 56, 61 (1st Cir. 2000); Arica Inst., Inc. v. Palmer, 970 F.2d 1067, 1072 (2d Cir. 1992); Narell v. Freeman, 872 F.2d 907, 910 (9th Cir. 1989).

As to the latter explanation, it was not until after the completion of discovery that the district court could have reached the conclusion that plaintiffs failed to provide evidence of access. See Williamson v. United States Dep’t of Agric., 815 F.2d 368, 373 (5th Cir. 1987) (“f discovery could uncover one or more substantial fact issues, appellant was entitled to reasonable discovery to do so.”). Prior to that, as noted, plaintiffs had several concerns that reasonably prompted them to continue discovery. Indeed, the most important depositions in the case—those of Arnold, Black, Manson and Hillis—took place approximately one month before MGM filed its successful motion for summary judgment. Fogerty and Crow reasonably believed that these depositions might bear fruit, a conclusion that the district court apparently reached as well when it denied MGM’s first motion for summary judgment and request for a stay of discovery, both of which were filed before plaintiffs took these depositions. D. Ct. Order (Jan. 20, 2002).

V.

For these reasons, we affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment and reverse its award of attorneys’ fees.

Footnotes
*The Honorable John D. Holschuh, United States District Judge for the Southern District of Ohio, sitting by designation.

source: findlaw.com

2007: John Edmund Gardner dies at age 80--Basingstoke, Hampshire, England.
(Born 20 November 1926--Seaton Delaval, Northumberland, England.)

John Gardner
Prolific thriller writer behind the revival of James Bond and Professor Moriarty

See the complete article here:

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/nov/02/guardianobituaries.booksobituaries

Mike Ripley - 3 Nov 2007 19.53 EDT

John Gardner, who has died aged 80, was the consummate thriller writer, producing more than 50 novels. But he owed his reputation to James Bond. His early success came with send-ups of the Bond genre, and he was to find greater fame, if not satisfaction, in reinventing Agent 007 almost 20 years after the death of the secret agent's creator, Ian Fleming.

Born in Seaton Delaval, then in Northumberland, Gardner was the only child of an Anglican priest - the family moved south when his father became chaplain at St Mary's, Wantage, Berkshire, where Gardner attended King Alfred's school. During the second world war, he joined the Home Guard aged only 14. He then served in the Fleet Air Arm in 1944 and the Royal Marine commandos in the Middle and Far East. After the war, he read theology at St John's College, Cambridge, and entered the Anglican priesthood, but after five years and a crisis of faith, he turned to journalism as drama critic of the Stratford-upon-Avon Herald, and to drink.

By the age of 33, he realised that his intake of gin qualified him as an alcoholic. As part of his therapy, he wrote Spin the Bottle (1963), a memoir about his relationship with alcohol. He claimed never to have touched booze since 1959, and the memoir - his only non-fiction book - launched him on a writing career.

Gardner's first novel, The Liquidator, a spoof of the Bond books, was published in 1964, the year of Fleming's death. The anti-hero, Boysie Oakes, had one drawback as a licensed-to-kill man of action: he was a coward who hated violence and sub-contracted parts of his missions to an assassin.

The book was filmed by Jack Cardiff, with Rod Taylor in the Oakes role and Eric Sykes as the hit man. Gardner was unimpressed with the result, but he was far less complimentary about Michael Winner's 1973 film The Stone Killer, starring Charles Bronson, adapted from his novel, A Complete State of Death (not one of the Oakes series), which he wrote in 1969 under the pen name Derek Torry.

Seven more Oakes books followed, including Amber Nine (1966), in which the villain turned out to be Hitler's long-lost daughter. By 1974, though, Gardner was ready for a change and launched a new series based on the diaries of Professor James Moriarty, the nemesis of Sherlock Holmes. He intended a trilogy, but after the appearance of The Return of Moriarty (1974) and The Revenge of Moriarty (1975), he could not agree a publishing deal for a third book, and, in any case, Bond was about to intervene once more.

While living in tax exile in Ireland, Gardner was approached by crime novelist and president of the Detection Club Harry Keating, on behalf of the Fleming estate. The proposition was to reinvent the Bond books for the late 1970s. Gardner, by now the author of 17 novels and two collections of short stories, was at first reluctant to commit. But in the end he convinced himself he could "round out" the character.

Licence Renewed (1976) was the first in a franchise which lasted 20 years. There was a media frenzy at the return to the page of a more politically correct Bond - and an outcry that 007 was now driving a Saab 900 Turbo.

Although they brought him wealth and a worldwide audience, Gardner never seemed comfortable with the Bond franchise, though he remained proud of one title, The Man From Barbarossa. Within three years, he had launched a series of five much grittier, hardboiled espionage thrillers, starting with The Nostradamus Traitor (1979) starring "Big" Herbie Kruger, a character shaped by the second world war - as Gardner had been.

Gardner wrote more Bond books than Fleming - a total of 16, two based on the films Licensed [sic] to Kill (1989) and GoldenEye (1995) - but in the same period, he also produced the Kruger books, another trilogy of spy stories and six stand-alone thrillers.

Gardner moved to America in 1989, but ill-health forced him to relinquish the Bond franchise to Raymond Benson in 1996. Medical bills for treating cancer of the oesophagus forced his return to England in reduced circumstances, only to suffer further when his wife of more than 40 years, Margaret, died suddenly the following year.

Now living quietly in an almshouse in Basingstoke, he turned to his own memories of wartime Britain for his final series of thrillers, featuring Detective Sergeant Suzie Mountford. The first, Bottled Spider, was published in 2002. The leading character was based on Gardner's youthful romance with a nurse named Patricia Mountford, who, some 50 years after their last meeting, contacted him after reading about her namesake. The couple enjoyed a romantic reunion.

In the field of espionage fiction, Gardner lacked the intellectual complexities of John le Carré or the stylistic innovations of Len Deighton or Anthony Price, but he was a prolific and reliable deliverer to a thrill-seeking audience. Harsher critics have suggested he fed off the creations of others. He always knew that Bond would overshadow everything, and longed to be remembered as more than the man who brought back 007. In that, despite 52 novels, he probably failed.

The fifth Suzie Mountford book, No Human Enemy, has just been published. The third Moriarty book, The Redemption of Moriarty, completed shortly before Gardner's death, will be published posthumously. He is survived by the son and daughter of his marriage, Simon and Alexis; Miranda, the daughter of his relationship with Susan Wright; and Patricia Mountford, to whom he was engaged.

· John Edmund Gardner, writer, born November 20 1926; died August 3 2007

John Gardner (British Writer)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gardner_(British_writer)

Works

Autobiography

Spin the Bottle (1964)

Boysie Oakes novels

The Liquidator (1964)
Understrike (1965)
Amber Nine (1966)
Madrigal (1967)
Founder Member (1969)
Traitor's Exit (1970)
The Airline Pirates (1970) - published in the US as Air Apparent
A Killer for a Song (1975)

Two Boysie Oakes short stories appear in The Assassination File (A Handful of Rice, Corkscrew).
Two Boysie Oakes short stories appear in Hideaway (Boysie Oakes and The Explosive Device, Sunset At Paleokastritsa).

Derek Torry novels

A Complete State of Death (1969) - reissued in the US as The Stone Killer
The Corner Men (1974)

Professor Moriarty novels

The Return of Moriarty (1974)
The Revenge of Moriarty (1975)
Moriarty (2008)

Herbie Kruger novels

The Nostradamus Traitor (1979)
The Garden of Weapons (1980)
The Quiet Dogs (1982)
Maestro (1993)
Confessor (1995)

Herbie Kruger also appears in The Secret Houses and The Secret Families.

The Railton family novels

The Secret Generations (1985)
The Secret Houses (1988)
The Secret Families (1989)

James Bond novels

Licence Renewed (1981)
For Special Services (1982)
Icebreaker (1983)
Role of Honour (1984)
Nobody Lives for Ever (1986)
No Deals, Mr. Bond (1987)
Scorpius (1988)
Win, Lose or Die (1989)
Licence to Kill (1989) – novelization of a film script
Brokenclaw (1990)
The Man from Barbarossa (1991)
Death is Forever (1992)
Never Send Flowers (1993)
SeaFire (1994)
GoldenEye (1995) – novelization of a film script
Cold (1996) – published in the US as Cold Fall

Detective Sergeant Suzie Mountford novels

Bottled Spider (2002)
The Streets of Town (2003)
Angels Dining at the Ritz (2004)
Troubled Midnight (2005)
No Human Enemy (2007)

Other novels

The Censor (1970)
Every Night's a Bullfight (1971) (Published in the US in a bowdlerized edition as Every Night's a Festival in 1972.)
To Run a Little Faster (1976)
The Werewolf Trace (1977)
The Dancing Dodo (1978)
Golgotha (1980) - (Published in the US as The Last Trump)
The Director (1982) (A re-working of his 1971 novel Every Night's a Bullfight.)
Flamingo (1983)
Blood of the Fathers (1992) (as by "Edmund McCoy". Later published under his own name in 2004.)
Day of Absolution (2000)

Short story collections

Hideaway (1968) (Contains two Boysie Oakes stories.)
The Assassination File (1974) (Contains two Boysie Oakes stories.)

RichardTheBruce

August 4th

1901: Louis Armstrong is born--New Orleans, Louisiana.
(He dies 6 July 1971 at age 69--New York City, New York.)

Louis Armstrong

See the complete article here:

https://www.louisarmstronghouse.org/biography/

Biography
Louis Armstrong was born in New Orleans, Louisiana on August 4, 1901. He was raised by his mother Mayann in a neighborhood so dangerous it was called “The Battlefield.” He only had a fifth-grade education, dropping out of school early to go to work. An early job working for the Jewish Karnofsky family allowed Armstrong to make enough money to purchase his first cornet.

On New Year’s Eve 1912, he was arrested and sent to the Colored Waif’s Home for Boys. There, under the tutelage of Peter Davis, he learned how to properly play the cornet, eventually becoming the leader of the Waif’s Home Brass Band. Released from the Waif’s Home in 1914, Armstrong set his sights on becoming a professional musician. Mentored by the city’s top cornetist, Joe “King” Oliver, Armstrong soon became one of the most in-demand cornetists in town, eventually working steadily on Mississippi riverboats.

In 1922, King Oliver sent for Armstrong to join his band in Chicago. Armstrong and Oliver became the talk of the town with their intricate two-cornet breaks and started making records together in 1923. By that point, Armstrong began dating the pianist in the band, Lillian Hardin. In 1924, Armstrong married Hardin, who urged Armstrong to leave Oliver and try to make it on his own. A year in New York with Fletcher Henderson and His Orchestra proved unsatisfying so Armstrong returned to Chicago in 1925 and began making records under his own name for the first time.

Hotter Than That
The records by Louis Armstrong and His Five–and later, Hot Seven–are the most influential in jazz. Armstrong’s improvised solos transformed jazz from an ensemble-based music into a soloist’s art, while his expressive vocals incorporated innovative bursts of scat singing and an underlying swing feel. By the end of the decade, the popularity of the Hot Fives and Sevens was enough to send Armstrong back to New York, where he appeared in the popular Broadway revue, “Hot Chocolates.” He soon began touring and never really stopped until his death in 1971.

The 1930s also found Armstrong achieving great popularity on radio, in films, and with his recordings. He performed in Europe for the first time in 1932 and returned in 1933, staying for over a year because of a damaged lip. Back in America in 1935, Armstrong hired Joe Glaser as his manager and began fronting a big band, recording pop songs for Decca, and appearing regularly in movies. He began touring the country in the 1940s.

Ambassador Satch
In 1947, the waning popularity of the big bands forced Armstrong to begin fronting a small group, Louis Armstrong and His All Stars. Personnel changed over the years but this remained Armstrong’s main performing vehicle for the rest of his career. He had a string of pop hits beginning in 1949 and started making regular overseas tours, where his popularity was so great, he was dubbed “Ambassador Satch.”

In America, Armstrong had been a great Civil Rights pioneer for his race, breaking down numerous barriers as a young man. In the 1950s, he was sometimes criticized for his onstage persona and called an “Uncle Tom” but he silenced critics by speaking out against the government’s handling of the “Little Rock Nine” high school integration crisis in 1957.

Armstrong continued touring the world and making records with songs like “Blueberry Hill” (1949), “Mack the Knife” (1955) and “Hello, Dolly! (1964),” the latter knocking the Beatles off the top of the pop charts at the height of Beatlemania.

Good Evening Everybody

The many years of constant touring eventually wore down Armstrong, who had his first heart attack in 1959 and returned to intensive care at Beth Israel Hospital for heart and kidney trouble in 1968. Doctors advised him not to play but Armstrong continued to practice every day in his Corona, Queens home, where he had lived with his fourth wife, Lucille, since 1943. He returned to performing in 1970 but it was too much, too soon and he passed away in his sleep on July 6, 1971, a few months after his final engagement at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City.

King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band (first recording for Louis Armstrong), Gennett Studios, Richmond, Indiana, 1923.

And his last.

1960: In a letter to artist Richard Chopping, Ian Fleming requests his services for 200 guineas.

"I will ask [the publisher] to produce an elegant
skeleton hand and an elegant Queen of Hearts.
As to the dagger, I really have no strong views.
I had thought of the ordinary flick knife as used
by teenagers on people like you and me, but if
you have a nice dagger in mind please let us use it.
The title of the book will be Thunderball.
It is immensely long, immensely dull and only
your jacket can save it!"

1967: You Only Live Twice released in Ireland.
1969: John Barry signs on to score On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

1988: Licence to Kill films Q assisting OO7 to board the Wavekrest.

2001: Pierce Brosnan weds Keely Shaye Smith at Ballintubber Abbey, County Mayo, Ireland.

2008: Sony Ericsson reveals its James Bond themed C902 phone and Pocket Gamer.

Sony Ericsson unveils James Bond themed C902 phone
Complete with preloaded spying game

See the complete article here:

http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/Mobile/Sony+Ericsson+C902/news.asp?c=8175

Product: Sony Ericsson C902 | Manufacturer: Sony Ericsson
by Stuart Dredge

Getting excited about upcoming James Bond flick Quantum of Solace yet? We're still boggling at the rubbish name, to be honest.

But anyway, Sony Ericsson is excited, because its C902 handset will feature in the film, possibly during a scene where Bond whiles away several hours in a Haitian jail cell by playing Tower Bloxx Deluxe. Or not.

To celebrate, the company is launching a limited-edition silver edition of the phone, with all manner of 007 branding and content.

That includes the official James Bond: Top Agent game, as well as the new film's trailer, video interviews with its stars, and wallpapers and screensavers.

It's the second Sony Ericsson Bond mobile, following 2006's silver K800i model. The C902 is more focused on photography than gaming, but Sony Ericsson's track record means it'll be good for the latter, too.

The Bond edition goes on sale in November, when the film comes out. If you're wondering why the photo above isn't silver, well, SE hasn't released a shot of the new one yet.

2017: ITV promotes Daniel Craig in Casino Royale but airs the 1967 version, disappointing many.

ITV4 has James Bond fans shaken and stirred
by airing the wrong Casino Royale

Somebody at MI6 is getting fired...
By Justin Harp | 04/08/2017

http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/james-bond-007/news/a834825/itv4-airs-wrong-james-bond-film-casino-royale/

RichardTheBruce

August 5th

1906: John Marcellus Huston is born--Nevada, Missouri.
(He dies 28 August 1987 an Irish citizen--Middletown, Rhode Island.)

John Huston
American director, writer, and actor

https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Huston
Written By: Michael Barson
Last Updated: Aug 1, 2019 See Article History

John Huston, in full John Marcellus Huston, (born August 5, 1906, Nevada, Missouri, U.S—died August 28, 1987, Middletown, Rhode Island), American motion-picture director, writer, and actor whose taut dramas were among the most popular Hollywood films from the early 1940s to the mid-1980s. Many of his films were literary adaptations or tough action tales with an existential spin. Indeed, his own life—in which Huston starred as a boxer, painter, horseman, gadabout, rebel, and international ladies’ man (who married six times)—was at least as engaging as many of his movies.

Early work
Huston was born in a small town in Missouri that his grandfather claimed to have won in a poker game. Huston’s father, Walter Huston, had given up stage acting for work as a civil engineer that took his family to Texas and Indiana before he decided to return to acting in 1909. Within a few years Huston’s parents were divorced, and he spent his childhood moving between his father, who initially returned to vaudeville, and his mother, Reah, who worked as a journalist and taught him to both ride and bet on horses. Although he suffered from kidney disease and an enlarged heart, Huston overcame a frail, often bedridden youth to become so robust a teenager that he was the amateur lightweight boxing champion of California (with a distinctive broken nose to show for it). After briefly studying painting in Los Angeles, Huston moved to New York City in 1924 to become an actor and performed with the Provincetown Players in Greenwich Village. In 1925, while vacationing in Mexico, he became an honorary member of the Mexican cavalry.

Returning to New York in 1929, Huston took a job as a reporter at the New York Graphic, where his mother was then working. He also began writing and publishing short stories, most notably “Fool,” which appeared in the literary magazine The American Mercury. In 1931 Huston went to Hollywood. After a false start as a contract writer with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), he moved to Universal, contributing to the screenplays of a pair of films starring his father, A House Divided (1931) and Law and Order (1932). During this period of hard drinking and carousing, a car that Huston was driving hit and killed a pedestrian. Consumed with guilt, he moved to London, where he intended to write for the British studio Gaumont but instead lived a ne’er-do-well existence. After a stint in Paris painting, he returned to the United States.

In 1934 Huston played the lead in the Chicago Works Progress Administration production of Robert E. Sherwood’s play Abe Lincoln in Illinois. By 1937 Huston was back in Hollywood, where Warner Brothers signed him to a screenwriting contract. This time his career was on track. Huston collaborated on the scripts for William Wyler’s Jezebel (1938), Anatole Litvak’s The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938), and William Dieterle’s Juárez (1939) before directing his father in A Passage to Bali on Broadway in 1940.

Films of the 1940s
Huston then cowrote three exceptional films: Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet (1940) for Dieterle, High Sierra (1941) for Raoul Walsh, and Sergeant York for Howard Hawks, the last of which earned Huston his first Academy Award nomination, for best original screenplay in 1941.

That year Huston was also nominated for an Academy Award in another screenwriting category for his adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s detective mystery The Maltese Falcon (1941), which was Huston’s first film as a director—perhaps the most-impressive debut in Hollywood during the 1940s. The Maltese Falcon had already been filmed by Warner Brothers in 1931 and 1936, but Huston’s proto-film noir had the advantage of Huston as the screenwriter, Humphrey Bogart as the amoral private eye Sam Spade, Mary Astor as the immoral Brigid O’Shaughnessey, and Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre as a pair of lovable cutthroats. It was nominated for the Academy Award for best picture.

After directing the melodrama In This Our Life (1942), Huston was unable to complete his next project, the high-seas espionage tale Across the Pacific (1942), because he was drafted. For the U.S. Army’s Pictorial Service, Huston directed and narrated the renowned World War II documentaries Report from the Aleutians (1943), The Battle of San Pietro (1945), and Let There Be Light, the last a disturbing study of emotionally unstable veterans in a Long Island hospital that was so powerful that it was not given a public release until the early 1980s. Huston was discharged from the army in 1945 with the rank of major and awarded the Legion of Merit for making his films under perilous battle conditions.

Back in the United States, he worked on the scripts for Robert Siodmak’s The Killers and Orson Welles’s The Stranger (both 1946). Huston also directed Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit on Broadway in 1946. In 1947, as the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) geared up for its initial wave of hearings into the Hollywood community’s past or present communist affiliations, Huston joined with director William Wyler and screenwriter Philip Dunne in establishing the Committee for the First Amendment. Huston was part of a delegation of industry liberals—including Bogart and Lauren Bacall—who flew to Washington, D.C., to support those witnesses who had taken a confrontational stand when called to testify before the HUAC. Like other members of the delegation, however, Huston was put off by the aggressive belligerence of the “unfriendly” witnesses who would become known as the Hollywood Ten, though he remained disgusted by the proceedings as a whole.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) was Huston’s return to motion-picture directing in Hollywood. Adapted by Huston from an obscure novel by the mysterious, reclusive writer B. Traven and shot on location in Mexico, it starred Bogart in the decidedly unheroic role of a paranoid prospector, Fred C. Dobbs. As good as Bogart was in depicting Dobbs’s descent into madness, most critics believed that he was out-acted by Walter Huston as the grizzled, sagacious Howard, who tries in vain to keep greed from consuming the little treasure-seeking band. (This was the first time that Huston had cast his father in a major role, though he had appeared in unbilled cameos in The Maltese Falcon and In This Our Life.) Although The Treasure of the Sierra Madre would become one of Huston’s greatest critical triumphs and continues to be widely considered one of the best films of its time, it was a box-office disaster, perhaps because of its grim ending and the daring casting of Bogart against type. Still, the film was nominated for an Academy Award for best picture, Huston won the awards for best director and best screenplay, and his father was named best supporting actor.

Humphrey Bogart (centre) and Walter Huston (right) in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948).
Courtesy of Warner Brothers, Inc.

Bogart, Bacall, Edward G. Robinson, Lionel Barrymore, and Claire Trevor starred in Huston’s next film, Key Largo (1948), a suspenseful adaptation of a Maxwell Anderson play that is regarded as a classic film noir. With a screenplay by Huston and Richard Brooks, it is set in a small hotel in the Florida Keys that is taken over by a gangster (Robinson) who has made a clandestine return from deportation to Cuba. Trevor won the Academy Award for best supporting actress for her portrayal of the gangster’s mistress. Cuba was then the setting for We Were Strangers (1949), an atmospheric account of revolutionaries’ attempt to overthrow the government, which starred Jennifer Jones and John Garfield.

Films of the 1950s
Huston thought of himself as a writer-director and almost always had a hand in the screenplays for his films, though he preferred working in collaboration with other writers. A lover of literature from the time he learned to read at age three, he drew the stories for his films primarily from novels and plays. The Asphalt Jungle (1950) was based on the hard-boiled crime novel of the same name by W.R. Burnett, who had provided the source novels for High Sierra and Mervyn LeRoy’s Little Caesar (1931). Sam Jaffe, Sterling Hayden, and James Whitmore starred in that caper film noir as a gang plotting the multimillion-dollar robbery of a jewelry exchange. A thrilling exercise in fatalism, The Asphalt Jungle was one of Huston’s most expertly structured films and earned him and cowriter Ben Maddow an Academy Award nomination for their screenplay.

Huston was less fortunate with his 1951 adaptation of Stephen Crane’s literary classic The Red Badge of Courage. Real-life World War II hero Audie Murphy starred in this story of a young Union soldier who deserts his company during the American Civil War. With the Korean War raging, MGM executives felt that the film’s antiwar message was too blatant and cut The Red Badge of Courage down to 69 minutes. (The undoctored version was among Huston’s favourites of his films.) Nevertheless, what remained, including some magnificently staged battle scenes, was impressive enough to have been called a minor masterpiece by Lillian Ross of The New Yorker magazine; she published the book Picture (1952), which chronicled the film’s making.

Much of Huston’s next film, The African Queen (1951), was shot on location in Uganda and Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). Novelist and pioneering film critic James Agee worked with Huston on the adaptation of C.S. Forester’s popular novel (as did the uncredited John Collier and Peter Viertel). The performances delivered by Bogart and Katharine Hepburn were among their most memorable, as drunken boat captain Charlie Allnut and as Rosie Sayer, the impossibly prim spinster who convinces him to take her on his rattletrap steamer down the Congo River to civilization at the outset of World War I. This splendid romance-comedy-adventure has remained one of the most popular Hollywood movies of all time. Huston was again nominated for Academy Awards for best director and best screenplay; Bogart won the award for best actor.

In 1952 Huston traveled to France to shoot Moulin Rouge (1952), a gorgeously mounted, sentimental biography of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (played José Ferrer), the crippled artist who became the toast of Montmartre for his lively artworks. Moulin Rouge was nominated for the Academy Award for best picture, and Huston was nominated for best director, the fourth time in five years that he had been nominated for that award. He would have to wait 33 years before the Academy nominated him again, as he entered the extended hit-or-miss phase of his career.

Written with Truman Capote and cofinanced by Bogart’s Santana production company, Beat the Devil (1954) was filmed in Italy. A delightful spoof of The Maltese Falcon, it featured Bogart, Lorre, Jennifer Jones, Robert Morley, and Gina Lollobrigida as a motley shipboard assembly of adventurers, frauds, and con artists trying to locate a uranium mine while enduring a variety of comic disasters. Capote later said that they made up the story as they went along, an irreverent approach perhaps better suited to sensibilities in the 21st century than to those of the 1950s. Beat the Devil was a box-office disaster and precipitated a split between Bogart (who called the film “a mess”) and Huston after many years of fruitful collaboration.

Moby Dick (1956), Huston’s epic adaptation of Herman Melville’s novel, was shot in Ireland, where Huston had gone to live in 1952, largely because he had become disgusted by the political climate of the United States during the McCarthy era. Although some critics found the stolid Gregory Peck badly suited to the role of the fiery, obsessed Captain Ahab, Huston and Ray Bradbury captured much of the poetry of Melville in their script, and the sea storm and whaling sequences were impressively staged. Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957), a much quieter affair, starred Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr as a marine and a nun stranded on a Pacific island during World War II. Kerr received an Academy Award nomination for best actress, and Huston’s and John Lee Mahin’s screenplay was also nominated.

Huston began working on David O. Selznick’s remake of A Farewell to Arms (1957) but departed the production to instead direct the undistinguished period film The Barbarian and the Geisha (1958). Filmed in French Equatorial Africa with Errol Flynn and Trevor Howard, The Roots of Heaven (1958) followed and drew mixed reviews.

Films of the 1960s
Something of a return to form for Huston, The Unforgiven (1960) starred Audrey Hepburn in the only western role of her career, as a Native American who has been raised by a Texas settler family. The troubled history of the making of Huston’s next film, The Misfits (1961), became a staple of Hollywood lore. Playwright Arthur Miller adapted his own short story for that very different kind of western as a vehicle for Marilyn Monroe (his wife, though their marriage was collapsing). Clark Gable, Montgomery Clift, and Eli Wallach portrayed aging modern-day cowboys who capture wild horses and sell them to be slaughtered for dog food. Monroe played a divorced former stripper who questions the wranglers’ morality as she falls for one of them (Gable). With her personal life in a tailspin, Monroe reportedly drove Huston to distraction during the filming, showing up on the set late, under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and blowing her lines. This was her last completed role before her death in August 1962. Moreover, eight days after shooting was completed on the film, Gable died of a heart attack.

Huston himself narrated the somber Freud (1962), in which Clift (in one his last roles) played the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud. The playful mystery The List of Adrian Messenger (1963) featured a roster of big-name stars (including Mitchum, Frank Sinatra, Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, and Tony Curtis) who were all but unrecognizable under layers of makeup. Their performances were less memorable, however, than Huston’s portrayal the same year of a Roman Catholic cardinal in another film, Otto Preminger’s The Cardinal. That performance earned Huston an Academy Award nomination as best supporting actor and started a new parallel career for him as an actor.

Huston’s The Night of the Iguana (1964), shot in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, offered another all-star cast (Kerr, Richard Burton, Ava Gardner, and Sue Lyon) in an adaptation of Tennessee Williams’s play of the same name that was steeped in psychoses, thwarted desires, and carnal confusion. Huston then decided to make The Bible: In the Beginning... (1966); however, the nearly three hours of Old Testament melodramatics he offered were little appreciated by audiences and critics (though Huston himself turned in an estimable performance as Noah). Huston’s 1967 film version of Carson McCullers’s 1941 novella Reflections in a Golden Eye was a commercial failure but has come to be more widely appreciated with the passage of time. Marlon Brando gave one of his uniquely odd performances as a repressed homosexual army officer whose Southern belle wife (Elizabeth Taylor) becomes involved with another officer (Brian Keith).

In 1967 Huston acted in and was one of five directors who had a hand in guiding Casino Royale, a parody of Ian Fleming’s first James Bond thriller. His string of lacklustre films continued with A Walk with Love and Death (1969), a forgettable medieval drama that is most-notable today for having provided daughter Anjelica Huston with her first lead role in a movie; Sinful Davey (1969), with John Hurt; and the Cold War thriller The Kremlin Letter (1970).

Last films
Fat City, an adaptation of Leonard Gardner’s novel about small-time boxers, significantly reversed Huston’s fortunes as a director and was one of 1972’s most-acclaimed motion pictures. Here Huston had a chance to draw upon his experiences as a boxer in California five decades earlier, and he deftly teased out the downbeat story’s essence. Stacy Keach played a washed-up boxer in Stockton, Susan Tryrell earned an Academy Award nomination as best supporting actress for her portrayal of his drink-besotted girlfriend, and Jeff Bridges was terrific as a younger fighter with a less-than-promising future.

Huston’s follow-up was the revisionist western The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1973), a loose biography of the notorious self-appointed hanging judge Roy Bean, which featured Paul Newman in the title role, an irreverent screenplay by John Milius, and a supporting cast that included Anthony Perkins, Ava Gardner, and Huston himself. Newman starred again in the Walter Hill-scripted espionage thriller The Mackintosh Man (1973). Then Huston managed to set a new acting standard for himself in Roman Polanski’s classic film noir Chinatown (1974) as the loathsome, evil Noah Cross.

For decades Huston had thought about making The Man Who Would Be King (1975). In the 1950s he had wanted Bogart and Gable to play the intrepid explorers at the centre of Rudyard Kipling’s short story; in the 1960s he had envisioned Richard Burton and Peter O’Toole as the leads. In the event, Sean Connery and Michael Caine, two of the biggest stars of the 1970s, got the roles and traveled to Morocco, which stood in for the story’s Afghanistan locale. Both Connery, as the swaggering Danny, who is taken for a god and comes to believe it himself, and Caine, as his slightly dim sidekick Peachy, gave marvelous performances. Although the film was not particularly successful at the box office and received respectful but restrained reviews, it proved to be a morality tale of unusual resonance and came to be regarded as among Huston’s finest films.

Four years passed before Huston was able to bring to the screen another favourite project, Wise Blood (1979). Brad Dourif played a fanatical Southern evangelist in this adaptation of Flannery O’Connor’s darkly comic novel of the same name. Huston’s next film, the low-budget Hitchcockian thriller Phobia (1981), was arguably the nadir of his directorial career. Much better received was the World War II drama Victory (1981), which featured Caine, Sylvester Stallone, and football (soccer) great Pelé as Allied prisoners of war who engineer an escape from the Parisian stadium in which their team of prisoners is playing a German all-star team. Huston’s uneven big-budget adaptation of the Broadway hit Annie (1982) was his one and only musical. Filmed in Mexico, Under the Volcano (1984) was a valiant but ultimately failed attempt to capture Malcolm Lowry’s difficult novel.

Far more satisfying was Prizzi’s Honor (1985), a stylized version of Richard Condon’s novel (adapted by Condon and Janet Roach) about the Mafia. Jack Nicholson delivered what many critics considered to be among his best performances as mob hit man Charley Partanna. He falls for a woman (Kathleen Turner) who turns out not only to share his profession but to become his target. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for best picture, Huston for best director, and Nicholson for best actor, while Anjelica Huston won the award for best supporting actress for her portrayal of Charley’s mistress. Throughout the 1970s and early ’80s Huston continued to act periodically in others’ films, perhaps most notably in Winter Kills (1979), a thriller based on another Condon novel.

In 1987 Huston joined Anjelica and his oldest son, Tony Huston, to make what would be his final movie, The Dead (Anjelica acted in it, and Tony was nominated for an Academy Award for his screenplay). Based on the short story “The Dead” from James Joyce’s Dubliners, the film focused on a holiday party hosted by a pair of elderly sisters and their niece in turn-of-the-20th-century Dublin. Poignant, stately, and expertly acted, The Dead was just completed when the ailing Huston (who directed the film from a wheelchair, breathing from an oxygen tank) died at age 81. More than a few critics saw The Dead as a fitting epitaph for this prodigiously gifted storyteller.

Michael Barson

John Huston (I) (1906–1987)

Actor | Director | Writer
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001379/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

Casino Royale (1967)

1963: Ian Fleming appears on BBC Radio’s Desert Island Discs. His choice: War and Peace.

07 May 2017
Desert Island Discs: the 40 greatest guests

27 of 40
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/radio/what-to-listen-to/desert-island-discs-40-greatest-guests/ian-fleming/

Ian Fleming (August 5, 1963)

Sadly, only a 10 minute fragment of the James Bond
author's 1963 appearances on the series remains; but we do
know that his -- characteristically cryptic -- choice of book
was a German-language edition of Leo Tolstoy's War and
Peace. A coded message to the real spooks at MI5,
perhaps?

Listen to Ian Fleming on Desert Island Discs
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p009y5b3

1976: The Spy Who Loved Me starts production and Richard Kiel tests Jaws' bite.

1981: Solo per i tuoi occhi (Only For Your Eyes) released in Italy.

1983: Octopussy released in Austria and Switzerland.
1983: James Bond 007 - Octopussy released in West Germany.

1987: I skuddlinjen (In the Firing Line) released in Norway.

Semic Comic 1987



Black and white reprint 1992
https://www.comicsroyale.com/semicpressadaptations#/the-living-daylights/black-white/































[imghttps://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aedd3c72971149a59a49bfb/1555291965710-0FO5LMA5B4PCDYU1S11O/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kMWK8oS25soPxrTQ4UUn3_Z7gQa3H78H3Y0txjaiv_0fDoOvxcdMmMKkDsyUqMSsMWxHk725yiiHCCLfrh8O1z5QPOohDIaIeljMHgDF5CVlOqpeNLcJ80NK65_fV7S1UU1R2Ln4DQxs0I63ab94DNP0pCzGhd_DVz5K11L9wrBSQaaShOb_ctSoyf1gU1fi2A/Semic+007+Alta+Tension_Page_32_Image_0001.jpg?format=1000w][/img]

2015: News reports say Pierce Brosnan is stopped by airport security in Burlington, Vermont, for possessing a knife.

RichardTheBruce

August 6th

1938: Robert Dix dies at age 80-Tucson, Arizona.
(Born 8 May 1938--Los Angeles, California.)

Robert Dix (I) (1935–2018)

Actor | Writer | Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0228718/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_3

1962: Jamaica transitions from British colony to independent country.

1962: Michelle Yeoh is born--Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia.

1970: Al servicio secreto de Su Majestad (To the Secret Service of His Majesty) released in Mexico.

1973: 鐵金剛勇破 黑魔黨 (Tiě jīngāng yǒng pò hēi mó dǎng; Iron King Mafia, or Iron King Breaks the Black Devil) released in Hong Kong.
1977: Title song "Nobody Does It Better" charts in the UK, eventually reaching number 7.

1981: 鐵金剛勇破 海龍幫 Tiě jīngāng yǒng pò hǎilóng bāng); Iron King Hailong Gang, or Iron King Breaks the Sea Dragon Gang) released in Hong Kong.
1981: James Bond 007 - In tödlicher Mission (James Bond 007 - In a deadly mission) released in Germany.

1984: A View to a Kill begins principle photography at Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, England.
1986: Licence withdrawn--producer Albert R. Broccoli withdraws the Bond role offer from Pierce Brosnan.

2012: Marvin Frederick Hamlisch dies at age 68--Westwood, Los Angeles, California.
(Born 2 June 1944--New York City, New York.)

Marvin Hamlisch, Whose Notes Struck Gold, Dies at 68

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/08/arts/music/marvin-hamlisch-composer-dies-at-68.html
By ROB HOERBURGER | AUG. 7, 2012

Marvin Hamlisch, the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer who imbued his movie and Broadway scores with pizazz and panache and often found his songs in the upper reaches of the pop charts, died on Monday in Los Angeles. He was 68 and lived in New York.

He collapsed on Monday after a brief illness, a family friend said.

For a few years starting in 1973, Mr. Hamlisch spent practically as much time accepting awards for his compositions as he did writing them. He is one of a handful of artists to win every major creative prize, some of them numerous times, including an Oscar for “The Way We Were” (1973, shared with the lyricists Marilyn and Alan Bergman), a Grammy as best new artist (1974), and a Tony and a Pulitzer for “A Chorus Line” (1975, shared with the lyricist Edward Kleban, the director Michael Bennett and the book writers James Kirkwood Jr. and Nicholas Dante).

All told, he won three Oscars, four Emmys and four Grammys. His omnipresence on awards and talk shows made him one of the last in a line of celebrity composers that included Henry Mancini, Burt Bacharach and Stephen Sondheim. Mr. Hamlisch, bespectacled and somewhat gawky, could often appear to be the stereotypical music school nerd — in fact, at 7 he was the youngest student to be accepted to the Juilliard School at the time — but his appearance belied his intelligence and ability to banter easily with the likes of Johnny Carson and Merv Griffin. His melodies were sure-footed and sometimes swashbuckling. “One,” from “A Chorus Line,” with its punchy, brassy lines, distills the essence of the Broadway showstopper.

Marvin Hamlisch

“A Chorus Line,” a backstage musical in which Broadway dancers told their personal stories, started as a series of taped workshops, then evolved into a show that opened at the Public Theater in 1975 and moved to Broadway later that year. It ran for 6,137 performances, the most of any Broadway musical until it was surpassed by “Cats.”

“I have to keep reminding myself that ‘A Chorus Line’ was initially considered weird and off the wall,” Mr. Hamlisch told The New York Times in 1983. “You mustn’t underestimate an audience’s intelligence.” The lyricist Alan Jay Lerner called “A Chorus Line” “the great show business story of our time.”

Mr. Hamlisch had a long association with Barbra Streisand that began when, at 19, he became a rehearsal pianist for her show “Funny Girl.” Yet he told Current Biography in 1976 that Ms. Streisand was reluctant to record what became the pair’s greatest collaboration, “The Way We Were,” the theme from the 1973 movie of the same name in which Ms. Streisand starred with Robert Redford.

A rehearsal of “A Chorus Line,” with music by Marvin Hamlisch, from 1975.
Credit Martha Swope

“I had to beg her to sing it,” he said. “She thought it was too simple.”

Mr. Hamlisch prevailed, though, and the song became a No. 1 pop single, an Oscar winner and a signature song for Ms. Streisand. They continued to work together across the decades; Mr. Hamlisch was the musical director for her 1994 tour and again found himself accepting an award for his work, this time an Emmy.

Ms. Streisand said in a statement through her publicist that the world will always remember Mr. Hamlisch’s music, but that it was “his brilliantly quick mind, his generosity and delicious sense of humor that made him a delight to be around.”

Mr. Hamlisch had his second-biggest pop hit with “Nobody Does It Better,” the theme from the James Bond film “The Spy Who Loved Me,” written with the lyricist Carole Bayer Sager. Carly Simon’s recording of the song reached No. 2 in 1977. Thom Yorke, the lead singer of the band Radiohead, which has performed the song in concert more recently, called it “the sexiest song ever written.”

Mr. Hamlisch with Barbra Streisand.
Credit Alex J. Berliner/Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, via Associated Press

Yet for all Mr. Hamlisch’s pop success — he and Ms. Bayer Sager also wrote a No. 1 soul hit for Aretha Franklin, “Break It to Me Gently” — his first love was writing for theater and the movies. His score for “The Sting,” which adapted the ragtime music of Scott Joplin, made him a household ubiquity in 1973.

Despite the acclaim he often said he thought his background scores were underappreciated. He said he would love for an audience to “see a movie once without the music” to appreciate how the experience changed. He would go on to write more than 40 movie scores.

Marvin Frederick Hamlisch was born June 2, 1944, in New York . His father, Max, was an accordionist, and at age 5 Mr. Hamlisch was reproducing on the piano songs he heard on the radio; Juilliard soon followed. According to his wife, Terre Blair, he was being groomed as “the next Horowitz,” but when all the doors were closed and everyone was gone he would play show tunes. He performed some concerts and recitals as a teenager at Town Hall and other Manhattan auditoriums, but soon gave up on the idea of being a full-time performer.

A scene from the final performance of the Broadway musical "A Chorus Line" in 1990. Marvin Hamlisch won a Tony Award for his score to the show.
Credit Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

“Before every recital, I would violently throw up, lose weight, the veins on my hands would stand out,” he told Current Biography.

He had no such reaction, though, when his song “Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows,” with lyrics by Howard Liebling, became a Top 20 hit in 1965 for Lesley Gore, when Mr. Hamlisch was 21. The movie producer Sam Spiegel heard him playing piano a few years later at a party and as a result Mr. Hamlisch scored his first film, “The Swimmer.”

Mr. Hamlisch soon moved to Los Angeles, and the successes snowballed. But he remained a New Yorker through and through. He once said he liked New York because it was the one place “where you’re allowed to wear a tie.”

Marvin Hamlisch, right, at the piano with the lyricist Howard Ashman in 1986.
Credit Nancy Kaye/Associated Press

Mr. Hamlisch is survived by Ms. Blair, a television broadcaster and producer, whom he married in 1989. His sister, Terry Liebling, a Hollywood casting director and the wife of his former collaborator Howard Liebling, died in 2001.

After “A Chorus Line,” Mr. Hamlisch scored another Broadway hit, “They’re Playing Our Song,” based on his relationship with Ms. Bayer Sager (who wrote the lyrics), in 1979. It ran for 1,082 performances. After that, the accolades subsided but the work didn’t. He worked with various lyricists on subesequent musicals, including “Jean Seberg” (1983), which was staged in London but never reached Broadway, and “Smile” (1986), which did reach Broadway but had a very brief run. His most steady work continued to come from the movies. He wrote the background scores for “Ordinary People,” “Sophie’s Choice” and, most recently, “The Informant.” His later theater scores included “The Goodbye Girl” (1993), “Sweet Smell of Success” (2002) and “Imaginary Friends” (2002). He had also completed the scores for an HBO movie based on the life of Liberace, “Behind the Candelabra,” and for a musical based on the Jerry Lewis film “The Nutty Professor,” which opened in Nashville last month.

According to his official Web site, Mr. Hamlisch held the title of pops conductor for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and others.

In more recent years, Mr. Hamlisch became an ambassador for music, traveling the country and performing and giving talks at schools. He often criticized the cuts in arts education.

“I don’t think the American government gets it,” he said during an interview at the Orange County High School of the Arts in Santa Ana, Calif. “I don’t think they understand it’s as important as math and science. It rounds you out as a person. I think it gives you a love of certain things. You don’t have to become the next great composer. It’s just nice to have heard certain things or to have seen certain things. It’s part of being a human being.”

Despite all his honors, Mr. Hamlisch was always most focused on, and most excited about, his newest project. Ms. Blair said. And, she said, he was always appreciative of his gift: “He used to say, ‘It’s easy to write things that are so self-conscious that they become pretentious, that have a lot of noise. It’s very hard to write a simple melody.’ ”

Marvin Hamlisch
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Hamlisch

Work

Symphony

Hamlisch was the primary conductor for the Pittsburgh Pops from 1995 until his death.

The Dallas Symphony Orchestra performed a rare Hamlisch classical symphonic suite titled Anatomy of Peace (Symphonic Suite in one Movement For Full Orchestra/Chorus/Child Vocal Soloist) on November 19, 1991. It was also performed at Carnegie Hall in 1993, and in Paris in 1994 to commemorate D-Day. The work was recorded by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in 1992. The Anatomy of Peace was a book by Emery Reves which expressed the world-federalist sentiments shared by Albert Einstein and many others in the late 1940s, in the period immediately following World War II.

Theatre

Seesaw (1973) [Dance Arrangements]
A Chorus Line (Pulitzer Prize for Drama & Tony Award for Best Score) (1975)
They're Playing Our Song (1978)
Jean Seberg (1983)
Smile (1986)
The Goodbye Girl (1993)
Sweet Smell of Success (2002)
Imaginary Friends (2002)
The Nutty Professor (2012)

Film

The Swimmer (1968)
Take the Money and Run (1969)
The April Fools (1969)

Move (1970)
Flap (1970)
Something Big (1971)
Kotch (1971)
Bananas (1971)
The War Between Men and Women (1972)
The World's Greatest Athlete (1973)
Save the Tiger (1973)
The Way We Were (1973)
The Sting (1973)
The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1975)
The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
The Absent-Minded Waiter (1977)
Same Time, Next Year (1978)
Ice Castles (1978)
Starting Over (1979)
Chapter Two (1979)

Seems Like Old Times (1980)
Ordinary People (1980)
Gilda Live (1980)
Sophie's Choice (1982)
Henry The Horse: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1982)
I Ought to Be in Pictures (1982)
Romantic Comedy (1983)
A Streetcar Named Desire (1984)
D.A.R.Y.L. (1985)
A Chorus Line (1985)
When the Time Comes (1987)
Three Men and a Baby (1987)
The Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman (1987)
Sam Found Out: A Triple Play (1988)
Little Nikita (1988)
David (1988)
The January Man (1989)
Shirley Valentine (1989)
The Experts (1989)

Women and Men: Stories of Seduction (1990)
Switched at Birth (1991)
Missing Pieces (1991)
Frankie and Johnny (1991)
Seasons of the Heart (1994)
The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996)

How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003)
The Informant! (2009)
Behind the Candelabra (2013)

x

RichardTheBruce

August 7th

1914: Ted Moore is born--Western Cape, South Africa.
(He dies 1987 at age 72--Surrey, England.)

Ted Moore
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Moore

Born 7 August 1914, Benoni, Gauteng, South Africa
Died 1987 (aged 72–73), Surrey, England, U.K.
Nationality South African, British
Occupation Cinematographer, camera operator
Years active 1939–1982

Ted Moore, BSC (7 August 1914 – 1987) was a South African-British cinematographer known for his work on seven of the James Bond films in the 1960s and early 1970s. He won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography for his work on Fred Zinnemann's A Man for All Seasons, and two BAFTA Awards for Best Cinematography for A Man for All Seasons and From Russia with Love.

Biography

Born in South Africa, Moore moved to Great Britain at the age of sixteen, where he served in the Royal Air Force during World War II. During the war he joined the film unit and began honing his craft.

After serving as a camera operator on such films as The African Queen, The Red Beret, Hell Below Zero, and The Black Knight, he was given the cinematography job for 1956's High Flight, set among a familiar scene for Moore, the Royal Air Force.

He worked on a number of films for Irving Allen and Albert R. Broccoli's Warwick Films, including Cockleshell Heroes, Zarak, Johnny Nobody and No Time to Die, as well as their more high-minded 1960 production The Trials of Oscar Wilde.

In 1962 Broccoli and director Terence Young chose him as the cinematographer for an adaptation of Ian Fleming's Dr. No. Moore would go on to make another six Bond films; From Russia with Love (for which he won a BAFTA award), Goldfinger, Thunderball, Diamonds Are Forever, Live and Let Die, and portions of The Man with the Golden Gun, on which he was replaced due to illness by Oswald Morris.

In addition, Moore won a BAFTA and an Oscar for his camerawork for 1967's Best Picture, A Man for All Seasons, becoming the first South African to win an Academy Award. He also worked on the 1962 cult classic The Day of the Triffids, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, Orca, and Clash of the Titans.

Moore died in 1987.

Filmography

April in Portugal (1954)
A Prize of Gold (1955)
The Gamma People (1955)
Odongo (1956)
Zarak (1957)
Interpol (1957)
How to Murder a Rich Uncle (1957)
High Flight (1957)
No Time to Die (1958)
The Man Inside (1958)
Idol on Parade (1959)
The Bandit of Zhobe (1959)
Killers of Kilimanjaro (1959)

Jazz Boat (1960)
Let's Get Married (1960)
The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960)
In the Nick (1960)
Johnny Nobody (1961)
The Hellions (1961)
Mix Me a Person (1962)
Dr. No (1962)
The Day of the Triffids (1962)
Nine Hours to Rama (1963)
Call Me Bwana (1963)
From Russia with Love (1963)
Goldfinger (1964)
The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders (1965)
Thunderball (1965)
A Man for All Seasons (1966)
The Last Safari (1967)
Prudence and the Pill (1968)
Shalako (1968)
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969)
The Chairman (1969) (uncredited)

Country Dance (1970)
She'll Follow You Anywhere (1971)
Diamonds Are Forever (1971)
Psychomania (1973)
Live and Let Die (1973)
The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974)
The Story of Jacob and Joseph (1974) (television film)
The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)
Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977)
Orca (1977)
Dominique (1978)

The Martian Chronicles (1980) (miniseries; 3 episodes)
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Priest of Love (1981)

Awards and nominations

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
- Best Cinematography
- - A Man for All Seasons (won)

British Academy of Film and Television Arts
- Best Cinematography
- - From Russia with Love (won)
- - A Man for All Seasons (won)

British Society of Cinematographers
- Best Cinematography
- - From Russia with Love (won)

1969: Roger Moore and Claudie Lange appear in Cine Revue Magazine promoting their film Crossplot.

1974: The Man With the Golden Gun films OO7 offering Lazar a chance to speak (or else forever hold his piece).
1977: Christopher Wood's novelization James Bond and The Spy Who Loved Me spends a week at number 6, London Times paperback bestsellers list.

Major Anya Amasova had scored well in
the course of 'sex as a weapon', although
the SMERSH report had noted a risk of
emotional attachments. James Bond was
as wary of her presence in Cairo as he was
charmed by her proud self-assured beauty.
Where did the Russians find such women?
But Bond was not an agent to be dis-
tracted from his mission: someone had
learned to plot the course of nuclear
submarines and, impossible as it sounded,
M told him in London that the 370-foot
nuclear-powered H.M.S. Ranger was
'missing'.

Not since Dr No and Auric Goldfinger
has Bond locked wits with an opponent so
dedicated to his private obsession or
shielded by such deadly cunning as
Sigmund Stromberg. His double-O prefix
meant that Bond was used to death, but
what Stromberg's killer could do with
his two rows of stainless steel teeth was an
obscenity.

Christopher Wood wrote this novel
under licence from Glidrose, which owns
Ian Fleming copyrights, from the script
he and Richard Maibaum had produced
for the latest Albert R. Broccoli Bond
film. The story is entirely different from
Fleming's original The Spy Who Loved Me,
only the title retaining any link between
the film and that earlier book.

Jonathan Cape hardcover 1997, jacket cover by Bill Botten.



Panther Paperback

1978: Roger Moore and Lois Chiles are photographed in Paris, a week before filming of Moonraker begins.

1979: Simon Kassianides is born--Athens, Greece.

1981: For Your Eyes Only released in Austria.
1986: EON names Timothy Dalton the fourth James Bond. Filming shifts to late September.

Timothy Dalton Chosen As New James Bond

See the complete article here:

https://www.nytimes.com/1986/08/07/movies/timothy-dalton-chosen-as-new-james-bond.html

Reuters AUG. 7, 1986

The British actor Timothy Dalton has been named to replace Roger Moore as James Bond in the 25th anniversary film about Ian Fleming's dashing secret agent, producer Albert Broccoli said today.

Mr. Dalton, 38 years old, a Shakespearean actor who has also appeared in 11 films and on television, will be the fifth actor to portray Agent 007 in the popular series when shooting of ''The Living Daylights'' begins in London late next month.

The other leading candidate to take over the role of James Bond, who along with Mr. Moore has been played by Sean Connery, George Lazenby and David Niven, was the Irish-born actor Pierce Brosnan. They said Mr. Brosnan was unable to win release from his contract as television's romantic private detective ''Remington Steele.'' The series was renewed by NBC two months after it had been canceled, and filming for the new season has already begun.

''The Living Daylights'' will be directed by John Glen for United Artists at Pinewood Studios, with locations set for Austria, Morocco and Gibraltar.

Mr. Dalton, who was born in Wales and whose physique and accent fit the fictional mold of Mr. Fleming's dashing hero, was trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and then became a member of the National Youth Theater.

2019: Aston Martin Rapide S AMR spotted in Monaco.

Aston Martin Rapide S AMR
https://www.autogespot.com/aston-martin-rapide-s-amr/2019/08/07

Spotdetails
Spotter carspotterjvdl
Spotted in Monaco, Monaco
Date 2019-08-07 01:00

Auto details
Topspeed 330 km/u
Acceleration 0-100 km/u 4.40 s
Power 603 pk
Torque 630 Nm @ 4000 tpm
Weight 1990 kg

BT3366

A couple of notes:

-Is that Max the parrot making a cameo in the MR promo photos, possibly lobbying Cubby for a role in FYEO?

-The NYTimes article brings up a bit of a mystery I'm not sure if it's been cleared up. It puts Dalton's age at 38 as of this announcement. There's always been speculation he's older and I had heard elsewhere he was already 40 when he was announced. What's official these days?

RichardTheBruce

August 8th

1925: Robert Brownjohn is born--Newark, New Jersey.
(He dies 1 August 1970 at age 44--London, England.)

Robert Brownjohn
American, 1925–1970

https://www.moma.org/artists/816?locale=en

While best known for his title sequences for the James Bond films From Russia with Love and Goldfinger, Robert Brownjohn had a short but influential career, which integrated design, advertising, film, photography, and music. A major figure in the New York advertising and design scene of the late 1950s, he later moved to London, where he was at the epicenter of the burgeoning music, art, and fashion scene of London’s “swinging ’60s.”

Born in New Jersey to British parents, Brownjohn later moved to Chicago, where during the mid-1940s he studied under former Bauhaus teacher Laszlo Moholy-Nagy at the Chicago Institute of Design. He quickly caught the attention of his teachers, who later brought him on as an instructor at the school. After moving to New York in 1951, he spent five years as a freelance designer for clients including George Nelson and Bob Cato. In 1956, he formed a partnership with Ivan Chermayeff, a designer and son of the modernist architect Serge Chermayeff (with designer Tom Geismar joining a year later). Brownjohn, Chermayeff & Geismar quickly grew into one of the most innovative design and advertising firms in New York. Brownjohn’s many personal problems, caused primarily by the heroin addiction that later claimed his life, ultimately soured his New York relationships, precipitating his move to London in 1960.

In London, Brownjohn rapidly established himself as a designer of note. While working for the firm McCann Erickson, he designed the opening credits for the second James Bond film, From Russia with Love, his first foray into film. The following year he directed the film titles for Goldfinger. For both title sequences, he employed a surprising and attention-grabbing approach in which the credit texts and scenes from the films were projected onto scantily clad women, initiating the long-running Bond film tradition of elaborate title sequences featuring seductive women. Brownjohn’s treatment of type as dynamic, abstract forms in the title sequences illustrated both his mastery of graphic design and the enduring influence of Moholy-Nagy’s use of type and photography. His combination of sexually suggestive images and wry humor was a fitting accompaniment to the James Bond mythos. The broad acclaim he received for the Bond film titles led to more film and commercial work for clients ranging from Pirelli to Midland Bank to the Rolling Stones. Though he continued to produce original and challenging work, in the latter half of the 1960s, his life became increasingly unstable. He was moving from one partnership to another until he died in 1970, at the untimely age of 44.

Introduction by Paul Galloway, Collection Specialist, Department of Architecture and Design, 2016

Robert Brownjohn (1925–1970)
Miscellaneous Crew | Actor | Art Director
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0115226/
Filmography

Miscellaneous Crew (6 credits)

1969 Michael Kohlhaas - Der Rebell (titles)
1967 The Night of the Generals (title sequence designer)
1966 The Tortoise and the Hare (Short) (title designer)
1966 Where the Spies Are (title designer)
1964 Goldfinger (titles designed by)
1963 From Russia with Love (titles designed by)

Actor (1 credit)

1969 Otley - Paul

Art director (1 credit)

1963 A... is for Apple (Short)

1959: The Moonraker comic strip ends its run in The Daily Express.
(Started 30 March 1959. 226-339 ) John McLusky, artist. Henry Gammidge, writer.

Swedish Semic Comic 1979
https://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/comics/semic_1979.php3?s=comics&id=02181

Moonraker
(Moonraker)

Swedish Semic Comic 1974
https://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/comics/semic_1974.php3?s=comics&id=01800

Moonraker Betyder Döden
(Moonraker)

Danish 1975 https://www.bond-o-rama.dk/en/jb007-dk-no31-1975/

James Bond Agent 007 no. 31: “Moonraker” (1975)

Danish 1966 https://www.bond-o-rama.dk/en/jb007-dk-no-7-1966/

James Bond Agent 007 no. 7: “Moonraker” (1966)
"Moonraker - den dødbringende raket"
[Moonraker - the deadly rocket]

1977: Time Magazine reviews The Spy Who Loved Me.

Cinema: Giggles, Wiggles, Bubbles and Bond

By Christopher Porterfield - Monday, Aug. 08, 1977

THE SPY WHO LOVED ME
Directed by LEWIS GILBERT Screenplay by CHRISTOPHER WOOD and RICHARD MAIBAUM

Jottings found on the screening-room floor after a critics' viewing of the new James Bond film:

They'll never top first stunt: skier hurtles off precipice. Long breathtaking plunge. Shucks off skis in midair, free-falls for a while, then opens parachute and floats earthward. Wow.

Does anybody know this flick has nothing to do with 1962 novel of same name, since Ian Fleming nixed sale of anything but title to movies? Does anybody care? All that's left of Bond formula here...

1984: Variety reports A View to a Kill filming will include the Musee Vivant Du Cheval in Chantilly, France (Zorin’s stud farm). Also in San Francisco: Fisherman’s Wharf, Potrero Hill, the China Basin Landing, the Civic Center, and City Hall.

1997: Tomorrow Never Dies films the showdown between OO7 and Carver.

2007: Ian Fleming Publications honors the passing of John Gardner.

All at Ian Fleming Publications Limited were saddened
and shocked to hear of the death of John Gardner
on Friday 3rd August.

John was a highly respected and admired member of the
Bond family and he will be great missed.

Our thoughts at this time are with his family.

Ian Fleming Publications, 8 August

2014: The Sun proposes Sam Smith is in talks to write and perform the title song for BOND 24, a film scheduled to be released October-November 2015. (Sam Smith denies it 13 August 2014. And again 3 July 2015, 6 July 2015, 28 July 2015, and as late as 3 September 2015.)

Sam Smith: The Many, Many Times He Lied
About Singing The New Bond Theme

https://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/sam-smith-the-many-many-times-he-lied-about-singing-the-new-bond-theme-764351
Larry Bartleet | Sep 8, 2015 3:18 pm

Did any of us see it coming? Er, not exactly. There have definitely been significant signposts since August 2014 that Sam Smith would be singing the theme for the latest James Bond film, Spectre, but his brilliant and kinda shameless lying skills have consistently made it difficult to trust what we’ve seen. Why? Well, because there were more mischievous misdirection devices in Smith’s year of flat-out denial than you’d expect from your average politician. He is singing the theme for Spectre, and it’s called ‘Writing’s On The Wall’. But for a long time we were all fooled, in the face of information from ultimately trustworthy ‘insider sources’ and the like. This is how…


August 8, 2014: The Sun publishes an article claiming Smith is in negotiations with MGM movie bosses to record the new Bond theme. We are curious; we have no reason to disbelieve. It is the start of a tumultuous, nerve-frazzling, 13-month journey.

August 13, 2014: NME is naturally very happy to be able to exclusively break the news that this is false. We ask Smith if he’s singing the new Bond theme, and he tells us, as if what he’s saying is true or something: “No, I have no idea what that was about and I know as much as you do. You probably know more than me; I didn’t even read the article. I think it’s something everyone would love to do, but yeah, it was all news to me. I won’t say any more on it.”

November 4, 2014: The New York Post reveals a secret weapon: an insider source! An insider source that cattily reveals to everyone that Lana Del Rey “had lobbied hard” for the opportunity, but lost out to Smith, who had met with Bond producer Barbara Broccoli and been labelled a “clear winner”. So, it is on?

December 4, 2014: We begin to think Smith might have been lying to us when the betting odds indicate he’ll be singing the theme. But odds are lowest not just for Smith, but also for Adele and Rihanna (all are 4/1), so we’re still not really sure.

June 9, 2015: Speculation is reignited, fuelled by gossip sites. But who believes gossip sites, man?

July 3, 2015: Smith continues to parrot his ‘not me’ line, here to Capital FM: “People seem to think I’m doing it but I have no idea what’s going on. I’m being deadly serious. I think I would know by now.” But then he says something else, something a little bit worse. “I heard Ellie Goulding was going to do it. It’s definitely not me.” Ellie Goulding, he says, like a tattletale. And we still kind of believe him.

July 3, 2015: Later that day, The Mirror reports that Ellie’s management have said it is a “wind up” and that there’s no truth to the claims. It’s a pretty humourless move, considering they could have had some fun with it.

July 6, 2015: Just three days later, Smith denies it again on Absolute Radio. “It’s the funniest thing just to sit back and watch everyone confirming something I know nothing about,” he says. “I’ve heard loads of rumours. I would have loved to have done it. But definitely not.” So… who is doing it, then? He looks away, shamefaced. “I’ve no idea.” He pauses. “Ellie Goulding?” And then his lip quivers slightly – just slightly – with the merest hint of mirth. You can see the moment below. We should have known. We should have known!

July 28, 2015: Ellie Goulding appears either to be in on the joke or to have been woefully misinterpreted, when she posts this Instagram photo at London’s Abbey Road – where Adele recorded ‘Skyfall’. We’re convinced that Smith was telling the truth – that Goulding is in fact singing the theme – and if this is her going along with the ruse, good on her. Good work. If she’s just recorded something else there, well, we don’t really care so much about that.

September 3, 2015: Five days ago. Just five days before he makes the announcement, and he’s still lying, still on camera, and to Jo Whiley of all people. How do you lie to Jo Whiley? There’s something inhuman about that.

If we’ve learned one thing from all this, it’s that Sam Smith is not to be trusted. If you encounter a Sam Smith in your local area, your best chance of survival is to run or hide, and tell the police. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

2017: Blanche Lindo Blackwell dies at age 95--London, England. (Born 9 December 1912--San José, Costa Rica.)

Jamaica

Blanche Blackwell obituary

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/29/blanche-blackwell-obituary
Heiress who became the ‘Jamaican wife’ of James Bond creator Ian
Fleming and was supposedly the model for Goldfinger’s Pussy
Galore
Ian Thomson | Tue 29 Aug 2017 12.26 EDT

Blanche Blackwell and Ian Fleming.
Photograph: Taken from the biography of Ian Fleming by Andrew Lycett

Blanche Blackwell, who has died aged 104, was a divorcee in her 40s when in 1956 she met Ian Fleming, her neighbour in Jamaica and the creator of James Bond; and soon they became lovers. Cracks had by then begun to show in Fleming’s marriage to Ann Charteris. Ann was ashamed of her husband’s success as a thriller writer (the Bond novels were “pornography”, she told friends), and had begun to stay away from their Jamaican home, Goldeneye.

Blackwell’s friendship with Fleming intensified when Ann began an affair with the politician Hugh Gaitskell. Ann became suspicious of “Ian’s Jamaican wife” after Anthony Eden’s wife, Clarissa, mentioned how helpful Blackwell had been at Goldeneye when the prime minister recuperated there in 1956 after the debacle of Suez. In an attempt to make Goldeneye more welcoming for the Edens, Blackwell had planted the garden with flowers; Ann later tore them out and threw them over the cliff.

Fleming wrote all 13 of his 007 novels in Jamaica, though only three (Dr No, Live and Let Die, The Man with the Golden Gun) were set partly on the island. Noël Coward, another neighbour, dubbed Fleming’s home “Goldeneye, nose and throat” for its lack of creature comforts. It was in this Spartan retreat that Fleming immersed himself in a Bond-like life of tropical oblivion fuelled by vodka and cigarettes (like 007, Fleming smoked 70 a day).

Impishly, he included sketches of his friends (and enemies) in his fiction. Blackwell was supposedly a model for Pussy Galore, the trapeze artist turned leader of a team of lesbian cat burglars who passes herself off as an air stewardess in his novel Goldfinger; for the film, she is a pilot and martial arts expert. In Dr No, the guano-collecting ship was named the Blanche. Blackwell claimed not to have read any of the books, though: “I don’t like violence.”

Daughter of Hilda (nee Lindo) and Percy Lindo, cousins who married, she was born into a wealthy Jamaican family, descended from Sephardic Jews from western Europe who had settled in Kingston in the mid-18th century and came to control much of the island’s commerce. Her father had helped to consolidate the family fortune in Costa Rica – where Blanche was born, in San José – before returning to Jamaica, where he owned property and produced rum.

In 1936, in London, Blanche married Joseph Blackwell, a captain in the Irish Guards and heir to the Crosse & Blackwell foods fortune. Together they ran the family estates in Jamaica and owned a string of racehorses. In 1937 their son Christopher was born. Blanche was not happy in the marriage, however. The actor Errol Flynn (“a gorgeous god,” Blackwell called him) became one of her admirers.

By the time she and Joseph divorced in 1949, she had moved to Jamaica’s north coast, to a house equidistant between Coward’s and Fleming’s. “Noël became a special pal of mine,” Blackwell told me during an interview in 2007, and Coward was said to have based his play Volcano on island life, and one of its central characters, Adela, on Blackwell.

Fleming adored “Birdie” Blackwell and her darting, kingfisher mind. And Blackwell, in her turn, considered Fleming a “charming, handsome, gifted man”, but one plagued by self-doubt and self-hate. “Ian was an angel”, she told me. “Errol was another … Both lovely men – both exceptionally gifted and definitely not for domesticating.”

When Fleming died of a heart attack in 1964, Blanche was invited neither to the funeral nor the memorial service. For years, she kept watch over Goldeneye for Fleming’s son Caspar; and after Caspar’s death in 1975 the house was bought first by Bob Marley, and then by her son, Chris, the founder in 1959 of Island Records, who had “discovered” Marley.

Tough and good-humoured, in later life Blackwell wore her white hair bobbed round an animated, heart-shaped face. Her life, until she decamped in 2003 to a flat in Knightsbridge, London, had been one of island entertainments and literary friendships. Now, looked after by three Jamaican maids, Blackwell became an unlikely devotee of bingo. Each week her chauffeur took her to the Cricklewood Mecca to play. In Kingston, she had liked to bet on the horses, but London bingo was not without its thrills. “Cricklewood might seem a little dull to you,” she said. “It isn’t really. I could sit for hours in the Mecca. The tension as your number comes up. Bing-bing-bingo!”

She is survived by her son.
• Blanche Blackwell, born 9 December 1912; died 8 August 2017

This article was amended on 13 September 2017. The original description of Pussy Galore as a pilot and martial arts expert applies only to the film; in the novel she is a trapeze artist turned leader of a team of lesbian cat burglars who passes herself off as an air stewardess.

See also

Blanche Blackwell, mistress and muse of
James Bond's creator
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/blanche-blackwell-mistress-and-muse-of-james-bonds-creator-a7893731.html
Descended from a wealthy Jamaican family, she also enchanted Errol Flynn and inspired Noel Coward
Matt Schudel | Tuesday 15 August 2017 11:27

Vivacious and outdoorsy, Blackwell said she had lived a ‘marvelous life’

RichardTheBruce

August 9th

1927: Robert Archibald Shaw is born--Westhoughton, Lancashire, England.
(He dies 28 August 1978 at age 51--Tourmakeady, County Mayo, England.)

Actor Robert Shaw, Known for Menacing
Roles, Dies in Ireland

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1978/08/29/actor-robert-shaw-known-for-menacing-roles-dies-in-ireland/10011e2d-0410-4cb0-a10b-90457d2f89a5/
By Gary Arnold
August 29, 1978

Robert Shaw, 52, one of the most forceful and successful character actors on the contemporary English speaking screen, died Sunday near his home in Ireland.

According to a police spokesman, Mr. Shaw became ill while driving with his third wife, Virginia, and their 20-month-old son, Thomas, near the family's home in Tourmakeady, County Mayo. Mr. Shaw reportedly stopped the car, got out and died on the roadside.

Mr. Shaw first achieved movie prominence in 1964 as the sinister assassin with granite physique and short platinum haircut who stalked Sean Connery's James Bond in "From Russia With Love." Later, he made imposing invaluable contributions to a pair of Academy award-winning films-the 1966 "A Man for All Seaons" in which he won an Oscar nomination for his supporting portrayal of Henry VIII, and the 1973 "The Sting," in which he played a menacing Irish gangster-and to one of the greatest box-office sensations, "Jaws," in which he appeared as the fanatical shark-hunter Quint.

While pursuing a notable acting career in the theater and motion pictures. Mr. Shaw also wrote five novels and three plays. He was working on a sixth novel at the time of his death. In a recent interview he remarked. "I find acting much easier than writing, but writing is more important to me. I think as I get older I'd rather write, but acting is so much more profitable." Mr. Shaw's best-known literary effort was The Man in the Glass Booth, a novel the author himself later dramatized successfully.

Born in the Lancashire town of Westhoughton on Aug. 9, 1927. Mr. Shaw grew up in Cornwall and the Orkney Islands. His father, a doctor, committed suicide with an overdose of opium when Robert Shaw was 12.

As a youth, Mr. Shaw excelled at sports, especially rugby, squash and track where his specialty was the 400-meter dash. He spurned a scholarship to Cambridge and a career in the family profession of medicine to apply at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London in 1945. He later recalled RADA with fond horror as a hotbed of competition for aspiring actors in the post-war period, "closer to a concentration camp than a school."

After graduation from RADA, Mr. Shaw spent several years as a member of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford-on-Avon and the Old Vic. He made his professional debut at Stratford-on-Avon as Angus in "Macbeth." His most noteworthy West End credits were "Tiger at the Gates" in 1956 and "The Long and Short and the Tall" in 1959, the same year his first novel, "The Hiding Place," was published.

Mr. Shaw made his film debut in the 1955 British war melodrama "The Dam Busters." Ironically, he will star as the chief dam-buster in "Force 10 from Navarrone" an adventure melodrama about World War II commandoes scheduled for release at Christmas. He also had completed a starring role as a defecting KGB agent in "Avalance Express" at the time of his death. This spy thriller, which costars Lee Marvin, is tentatively scheduled for release in the spring of 1979.

Alert moviegoers might have spotted Mr. Shaw early in 1964 as one of the fascinating misfits in "The Guest" the movie version of Harold Pinter's play "The Caretaker." With in a few months the success of "From Russia With Love" brought mass audience recognition to Mr. Shaw, and fame soon caught up with his costars from "The Caretaker," Donald Pleasence and Alan Bates.

Mr. Shaw's theatrical career has been linked closely with Pleasence and Pinter. He made his Broadway debut in a production of Pinter's "The Physicists" and later costarred in Pinter's "Old Times." Pleasense enjoyed a Broadway triumph in the title role of "The Man in the Glass Booth," which was directed by Pinter.

In an interview with Clarke Taylor that appeared in the Washington Post two years ago, Mr. Shaw stated, "My time is real development, both personally and professionally, came in working with Harold Pinter. He's the most interesting talent working in the theater today. It was a great creative, happy period for me."

A prolific actor and author, Mr. Shaw also extended himself as a paterfamilias. He had four daughters by his first marriage, to Jennifer Bourke, then two sons and two daughters by his second marriage, to actress Mary Ure, who died in 1975 from a fatal combination of alcohol and barbiturate poisoning. Mr. Shaw's third wife, the former Virginia Jansen, had worked as the secretary to the actor and Miss Ure for many tears. Mr. Shaw adopted Jansen's son by a previous marriage, and their own son was born in December 1976.

Mr Shaw frequently cited this brood as a spur to his creative or merly mercenary activity. Discussing his choice of certain film roles with Taylor, Mr. Shaw confided, "Money isn't the sole reason. But I do seem to spend more than I earn. And it takes a lot of money to raise these children of mine.

"I don't spend much on myself, maybe a drink. And I like to travel and stay at really fine hotels. I have an interest in fast cars, and I now have a Mercedes 450SL, but it's not like before, when I woned Rolls Royce convertibles and Astin Martins [sic]. Of course, the tax situation in Britain is impossible.

"I wake up in the middle of the night, frequently, with pain and humiliation and a great deal of shame at some of the work I've done in films. And I would do a good movie any day, regardless of the money. Unfortunately, there aren't many, and . . . if you are not successful now and again, nobody asks you to be in any movies at all. For years the studios would say 'Shaw's pictures make no money, he's not an international star.'"

Despite his vital participation in such hits as "The Sting" and "Jaws," Mr. Shaw never quite established credibility as a bankable star. Usually at his best as a menace, he may have had too much authority for conventional heroic leads. At any rate, he failed to bring a satisfying heroic or romantic presence to such starring vehicles as "Custer of the West," "Swashbuckler" and "Black Sunday." His physically and technique had a rather intimidating potency. He was frequently an impressive performer but rarely an ingratiating one.

Assessing his work, Mr. Shaw remarked. "Most of the time, in movies, I'm about 50 times larger than the part." While justified by the evidence, self-criticism like this was no doubt instrumental in earning the rugged, outspoken actor a reputation for insufferable vanity from some segments of the press.

Moviegoers and film-makers can attest to the authenticity of that larger-than-life quality. Mr Shaw's most gripping sustained scene on film is probably Quint's description of the shark attack on survivors of the U.S.S. Indianapolis that anticipates the thrilling finale of "Jaws."

Director Steven Spielberg has recalled that Mr. Shaw's first reading of Quint's speech, which the actor had helped rewrite, "devastated the set." Ironically, "the effect was so overwhelming that it threatened to capsize everyone prematurely. We had to do it again, with more restraint. In terms of the finished film, the reading was even better because Bob was imposing more controls on his emotions."

The larger-than-life identity seems certain to endure, but Mr. Shaw did submerge himself in the role of a victimized man in "The Caretaker" and a frustrated man in "The Luck of Ginger Coffrey." Irvin Kershner's fine, unjustly neglected movie version of Brian Moore's novel. Mr. Shaw also was prominently, if indecisively, featured in such movies as "Young Winston" (where he played Lord Randolph Churchill). "The Battle of Britain," "The Birthday Party." "Robin and Marian" (as the Sheriff of Nottingham) and "The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3."

He achieved considerable success in England as the lead in a television series called "The Buccaneers." He made a brief, unsuccessful attempt at the Broadway musical stage in 1970 as a singing Elmer Gantry in a failed song-and-dance adaptation of the Sinclair Lewis novel.

Three years ago, Mr. Shaw bought a 150-year-old mansion near a troutfilled lake in Tourmakeady and moved in with his wife and most of the Shaw progeny. According to friends, he described the location as "the nearest point on earth to heaven" and added. "When I go, I hope it will be from here."

Robert Shaw

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Shaw_(actor)

Work

Stage

The Caretaker (1962)
The Physicists (1964)
The Man in the Glass Booth (1968)
Gantry (1970)
Old Times (1971)
The Dance of Death (1974)

Filmography

The Cherry Orchard (1947)

The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) – Chemist at Police Exhibition (uncredited)
The Dam Busters (1954) – Flight Sgt. J. Pulford
Double Cross (1956) – Ernest
A Hill in Korea (1956) – Lance Corporal Hodge
The Buccaneers (1956–1957, TV Series) – Captain Dan Tempest
Rupert of Hentzau (TV, 1957) – Rupert of Hentzau
Sea Fury (1958) – Gorman
Libel (1959) – First Photographer

The Four Just Men (1960, TV Series) – Stuart
The Dark Man (TV, 1960) – Alan Regan
Danger Man (1961) – TV episode – Bury The Dead – Tony Costello
The Winter's Tale (1961) – Leontes
The Valiant (1962) – Lieutenant Field
The Father (1962) – The Captain
Tomorrow at Ten (1962) – Marlowe
The Caretaker (1963) – Aston
The Cracksman (1963) – Moke
From Russia with Love (1963) – Donald 'Red' Grant
Hamlet (1964) – Claudius, King of Denmark
The Luck of Ginger Coffey (1964) – Ginger Coffey
Carol for Another Christmas (1964) – Ghost of Christmas Future
Battle of the Bulge (1965) – Col. Martin Hessler
A Man for All Seasons (1966) – King Henry VIII
Custer of the West (1967) – Gen. George Armstrong Custer
Luther (TV, 1968) – Martin Luther
The Birthday Party (1968) – Stanley Webber
Battle of Britain (1969) – Squadron Leader "Skipper"
The Royal Hunt of the Sun (1969) – Francisco Pizarro

Figures in a Landscape (1970) – MacConnachie (also adapted for the screen)
A Town Called Bastard (a.k.a. A Town Called Hell) (1971) – The Priest
Young Winston (1972) – Lord Randolph Churchill
A Reflection of Fear (a.k.a. Labyrinth) (1973) – Michael
The Hireling (1973) – Steven Ledbetter
The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973) – The Oracle of All Knowledge (uncredited)
The Sting (1973) – Doyle Lonnegan
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) – Mr. Blue – Bernard Ryder
Jaws (1975) – Quint
The Man in the Glass Booth (1975) – Writer only
End of the Game (a.k.a. Der Richter und sein Henker, Murder on the Bridge, Deception, and Getting Away with Murder) (1975) – Richard Gastmann
Diamonds (a.k.a. Diamond Shaft) (1975) – Charles / Earl Hodgson
Robin and Marian (1976) – Sheriff of Nottingham
Swashbuckler (a.k.a. Scarlet Buccaneer) (1976) – Ned Lynch
Black Sunday (1977) – Major David Kabokov
The Deep (1977) – Romer Treece
Force 10 from Navarone (1978) – Major Keith Mallory
Avalanche Express (1979) – General Marenkov (final film role)

Writing

The Hiding Place (1960)
The Sun Doctor (1961)
The Flag (1965)
Situation Hopeless... But Not Serious (screenplay adaptation of The Hiding Place, 1965)
The Man in the Glass Booth (1967)
The Man in the Glass Booth (play adaptation, 1968)
A Card from Morocco (1969)
Figures in a Landscape (1970) (screenplay adaptation of novel)
Cato Street (play, 1971)

Awards

He became the second actor to be nominated to the 39th Academy Awards for playing Henry VIII of England in the film A Man for All Seasons (1966). He was also nominated to the 24th Golden Globe Awards for the same role.

1977: On Her Majesty's Secret Service re-released in the Philippines.
1979: Moonraker: Misión espacial (Moonraker: Special Mission) released in Argentina.

1985: Agent 007 i skudlinien (Agent 007 in the Firing Line) released in Denmark.

https://www.bond-o-rama.dk/en/avtak-dk-poster-1985/

1985: 007 ja kuoleman katse (007 and a Look at Death) released in Finland.

https://ahvenaario.wordpress.com/2017/09/08/roskasarjat-007-ja-kuoleman-katse/

1985: James Bond 007 – Im Angesicht des Todes (James Bond 007 - In the Face of Death) released in West Germany.

1987: The New York Times prints a letter written by Raymond Benson.

To the Editor:

As the vice president of the James Bond 007 Fan Club and author of ''The James Bond Bedside Companion,'' which studies the Bond phenomenon, Ian Fleming's life and the James Bond character, I feel I am qualified to comment on Janet Maslin's review, ''Film: 'Living Daylights,' With the New Bond'' [ July 31 ] . She has mildly criticized Timothy Dalton's performance as being almost ''too serious.''

I would like to point out that up to this point, we have never seen a ''purist's'' characterization of the Bond character on the screen, i.e., one who embodies Ian Fleming's original character from the novels. Sean Connery was magnificent in the role; he added a sardonic, cynical amusement to the character that sold 007 to audiences around the world, but this was not necessarily a trait of the literary Bond. George Lazenby merely attempted to emulate Connery's performance and failed. Roger Moore, who publicly admitted ignoring the Fleming books, made the character his own by turning Bond into a superficially charming international playboy who uses one-liners and a raised eyebrow to escape dangerous situations.

Timothy Dalton, on the other hand, has gone back to Fleming and has attempted (and in my opinion, succeeded very well) in creating the author's Bond - a real flesh-and-blood man who has doubts and feelings. James Bond is not a superman; he detests killing and does it because it's his job; he is not ''witty'' and ''dapper'' as the films have so often portrayed him; he is somber and reflective, basically cold-hearted, ruthless, and he takes his job very seriously. When it comes to food and drink, he is a gourmand - he simply appreciates what he likes; because he must usually ''dine alone,'' he insists on his meals and drinks prepared a specific way. Mr. Dalton is presenting to us the most accurate interpretation of the literary character we've ever seen on screen.

As for the new film's treatment of Bond's womanizing (he only sleeps with one woman in this one), this was a conscious decision on the film makers' part as a response to the current AIDS crisis. It just wouldn't do to have Bond hop from bed to bed in this day and age, even if it is a bit out of character.

I feel that ''The Living Daylights'' is the most mature and most ''adult'' Bond film since the 60's.

RAYMOND BENSON New York City

1991: The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) appoints Roger Moore as Goodwill Ambassador
and its special representative for the film arts.

https://unicef.org/

2018: Forbidden History airs "The Real James Bond" featuring footage of Fleming plus Maryam d'Abo.

Forbidden History (2013– )
The Real James Bond

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8817054/
1h | Documentary, History | Episode aired 9 August 2018
Season 5 | Episode 4

Jamie uncovers the truth behind the world famous fictional spy, revealing those elements of the character that were drawn from creator Ian Fleming's own experiences.

Cast (in credits order)
Jamie Theakston ... Self - Presenter / Narrator
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Maryam d'Abo ... Self
Ian Fleming ... Self (archive footage)
Andrew Gough ... Andrew Gough

Available to enhanceTV subscribers.

https://www.enhancetv.com.au/video/forbidden-history-the-real-james-bond/53344

Thunderfinger

That Danish title for AVTAK was more or less used for TLD in Norway.

RichardTheBruce

Some follow-up:

Thunderfinger wrote: »

That Danish title for AVTAK was more or less used for TLD in Norway.

@Thunderfinger do you suggest I note two possible titles used in Norway, as Agent 007 i skudlinien (Agent 007 in the Firing Line) plus the Danish Spioner dør ved daggry (Spies Die at Dawn).

BT3366 wrote: »

A couple of notes:

-The NYTimes article brings up a bit of a mystery I'm not sure if it's been cleared up. It puts Dalton's age at 38 as of this announcement. There's always been speculation he's older and I had heard elsewhere he was already 40 when he was announced. What's official these days?

Dalton's birth year is regularly reported as 1946 today, but over the years I'm familiar with seeing the 1944 disclaimer.

-Is that Max the parrot making a cameo in the MR promo photos, possibly lobbying Cubby for a role in FYEO?

@BT3366, in this case it's a true parrot, different than the Blue and Gold Macaw (Chrome) featured in For Your Eyes Only and The Living Daylights. You can see more clearly below compared to Chrome in 1981 with Roger Moore, or with original owner Diana Rigg. [Apologies if I took your droll comment too seriously, but you know my interests here.]

RichardTheBruce

August 10th

1918: Martin Benson is born--London, England.
(He dies 28 February 2010 at age 91--Markyate, Hetfordshire, England.)

Martin Benson obituary

See the complete article here:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/may/06/martin-benson-obituary

Often cast as villains, he appeared in Goldfinger and The King and I
Gavin Gaughan
Thu 6 May 2010 13.49 EDT

Martin Benson in the 1985 TV wartime drama Arch of Triumph Photograph: ITV / Rex Features

The actor Martin Benson, who has died aged 91, occupied a screen category filled in its time by Herbert Lom, with whom he acted on several occasions, and previously Conrad Veidt – that of the worldly, sophisticated, foreign villain. With jet-black hair, dark colouring and pronounced eyebrows on a thin face, he never seemed properly dressed without a tuxedo. As well as remaining furiously busy during six decades as an actor, he pursued several artistic disciplines.

Born into a Jewish family in London, he seemed briefly destined to become a pharmacist. As a gunner in the army during the second world war, he organised entertainment for the troops, and produced a tour of Gaslight in aid of a fund to replace HMS Dorsetshire. By 1944, he had been promoted to captain and was posted to Alexandria, Egypt, where he built a theatre from scratch, assisted by his sergeant-major, another aspiring actor – Arthur Lowe.

Among Benson's earliest screen roles was an unbilled part for Alfred Hitchcock in Under Capricorn (1949). The King and I had its British stage premiere at Drury Lane in October 1953, with Lom as the King, and Benson as his court chancellor, Kralahome. Benson played the part again opposite Yul Brynner in the Hollywood film version in 1956. He also played the King himself in February 1955, when Lom was ill. Benson later asserted that "despite the reputation which Yul Brynner continues to enjoy, the more intelligent as well as intelligible performance came from Herbert Lom, notwithstanding a good deal less swagger".

Back in Britain and in modestly budgeted monochrome thrillers, he was on characteristic form in Soho Incident (1956) as a "big boss" running crooked boxing and horse-racing schemes. Venturing into television, Benson was among a repertory company of actors in the half-hour anthology Douglas Fairbanks Presents (1953-57), aimed at US television, shown in Britain as cinema shorts and as schedule-fillers in ITV's early days. Benson also worked on the scripts, where as many foreign settings were included as possible. Another rep company member was Christopher Lee, who called it a valuable training ground. He and Benson made up a comic double act for one segment, The Death of Michael Turbin (1953), as slow-witted east Europeans.

He was a regular, as the villainous Duke de Medici, in Sword of Freedom (1957-58). In 1958 and 1959, he played a barrister in the unscripted courtroom series The Verdict Is Yours and, in On Trial (1960), which recreated celebrated cases, Micheal MacLiammoir played Oscar Wilde, with Benson as his prosecutor, Edward Carson.

After a role in Cleopatra (1963), he was an American gangster coerced into taking a doomed car ride with the henchman Oddjob, in Goldfinger (1964). He was among a houseful of suspects in Peter Sellers's second outing as Clouseau, A Shot in the Dark (1964).

From 1960 to 1985, Martin Benson Films, based in Radlett in Hertfordshire, made more then 100 educational and training films, which Benson directed, wrote and occasionally narrated. Some were for Save the Children.

For Lew Grade's ITC series, the logical successors to the Fairbanks shows, he variously played corrupt South American ministers, Algerian majors, ruthless Turkish policemen and cigar-smoking gamblers. Submerged under green makeup, Benson played the Vogon Captain, an excruciatingly bad poet, in Douglas Adams's The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1981).

Benson began painting in his stage dressing room, and in 1993 he staged an exhibition of his Shakespearean paintings at the Shakespeare Globe Centre, the subjects including Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud and Alec Guinness.

His later credits included Alan Parker's adaptation of Angela's Ashes (1999) and a 2005 episode of Casualty.

His wife Joy, son and three daughters, two stepdaughters and one stepson survive him.

• Martin Benson, actor, born 10 August 1918; died 28 February 2010

Martin Benson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Benson_(actor)

Filmography

Suspected Person (1942) as minor role (uncredited)[citation needed]
The Blind Goddess (1948) as Count Stephan Mikla
But Not in Vain (1948) as Mark Meyer
Trapped by the Terror (1949) as Prison Governor[citation needed]
Under Capricorn (1949) as Man Carrying Shrunken Head (uncredited)[citation needed]
The Adventures of PC 49: Investigating the Case of the Guardian Angel (1949) as Skinny Ellis

I'll Get You for This (1951) as Frankie Sperazza
Assassin for Hire (1951) as Catesby
Night Without Stars (1951) as White Cap
The Dark Light (1951) as Luigi
Hotel Sahara (1951) as Minor Role (uncredited)[citation needed]
Mystery Junction (1951) as Steve Harding
Judgment Deferred (1952) as Pierre Desportes
The Frightened Man (1952) as Alec Stone
Wide Boy (1952) as Rocco
Ivanhoe (1952) as Minor Role (uncredited)[citation needed]
The Gambler and the Lady (1952) as Tony - Pat's Dance Partner
Top of the Form (1953) as Cliquot
Wheel of Fate (1953) as Riscoe
Recoil (1953) as Farnborough
Always a Bride (1953) as Hotel Desk Clerk (uncredited)[citation needed]
Black 13 (1953) as Bruno
Escape by Night (1953) as Guillio
You Know What Sailors Are (1954) as Agrarian Officer (uncredited)[citation needed]
West of Zanzibar (1954) as Dhofar
Knave of Hearts (1954) as Art (uncredited)[citation needed]
Passage Home (1955) as Gutierres
Doctor at Sea (1955) as Head Waiter (uncredited)[citation needed]
Soho Incident (aka Spin a Dark Web) (1956) as Rico Francesi
23 Paces to Baker Street (1956) as Pillings
The King and I (1956) as Kralahome
Istanbul (1957) as Mr. Darius
Doctor at Large (1957) as Maharajah of Rhanda
Interpol (1957) as Captain Varolli
The Flesh Is Weak (1957) as Angelo Giani
Man from Tangier (1957) as Voss
Windom's Way (1957) as Samcar, Rebel Commander (uncredited)[citation needed]
The Strange World of Planet X (1958) as Smith
Sea of Sand (1958) as German Half-track Officer (uncredited)[citation needed]
The Two-Headed Spy (1958) as Gen. Wagner
Make Mine a Million (1959) as Chairman
Killers of Kilimanjaro (1959) as Ali

Once More, with Feeling! (1960) as Luigi Bardini
Oscar Wilde (1960) as George Alexander
Sands of the Desert (1960) as Selim
The Gentle Trap (1960) as Ricky Barnes[citation needed]
The 3 Worlds of Gulliver (1960) as Flimnap
Exodus (1960) as Mordekai
Gorgo (1961) as Dorkin
Five Golden Hours (1961) as Enrico
A Matter of WHO (1961) as Rahman
The Silent Invasion (1962) as Borge
Satan Never Sleeps (1962) as Kuznietsky
Village of Daughters (1962) as 1st Pickpocket
Captain Clegg (1962) as Mr. Rash (innkeeper)
I tre nemic (1962) as Prof. Otto Kreutz[citation needed]
The Fur Collar (1962) as Martin Benson
Cleopatra (1963) as Ramos
Mozambique (1964) as Da Silva
The Secret Door (1964) as Edmundo Vara
A Shot in the Dark (1964) as Maurice
Behold a Pale Horse (1964) as Priest
Goldfinger (1964) as Mr. Solo
The Secret of My Success (1965) as Rex Mansard
A Man Could Get Killed (1966) as Politanu
The Magnificent Two (1967) as President Diaz
Battle Beneath the Earth (1967) as Gen. Chan Lu

Pope Joan (1972) as Lothair
Tiffany Jones (1973) as Petcek
The Omen (1976) as Father Spiletto
Mohammad, Messenger of God (1976) as Abu-Jahal
Al-risâlah (1976) as Kisra[citation needed]
Jesus of Nazareth (1977, TV mini-series) as Pharisee
Meetings with Remarkable Men (1979) as Dr. Ivanov
The Human Factor (1979) as Boris
The Sea Wolves (1980) as Mr. Montero
Sphinx (1981) as Muhammed
Young Toscanini (1988) as Comparsa (uncredited)[citation needed]

The Camomile Lawn (1992) as Pauli Erstweiler
Angela's Ashes (1999) as Christian brother

1928: Jimmy Dean is born--Plainview, Texas.
(He dies 13 June 2010 at age 81--Varina, Virginia.)

Jimmy Dean dies at 81; country music star and sausage king

See the complete article here:

https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-jimmy-dean-20100615-story.html

By Dennis McLellan
| Los Angeles Times | Jun 15, 2010 | 12:00 AM


Jimmy Dean helped bring country music into the mainstream in the 1960s. (CBS TV)

When the Country Music Assn. announced in February that Jimmy Dean would be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame later this year, Dean joked, "I thought I was already in there."

"Seriously, it brought a huge grin to my face," he said in a news release. "I am honored."

Dean already had been inducted into the Virginia Country Music Hall of Fame in 1997 and the Texas Music Hall of Fame in 2005.

That's not to mention his 2009 induction into the Meat Industry Hall of Fame.

Indeed, Dean, who died Sunday evening at his home in Henrico County, Va., at age 81, may be better known by some today as "the sausage king" of TV commercial fame than a hit-making country music star and one-time TV show host who helped bring country music into the mainstream in the 1960s.

The Texas-born entertainer and businessman, who began his recording career in the 1950s, scored a No. 1 hit on both the country and pop singles charts in 1961 with his spoken-narrative song about a coal miner — "a giant of a man" — who saves fellow workers from "a would-be grave" after their mine collapses.

"Big Bad John," which Dean said he wrote in an hour and a half on a flight from New York to Tennessee, earned a Grammy Award for best country and western recording.

The 1960s were the down-home entertainer's heyday.

He went on to record hits including "Dear Ivan," "Little Black Book," "P.T. 109" (inspired by the Naval vessel commanded by John F. Kennedy during World War II) and "The First Thing Ev'ry Morning (And the Last Thing Ev'ry Night)."

From 1963 to '66, he hosted "The Jimmy Dean Show," an hourlong TV musical variety show that ran on ABC and featured singers including Roger Miller, George Jones and Buck Owens. The show also regularly featured Dean's humorous banter with a "dog" named Rowlf, the first of Jim Henson's Muppets to attract national attention.

Along with headlining in Las Vegas and performing in venues such as Carnegie Hall and the London Palladium, Dean played fur trapper Josh Clements on Fess Parker's "Daniel Boone" series in the late '60s and had the supporting role of a reclusive billionaire in the 1971 James Bond film "Diamonds Are Forever."

He launched the Jimmy Dean Meat Co. in the late '60s, after previously buying a hog farm in his native Texas.

"Everything was fine and dandy until hog prices dropped out," he told the Richmond Times-Dispatch in 2004. "One morning I was having breakfast at a little old diner in Plainview — sausages and eggs — and reached up and plucked a [large] piece of gristle out of my teeth."

It was then, he said, that he became determined to produce a quality sausage.

"It was not something I just put my name on," he said. "It was my money and my sausage and my work — and those commercials that they think are so funny."

After selling his meat company to what later became known as the Sara Lee Corp. in 1984, he remained as chairman of the board and TV spokesman. After he was dropped as spokesman in 2003, Dean reportedly stopped eating the products that bear his name and changed his license plates that read SSG KING.

Dean was born Aug. 10, 1928, in Olton, Texas, and grew up in Plainview. He and his brother Don were raised on a farm by their mother after their father left when Dean was still a child. They were so poor, he once said, he wore shirts that his mother made out of sugar sacks.

Poverty, Dean told the Times-Dispatch, "was the greatest motivating factor in my life."

He began singing early on, and his mother taught him to play his first chord on the piano when he was 10. He later taught himself to play the harmonica, guitar and accordion.

Dropping out of high school at 16, he joined the Merchant Marines and later served in the Air Force. While stationed at a base in Washington, D.C., Dean and three other airmen formed a country music quartet that played local honkytonks.

After his discharge in 1948, Dean formed the Texas Wildcats. He began developing a following with a show on an Arlington, Va., radio station and had his first country top 10 hit, "Bumming Around," in 1953.

Dean and the Texas Wildcats moved to local television in 1955, and from 1957 to 1959 he hosted the first version of "The Jimmy Dean Show," a half-hour daily variety series on CBS.

Thirty Years of Sausage, Fifty Years of Ham: Jimmy Dean's Own Story, a 2004 autobiography, was co-written with his second wife, Donna Meade Dean, a singer and songwriter he married in 1991.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by his children from his first marriage, Garry Dean, Connie Dean Taylor and Robert Dean; and two granddaughters.

[email protected]

Jimmy Dean (I) (1928–2010)

Soundtrack | Actor
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0212818/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

1959: Diamonds Are Forever comic strip begins its run in The Daily Express.
(Ends 30 January 1960. 340-487) John McLusky, artist. Henry Gammidge, writer.

Swedish Semic 1972
https://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/comics/semic_1972.php3?s=comics&id=01759

Diamantfeber
(Diamond Fever - Diamonds Are Forever)

Swedish Semic 1988
https://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/comics/semic_1988.php3?s=comics&id=02331

Diamantfeber
(Diamonds Are Forever - Part 1) (Diamonds Are Forever - Part 2)

Danish 1967 https://www.bond-o-rama.dk/en/jb007-dk-no9-1967/

James Bond Agent 007 no. 9: “Diamonds are Forever” (1967)
"Død og diamanter" [Death and diamonds]

1963: Sean Connery finishes all filming for From Russia With Love, ending with the shot in Rhoda’s truck.

1981: Agent 007 – Strengt fortroligt (Agent 007 - Strictly Confidential) released in Denmark.

"Agent 007 - strictly confidential" or "Agent 007: Strict Confidence"

1982: Octopussy first unit filming begins at the Berlin Wall and Checkpoint Charlie.
1987: The Living Daylights released in Ljubljana, Yugoslavia.
1989: Lizenz zum Töten released in West Germany.

2003: The Washington Post proposes literary Bond can "Live or Let Die".

Live or Let Die? A Midlife Crisis for the James Bond Novels

See the complete article here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2003/08/10/live-or-let-die-a-midlife-crisis-for-the-james-bond-novels/5e266f5e-651e-4fc4-bd1a-2c820dbcb6e0/?utm_term=.a22c9e6b2b3a

By Bob Bryant August 10, 2003

-- For seven years, Raymond Benson was James Bond's boss. Benson planned the secret missions, scoped out the death traps, plumbed the dark hearts of 007's enemies from 1996 through 2002.

Bond went where Benson willed, did as Benson wished, took lives or spared them as Benson saw fit. Such is the power of a James Bond novelist.

Benson, who lives in the Chicago suburbs, was only the fourth man -- and the first American -- to write a series of Bond novels since Britain's Ian Fleming created the character. "It was terrifying and exciting, all at the same time," Benson, 47, says of his six original Bonds and three movie novelizations. "It was a roller coaster."

But as Bond celebrates his 50th year in literature -- half a century since Fleming published "Casino Royale" in the spring of 1953 -- the 007 series is at a small crossroads.

Benson has left the series to write his own novels, and no new Bond novelist has been named. After five decades and 35 original Bond books (not counting movie novelizations) that have sold nearly 100 million copies in all, where do the Bond books go from here?

Whoever writes the Bond novels "is going to be in the hot seat," Benson said in a telephone interview. "Whoever is in this spot is going to be under a microscope."

One reason for that is the passion of Bond fans, many of whom have built sharply opinionated Internet sites about 007. Another is the small number of people in the Bond Novelists Club.

Fleming wrote 14 "Bonds" before he died in 1964 at age 56. There was a one-shot 1968 Bond novel by Kingsley Amis. It was more than a decade after that when Fleming's heirs authorized another British novelist, John Gardner, to write a new Bond series, and Gardner did 14 novels. Then came Benson and six more original Bonds.

Benson said he had no idea who might be in line to be the next Bond novelist or in what direction the books might go. The novelists typically have set the books in the present day, whenever that might be -- the '60s through the '90s -- but Benson's wish is that the novels "stay in the Cold War. I'd like to see Bond frozen in time."

It's unlikely the literary series can again explode as it did in the 1960s, when Fleming paperbacks, fueled by the Bond movies' success, sprouted bold covers on every drugstore rack. And no one should expect that, says Los Angeles writer-producer John Cork, co-author of "James Bond: The Legacy," a coffee-table book published last year.

Fleming -- ex-reporter, ex-British Naval Intelligence officer, world traveler, unabashed womanizer -- started it all with a slim, grim novel called "Casino Royale."

No spectacular action scenes here -- it's about one spy trying to bankrupt another at the gambling tables. Fleming wrote the book in about six weeks at his Jamaican retreat, Goldeneye, then casually offered "this miserable piece of work . . . this dreadful oafish opus" to a novelist friend with publishing connections. It sold.

Fleming kept going back, year after year, to his main character, James Bond, 007, licensed to kill in the name of Her Majesty the Queen.

Bond was Fleming's "dream self," a Fleming biographer said. Bond shared Fleming's tastes, smoked Fleming's cigarettes (70 a day for both agent and author).

The Bond movies always kept Fleming's titles -- those titles were gold. But ever since Fleming's heirs resurrected the Bond novels in 1981, the books and the films have run on separate tracks. None of the 20 "modern" Bond novels by Benson or Gardner has been made into a film; all of Fleming's were.

Partly because of that, none of the new novels has enjoyed a fraction of the fame Fleming's work has.

Gardner's first Bond novel, restarting the series in 1981, updated the politics by abolishing the Double-O branch of the Secret Service -- the spies licensed to kill -- except for Bond, who stayed on as a global "troubleshooter."

Gardner gave up the series in 1996.

"His early novels were on the New York Times bestseller list," said Bryan Krofchok, who runs a Bond site on the Internet (www.bondian.com) and teaches computer science at Sacramento (Calif.) City College. "[But] the general public's interest in new Bond novels seems to have petered out midway through Gardner's series, at least here in the United States."

Gardner, already an established novelist when he took the Bond job, remembers his time as "the most difficult years of my professional life."

In an e-mail interview from his home in Hampshire, England, the author, now 76, said it was a struggle to find the right style while trying to satisfy the Fleming heirs and to quell the "strange hostility and mistrust" of Bond fans. "My consistent nightmare," Gardner said, "is that I shall be remembered only as the author who took James Bond through the '80s and into the '90s. Yet I am proud of my work on the Bonds and believe that the books did the job."

Benson's Bond books, starting in 1997, brought a faster pace and a more fallible 007.

"Sometimes I wonder why I bother," a beat-up Bond muses in "High Time to Kill" (1999). "In the old days, the enemy was clear cut. Communism was a worldwide threat. . . . Today it's different. I feel as if I've become a glorified policeman. There must be a better way to die."

Benson, who got the Bond job after writing a book called "The James Bond Bedside Companion" in the 1980s, said he never pictured his 007 as one of the movie Bonds but instead as "a shadowy, non-specific guy."

Benson said he would look at a map of the world and ask, "What locales would Britain have an interest in?" That might lead to a story. Then he would submit a detailed outline to Glidrose Publications, which holds the Bond copyrights: "I never had one rejected."

Then Benson would travel to the locations on Bond's itinerary -- "Walk in Bond's footsteps." (Fleming did the same, laden with small notebooks.) Benson's travel phase might take one to four weeks. The actual writing might take four to five months, Benson said. Then editing by the publishers and the Fleming interests. Bond essentially was a full-time job, he said.

And the reaction from readers? The hard-core Bond fans, the Internet fans, were the loudest voices Benson heard. "They either loved me or hated me," he said. "It was a challenge dealing with the fans. They're so opinionated."

Bond fans such as Krofchok acknowledge that the series is serving "a niche market" of longtime 007 fans -- and at the same time facing competition from mainstream thrillers. "There are now many other authors writing 'Bondian'-style novels -- but without James Bond," Krofchok said. (Who is Tom Clancy's hero, Jack Ryan, but an American Bond?)

The new Bond books also are competing with the very similar, but very different, new Bond movies, Cork noted. One solution, he said, could be along the lines of Benson's suggestion -- to permanently put the literary Bond in a Cold War setting.

The books' future seems wide open. There's no announced heir to the Fleming throne -- Fleming's family has announced no successor to Benson. Representatives of Ian Fleming Publications couldn't be reached for comment. Cork said his impression was that in this 50th-anniversary year, they preferred to put the focus back on Fleming's novels, which are being reissued as trade paperbacks with 1950s-style pulp-art covers.

Gardner, who has written more Bond books than any other living man, thinks the bell has tolled for the Bond novels. Don't "play games" with Cold War flashbacks, he said -- the new novels "should end now."

And if the literary Bond heads into more happy decades of martinis, girls and guns? In that case, Gardner said, "I pray that they find a Brit who is a professional novelist with a track record."

"The sad thing today," he said, "is that people talking of Bond usually talk of the films and not the books. And the films, alas, seem to have gone down the road to Dumbville."

American Raymond Benson is the latest official James Bond novelist, but after six books with 007, he's giving up the job.Ian Fleming wrote his first Bond novel, "Casino Royale," in 1953. Kingsley Amis, under the pseudonym Robert Markham, took up the Bond series for one novel.

2012: Five new posters advertise Skyfall.

Thunderfinger

@RichardTheBruce , in Norway it was just called I Skuddlinjen (In the Firing Line/In the Line of Fire), which was incidentally also the title of a Clint Eastwood movie a few years later. It has alternately also gone by the title James Bond i skuddlinjen

RichardTheBruce

August 11th

1948: Harold Sakata wins the silver medal in the light-heavyweight division of the weightlifting competition at the Summer Olympic Games, London, England.

1948 Summer Olympic awards for light-heavyweight weightlifting competition:
Harold Sakata of the USA (silver), Stanley Stanczyk of the USA (gold) and Gosta Magnusson of Sweden (bronze).

1959: Ian Fleming's letter to Ivar Bryce on seeking a screenwriter also declares... "Richard Burton would be by far the best James Bond!"

The Battle for Bond, Robert Sellers, 2007.
Chapter 6 - Looking for a Writer

So McClory took it upon himself to hire a screenwriter, satisfied that
Fleming, while an established and experienced novelist, would be quite unable
to produce a satisfactory film script. The man he chose was Paul Dehn whose
first screenplay, Seven Days to Noon, back in 1950, had earned him an Oscar.
At first Dehn was interested and met with Fleming, but that enthusiasm
ultimately dissipated and he turned the assignment down, much to Fleming's
disappointment as he expressed in a letter to Bryce dated 11 August: "Alas,
Dehn can't take the job on for two excellent reasons. Firstly, he wrote a film
script called something like "Seven Hours to Midnight' (Fleming almost got it
right), in which London was held up by an atomic bomb. And, secondly, he
says that he is really only interested in the development of character in
murderers, etc, and this bang, bang, kiss, kiss stuff is not for him. On the other
hand, he greatly like the treatment and thinks it will be a terrific success." Just
five years later Dehn, with Richard Maibaum, would write arguably the greatest
Bond script of all - Goldfinger.

Chapter 11 - The Search for James Bond

Earlier, during Fleming's meetings with Paul Dehn, the subject of who to
cast as Bond had arisen. In his letter of 11 August to Bryce, Fleming
announce, "Both Dehn and I think that Richard Burton would be by far the
best James Bond!" It's a fascinating suggestion, and possibly the first
recorded statement by Fleming about who should play his hero. Years later
Fleming would champion David Niven as Bond, a very traditional English
actor and a million miles away from the wild Celtic image and brooding
manner of Burton. But what a Bond pre-Celopatra/pre-Elizabeth Taylor
Burton would have been!

Interestingly at this time the makers of the proposed American TV
version of From Russia With Love had already cast James Mason as Bond.
"So if the worst comes to the worst, we might have to settle for him,"
Fleming wrote Bruce, sounding not entirely won over by the idea. But he
must have later warned to it as Christopher Lee, who was Fleming's cousin,
informed this author that Fleming told him that Mason was his preferred
choice as Bond.

1964: After dining with friends at a hotel in Canterbury, Ian Fleming suffers a heart attack.

1976: The Hollywood Reporter reports the withdrawal of McClory's injunction seeking to cease filming of The Spy Who Loved Me.
1978: Principal photography kicks off for Moonraker at Château Vaux-Le-Vicomte in France.

1986: People magazine showcases Pierce Brosnan as "The Spy Who's Loved Too Much".

The Spy Who's Loved Too Much

See the complete article here:

https://people.com/archive/cover-story-the-spy-whos-loved-too-much-vol-26-no-6/

Laura Sanderson Healy and Mary Ann Norbom - August 11, 1986 12:00 PM

“It was,” says Pierce Brosnan, “too much like a job.” Admittedly a good job, with more than good pay. In a series that made an obscure Irish actor into an American TV star. With a role that painted him debonair and slightly devilish. And an image that made him the perfect, obvious, only choice to become the next Bond, James Bond. Although Brosnan had prospered as the roguish title character on NBC’s detective series Remington Steele, “I had just had enough,” he says. In fact, “I’d had enough after two years, but I’d signed a seven-year contract.” Brosnan was relieved—”really relieved”—when Remington Steele was cancelled last May.

But wait. Put the emphasis on the past tense: was cancelled, was relieved. For just when it seemed that Brosnan, 35, had snagged one of the most sought-after and profitable roles in movie history, he now finds himself once again tied to Remington Steele, and he is not pleased.

For most of the last two months, Brosnan thought he had fulfilled an ambition of long standing, to replace Roger Moore as 007. He had settled in London. Thinking he had closed a chapter of his career, he had taken to occasionally trashing Remington Steele and the high life in L.A. He had all but signed for The Living Daylights, the $40 million Bond film originally scheduled to begin shooting this month. Then, ironically, the prospect of Brosnan as Bond revived NBC’s interest in its show. The network saw a promotional windfall in beaming the man who would be Bond into America’s living rooms—particularly so after more than 1000 furious fans phoned and wrote NBC protesting the cancellation. This summer, Remington has greatly improved its ratings during reruns. In the halls of NBC, programming chief Brandon Tartikoff joked about his booboo, “Anybody can cancel a show in 59th place. It takes real guts to cancel one in ninth place.” Consequently, just last month, three days before options on the Remington cast expired, NBC made it official: The show was renewed for six episodes as a midseason replacement.

Since then, the legendary producer and protector of the James Bond film properties, Cubby Broccoli, has been making like Dr. No. Although he had been negotiating a three-picture deal with Brosnan, Broccoli didn’t want his 007 tainted by television. “He’s not going to have another company riding on our publicity,” says a Broccoli aide. To accommodate the movie’s schedule, MTM, the production company responsible for Steele, even suggested shooting the season’s first episode in Europe. “Obviously it would be to our benefit to have Pierce playing Bond, and we’re not giving up on the idea,” says Steele executive producer Michael Gleason. “Anything we can do, we are more than willing to do.” But Broccoli has remained decidedly cool to stopgap measures. The net result for Brosnan is a career catch-22: Because Remington was cancelled, Brosnan could do Bond. But because he might be Bond, Remington was uncancelled. And because Remington was uncancelled, Brosnan may not be able to be 007. The choice for Brosnan seems clear: Bond or bondage.

The network’s decision has started a worldwide scramble for another Bond, while shooting on The Living Daylights has been postponed to late September. The producers talked to 60 aspirants in one recent week alone. Earlier Mel Gibson and Bryan Brown were considered but not screen-tested. Australian model Finlay Light was tested and so was Sam (Kane & Abel) Neill, who was a front runner at last check. But the players change constantly. After Broccoli saw The Taming of the Shrew in London, new rumors surfaced last week that actor Timothy Dalton was the first choice. If you are a handsome, breathing male with a British accent, you are a candidate.

Brosnan has not talked publicly about his dilemma since Remington’s revival created it. But he was positively voluble when last interviewed in London, basking in the afterglow of what he considered a pro forma screen test for Bond—and in the midst of filming a kind of warm-up for the part, Frederick Forsyth’s thriller The Fourth Protocol, in which Brosnan plays a KGB bad guy. Had Steele been renewed, he said, “I would have risen to the occasion, but I would have gone back to work reluctantly, just gritting my teeth…. Under the circumstances [of the Bond offer], if it had gone a fifth [season], I would have been pissed off…. No risks were being taken. I wanted the show to get a little more hard-edged, but they wanted to keep it like it was.” He was particularly distressed by Moonlighting, which bears more than a passing resemblance to Remington. In fact that show was created by Glenn Gordon Caron, a former Remington writer. “Moonlighting [is] a direct steal which has just done it in a different, much fresher way,” Brosnan said. “At least they take risks.” Co-star Stephanie Zimbalist apparently agrees. “Now those people are doing at Moonlighting exactly what we’re supposed to be doing at Remington Steele.”

Brosnan’s trouble on Remington apparently involved more than creative differences: Almost from the start, stories of discord between Brosnan and Zimbalist were common. Although the series was conceived primarily as a vehicle for her, he got more mail and publicity. To create the character, Brosnan said, “I’d look at old Cary Grant movies, steal a little bit from him and mix in my own personality. In some respects, it was a cross between John Cleese, Cary Grant and James Bond.” Zimbalist was clearly dissatisfied with the show’s shifting focus. “I have to do something,” she told one interviewer in 1983, “or when this show goes off the air, all anybody is going to remember is that Pierce Brosnan starred in it.” If her relations with Brosnan were occasionally frosty, they were positively frigid with his wife, actress Cassandra Harris, who reportedly saw Steele as a stepping-stone to superstardom for her husband.

In a show that relies on character chemistry, there was little combustion. As Brosnan put it, they “were never progressing in the relationship…. There was all this kind of cat and mouse, old movie rubbish…. The people who were behind it were never courageous enough to say, ‘Well, let’s just throw it up in the air, what we can do next, how we can keep it alive.’ ” On that he and Zimbalist were agreed, and the producers’ notable idea for invigorating the show—having them get married—infuriated both of them. During production earlier this year, Zimbalist said: “If they decide to marry Remington and Laura, they can find themselves someone else to play Laura. That is not the character I signed to play.” And, of course, in the season’s last episode, Laura and Steele were married. Brosnan recalls, “There was a lot of tension about that.” Exec producer Gleason observes: “Pierce and Stephanie are both quite vocal when it comes to their characters.” Although weddings are usually Nielsen bonanzas, the union did nothing for Remington ratings.

For Brosnan, television was no longer the most becoming medium. “You learn bad habits as an actor [on TV]. As the season goes on, you take short cuts, fatigue sets in. Then your confidence goes.” With it goes some measure of esteem. “The word ‘star’ doesn’t mean an awful lot to me. ‘Good actor’ and having the respect of one’s peers means more. You don’t really get much of that doing a show like Remington Steele.”

By the end of last season, Brosnan wanted to leave Los Angeles as well as the show. Despite the comforts of a home in the hills, “I was becoming so Hollywood. All it became was money—get as much as you possibly can. I just find that you can become a very boring person living in L.A. I tell you, living there on a day-to-day basis is vacuous, terribly fake.” So he particularly liked the prospect of shooting back-to-back features in London: “It’s extremely civilized working here.”

Brosnan has long considered playing Bond a career goal, but only recently has he pursued that prospect with passion. In fact, when he was first mentioned as a candidate he was reticent. “I said, ‘Why do I want to do it? It’s become an institution.’ ” But the idea kept coming back. Roger Moore told a newspaper that Pierce was his hand-picked successor. The mushrooming attention made Brosnan reconsider. So, no doubt, did the lack of attention given Brosnan’s feature Nomads, a quick fizzle released last March. Finally, he said, “I thought, if I don’t do Bond and some other guy gets it and I’ve been such a strong contender, I’m going to be really pissed off.”

Brosnan had begun to feel almost as if fate had assigned him the role. Bond, he said, was “part of my upbringing.” Among the first films he saw when he moved from Ireland to England in the early ’60s were Bond flicks. “For an Irish boy, age of 11, really green, very naive, sheltered Catholic upbringing, it was just mindblowing.” Some 20 years later, he would meet the maker of those movies face-to-face. It was 1981, and Brosnan’s miniseries, The Manions of America, was set to premiere in America. He and wife Cassie had had to borrow $3,500 to pay for their trip to L.A., but soon he was cast as Remington Steele (after Anthony Andrews turned down the role). Cassie, it so happened, was playing one of Bond’s girls in the 1981 flick For Your Eyes Only—and they were invited to dinner at Broccoli’s estate. “I remember turning to Cassie that night in this old Rent-a-Wreck car, and I was joking the whole way home saying, ‘My name’s Bond, James Bond.’ I said, ‘This is it, darling, there’s no looking back now’—little knowing that five years on, one would be stepping into the role. There are a lot of funny things that happen in one’s life.”

So there are. A few weeks ago, Brosnan returned to L.A., and there, barring strikes or other acts of a merciful God, he will begin shooting Remington Steele next October.

1989: Licença Para Matar released in Portugal.

2010: 24/7 reviews a book proposing writer Roald Dahl was a real-life James Bond.

Roald Dahl was real-life James Bond: Book

See the complete article here:

https://www.emirates247.com/roald-dahl-was-real-life-james-bond-book-2010-08-11-1.277710

Children's author Dahl was a dashing, bed-hopping spy, according to a new book (FILE)
By Staff - Published Wednesday, August 11, 2010

He may be best-known as the author of chaste children's books, but Roald Dahl was a secret service agent with a "whole stable" of women and a license to kill, in the manner of fictional spy James Bond, according to an explosive new book.

The British author slept with countless high society women while gathering intelligence in the US in the 1940s, says Donald Sturcock in his new book "Storyteller: The Life of Roald Dahl".

Dahl's life as a young, handsome and dashing RAF officer in the early 1940s is recreated in the book through interviews with many associates and lovers, reported the UK's The Telegraph newspaper.

Antoinette Haskell, a wealthy friend of Dahl's who looked up to him as a brother even thought he was "drop dead gorgeous", said the Charlie And The Chocolate Factory author was a relentless womaniser. "He was very arrogant with his women, but he got away with it. The uniform didn't hurt one bit and he was an ace pilot. I think he slept with everybody on the east and west coasts that had more than USD 50,000 a year," Haskell is quoted as saying in the book.

Dahl had fought as a fighter pilot earlier in the war, until injuries grounded him. He then worked for a secret service network based in the United States called British Security Coordination (BSC).

It was during this time that he worked with such other well known agents as Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond and David Ogilvy.

It is not known exactly how Dahl was recruited as a British agent, but it is thought he was working loosely for BSC by the first four months of 1944 when, officially, he had a public relations role at the British Embassy in Washington DC.

Yet Dahl's secretive role too ended soon as it went against the grain because he was a terrible gossip who frequently betrayed confidence, according to his family and friends.

Dahl, who died in 1990 aged 74, remains one of the world's bestselling fiction authors, with sales estimated at 100 million and counting.

RichardTheBruce

August 12th

1959: Fleming expresses doubts for McClory in a letter to Bryce.

The Battle for Bond, Robert Sellers, 2007.
Chapter 6 - Looking for a Writer

It seemed like the question of McClory's shortcomings stayed with Fleming
as the following day he had lunch with Laurence Evans and asked his opinion on
the matter. Evans didn't mince his words. Of course he thought McClory had
talent and potential, but his first stab at movies with The Boy and the Bridge had
not really come off, if the first batch of negative reviews were to be believed.
Fleming wrote to Bryce on 12 August about Evans' misgivings: "What he is
alarmed about is that, while we may all want big stars to feature in the Bond film,
he thinks it very possible that people of the calibre we have been discussing may
not wish to be produced and directed by a young man with only one film to his
name and a film that has not found favour with the critics. He advises more or
less on the lines of what I suggested my last letter - that Kevin should be
number 2 to a bigger man; say Asquith or Hitchcock for instance."

McClory later believed this letter showed, "the first seeds of distrust being
planted in Bryce's mind by Fleming suggesting that I might not necessarily
have teh experience and should take second place to someone else." This was
in direct contradiction to a Fleming letter of just four months previous when
he'd told McClory, "There is no one who I would prefer to produce James
Bond for the screen."

1964: Ian Lancaster Fleming dies at age 56--Canterbury, Kent, England.
(Born 28 May 1908--Mayfair, London, England.)

Ian Fleming Dead; Created James Bond

See the complete article here:

https://www.nytimes.com/1964/08/13/archives/ian-fleming-dead-created-james-bond.html[/center]

AUG. 13, 1964

LONDON, Aug. 12 — Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, Agent 007 of the British Secret Service, died early today in a hospital at Canterbury after suffering a heart attack. He was 56 years old.

Mr. Fleming was stricken last night at his hotel in Sandwich, where he was spending a golfing vacation with his wife, Anne Geraldine Fleming, and their son, Caspar, who became 12 years old today.

The novelist suffered a coronary thrombosis three years ago. It forced him to curtail his activities and reduce his daily quota of gold‐tipped cigarettes, which Bond also smoked incessantly, from 60 to 20.

In little more than a decade James Bond became the world's best known secret agent.

Countless readers avidly followed his undercover war against .Soviet master spies and terrorists and later against a mysterious international crime syndicate.

Mr. Fleming equipped his hero with an impeccable social background, good looks, bravery, toughness and a disillusional sort of patriotism.

More important, the double‐O identification number, carried by only three men in the British Secret Service, authorized him to kill in the line of duty. It was a privilege Bond exercised frequently and sometimes reluctantly, most often with a .25‐caliber Beretta automatic that he carried in a chamois shoulder holster.

President Kennedy and Allen Dulles, while he was the head of the Central Intelligence Agency, said that they enjoyed Mr. Fleming's books. In fact, it was probably the President's praise in 1961 that was largely responsible for their enormous popularity here. In Britain, Prince Philip led the cheering section.

Mr. Fleming wrote 12 books, all but two about Bond, and was working on the 13th when he died. All told, they sold more than 18 million copies, mostly in paperback editions, and were translated into 10 languages.

Two highly profitable films. “Doctor No” and “From Russia With Love,” were made from his novels, a third, “Goldfinger,” was recently completed and is awaiting release and others are planned.

Mr. Fleming had made $2.8 million from his books, according to his agent, Peter Janson Smith. In March, in a complex transaction for tax purposes, he sold a 51 per cent interest in his future income to a British holding company for $280,000.

Critics differed on the merits of his works. Some said he was an aristocratic Mickey Spillane, pandering to the public's taste for sadism and sex. A critic in London's New Statesman called “Doctor No,” which tells of how Bond destroys a missile‐sabotage center in the Caribbean, “the nastiest book” he had ever read.

“There are three basic ingredients in ‘Doctor No,‘” he said, “all unhealthy, all thoroughly English: the sadism of a schoolboy bully, the mechanical, two‐dimensional sex‐longings of a frustrated adolescent, and the crude snob‐cravings of a suburban adult.

“Mr. Fleming has no literary skill. But the three ingredients are manufactured and blended with deliberate, professional precision.”

On the other hand, the contemporary novelist Kingsley Amis, in a 40,000‐word study, described Bond as tender rather than sadistic, classless rather than snobbish and a moderate Tory rather than a Fascist.

On the whole, American critics did not take Mr. Fleming quite so seriously, regarding his books as thrillers that had tended to become less thrilling in recent years.

Mr. Fleming said he thought of them as entertainment of no special significance. He attributed their popularity to a hunger for larger‐than‐life heroes that was left unsatisfied by most contemporary fiction.

At the same time Bond's adventures slaked a public thirst for information about espionage that had been whetted by such events as the trial of Dr. Klaus Fuchs, the Burgess‐McLean case, the U‐2 incident and the growing awareness of the work of the C.I.A.

The first of the novels, “Casino Royale,” published in London without fanfare in 1953, described Bond's destruction of Le Chiffre, the head of the French branch of Smersh, the Soviet espionage and terror ring, Bond's nearly fatal torture and his discovery that the woman he had fallen in love with was a Soviet agent.

Mr. Fleming later said he wrote the book because he needed to keep his mind off his impending marriage, marking the end of his bachelor days.

“Writing about 2,000 words in three hours every morning, he said, “‘Casino Royale’ dutifully produced itself. I wrote nothing and made no corrections until the book was finished. If I had looked back at what I had written the day before I might have despaired.”

Other novels followed rapidly. In “Goldfinger” Bond foils a plot to rob Fort Knox; in “Moonraker” he prevents the firing of a missile into the heart of London; in “Live and Let Die” he destroys Smersh's chief agent in the United States, a Negro dabbler in voodoo and racketeering known as Mr. Big.

In “From Russia With Love,” Bond escapes from Smersh's plot to destroy him but appears to be dying of poison as the book ends. Concern over his fate mounted among the public. His publishers finally stated, “After a period of anxiety the condition of No. 007 shows definite improvement.”

Mr. Fleming liked to point out that Smersh, although often thought to be a fictional organization, existed as a Soviet counterespionage organization during and after World War II Its name is the combined form of the Russian words “smyert spionam,” meaning death to spies.

When Smersh was disbanded, Mr. Fleming set up SPECTRE, as Bond's opponent. It was unquestionably fictional, the word being formed from the initials of Special Executive for Counter‐intelligence Terror, Revenge and Extortion.

Under the leadership of Ernest Stavro Blofeld, whose career began as a double or triple agent in prewar Warsaw, SPECTRE has enlisted the services of former Gestapo agents, disenchanted Smersh operatives, members of the Mafia, the Red Lightning Tong and other Master criminals.

In “Thunderball” Bond balks the organization's plot to extort millions of dollars from the United States with a stolen nuclear bomb. He continues his pursuit of Blofeld in “On His Majesty's Secret Service” [sic] and appears to have destroyed him in his most recent adventure, “You Only Live Twice,” both of which were serialized in the magazine Playboy.

Mr. Fleming was often accused of making Bond a thinly disguised projection of himself. In their love of fast cars, golf, gambling and gourmet cooking, in their skill with firearms and cards, the two men were indeed similar, but Mr. Fleming once said, “Apart from the fact that he wears the same clothes that I wear, he and I really have little in common. I do rather envy him his blondes and his efficiency, but I can't say I much like the chap.”

Mr. Fleming said he had conceived Bond as “a hero without any characteristics who was simply the blunt instrument in the hands of his government.”

However, as with most authors, Fleming's experiences largely shaped those of his creation.

Mr. Fleming was born on May 28, 1908. His father, Major Valentine Fleming, at one time a Conservative member of Parliament, was killed while fighting on the Somme in 1916. His obituary in The Times of London was written by Winston Churchill.

The boy was educated at Eton, Britain's most exclusive school, and Sandhurst, the military academy. While there he was a member of the rifle team and competed in a match against the United States Military Academy.

He earned a commission, but resigned before beginning active service in the largely inactive British Army of the 1820's. He also said later that he regarded tanks and trucks as a step downward from horses and sabers.

Planning to enter the diplomatic service, he learned excellent French and German at the Universities of Munich and Geneva. He stood seventh on the service's entrance examinations, but since there were only five vacancies he decided to try journalism.

He joined Reuters, the international news agency, and in 1929 was appointed its Moscow correspondent.

“Reuters was great fun in those days,” he said. “The training there gives you a good straightforward style. Above all, I have to thank Reuters for getting my facts right.”

There was a difference of opinion about this among Bond fans. They delighted in finding errors in the novels, such as the sending of a woman gang leader to Sing Sing, a men's prison.

After four years he was offered the post of assistant general manager of Reuters in the Far East, but feeling the need for money, he decided to join a private bank in London. In 1935 he became a stockbroker and remained one until the outbreak of war in 1939.

Mr. Fleming was commissioned in the Royal Navy and became in time personal assistant to Rear Admiral T. H. Godfrey, director of naval intelligence. The admiral was the prototype of “M,” the retired seadog who heads Bond's secret service.

More important, it was Mr. Fleming's wartime service, from which he emerged as a commander, that provided the insights into the technique and practice of intelligence work that his readers found enthralling.

After the war, he became foreign manager of The Sunday Times of London. His contract provided for two months of vacation a year, which he spent at Goldeneye, his home near Oracabessa in Jamaica. Mr. Fleming did most of his writing there and the island provided the background for many of his novels.

Like Bond, Mr. Fleming was , tall (6‐foot‐1) and slender (168 pounds). His curly hair was graying, his complexion was ruddy and his nose had been broken.

The novelist was a collector of first editions and rare books and published The Book Collector, the bibliophilic magazine.

Besides his widow, whose marriage to Viscount Bothermere ended in divorce in 1952, and his son, Mr. Fleming is survived by two brothers, Peter, the explorer and writer, and Richard, a banker.

1964: Pierce Brosnan leaves Ireland to join his mother May and new husband William Carmichael in Longniddry, East Lothian, Scotland.

1974: Agente 007 contra el Dr. No re-released in Spain.

1977: Spionen der elskede mig released in Denmark.

1983: Octopussy – mustekala (Octopussy - Soft-bodied Cephalopods Squid/Octopus/Cuttlefish) released in Finland.

2018: Tweets from Idris Elba spark more Bond rumours.

Idris Elba offers cheeky tweets amid latest James Bond rumors

See the complete article here:

https://pressfrom.info/us/news/entertainment/-175973-idris-elba-offers-cheeky-tweets-amid-latest-james-bond-rumors.html

12 august 2018 | Source: ew.com

Idris Elba appears to have caught wind of the latest round of rumors that he might one day play James Bond, and he’s having some fun with the buzz on social media.

Early Sunday morning, the Luther star tweeted a heavily filtered selfie and wrote, “my name’s Elba, Idris Elba” — an obvious nod to 007’s signature “Bond, James Bond” line.

But while some fans might have taken that as a hint that Elba, 45, would someday don Bond’s tuxedo, he followed up hours later with a photo of Public Enemy and another tweet name-checking one of the group’s most well-known songs. “Don’t believe the HYPE…” he wrote.

2034: Where the Copyright Extension Act of 1998 is applied, the Fleming books could enter the public domain.

Revelator

RichardTheBruce wrote: »

2034: Where the Copyright Extension Act of 1998 is applied, the Fleming books could enter the public domain.

They're already in the public domain in Canada.

RichardTheBruce

Yes true @Revelator, Canada's approach recognized +50 years after Fleming's death year and a go date of 1 January 2015. (Different than the EU and US.)

Canada, with some actions on that.

https://www.mi6community.com/discussion/11849/licence-expired-the-unauthorized-james-bond/p1

RichardTheBruce

August 13th

1961: The East German government starts construction of the Berlin Wall.

j_w_pepper wrote: »

Re August 13th

...today the East German government, with probably a slight prodding from their big brothers in Moscow, started building the Berlin Wall, in effect the centerpiece of the Iron Curtain, separating East and West for the next 28 years and about three months, not to mention being sort of prominently displayed in OCTOPUSSY. Famous quote from then Chairman of the East German Communists, Walter Ulbricht, in June 1961: "No one has the intention of erecting a wall." Two months later, it was there.

1971: Diamonds Are Forever films Sean Connery's last scene with OO7 in a crematorium.
1979: Moonraker released in Denmark.

1987: Su nombre es peligro (His Name Is Danger) released in Argentina.

1987: James Bond 007 – Der Hauch des Todes (The Breeze Of The Death) released in West Germany.

2012: A Coca-Cola ad campaign related to Skyfall is revealed in the press. Slogan: "Unlock the 007 in You".

Coca-Cola Zero releases Skyfall
campaign continuing its
partnership with the James
Bond franchise

See the complete article here:

https://www.thedrum.com/news/2012/08/13/coca-cola-zero-releases-skyfall-campaign-continuing-its-partnership-james-bond

By Staff Writer-13 August 2012 11:57am

Coca-Cola Zero products will undergo a Bond themed makeover

The Coca-Cola Company has announced its Coca-Cola Zero brand is to team up with the 23rd installment of the James Bond series, Skyfall, as part of promotions for the films worldwide release this autumn.

The announcement continues Coca-Cola and James Bond’s successful partnership, which began in 2008 through the brand’s association with Quantum of Solace. This time the campaign will be asking fans to “Unlock the 007 In You.”

The association will see all Coke Zero products undergoing a special Bond themed makeover. The limited edition designs will feature across multiple pack formats, including cans, PET bottles and an aluminum bottle, all of which will showcase the famous Bond ‘gun barrel’ design.

Marketing Director for Coca-Cola Great Britain, Zoe Howorth, commented: “Skyfall is without a doubt one of this year’s most anticipated film releases, and we are very excited to be a part of it and to continue our relationship with the world’s favourite movie franchise.

“James Bond is a global cultural icon who consistently takes action to create what’s possible, making this the perfect partnership for Coca-Cola Zero.”

The campaign is set to roll out across TV, cinema, PR and outdoor advertising. Digital and social media campaigns, as well as on-pack promotions are also planned.

2015: The Telegraph reports that The Guardian reports that (black actor) David Oyelowo will be Bond.

Telegraph Culture Books What to Read

David Oyelowo to be James Bond (sort of)

See the complete article here:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/david-oyelowo-james-bond/

David Oyelowo to play James Bond in 'Trigger Mortis'
Credit: Rex/Richard Saker - Catherine Gee
13 August 2015 • 10:04am

British actor David Oyelowo is to play James Bond – though in voice only. The Guardian reports that the 39-year-old is set to read the audio edition of Trigger Mortis, a new novel commissioned by the Ian Fleming estate and written by Anthony Horowitz.

It’s set during the space race in 1957, two weeks after the events in Goldfinger. It will also contain previously unpublished material written by Fleming for Murder on Wheels, a television series that was never made. Oyelowo’s invitation to play Bond came directly from the Fleming estate.

“I am officially the only person on planet Earth who can legitimately say: ‘I am the new James Bond’ — even saying that name is the cinematic equivalent of doing the ‘to be or not to be’ speech,” he said. “I was asked specifically by the Fleming estate, which is really special.”

Oyelowo was born in Oxford and began his career on the stage with the Royal Shakespeare Company and became the first black actor to portray the title role in Henry VI in 2001. Last year he was a regular screen presence with roles in the HBO TV film Nightingale, Interstellar and A Most Violent Year.

The Bafta, Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated actor was also widely acclaimed for his role as Martin Luther King in Selma.

In a statement, Horowitz said: “What an honour to have an actor as talented as David to read my take on Bond. He has a brilliant voice and talent for bringing out the nuances of dialogue and characters.”

Oyelowo is not the first black actor to play the role of Bond in audio form. In 2012, Hugh Quarshie read the audiobook of Dr No as part of a box set.

The casting of cinema's next 007 is still yet to be announced, although rumours continue to circulate that Idris Elba will become the first black Bond – despite Elba ruling himself out. Daniel Craig is contractually obliged to play Bond in one more film after Spectre, which is released in November, but reports suggest he may be released from his contract early.

Trigger Mortis will be released on 8 September.

RichardTheBruce

August 14th

1962: The Thames Ditton factory delivers a 1962 AC Aceca Coupe to Ian Fleming.

Ian Fleming sports car under hammer at Goodwood Revival

See the complete article here:

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-11340815

17 September 2010

The car was delivered in the same year that
the writer finished The Spy Who Loved Me

A sports car once owned by James
Bond creator Ian Fleming is being
auctioned at the Goodwood Revival
in West Sussex.

The 1962 AC Aceca Coupe is said to be one of six surviving Ford-powered Acecas in the world.

Bonhams which is running the auction said the car had a pre-sale estimate of £100,000 to 130,000.

The two-seater, which is dark blue with a red leather interior, is recorded as having left the factory in Surrey in 1962 for delivery to Ian Fleming.

The car was delivered from the Thames Ditton factory to the writer on 14 August. It was the same year that he completed The Spy Who Loved Me.

According to Bonhams, Fleming kept the car for a year before selling it in 1963. Since then, it has changed hands several times.

Another car in the auction, with a sale estimate of £20,000 to £24,000, is a 1988 Jaguar XJ-S V12 soft-top convertible that once belonged to the Duchess of York.

And a 1953 Jaguar C-Type, the same make and model that won the Le Mans 24-Hours race twice in 1951 and 1953, will also be auctioned with a guide price of between £800,000 and £1m.

The auction is being held at the racing festival near Chichester on Friday evening.

1964: Agent 007 jages (Agent 007 Hunted) re-released in Denmark.

1964: Salainen agentti 007 Istanbulissa (Secret Agent 007 in Istanbul; also Swedish Den hemliga agenten 007 i Istanbul/The Secret Agent 007 in Istanbul) released in Finland.

1966: Halle Berry is born--Cleveland, Ohio.

1978: Moonraker filming begins in France.

1987: Spioner der ved daggry (Spies Die at Dawn) released in Denmark.

1987: The Living Daylights released in Zagreb, Yugoslavia.

1993: Domark publishes video game James Bond 007: The Duel--developed by The Kremlin, for use with Sega's Mega Drive/Genesis, Master System and Game Gear consoles. Timothy Dalton's last appearance in the role.

James Bond 007: The Duel (1993)

James Bond: The Duel (original title)
Action, Adventure, Thriller | Video game released 14 August 1993
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0483987/

In James Bond 007: The Duel, you must infiltrate a Caribbean island base where a mad professor is holding people hostage.
Writer: Ian Fleming (characters and universe)

https://www.imdb.com/video/vi1346813209?playlistId=tt0483987

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0483987/videoplayer/vi1346813209

2002: Peter Roger Hunt dies at age 77--Santa Monica, California. (Born 11 March 1925--London, England.)

Peter Hunt
The man who cut down 007

See the complete article here:

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2002/aug/16/guardianobituaries.filmnews[/center]

Ronald Bergan - Thu 15 Aug 2002 20.16 EDT

The film editor and director Peter Hunt, who has died aged 77, was associated with the huge success of the James Bond movies, the longest-running series in the history of the cinema. He edited the first five Bond films - generally considered the best - creating a style of sharp cutting that has been emulated by many editors and directors of action movies.

He also directed one, On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), mistakenly thought of as the worst of the Bond films because of George Lazenby's forgettable 007. The inexperienced Australian model carried the can for the film's comparative box-office failure, but Hunt was praised for his pacy, and seemingly effortless, direction.

Already with a decade of editing behind him, Hunt only reluctantly agreed to edit the first Bond film, Dr No (1962). "I was really not interested in doing it at all," he recalled. "But, then I thought, well, if the director is Terence Young, and I know him well enough, and I find him rather nice, maybe it will be alright." Previously, Hunt had suggested to Harry Saltzman that, in his search for an actor to portray James Bond, the producer look at the film he had just edited, the feeble army comedy On The Fiddle (1961), in which Sean Connery played a Gypsy pedlar.

The editing style of the Bond movies was established because, "if we kept the thing moving fast enough, people won't see the plot holes," what editors call "chets", or cheated editing tricks. "On Dr No, for example, there was a great deal missing from the film when we got back from shooting in Jamaica, and I had to cut it and revoice it in such a way as to make sense."

It was from then that Hunt decided to use jump cuts and quick cutting, and very few fade-ins, fade-outs and dissolves, which "destroy the tension of the film". The fight between Connery and Robert Shaw on board the Orient Express, in From Russia With Love (1963), took a total of 59 cuts in 115 seconds of film.

Born in London, Hunt learned his craft from an uncle who made government training and educational films. His first claim to fame was, in fact, appearing on a recruiting poster for the Boy Scouts Association when he was 16, and he read the lesson at Lord Baden-Powell's funeral. At 17, he joined the army, and was almost immediately shipped off to Italy, where he took part in the battle of Cassino.

After the war, he returned to work with his uncle, before becoming assistant cutter for Alexander Korda, and a fully fledged editor with Hill In Korea (1956). He worked with both Terence Young and Lewis Gilbert on a number of films prior to editing their Bond efforts.

Besides editing, Hunt directed some second-unit work on the Bond films, as well as the title sequence for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968). "I had a terrible time in the cutting room on You Only Live Twice (1967), with Donald Pleasance as Blofeld. Lewis [Gilbert] had made him into a camp, mini sort of villain. If you look at the film very carefully, Pleasance doesn't walk anywhere, because he had this mincing stride. He was so short that he looked like a little elf beside Connery. I used every bit of editing imagination I could so that he could be taken seriously as a villain."

Many purist Bond fans regret that Hunt never directed another 007 movie. His determination to be more faithful to the Ian Fleming original, even down to the death of the heroine (Diana Rigg) and the scaling down of gadgetry, puts On Her Majesty's Secret Service above many subsequent films in the series. It also happened to be the best picture he directed.

There followed two overlong adventure yarns set in Africa with Roger Moore, Gold (1974) and Shout At The Devil (1976); a couple of macho movies with Charles Bronson, Death Hunt (1981) and Assassination (1986); and the dispensable Wild Geese II (1985). But the work began to dry up, a situation that depressed the normally ebullient and energetic Hunt. In 1975, he settled in southern California with his partner Nicos Kourtis, who survives him.

Peter Roger Hunt, film editor and director, born March 11 1925; died August 14 2002

Peter R. Hunt (I) (1925–2002)

Editor | Director | Editorial Department
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0402597/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1

2008: Heineken renews its product placement in the Bond film franchise.

Heineken beer in James Bond movie Quantum of Solace

http://www.007museum.com/HeinekenQOS.htm"]007museum.com/HeinekenQOS.htm
Amsterdam, 14 August 2008 - Heineken International today announced that it will launch a worldwide promotional campaign for the 22nd James Bond film, “Quantum of Solace,” a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures’/Columbia Pictures’ release of EON Productions. The film, which will be released in movie theatres worldwide in November 2008, is Heineken’s 5th consecutive global partnership with one of the most successful and longest running movie franchises in history.

Stefan Orlowski, Group Commerce Director, Heineken N.V., said of the partnership: “Our long association with James Bond has helped enhance the profile of the Heineken brand across the world. The partnership supports our commitment to extend the brand’s leadership position within the international premium beer segment. Our global campaign offers a great opportunity to drive sales growth and to help build the value of Heineken's brand equity."

The new marketing campaign provides the opportunity for consumers to experience the premium, stylish and international world of James Bond. The campaign features leading lady Olga Kurylenko and was shot using actual film sets and scenes from the film. It includes TV and print advertising and on- and off-premise promotions, interactive and digital activities, radio promotions, consumer competitions and tie-ins with local premiere events. The campaign will be launched globally across an estimated 40 countries in October in conjunction with the worldwide release of the film.

Olga Kurylenko, who plays the role of Camille in the upcoming film, commented: “I am delighted to support Heineken’s global “Quantum of Solace” marketing campaign. Heineken has done a great job in making James Bond, Camille and the world of Bond connect with their iconic international brand.”

Melinda Eskell, Manager Heineken Brand Communication said: “We worked in close partnership with Eon and Columbia Pictures to ensure the global campaign remained authentic to the film and the James Bond franchise. The involvement of Olga Kurylenko combined with the use of other authentic Bond assets provides Heineken the unique opportunity to allow our consumers worldwide to experience the world of Bond.”

In “Quantum of Solace,” Daniel Craig reprises his role as Ian Fleming’s James Bond 007.The film is directed by Marc Forster, the screenplay is by Neal Purvis & Robert Wade and Paul Haggis and Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli producer.

2019: Dynamite Entertainment releases James Bond Origins #12.
Ibrahim Moustafa, artist. Jeff Parker, writer.

JAMES BOND ORIGIN #12 (OF 12)

https://www.dynamite.com/htmlfiles/viewProduct.html?PRO=C72513027244712011
Cover A: Dan Panosian
Cover B: Dean Kotz
Cover C: Vasco Georgiev
Cover D: Ibrahim Moustafa
Cover E: Bob Q
Writer: Jeff Parker, Ibrahim Moustafa
Art: Ibrahim Moustafa
Genre: Action/Adventure
Publication Date: August 2019
Format: Comic Book
Page Count: 32 Pages
ON SALE DATE: 8/14/2019

"The Debt: Finale"

In 1941, Lieutenant Bond finally learns the truth of his deceased mentor, Commander Weldon. But truth comes at a cost. The conclusion of Bond's adventures in 1941, by JEFF PARKER (Aquaman, Fantastic Four) and IBRAHIM MOUSTAFA (James Bond: Solstice, Mother Panic).

RichardTheBruce

August 15th

1944: Barbara Bouchet is born--Liberec, Czechia.

1947: Jenny Hanley is born--Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, England.

Jenny Hanley about her work on On Her
Majesty’s Secret Service

See the complete article here:

http://iluminar.tv/jenny-hanley-about-her-work-on-on-her-majestys-secret-service/

March 16, 2019

This interview originally appeared on From Sweden with Love
https://jamesbond007.se/eng/intervjuer/jenny_hanley_on_her_majestys_secret_service_interview

By Mark Cerulli

FSWL contributor and LA correspondent Mark Cerulli talks to English actress
Jenny Hanley,
the Irish girl in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969) starring
George Lazenby
as Ian Fleming’s 007 that celebrates its 50th Anniversary this year.

A Girl On The Mountain
One of my first questions for the wonderful British actress Jenny Hanley was “When did you get bit by the acting bug?” Her answer was a total surprise – no “acting bug” bit, instead, she was born into show business…

“Both my parents were actors and my grandparents were professional photographers,” Jenny states. (One of their clients was none other than future-Bond, Sir Roger Moore) She studied child psychology and had her sights on a quiet career as a nanny. It was her brother who wanted to be an actor, and yet she got all the breaks – being sent to modeling school, being spotted and suddenly finding herself in front of the camera in commercials and on magazine covers. Not the easiest transition for the painfully shy young woman.

“I wasn’t a wall flower, I was lichen!” the actress remembers with a laugh.

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was Jenny’s second film. (Her first was a one scene walk on in 1968’s hedonistic British drama Joanna) None other than Harry Saltzman spotted her in a commercial and wanted to include her in the stable of young women he was building for use in films. (During Hollywood’s “Golden” era, studios groomed young talent, giving them acting and voice lessons along with other training. The UK’s Rank Organization had a similar “charm school”.) Saltzman, as always thinking ahead, envisioned building a similar talent pool for Bond films and other projects.

Harry offered her a movie straight away, “But the part had a nude scene which I wouldn’t do…” Jenny recalled. Instead Saltzman suggested she “… go off to Switzerland [Schilthorn Piz Gloria] and have fun for a few weeks.” And just like that Jenny had a role in the next Bond film! The producer also told her that she had to wear a red wig as they already had several blondes in the cast.

Jenny felt right at home on the set as she had worked with many members of OHMSS’s female cast – including Joanna Lumley, Anouska Hempel (now one of the most successful interior designers in Europe) and her London neighbor, Catherine Schnell.

When asked about her memories of Harry Saltzman, Jenny mentioned going into his office, off London’s ritzy Park Lane: “It was a very masculine office, with dark furniture and a leather sofa that was so deep if you sat on it and leaned back, your feet were up off the floor like a child.” And if that weren’t intimidating enough, “Harry was behind an enormous desk up on a plinth, so he was definitely the King!” Of course he was – as half of the most successful producing team in movie history. The Bond films literally coined money and Saltzman and Albert “Cubby” Broccoli wielded immense power, yet both men treated her royally – “Harry was very sweet,” Jenny recalls, adding, “And Cubby was just as his name suggests, ‘Cuddly Cubby’.”

She also called director Peter Hunt “a gentle soul” although, “Peter didn’t have much to do with us because we didn’t have much to do.”

While she said Hunt wasn’t a “strong” director, “He made a really good film and he knew what he wanted. By gosh, the fight scenes, the skiing and car chases were brilliantly done!” Jenny also recalled an incident that shows how the Bond production team would let nothing stand in the way of getting a great shot: “There was a scene up on the mountain, and there wasn’t enough snow, so Peter sent a helicopter to another mountain and they filled up a huge upside-down parachute with snow and made several trips so we had enough snow! In a Bond movie, it was all possible to do…”

In terms of “character development”, there wasn’t a lot for Jenny’s Irish Girl – “I sat around and practiced my Irish accent and wound up not saying anything at all,” Jenny remembers with a chuckle. “I always say that a standard lamp could have done what I did in the film.” (A very beautiful standard lamp!)

For the Bond girls on location – every day began the same: “We were picked up in a horse drawn carriage, bundled in furs just to take us to the cable car to go up the mountain…. it was slightly surreal,” she marvels. Light workload or not, her memories of the set were nothing but positive… “Cubby wanted everything to be a family, which was sweet. And while we were out in Switzerland, his son was going to have his first haircut, which was to be a celebration and everyone was invited. It was great!”

Jenny also had a connection to the new Bond – George Lazenby – having met him when she was modeling. While he was friendly and fun to be around, Jenny recalled a bit of his strong personality coming out when he visited a local restaurant without a reservation. When told it was booked, he came back with, “Don’t you know who I am?” One hopes he got that table!

Of course, the pressure George was under was enormous, with the future of one of Cinema’s most valuable franchises riding on his relatively inexperienced shoulders. Fortunately, Lazenby had enough self-confidence for five men, so he was able to shrug the stress off and do the work.

“He carried the film and he did it beautifully… he had a good sense of humor and we got on well,” Jenny remembers.

The actress is also full of admiration for George’s famous independent streak.

“I remember his coming back for the premiere with long sideburns and facial fur (!) and being told, ‘That’s not Bond, got to a barber and get yourself shaved so you look like Bond’ and George said ‘No, I won’t.’ That was George!”

Looking back on On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Jenny has nothing but good feelings about the film. “It was good fun to do, ” she said, “And being a part of such an extraordinary franchise, Cubby made it like family and we are a family because we still meet up [at conventions] and EON [Productions] is very keen on keeping that family together.”

As On Her Majesty’s Secret Service turns 50 this year the film will be celebrated with two unique events in Portugal and Switzerland, the latter co-hosted by Schilthornbahn AG and Martijn Mulder’s On The Tracks of 007, in May and June.

1964: England buries Ian Lancaster Fleming at Sevenhampton, near Swindon, England.

Omnia perfunctus vitae praemia, marces, meaning
"Having enjoyed all life's prizes, you now decay."
On the Nature of Things (De rerum natura)

1983: Octopussy released in Denmark.

https://www.bond-o-rama.dk/en/op-dk-poster-1983/

https://www.bond-o-rama.dk/en/octopussy-dk-ad-sheet-1983/

1987: “If There Was a Man” by Chrissie Hynde and The Pretenders charts in the U.K., eventually reaching #49.

[img][/img]

1997: Tomorrow Never Dies films OO7 firing rockets at the bad guys.

2012: An official James Bond scent becomes available at Harrod's.

For your nose only: James Bond gets his first fragrance

By Oliver Franklin-Wallis
Friday 27 July 2012

See the complete article here:

https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/james-bond-007-official-fragrance

Whether in Ian Fleming's novels or the film outings, 007 has never been subtle about his preference for particular brands of car, drink or tailor - but Bond was never particularly forthcoming about his choice of cologne. (The closest we get is Fleming's own preference for Floris No.89.) That's all set to change with the unveiling of the first official James Bond fragrance, arriving in September from P&G to mark the franchise's 50th anniversary. Thankfully, the scent eschews hints of Aston Martin leather and martini top notes for a modern take on classic Sixties fragrances, with hints of fresh apple, cardamom, sandalwood and vetiver. Because given what we've seen of Daniel Craig's motorcycle-riding, Bérénice-seducing, Heineken-swigging hero in Skyfall, he's going to need to freshen up...

£25 for 50ml. Available exclusively at Harrods from 15 August 15. Available nationwide from 19 September. 007.com

2017: Daniel Craig confirms his return for BOND 25.

2019: Sotheby's auctions an Aston Martin DB5.

Calling All Secret Agents: James Bond’s 1965 Aston
Martin DB5 Is Up for Auction
By Sotheby's

See the complete article here:

https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/james-bonds-1965-aston-martin-db5-goldfinger-rm-monterey-auction

Automobiles | RM Sotheby's | Jun 12, 2019

RM Sotheby’s, the official auction house of Aston Martin, is offering perhaps the most iconic Aston Martin of all time to lead ‘An Evening with Aston Martin,’ a special single-marque sale session at the 2019 Monterey auction on 15 August. Featuring thirteen functioning Bond modifications, the James Bond 007 Aston Martin DB5 is one of just three surviving examples commissioned in period by Eon Productions and fitted with MI6 Q Branch specifications as pictured in Goldfinger.

No one could have predicted the fabulously successful multi-decade synergy that would develop when production designer Ken Adam and special effects man John Stears visited Aston Martin’s Newport-Pagnell plant in late 1963. The two men were on a mission to source a pair of the latest Aston Martin models for use in Eon Productions’ third adaptation of an Ian Fleming novel, again about the MI6 superspy with a license to kill, James Bond. The film was called Goldfinger.

https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/james-bonds-1965-aston-martin-db5-goldfinger-rm-monterey-auction
Monterey 2019: The Most Famous Car in the World

Two near-identical cars were built and loaned to Eon Productions for filming, with each fulfilling various roles; one for stunt driving and chase sequences and therefore needing to be lightweight and fast, and the other for interior shots and close-ups, to be equipped with functional modifications created by Stears. As Desmond Llewelyn’s legendary weapons-master Q would go on to explain to Sean Connery’s 007, the Snow Shadow Gray-painted DB5 was equipped with front and rear hydraulic over-rider rams on the bumpers, a Browning .30 caliber machine gun in each fender, wheel-hub mounted tire-slashers, a raising rear bullet-proof screen, an in-dash radar tracking scope, oil, caltrop and smoke screen dispensers, revolving license plates, and a passenger-seat ejection system. Although never used during the film, the car was also equipped with a telephone in the driver’s door to communicate with MI6 headquarters and a hidden compartment under the driver’s seat containing several weapons.

https://rmsothebys.com/en/auctions/mo19/monterey/lots/r0050-1965-aston-martin-db5-bond-car/778818
The 1965 Aston Martin DB5 Bond Car to be offered at RM Sotheby’s Monterey sale.
Estimate $4,000,000–6,000,000. (Simon Clay © 2019 Courtesy of RM Sotheby’s)

The smash success of Goldfinger was also a success for Aston Martin, which saw DB5 sales surge to fuel an unprecedented level of production. The producers at Eon also took notice of the enormous appeal and potential marketing opportunities. In preparation for Thunderball’s release, the company ordered two more DB5 saloons, receiving chassis nos. DB5/2008/R, the example on offer at RM Sotheby’s Monterey sale, and DB5/2017/R. The two cars were fitted with all of Stears’ Goldfinger modifications and were shipped to the United States for promotional duties for Thunderball.

https://sothebys-com.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/2169d51/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3734x2667+133+0/resize/1158x827!/quality/90/?url=http://sothebys-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com/dotcom/d1/a9/0171062a4cdc911fc3e15c7d25d3/1965-aston-martin-db5-bond-car-simon-clay-c-2019-courtesy-of-rm-sothebys-5.jpg
https://sothebys-com.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/9eae80e/2147483647/strip/true/crop/6273x4480+447+0/resize/1158x827!/quality/90/?url=http://sothebys-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com/dotcom/bf/8a/376eed504a62bcd24e5c623cb566/1965-aston-martin-db5-bond-car-simon-clay-c-2019-courtesy-of-rm-sothebys-10.jpg
A look at the interior gadgets in the Bond DB5
(Simon Clay © 2019 Courtesy of RM Sotheby’s)

Following the tour, the two cars were no longer required as the next two Bond films debuted with different, more current automobiles in the hero roles and, accordingly, they were quietly offered for sale in 1969. The cars were soon purchased as a pair by well-known collector Anthony (now Lord) Bamford, whose British registration for chassis no. 2008/R remains on file. The Aston Martin build record lists Eon Productions as the original purchaser, with the important designation of being a “(Bond Car)” noted. Bamford then sold DB5/2008/R to B.H. Atchley, the owner of the Smokey Mountain Car Museum in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. The Aston Martin was featured as the museum’s centerpiece, remaining in a pristine state of display for 35 years, receiving regular start-ups for exercise. In 2006, RM Sotheby’s (previously RM Auctions) was privileged to offer this very Bond DB5 for public sale, in a largely unrestored state.

https://sothebys-com.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/ad110d1/2147483647/strip/true/crop/5184x3456+0+0/resize/1154x769!/quality/90/?url=http://sothebys-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com/dotcom/aa/3e/feafe1034c408cf92f0b47e5ca75/1965-aston-martin-db5-bond-car-simon-clay-c-2019-courtesy-of-rm-sothebys-4.jpg
The smoke screen dispenser on the DB5 is engaged
(Simon Clay © 2019 Courtesy of RM Sotheby’s)

Since that time, a well-documented, no-expense spared restoration by Switzerland’s esteemed Roos Engineering was completed. Roos Engineering is one of 13 specialist facilities whom Aston Martin have appointed as official Heritage Specialists. Not only were the chassis and body completely refinished to proper standards, but all thirteen of the John Stears-designed Bond modifications were properly refurbished to function as originally built.

The Bond DB5 will be on view at Sotheby's New York from 28 June through 31 July.

2019: Esquire reports on an auction of James Bond's Rolex.

James Bond's rarest Rolex is going up for auction

It was worn by Sean Connery in James Bond's first proper film outing 'Dr. No'

See the complete article here:

https://www.esquireme.com/content/37926-james-bonds-rarest-rolex-is-going-up-for-auction

15 August 2019 | Esquire Editors

Rolex, James Bond, Sotheby's, Auction

Along with extrajudicial killings and flagrant affairs, James Bond liked his watches.

Very much so. From Ian Fleming's original imagining to the Roger Moore of Octopussy, 007 has enjoyed multiple watches including (but not limited to) Omega, Hamilton and Rolex. And a key Bond memento from the latter is now up for grabs at Sotheby's.

As per the oral history of Dr. No, the Big Crown Submariner ref. 6538 was loaned to Sean Connery by producer Albert "Cubby" Broccoli: the closest relative to the Rolex Oyster Perpetual of Fleming's novels which, in fact, did not actually exist. The 6538 - a piece that ceased production in 1959 - has been considered something of a rarity ever since its starring role, and although Connery's specific wristwear isn't on auction, the model is still a highly desirable piece due to the big Bond connection.

The vintage Rolex bit helps, too.

The piece in question boasts several features that'd send an ardent horologist into self-destruct mode. First, there's the tropical dial, which has evolved into a chocolate brown shade over time. Once thought of as a ball drop on Rolex's part, it's since become a prized attribute by collectors. Moreover, text to the dial that proves the watch's COSC accreditation (that's the Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres to non-watch folk - a sign of rigorous testing and accuracy) separates this particular piece from the first Big Crown Submariners. Hallmarks of collectability are in the detail, of which the the ref. 6538 has many.

Fancy your chances? Well, you're not alone. With the piece expected to fetch between £149,000 to £232,000 at auction, there'll be serious competition to own a cousin of Bond's celluloid history. And if that wasn't enough, final prices regularly exceed estimates in lots of great rarity. Hurrah!

Thunderfinger

Every time I click on this thread, I get notified about the blocking of an infected web source-toysofbond.uk. It has been going on for a while now. Something bad embedded in one of the pictures

BT3366

Thunderfinger wrote: »

Every time I click on this thread, I get notified about the blocking of an infected web source-toysofbond.uk. It has been going on for a while now. Something bad embedded in one of the pictures

I had that too for a while but its since gone away.

RichardTheBruce

Thanks @Thunderfinger and @BT3366, I've removed that source from this page and can avoid it in the future. Definitely let me know if it's still an issue or reappears.

Thunderfinger

RichardTheBruce wrote: »

Thanks @Thunderfinger and @BT3366, I've removed that source from this page and can avoid it in the future. Definitely let me know if it's still an issue or reappears.

Happened again right now. This time toysofbond.uk/Images_mags_cinema_avtak. Earlier it has also been due to toysofbond.uk/Images_mags_videoplay-tld. There may not necessarily be anything wrong, but Bitdefender seems to think so.

RichardTheBruce

August 16th

1944: Maud Russell writes about Ian Fleming in her diary.

Spies, affairs and James Bond... The
secret diary of Ian Fleming's wartime
mistress

See the complete article here:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/spies-affairs-james-bond-secret-diary-ian-flemings-wartime-mistress/p/center]

Wednesday 16 August, 1944

Ian dined on Monday and did he breathe a word of the invasion of
the Riviera which happened the next day? No, not a word, the beast.

1952: Lieutenant-Commander Ian Fleming's service in the RNVR ( Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve) Special Branch ends with his removal from the active list.
1952: Ian Fleming types out a letter to wife Ann.

"My love, This is only a tiny letter to try out my new typewriter
and to see if it will write golden words since it is made of gold."

1958: Madonna Louise Ciccone is born--Bay City, Michigan.

1965: Daily Variety reports the filmmakers now consider filming one of eight Fleming novels, including On Her Majesty's Secret Service with an existing screenplay by Richard Maibaum.
1966: The Times of London prints “Bulldog Drummond Was a Gentleman: Moral Decline Illustrated by James Bond.”

1973: 鐵金剛勇破 黑魔黨 (Tiě jīngāng yǒng pò hēi mó dǎng; Iron King Mafia, or Iron King Kong Breaks the Black Devil) released in Hong Kong.

1977: Spionen som elsket meg released in Norway.

1982: Octopussy filming begins with Moneypenny at MI6.
1984: Roger Moore and cast are photographed at Chantilly, France.

1985: Med doden i sikte (With Death in Sight) released in Norway.

1989: Permis de tuer released in France.

1995: Roger Moore comments on Pierce Brosnan in GoldenEye.

"Both Sean Connery and I will be forgotten after everybody sees Pierce."

2007: Fourteen cameras film the Palio di Siena horse race, Siena, Italy.

2017: The press continue to overwhelmingly report Daniel Craig committing to BOND 25.
2017: Dynamite Entertainment publishes James Bond Kill Chain #2.

JAMES BOND: KILL CHAIN #2 (OF 6)

https://www.dynamite.com/htmlfiles/viewProduct.html?PRO=C72513026017802011
Cover A: Greg Smallwood
Writer: Andy Diggle
Art: Luca Casalanguida
Genre: Action/Adventure, Media Tie-In
Publication Date: August 2017
Page Count: 32 Pages
ON SALE DATE: 8/16

As tensions rise between MI6 and CIA, James Bond investigates the death of a fellow agent. Someone is smuggling military-grade weapons to European neo-Nazis, an arms pipeline stretching from the gutters of Munich to the upper echelons of Swiss high society. The trail will lead 007 to an old friend, a deadly betrayal, and an enigmatic art connoisseur named Chantal Chevalier.

RichardTheBruce

August 17th

1923: Julius Harris is born--Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
(He dies 17 October 2004 at age 81--Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California.)

Julius Harris, 81; Broke Stereotypes of Movie Roles for Black Actors

See the complete article here:

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-oct-22-me-harris22-story.html

By Dennis McLellan, Times Staff Writer
Oct. 22, 2004

Julius Harris, the deep-voiced stage and screen actor who played the villainous Tee Hee in the James Bond film Live and Let Die and Ugandan President Idi Amin in the TV movie “Victory at Entebbe,” has died. He was 81.

Harris, a former member of the Negro Ensemble Company in New York City, died of heart failure Sunday at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital in Woodland Hills.

In an acting career that spanned four decades, Harris appeared in more than 70 film and television productions.

He played such diverse roles as a preacher who headed a slave group in the 1982 Civil War miniseries “The Blue and the Gray” and a gangster in the 1972 blaxploitation film classic “Superfly.”

“Even today, if I am walking in a black neighborhood, people call me by my ‘Superfly’ name -- Scatter,” Harris told The Times last October before being honored with a tribute by the Next Generation Council of the Motion Picture & Television Fund’s Legacy Film Series at the Directors Guild of America Theatre.

“His work helped African Americans break out of stereotypical movie roles and be seen as dynamic heroes and fully realized human beings,” actress Halle Berry said in a taped introduction to Harris’ film work.

A Philadelphia native whose mother was a Cotton Club dancer and whose father was a musician, Harris served as an Army medic during World War II. After leaving the service in 1950, he found work as an orderly and eventually became a nurse before moving to New York City.

As a regular at a Greenwich Village bar, he became friends with James Earl Jones, Yaphet Kotto, Al Freeman, Louis Gossett Jr. and other actors, whom he teased for being out of work.

“I would say to them, ‘You bums. You are always broke. What kind of actors are you? ... I can do your job with my arms tied behind my back,’ ” he recalled in The Times interview.

To back up his claim, he landed the small role of Ivan Dixon’s drunk, defeated father in “Nothing but a Man,” a critically acclaimed 1964 film about black life in the South starring Dixon and Abbey Lincoln.

“Not knowing the business, feeling I had to be in character, I got me a pint of bourbon, some of the worst rotgut stuff I could get,” Harris said.

When he arrived on the set, the producer and director took one look at him and said, “We can’t do anything with you today, Julius, but if you are the man we think you are, you’ll come back tomorrow.”

Harris said: “I was so embarrassed. So I went back home, sobered up and came back the next day and did the master [shot] in [one] take and close-ups in two [takes] and went home.”

In his review of the film, The Times’s Kevin Thomas deemed Harris’ performance superb.

He is survived by his children, Kimberly and Gideon.

A private memorial service will be held.

Julius Harris (1923–2004)

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0364918/?ref_=nv_sr_1?ref_=nv_sr_1

Filmography

Actor (92 credits)

1997 ER (TV Series) - Gramps
- Random Acts (1997) ... Gramps
1996 The Burning Zone (TV Series) - Tribal Shaman
- The Silent Tower (1996) ... Tribal Shaman
1994 Shrunken Heads - Mr. Sumatra
1993 The Gifted
1993 Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence - Houngan
1992 The Boys (TV Movie) - Doc
1992 Eerie, Indiana (TV Series) - Prop Man
- Reality Takes a Holiday (1992) ... Prop Man
1992 Jake and the Fatman (TV Series) - James Allan Chester
- Pennies from Heaven (1992) ... James Allan Chester
1992 Grave Secrets: The Legacy of Hilltop Drive (TV Movie) - Elderly Farmer
1991 Last Breeze of Summer (Short) - The Reverend
1991 Civil Wars (TV Series) - Judge Adams
- Pilot (1991) ... Judge Adams
1991 Murder, She Wrote (TV Series) - Jack Lee Johnson
- Judge Not (1991) ... Jack Lee Johnson
1991 Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man - Old Man
1991 The Golden Girls (TV Series) - Mr. Lewis
- Older and Wiser (1991) ... Mr. Lewis
1990 Prayer of the Rollerboys - Speedbagger
1990 Dragnet (TV Series) - Mr. Leyland
- Living Victim (1990) ... Mr. Leyland
1990 Darkman - Gravedigger
1990 To Sleep with Anger - Herman

1989 1st & Ten (TV Series) - Willie Buck Newton
- The Irreducible Bottom Line (1989) ... Willie Buck Newton
1989 Friday the 13th: The Series (TV Series) - Simpson
- The Butcher (1989) ... Simpson
1988 Split Decisions - Tony Leone
1987 Frank's Place (TV Series) - Mr. Kicks
- Cool and the Gang: Part 2 (1987) ... Mr. Kicks
- Cool and the Gang: Part 1 (1987) ... Mr. Kicks
1987 A Gathering of Old Men (TV Movie) - Coot
1987 Outlaws (TV Series) - Butch
- Primer (1987) ... Butch
1986 The Love Boat (TV Series) - Minister
- The Shipshape Cruise (1986) ... Minister
1986 Capitol (TV Series) - Papa Nebo
- Episode dated 6 October 1986 (1986) ... Papa Nebo
1986 Hollywood Vice Squad - Jesse
1983-1986 Cagney & Lacey (TV Series) - Sgt. Major Brennan / Bardo
- Post Partum (1986) ... Sgt. Major Brennan
- The Grandest Jewel Thief of Them All (1983) ... Bardo
1986 My Chauffeur - Johnson
1985 Amazing Stories (TV Series) - Joe
- Mr. Magic (1985) ... Joe
1985 Crimewave - Hardened Convict
1985 Hollywood Wives (TV Mini-Series) - Reverend Daniel
- Episode #1.1 (1985) ... Reverend Daniel
1984 The Jeffersons (TV Series) - Rev. Taylor
- They Don't Make Preachers Like Him Anymore (1984) ... Rev. Taylor
1984 Benson (TV Series) - Uncle Buster
- The Reunion (1984) ... Uncle Buster
1984 Booker (TV Movie) - Lee
1984 Gone Are the Dayes (TV Movie) - Man #1
1984 The Enchanted - Booker T
1984 Hart to Hart (TV Series) - Krohn
- Slam Dunk (1984) ... Krohn
1983 Going Berserk - Judge
1983 Missing Pieces (TV Movie) - Spencer Harris
1983 St. Elsewhere (TV Series) - Earl
- Graveyard (1983) ... Earl
1981-1982 Simon & Simon (TV Series) - Jules / Montgomery
- Thin Air (1982) ... Jules
- The Least Dangerous Game (1981) ... Montgomery (as Julius W. Harris)
1982 Voyagers! (TV Series) - Auctioneer
- The Travels of Marco... and Friends (1982) ... Auctioneer
1982 The Blue and the Gray (TV Mini-Series) - Preacher / Swamp Preacher
- Part 3 (1982) ... Preacher (credit only)
- Part 2 (1982) ... Preacher
- Part 1 (1982) ... Swamp Preacher (credit only)
1981 Full Moon High - Hijacker (uncredited)
1981 Circle of Power - B.B.
1981 Thornwell (TV Movie) - Frisco
1980 First Family - Ambassador Longo
1980 Gorp - Fred the Chef

1979 Uptown Saturday Night (TV Movie) - Geechie Dan
1979 Delta Fox
Tiny (as Julius W. Harris)
1979 The Incredible Hulk (TV Series) - Doc Alden
- The Slam (1979) ... Doc Alden
1978-1979 Insight (TV Series) - Baggott / Avry
- Plus Time Served (1979) ... Baggott
- The Flawed Magi (1978) ... Avry
1979 Vega$ (TV Series) - Yancy
- Kill Dan Tanna! (1979) ... Yancy
1978 B.J. and the Bear (TV Series) - Colonel Whitmore
- The Foundlings (1978) ... Colonel Whitmore
1978 To Kill a Cop (TV Movie) - Detective Baker
1978 The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries (TV Series) - Mr. Dove
- Voodoo Doll, Part II (1978) ... Mr. Dove
- Voodoo Doll: Part 1 (1978) ... Mr. Dove
1978 Ring of Passion (TV Movie) - Chappie Jackson
1977 The Fat Albert Christmas Special (TV Short) - Mr. Tyrone (voice)
1977 Kojak (TV Series) - Joe Addison
- Once More from Birdland (1977) ... Joe Addison
1977 Looking for Mr. Goodbar - Black Cat
1977 Alambrista! - 2nd Drunk
1977 Visions (TV Series) - Second Drunk
- Alambrista! (1977) ... Second Drunk
1977 Islands in the Stream - Joseph
1977 Sanford and Son (TV Series) - Doctor
- The Will (1977) ... Doctor
1976 Good Times (TV Series) - Ben Foster
- Florida's Night Out (1976) ... Ben Foster
1976 Victory at Entebbe (TV Movie) - President Idi Amin (as Julius W. Harris)
1976 King Kong - Boan
1976 Rich Man, Poor Man (TV Mini-Series) - Augie
- Part II: Chapters 3 and 4 (1976) ... Augie
1975 Friday Foster - Monk Riley
1975 Ellery Queen (TV Series) - Doyle the Butler
- The Adventure of the Mad Tea Party (1975) ... Doyle the Butler
1975 Let's Do It Again - Bubbletop Woodson
1975 Doctors' Hospital (TV Series) - Tolan
- Knives of Chance (1975) ... Tolan
1975 Cannon (TV Series) - Millner
- Search and Destroy (1975) ... Millner
1975 A Cry for Help (TV Movie) - George Rigney (as Julius W. Harris)
1975 Harry O (TV Series) - Arthur 'Art Sully' Daniels
- Sound of Trumpets (1975) ... Arthur 'Art Sully' Daniels
1974-1975 Salty (TV Series) - Clancy
- The Vigil (1975) ... Clancy
- To Taylor from Salty with Love (1975) ... Clancy
- Sentimental Value (1975) ... Clancy
- A Sense of Worth (1975) ... Clancy
- Scape Goat (1974) ... Clancy
... 20 episodes
1974 The Taking of Pelham One Two Three - Inspector Daniels
1973 Blade - Card Player
1973 Hell Up in Harlem - Papa Gibbs (as Julius W. Harris)
1973 Shock-a-bye, Baby (TV Movie)
1973 The Bob Newhart Show (TV Series) - Mr. Billings
- Blues for Mr. Borden (1973) ... Mr. Billings
1973 Salty - Clancy Ames (as Julius W. Harris)
1973 Live and Let Die - Tee Hee (as Julius W. Harris)
1973 Black Caesar - Mr. Gibbs (as Julius W. Harris)
1972 Trouble Man - Big
1972 Super Fly - Scatter (as Julius W. Harris)
1972 Shaft's Big Score! - Capt. Bollin (as Julius W. Harris)
1971 Incident in San Francisco (TV Movie) - Henry Carter

1969 Slaves - Shadrach
1968-1969 N.Y.P.D. (TV Series) - Hector / Banks
- Candy Man: Part 2 (1969) ... Hector
- Candy Man: Part 1 (1969) ... Hector
- Which Side Are You On? (1968) ... Banks
1964 Nothing But a Man - Will Anderson

1964: CBC-TV Explorations airs Ian Fleming: The Brain Behind Bond, the author's last recorded interview.

Ian Fleming: the brain behind Bond

See the complete article here:

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1856624190

56 years ago Archives 27:16

Explorations airs an intimate chat with James Bond creator Ian Fleming.

See it here:

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1856624190/

Ian Fleming: The Brain
Behind Bond

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1327351/trivia?ref_=tt_ql_2
27min | Documentary | Episode aired 17 August 1964

Trivia

This interview was first broadcast by CBC-TV's Explorations five days after Ian Fleming passed away.

1968: Helen Elizabeth McCrory is born--London, England.
(She dies at 16 April 2021 at age 52--London, England.)
(Born 17 August 1968--Paddington, London, England.)

Helen McCrory, British ‘Skyfall’ and
‘Harry Potter’ Actress, Dies at Age 52

‘GO NOW, LITTLE ONE’

See the complete article here:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/helen-mccrory-british-skyfall-and-harry-potter-actress-dies-at-age-52

Cheyenne Roundtree | Entertainment Reporter
Published Apr. 16, 2021 12:18PM ET

Photo: Stuart C. Wilson

British actress Helen McCrory has died of cancer at age 52 surrounded by family, her husband, actor Damian Lewis, announced Friday. “I’m heartbroken to announce that after a heroic battle with cancer, the beautiful and mighty woman that is Helen McCrory has died peacefully at home, surrounded by a wave of love from friends and family,” he wrote on Twitter. “She died as she lived. Fearlessly. God we love her and know how lucky we are to have had her in our lives. She blazed so brightly. Go now, Little One, into the air, and thank you.” Lewis and McCrory had been married for 14 years, with 14-year-old daughter Manon and 13-year-old son Gulliver.

With more than 72 acting credits to her name, McCrory was best known for her roles in Peaky Blinders, the Harry Potter franchise, and the James Bond movie Skyfall.

Helen McCrory (1968–2021)

Actress
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0567031/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

1973: Live and Let Die released in Ireland.
1979: Kuuraketti (Swedish: Månraketen, Moon Rocket) released in Finland.

Not to be confused with:

1979: Måneraketten released in Norway.

1984 paperback of the Fleming novel.

1984: Albert R. Broccoli is photographed with Bond Girls, Bond.

1999: The World Is Not Enough films OO7 leaping from a Swiss banker's office to ground level.
1999: Desmond Llewelyn launches the James Bond 007: A License To Thrill motion simulator, Trocadero, London.

License to Thrill (1999)

4min | Short, Action | 1999 (USA)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0853249/

Motion Simulator Ride Film. POV James Bond as he rides a motorcycle, shoots it out with bad guys, leaps onto the trailing ladder of a helicopter from a moving train, dodges bullets and explosions, finally landing on a jet ski and saving the kidnapped girl. The most complex live action ride film ever made.
—Keith Melton (original work)

Full Cast & Crew
Directed by Keith Melton
Writing Credits (in alphabetical order)
Gary Goddard ... (writer)
Ty Granoroli ... (writer)
Cast
Judi Dench ... M (Barbara Mawdsley)
Desmond Llewelyn ... Q
Sonny Surowiec ... Lead
Brian Rogers ... producer
Cinematography by Suki Medencevic
Film Editing by Harry B. Miller III
Art Direction by Andrew Max Cahn
Sound Department
James Fielden ... re-recording mixer / supervising sound editor
Stunts
Laura Albert ... stunts
Sonny Surowiec ... stunt performer
Camera and Electrical Department
Pat O'Mara ... grip
Max Penner ... camera operator
Music Department
James Fielden ... music editor
Gary Guttman ... composer: additional music
Script and Continuity Department
Katalin Rogers ... script supervisor (as Katalin Kovacs Rogers)
Other crew
Curtis DeMartini ... production assistant

James Bond 007: A License To Thrill
(partially found motion simulator ride;
1998-2002)

https://lostmediawiki.com/James_Bond_007:_A_License_To_Thrill_(partially_found_motion_simulator_ride;_1998-2002)

2015: Premiere of the OMEGA Seamaster 300 Spectre Limited Edition wristwatch.

2016: Dynamite Entertainment releases James Bond #9 Eidolon Part Three.
Jason Masters, artist. Warren Ellis, writer.

JAMES BOND #9

https://www.dynamite.com/htmlfiles/viewProduct.html?PRO=C72513024181809011
Cover A: Dom Reardon
Writer: Warren Ellis
Art: Jason Masters
Genre: Action/Adventure, Media Tie-In
Publication Date: August 2016
Format: Comic Book
Page Count: 32 pages
ON SALE DATE: 8/17

EIDOLON, Part Three: Bond is sent to breach a secret base in the depths of England, alone, without back-up, and fully deniable: a place from Cold War history, with only one way in and one way out, while the forces of security services all over the world are seemingly ranged against MI6, and all Bond has is his gun and a few pieces of a bloody, dark puzzle...

RichardTheBruce

August 18th

1957: Carole Bouquet is born--Neuilly-sur-Seine, Seine, France.

1960: Ian Fleming's letter to Richard Chopping instructs the design of the Thunderball book cover.

"Two cards will definitely be better than one,
and the second card should be an ace —
perhaps the Ace of Spades — if you can bear
the additional labour.

"Secondly, I think the Queen of Diamonds
would be better than the Queen of Hearts
as money is a keynote of the book."

1971: Robert Peter Fleming dies 18 August 1971 at age 64--Black Mount, Scotland.
Born 31 May 1907--Mayfair, London, England.
1973: John Barry conducts the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl--"The James Bond Suite".
1979: Moonraker released in Sweden.

1979: The Moonraker soundtrack long play (LP) record makes the music charts.

1982: Octopussy films the auctioning of The Property of a Lady.

1988: The Licence to Kill production relocates from Mexico City to Key West, Florida.

2014: Tom Pevsner dies at age 87--Fife, Scotland. (Born 2 October 1926--Dresden, Germany.)

Tom Pevsner

See the complete article here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Pevsner

Born Thomas C. Pevsner, 2 October 1926, Dresden, Germany
Died 18 August 2014 (aged 87), Fife, Scotland, United Kingdom
Nationality British
Alma mater University of Cambridge
Occupation Assistant film director and producer
Years active 1953–95
Parent(s) Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, Lola Pevsner

Tom Pevsner (2 October 1926 – 18 August 2014) was a British assistant film director and producer whose career spanned more than four decades.

He was the second of three children born to Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, an architectural historian of Russian-Jewish origin. The family emigrated from Germany in 1933 to escape the Nazi regime.

He served in the British Army from 1944 to 1948 before studying modern languages at the University of Cambridge, where he was a member of the St John's College Film Society. He was editor of The Cambridge Review; after graduating he went to work at the Film Finance Corporation.

Tom Pevsner's s notable credits include assistant director on The Ladykillers (1955) The Longest Day (1962) and The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970) and as producer for Dracula. He worked as associate, then executive producer on every James Bond film from For Your Eyes Only to GoldenEye. His contribution to the Bond series is acknowledged in the later Bond film Spectre, when Q states that he is staying at a hotel named Pevsner.

He died in 2014 aged 87. He was included in the In Memoriam tribute during the broadcast of the 87th Academy Awards on 22 February 2015.

Tom Pevsner (1926–2014)

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director | Producer | Production Manager
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0678932/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0