On This Day

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• RichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.

  August 2018 Posts: 13,820

  August 7th
  
  1914: Ted Moore is born--Western Cape, South Africa. (He dies 1987 at age 72--Surrey, England .)
  1978: Roger Moore and Lois Chiles 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.
  
  
• RichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.

  August 2018 Posts: 13,820

  August 8th
  
  1925: Robert Brownjohn is born--Newark, New Jersey. (He dies 1 August 1970 at age 44--London, England.)
  1959: The Moonraker comic strip ends its run in The Daily Express. (Started 30 March 1959. 226-339 )
  John McLusky, artist. Henry Gammidge, writer.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  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...

  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/
  
  
  
  
  

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

  
  
• RichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.

  August 2018 edited August 2018 Posts: 13,820

  August 9th
  
  1927: Robert Archibald Shaw is born--Westhoughton, Lancashire, England.
  (He dies 28 August 1978 at age 51--Tourmakeady, County Mayo, England.)
  1979: Moonraker released in Argentina.

  
  
  
  

  1985: A View to a Kill released in Denmark.
  1985: 007 ja kuoleman katse released in Finland.

  

  1985: James Bond 007 – Im Angesicht des Todes release in West Germany.

  James Bond 007 - In the Face of Death
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  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

  2018: A screening of On Her Majesty's Secret Service is scheduled at Laemmle's NoHo 7 Theatre, Los Angeles, California. Showtime: 7:30 PM. George Lazenby in attendance, including at the post-film discussion.

  George Lazenby To Appear At "Ohmss" Screening, L.A., August 9
  http://cetureon.com/news/ni62159933
  by [email protected] (Cinema Retro)
  CinemaRetro - By Todd Garbarini
  
  Laemmle’s NoHo 7 Theatre in Los Angeles will be presenting a Digital Cinema Package (Dcp) screening of Peter Hunt’s 1969 James Bond outing On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. The 142-minute film, which stars George Lazenby as James Bond in his only performance as the beloved spy, features Diana Rigg, Telly Savalas, Lois Maxwell, Bernard Lee, and Desmond Llewelyn.
  
  It will be screened on Thursday, August 9, 2018 at 7:30 pm.
  
  Please Note: At press time, George Lazenby is scheduled to appear in person for a discussion about the film following the screening.
  
  The NoHo 7 Theatre is located at 5240 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood, CA.
  The phone number is (310) 478 – 3836.
  

  
  
• RichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.

  August 2018 edited August 2018 Posts: 13,820

  August 10th
  
  1918: Martin Benson is born--London, England.
  (He dies 28 February 2010 at age 91--Markyate, Hetfordshire, England.)
  1928: Jimmy Dean is born--Plainview, Texas. (He dies 13 June 2010 at age 81--Varina, Virginia.)
  1960: Diamonds Are Forever comic strip begins its run in The Daily Express. (Ends 30 January 1960. 340-487)
  John McLusky, artist. Henry Gammidge, writer.

  
  
  
  
  
  
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  1963: Sean Connery finishes all filming for From Russia With Love, ending with the shot in Rhoda’s truck.
  1981: Agent 007 – Strengt fortroligt 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 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
  https://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.

  
  
• RichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.

  August 2018 edited August 2018 Posts: 13,820

  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 declares: "Richard Burton would be by far the best James Bond!"
  1978: Principal photography kicks off for Moonraker.
  1986: People magazine showcases Pierce Brosnan as "The Spy Who's Loved Too Much".

  
  The Spy Who's Loved Too Much
  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
  https://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.

  
  
• peter Toronto

  August 2018 Posts: 9,509

  wow-- very interesting about Roald Dahl @RichardTheBruce ...
  
  Love this thread by the way-- thank you!
• Thunderfinger Das Boot Hill

  August 2018 Posts: 45,489

  Interesting article about Brosnan there. How anyone at all could see this man as an obvious choice for Bond, was completely beyond me then, and still is.
• BT3366

  August 2018 Posts: 1,917

  Thunderfinger wrote: »

  Interesting article about Brosnan there. How anyone at all could see this man as an obvious choice for Bond, was completely beyond me then, and still is.

  
  But that was the way it was back then. I remember following that through the newspaper as in those pre-Internet days you didn't have a lot of other options. I also remember my aunt saying so back when Remington Steele came out and one of my best friends also championed him. I still think it made him dislike TLD when we went to see it.
  
  While I liked Brosnan and Steele, I wasn't sold on him as Bond as he gave me too much of a Moore vibe, which the series needed to turn away from. No less than Patrick Macnee was once quoted as saying he was glad they didn't get Brosnan at the time of TLD. I was very glad for Dalton getting the chance although I only knew him from Flash Gordon and wasn't disappointed.
• RichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.

  August 2018 edited August 2018 Posts: 13,820

  August 12th
  
  1964: Ian Lancaster Fleming dies at age 56--Canterbury, Kent, England.
  (Born 28 May 1908--Mayfair, London, England.)

  
  Ian Fleming Dead; Created James Bond
  https://nytimes.com/1964/08/13/archives/ian-fleming-dead-created-james-bond.html
  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 disillusionea 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 JansonSmith. 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.

  

  1977: Spionen der elskede mig released in Denmark.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  1983: Octopussy – mustekala released in Finland.
  2034: Where the Copyright Extension Act of 1998 is applied, the Fleming books could enter the public domain.
  
  
• RichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.

  August 2018 edited August 2018 Posts: 13,820

  August 13th
  
  1979: Moonraker released in Denmark.

  
  
  
  

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

  
  
  
  

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

  
  Coca-Cola Zero releases Skyfall campaign continuing its partnership with the James Bond franchise
  By Staff Writer-13 August 2012 11:57am
  
  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.
  
  Coca-Cola Zero products will undergo a Bond themed makeover
  
  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)
  
  
  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.

  
  
• j_w_pepper Born on the bayou, but I now hear a new dog barkin'

  August 2018 Posts: 9,042

  Re August 13th
  
  I'd like to remind everyone that 57 years ago 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 Chaiman 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.
• RichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.

  August 2018 edited August 2018 Posts: 13,820

  August 14th
  
  1964: From Russia With Love (re-)released in Denmark.

  
  
  
  

  1964: From Russia With Love released in Finland.
  1966: Halle Berry is born--Cleveland, Ohio.
  1978: Filming of Moonraker begins in France.
  1987: Spioner der ved daggry released in Denmark.

  Spies Die at Dawn
  
  

  1987: The Living Daylights released in Yugoslavia.
  1993: Video game James Bond 007: The Duel released--developed by The Kremlin, published by Domark for use with Sega's Mega Drive/Genesis, Master System and Game Gear consoles. Timothy Dalton's last appearance in the role.

  
  
  
  
  

  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
  https://theguardian.com/news/2002/aug/16/guardianobituaries.filmnews
  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

  

  2008: Heineken renews its product placement in the Bond film franchise.

  
  Heineken beer in James Bond movie Quantum of Solace
  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.
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
• RichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.

  August 2018 Posts: 13,820

  August 15th
  
  1947: Jenny Hanley is born--Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, England.
  1964: Ian Lancaster Fleming is buried in 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.

  
  

  1987: “If There Was a Man” by Chrissie Hynde and The Pretenders charts in the U.K., eventually reaching #49.

  

  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
  https://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: Dynamite Comics James Bond Kill Chain #2 published.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  2017: Daniel Craig confirms his return for BOND 25.
  
  
• RichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.

  August 2018 Posts: 13,820

  August 16th
  
  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.
  1966: The Times of London prints “Bulldog Drummond Was a Gentleman: Moral Decline Illustrated by James Bond.”
  1973: Live and Let Die released in Hong Kong.
  1977: Spionen som elsket meg released in Norway.
  1984: Roger Moore and cast are photographed at Chantilly, France.

  
  
  
  
  

  1985: Med doden i sikte 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 continues to overwhelmingly report Daniel Craig committing to BOND 25.
  
• RichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.

  August 2018 Posts: 13,820

  August 17th
  
  1923: Julius Harris is born--Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
  (He dies 17 October 2004 at age 81--Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California.)
  1968: Helen McCrory is born--London, England.
  1973: Live and Let Die released in Ireland.
  1979: Kuuraketti released in Finland
  1979: Moonraker released in Norway.
  1984: Albert R. Broccoli photographed with Bond Girls, Bond.

  
  

  1999: Desmond Llewelyn launches the James Bond 007: A License To Thrill motion simulator, Trocadero, London.

  

  2015: Premiere of the OMEGA Seamaster 300 Spectre Limited Edition wristwatch.

  
  
  
  

  
  
• RichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.

  August 2018 Posts: 13,820

  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."

  
  
  

  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 music charts.
  1988: The Licence to Kill production relocates from Mexico City to Key West, Florida.
  2014: Tom Pevsner dies at age 87--United Kingdom. (Born 2 October 1926--Dresden, Germany.)
  
  
• RichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.

  August 2018 edited August 2018 Posts: 13,820

  August 19th
  
  1940: Jill St. John is born--Los Angeles, California.
  1942: The Dieppe Raid in Northern France targeting cipher codes and Enigma repair parts, as planned by Ian Fleming and Admiral John Godfrey, plays out as an unnecessary failure.

  Ian Fleming, Real-Life Secret Agent and World War II Commando
  By Neely Simpson. Jan 21, 2015
  https://blog.bookstellyouwhy.com/ian-fleming-real-life-secret-agent-and-world-war-ii-commando
  
  Before he was Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond novels, he was Commander Fleming, an intelligence officer in the Royal Navy and right-hand man to Admiral John Godfrey, Director of British Naval Intelligence. As such, Fleming was responsible for the creation of what came to be known as Assault Unit 30 (AU 30), a top-secret British commando unit specifically formed to gather intelligence. Fleming proposed the concept of AU 30 to Admiral Godfrey in a March 10, 1942 memo titled, "Proposal for Naval Intelligence Commando Unit."
  
  
  
  The idea for AU 30 came out of a British intelligence crisis happening in 1942 for which Fleming sought a solution. Code-breaking specialists working in a secret location in Buckinghamshire called Bletchley Park had had - until 1942 - great success breaking coded messages sent by German Enigma Code machines. The Enigma machines had been invented by a German scientist, and the Germans wrongly believed the codes from Enigma machines were unbreakable. Essential to the war effort, the intelligence from the code-breakers of Bletchley Park kept British forces informed about the latest German military tactics. However, in 1942 the Germans advanced their technology, upgrading the Enigma machine to a 4-rotor wheel and leaving Bletchley Park code-breakers in the dark.
  
  
  
  On August 19, 1942 Allied forces launched an attack on a German-occupied port in Northern France called Dieppe. Over 6,000 troops, predominantly Canadian, were deployed, and nearly 60 percent of those troops were killed, wounded, or captured. The Dieppe Raid, as it would come to be known, was considered a spectacular failure. Critics through the years said it was badly planned and of weak military strategy, leading to needless loss of life. The official objectives of the raid were to boost morale and to demonstrate to their allies Britain's commitment to opening a western front. However, new details brought to light by military historian, David O'Keefe, reveal that the primary and top-secret objective of the raid was to provide a diversion for Ian Fleming and Admiral Godfrey's newly formed 30 Assault Unit to steal cipher code books and spare parts of the German Enigma machine for the code-breakers of Bletchley Park.
  
  A hotel in the town of Dieppe had been serving as the base for Nazi operations, and a German radar station was located in the cliffs around the port. The Dieppe Raid was 30 Assault Unit's very first mission; the hotel and the radar station were their primary targets. However, they were unsuccessful. Ironically, and perhaps tragically, a mere two weeks following the raid, the Bletchley Park code-breakers were able to break the new German Enigma codes without the cipher code books and spare parts housed in Dieppe.
  
  
  
  Despite the nonsuccess of the Dieppe Raid, both Winston Churchill and Lord Mountbatten defended the raid years later saying that the lessons learned at Dieppe ultimately led to the victory of D-Day. Even though their first mission failed, Assault Unit 30 had great success throughout the rest of World War II, participating in both the invasion of Normandy and the liberation of Paris.

  1981: James Bond comic strip Doomcrack ends its run in The Daily Express. (Started 2 February 1981. 1-174)
  Harry North, artist (known for Mad magazine parodies). Jim Lawrence, writer.

  
  
  
  

  1983: Octopussy released in Norway.
  2014: Jimmy Fallon challenges Pierce Brosnan to a game of GoldenEye 007, N64 style.

  

  
  
• Thunderfinger Das Boot Hill

  August 2018 Posts: 45,489

  I have never read Doomcrack, but interesting to see the artist draws Bond in the likeness of Connery.
• RichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.

  August 2018 Posts: 13,820

  August 20th
  
  1963: Ian Fleming writes "OO7 in New York" (original title "Reflections in a Carey Cadillac").
  1964: Title song for Goldfinger is recorded at London's CTS Studios in an overnight session with singer Shirley Bassey, guitarist Vic Flick, and songwriter John Barry. Note the EMI producer for the recording is George Martin.

  

  1964: Dr. No released in Belgium.

  

  1973: Roger Moore, performing on Broadway in 'The Play What I Wrote', is photographed with Yvonne Elliman of the Jesus Christ Superstar cast.

  
  
  

  1981: James Bond comic strip The Paradise Plot begins in The Daily Express. (Ends 4 June 1982. 175-378)
  John McLusky, artist. Jim Lawrence, writer.

  
  
  
  
  

  2018: Aston Martin announces they'll produce 25 Aston Martin DB5s. With gadgets, not street legal.

  
  Aston Martin to produce 25 Bond replica Goldfinger DB5s
  Cars to have gadgets seen in films, but will not be road legal; they'll cost £3.3 million in the UK
  https://autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/aston-martin-produce-25-bond-replica-goldfinger-db5s
  Jimi Beckwith - 20 August 2018
  
  
  
  Aston Martin will create 25 Goldfinger DB5s as part of its continuation projects, with these cars featuring working gadgets as seen in its six James Bond film appearances.
  
  Three more cars in addition to the 25 will be created, with one being kept by Aston, one to go to Eon Productions (the firm behind the Bond film franchise) and another being auctioned for charity.
  
  The gadgetry is being developed by Bond special effects supervisor Chris Corbould in collaboration with Aston’s Q bespoke department, having been officially sanctioned by Eon. They’ll be produced at Aston’s Newport Pagnell plant — the facility where the original DB5 was built.
  
  The cars will be built to a specification true to that of the film car, including features such as revolving numberplates. Modifications over the original Bond DB5 are said to boost reliability and quality compared with the film props used on the original car.
  
  Delivery of the 25 cars starts at the end of 2019, with each going for £2.75 million plus tax, putting the UK price of the car at £3.3 million.
  
  Aston boss Andy Palmer said: "To own an Aston Martin has long been an aspiration for James Bond fans, but to own a Silver Birch DB5, complete with gadgets and built to the highest standards in the very same factory as the original James Bond cars? Well, that is surely the ultimate collectors’ fantasy. The skilled craftspeople at Aston Martin Works and the expert special effects team from the James Bond films are about to make this fantasy real for 25 very lucky customers.”
  
  Previously, Aston produced a DB4 continuation run of 25 cars, each sold for £1.5 million before local taxes. Jaguar Land Rover's Classics division has also carried out continuation projects, starting with a run of Jaguar D-Types built in 2014, while Lister built continuation series of its Knobbly and Costin racers.
  
  Aston produced a car in 2014 specifically for use in the Bond film Spectre but, despite wearing the DB10 moniker, it was never released to the public. That said, the car's look influenced the new Vantage.

  
  
• RichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.

  August 2018 Posts: 13,820

  August 21st
  
  1916: Geoffrey Keen is born--Wallingford, Oxfordshire, England.
  (He dies 3 November 2005 at age 89--Denville Hall, Northwood, Hillingdon, London, England.)
  1961: Francisco Goya’s Duke of Wellington is stolen from the National Gallery, London, England.

  big
  think
  Days of Infamy: August 21 and 22 and Major Art Heists
  Over a year ago - by Bob Duggan
  https://bigthink.com/Picture-This/days-of-infamy-august-21-and-22-and-major-art-heists
  
  
  In 1961, the British government purchased Goya’s The Duke of Wellington for the National Gallery to keep it on British soil and out of the hands of an American collector. To pay for the Duke, the British government increased the tax levied on all persons owning a television. Not liking higher taxes (or anyone trying to take away his television programs), 61-year-old pensioner Kempton Bunton sprang into action. Climbing through an open bathroom window of the National Gallery one morning, Bunton grabbed the painting and nimbly scampered back through with Goya’s portrait of the Hero of Waterloo. Reuters soon received a letter offering the return of the painting in exchange for a decrease in the television tax, which the government refused. Police were baffled. The Duke of Wellington “appeared” ever so briefly in the 1962 James Bond film Dr. No hanging on wall of the title supervillain’s lair and drawing a double-take from the superspy. Four years later, the press received another letter saying where the painting could be recovered, safe and sound. Bunton surrendered voluntarily six months later and received only three months of prison time. The moral: NEVER get between an old man and his television!

  1970: James Bond comic strip The Golden Ghost starts in The Daily Express.
  (Finishes 16 January 1971. 1394–1519) Yaroslav Horak, artist. Jim Lawrence, writer.

  
  
  
  
  

  1981: For Your Eyes Only released in Finland and Norway.
  1997: Roger Spottiswoode films Carver's death by sea drill.
  
  
• Tracy

  August 2018 Posts: 1,708

  Aug 21st , 1978 :
  
  
  
  Directly from the MR set :D
• RichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.

  August 2018 Posts: 13,820

  August 22nd
  
  1925: Honor Blackman is born--Plaistow, London, England.
  1950: Toshirô Suga is born--Tokyo, Japan.
  1962: Johanna Harwood submits the first draft of From Russia With Love.
  1965: Tabet's artwork highlights the Diamond Are Forever serial in Domenica Del Corriere.

  

  1971: Rick Yune is born--Washington, District of Columbia.
  1981: Rien que pour vos yeux released in France.

  
  
  

  1981: Ur dödlig synvinkel released in Sweden.

  

  1985: In the Chicago Tribune Marilyn Beck writes "James Bond Is An Invisible Man For Now",
  questioning the future of the franchise.

  
  James Bond Is An Invisible Man For Now
  August 22, 1985 | By Marilyn Beck.
  
  HOLLYWOOD — The future of secret agent 007 is very much in limbo.
  
  "We haven`t decided if there will be another James Bond picture,"
  
  says Michael Wilson, associate of producer Cubby Broccoli and coproducer of this summer's A View to a Kill.
  
  In response to reports out of London that preparations are being made for the next Bond production, Wilson insists, "We have no title, no script, no writer or director. In other words, absolutely nothing has been resolved, and we`re not sure when or if it will be."
  
  Although A View (Roger Moore`s seventh starring stint as the dashing British secret agent) is doing spectacularly in some overseas markets, it has not set any records domestically. And I am told that Broccoli is agreeing privately with reviewers who believe that Moore, at 57, has become too long in the tooth for the part.
  
  The name of dashing Remington Steele leading man Pierce Brosnan has popped up as Moore's Bond successor. But Wilson insists that at this point, the casting of another Bond picture isn`t even being considered. And Brosnan is taking a laid-back attitude: "I want to make movies, but I don't see what I could bring to the role that Roger Moore and Sean Connery haven`t already brought."

  2002: Swede Traktor begins the first of six days filming the "Die Another Day" music video in Hollywood.
  Eventual cost, $6.1 million.

  

  2011: Skyfall filmmakers officially shift their interest from India to South Africa, after delayed approvals to film.
  2018: Barbara Broccoli, Michael G. Wilson, and Daniel Craig announce that Danny Boyle leaves the BOND 25
  production for creative reasons.
  
  
• Risico007

  August 2018 Posts: 9,848

  Bond 25 died
• RichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.

  August 2018 Posts: 13,820

  

  
  LONG LIVE JAMES BOND!
  
  

  
  
• RichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.

  August 2018 Posts: 13,820

  August 23rd
  
  1963: Last day of principal photography for From Russia With Love.
  1997: First-person shooter video game GoldenEye 007, developed by Rare/published by Nintendo,
  released in Japan for Nintendo 64.

  

  2006: The New York Times crossword. 57 Across. _ _ _ _ _ _ Largo. James Bond villain.

  E M I L I O

  2006: Martin Campbell films Bond ordering a Vesper martini.
  2007: Seven days of Quantum of Solace second unit filming begins in Madrid, Spain.
  2008: Browser-based game The Shadow War, based on By Royal Command, is released by Six to Start.

  
  jamesbond.wikia.com/wiki/The_Shadow_War
  

  
  
• RichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.

  August 2018 Posts: 13,820

  August 24th
  
  1937: Connie Mason is born--Washington, District of Columbia.
  1967: Casino Royale released in Uruguay.
  1989: Licence to Kill released in Hungary.
  1991: BBC Radio 2 broadcasts a two-part special on John Barry. (Concludes 31 August.)
  2006: Roy Stewart dies at age 66--Las Vegas, Nevada. (Born 18 October 1939--Houston, Texas.)
  
  
• RichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.

  August 2018 edited August 2018 Posts: 13,820

  August 25th
  
  1925: Maurice Binder is born--New York City, New York. (He dies 9 April 1991 at age 65--London, England.)
  1930: Sir Thomas Sean Connery is born--Fountainbridge, Edinburgh, Scotland.

  2008
  
  

  
  Sean Connery recalls 'first big break'
  https://modernghana.com/music/7892/3/sean-connery-recalls-first-big-break.html
  26 August 2008 | General News - Tonight
  
  Movie star, Bond icon, philanthropist, proud Scot, political activist - now Sean Connery can also call himself an author.
  
  Connery, who shot to international fame as Ian Fleming's fictional spy James Bond, unveiled his new autobiography, Being a Scot, in his hometown of Edinburgh yesterday - his 78th birthday.
  
  He told the audience that it wasn't the blockbuster Dr No that changed his life the most, but his schooling during his impoverished childhood.
  
  "My first big break was when I was five because I had learned to read and write. I am sure prisons and asylums are full of people who cannot read or write," Connery said. "It took me more than 70 years to realise that.
  
  "It's that simple and it's that profound. I left school at 13 and had no formal education (beyond that). When I realised I wanted to become an actor and not a football player, I went out and got myself an education, I read and I went to the theatre."
  
  His frame is not as sturdy as it was when he ordered his martinis shaken, not stirred, or when he entered a Mr Universe competition, and Connery needed help hearing questions at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.
  
  But he spoke clearly of Scottish nationalism, his life as an actor, his love of soccer and golf, and Donald Trump's proposed golf resort in Scotland.
  
  Being a Scot describes Connery's early life as a milkman in the city's Fountainbridge neighbourhood, then takes a broad look at Scottish culture, including the work of poet Robert Burns and novelist Walter Scott.
  
  Connery is a vocal supporter of the pro-independence Scottish National Party. He lives in the Bahamas and has said he would not live in Scotland again until it gains independence from the UK.
  
  "There is a lack of Scottish history in our schools," he said. "It was always about English kings and queens, Scotland just didn't figure, it was just about all things English."
  
  He was the first and, many say, the best Bond. Connery also starred in Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade and The Untouchables, which earned him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
  
  Director Steven Spielberg's once said Connery was one of seven genuine movie stars - a claim that seemed to embarrass the actor.
  
  "I didn't pay much attention to that. I was more interested in how much money I made," he said. "The status was not something I was generally interested in or thought about."
  
  ...
  
  The actor quit acting in 2004 and turned down a role in the latest Indiana Jones movie, but he hinted that he would continue to work.
  
  "I have come into a different cycle in my life since I decided not to do any more films. I have a feeling that something is cooking, something is afoot. I don't quite know what it is yet."
  
  Source:Tonight

  
  
  

  1934: John Stears is born--Uxbridge, Hillingdon, Middlesex, England.
  (He dies 28 April 1999 at age 64--Los Angeles, California.)
  1977: James Bond 007 – Der Spion, der mich liebte released in Germany.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  2006: The Spy Who Loved Me re-released at the Empire Leicester Square Cinema for one week.
  2017: From Russia With Love re-released in Chile.
  
  
• Thunderfinger Das Boot Hill

  August 2018 Posts: 45,489

  That top German poster is pretty cool.
• RichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.

  August 2018 Posts: 13,820

  Yes, definitely, @Thunderfinger. Also notice the sixth poster shows a skier--Willy Bogner?--from the pre-title sequence holding a camera instead of a firearm.
  
  Of note, I updated the Connery item to show the cover of his book Being a Scot.
  
  
• RichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.

  August 2018 Posts: 13,820

  August 26th
  
  1941: Akiko Wakabayashi is born--Tokyo, Japan.
  1966: Shirley Manson is born--Edinburgh, Scotland.
  2005: Titan Classics Re-Issues publishes The Spy Who Loved Me (includes The Harpies).
  Yaroslav Horak, artist. Jim Lawrence, writer.

  
  
  
  
  

  2008: Fleming collection Quantum of Solace: The Complete James Bond Short Stories published
  by Penguin in North America.

  
  
  
  
  
  Croatian edition, Algoritam, 2008.