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The GEORGE LAZENBY Appreciation thread - Discuss His Life, His Career, His Bond Films

Shilliam_WatnerShilliam_Watner
edited July 2021 in Actors Posts: 17
Hello. This is my first post. I am a huge Lazenby fan. I always wondered why his agent Ronan O'Rahilly told George to turn the Bond role down but never knew how much money they offered him per film and what he could have made in total. Well now I have found out and I have to say if I was George, I would have beat the living tar out of his agent who talked him out of it. Have a look at the offer and the money he cold have made. It's incredible.

http://jamesbondheights.webs.com/thebondssalaries.htm
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Comments

  • LicenceRevokedLicenceRevoked
    Posts: 204
    Interesting. Very interesting... ! Though whilst Lazenby wasn't bad, it would be interesting to see if the franchise would still be here today had he taken that deal ...
  • LicenceRevokedLicenceRevoked
    Posts: 204
    Wow, Craig is really getting the short end of the stick! The best Bond we've seen in years and even with a fourth movie in the wings he'll only earn half of what Brosnan took for his four? And Timothy Dalton! Barely made any money at all! Yes it was only 2 movies but still!
  • Shilliam_WatnerShilliam_Watner
    edited January 2013 Posts: 17
    LicenceRevoked wrote:
    Interesting. Very interesting... ! Though whilst Lazenby wasn't bad, it would be interesting to see if the franchise would still be here today had he taken that deal ...
    I think it would have been just fine, even better. The scripts action scenes would have been written for Lazenby's fighting skills. Case in point, I watched his 1974 movie 'The Shrine Of The Ultimate Bliss'. His physical presence is incredible in his fight scenes, something Moore could have never pulled off. I could see Lazenby kicking butt in the Oriental Scene in the 'Man With The Golden Gun'. Have a look. Go to specifically 15:46, 44:24 (the best) and 58:32 and watch his incredible fight scenes.



  • dramaticscenesofQOSdramaticscenesofQOS
    Posts: 1,282
    This is what ego does, it will break u apart. Imagine if GL would have gotten the money, would he have only fed his own immaturity even more? Leaving that alone, would we have gotten a direct sequel to OHMSS?
  • LicenceRevokedLicenceRevoked
    Posts: 204
    This is true, I watched the fight scenes, and they do indeed appear to have some of that Daniel Craig-level intensity to them, however, without the Roger Moore era we might never quite have experience that much-spoofed 'campness' that rounded out that perception of James Bond as we know him now... That said would be interesting to see how it panned out regardless!
  • Shilliam_WatnerShilliam_Watner
    edited January 2013 Posts: 17
    dramaticscenesofQOS wrote:
    This is what ego does, it will break u apart. Imagine if GL would have gotten the money, would he have only fed his own immaturity even more? Leaving that alone, would we have gotten a direct sequel to OHMSS?
    In the recently 'Everything Or Nothing' he say's his agent told him nobody would ever go see a Bond film again. I think his agent purposely sabotaged a naïve young actor by the name of George Lazenby who believed him.

  • dramaticscenesofQOSdramaticscenesofQOS
    Posts: 1,282
    But GL was busy being a hippie and joining pirate radio. He really let the fame of himself self self get in the way. His agent was a goon who fed this naive ego instead of mentoring some sense into him, true. Easy for agents...vin diesel's agent was telling him not to go back to the fast and furious series but he didn't liaten and look how much money he's making!
  • identigraphidentigraph
    Posts: 1,052
    Having watched OHMSS the other day, I find all this talk of Lazenby being amazing in the fight scenes a little over the top, he really wasn't anything special, i feel this element has been bigged up to make up to distract from the fact that he had no screen presence and a dodgy accent.
  • dchantrydchantry
    Posts: 278
    GL was one of the bigget idiots of the 20th Century. He wasn't a young and Naive 17 year old. He was over 30. Your thrust into the most famous film role on the earth at the time (must have been stressful) and offered a fortune to continue in the role over a period of time.
    Even if the latter films would have flopped and killed the series then he'd have still made a lot more money and had more security than for starring in dodgy martial art films (apart from TMWTGG LOL) and Hawaii 5'O.
  • Shilliam_WatnerShilliam_Watner
    Posts: 17
    dchantry wrote:
    GL was one of the bigget idiots of the 20th Century. He wasn't a young and Naive 17 year old. He was over 30. Your thrust into the most famous film role on the earth at the time (must have been stressful) and offered a fortune to continue in the role over a period of time.
    Even if the latter films would have flopped and killed the series then he'd have still made a lot more money and had more security than for starring in dodgy martial art films (apart from TMWTGG LOL) and Hawaii 5'O.
    Lazenby starred in Hawaii Five-0? When did this happen?

  • Master_DaharkMaster_Dahark
    edited January 2013 Posts: 4,813
    Shilliam_Watner wrote:
    WOW I've alway wanted to see this movie- thanks for posting this!! I totally agree he would have rocked the hell out of the Dojo scene in TMWTGG

    *and that Angela Mao is cute as a button-- I looked her up and she had the cameo as Bruce Lee's sister in Enter the Dragon. I knew she looked familiar!
  • dchantrydchantry
    Posts: 278
    Shilliam_Watner wrote:
    dchantry wrote:
    GL was one of the bigget idiots of the 20th Century. He wasn't a young and Naive 17 year old. He was over 30. Your thrust into the most famous film role on the earth at the time (must have been stressful) and offered a fortune to continue in the role over a period of time.
    Even if the latter films would have flopped and killed the series then he'd have still made a lot more money and had more security than for starring in dodgy martial art films (apart from TMWTGG LOL) and Hawaii 5'O.
    Lazenby starred in Hawaii Five-0? When did this happen?

    I understand he starred in an episode called The Year of the Horse in Season 11 1979.
  • Shilliam_WatnerShilliam_Watner
    edited January 2013 Posts: 17
    Master_Dahark wrote:
    Shilliam_Watner wrote:
    WOW I've alway wanted to see this movie- thanks for posting this!! I totally agree he would have rocked the hell out of the Dojo scene in TMWTGG

    *and that Angela Mao is cute as a button-- I looked her up and she had the cameo as Bruce Lee's sister in Enter the Dragon. I knew she looked familiar!
    You're welcome. That is what I was talking about in the OP. The writers would have made his fight scenes more violent due to his martial arts skills if he would have signed the contract. Not in just that movie but all the movies Moore did. You want more Lazenby action? Here is the next movie he made to the one I posted above. It's 1975's The Man From Hong Kong. The best fight scene comes at 33:49 in the movie where he takes out a bunch of karate class students. Kind of like the Dojo scene in TMWTGG. It's classic. Enjoy.




  • AgentJamesBond007AgentJamesBond007 Vesper’s grave
    Posts: 2,632
    I remember that EON tried to get Laz to sign a 4 film, 7 year contract with the ability to film 3 non Bond films. Laz should've fired his agent, and accepted this deal.
  • TheWizardOfIceTheWizardOfIce 'One of the Internet's more toxic individuals'
    Posts: 9,117
    Always good to have another Lazenby fan on here.

    The thing that strikes me about these figures is what was Connery whingeing about all these years?

    25% of the worldwide merchandising at the height of Bondmania? Yet the bloke reckons Cubby & Harry diddled him?
  • Shilliam_WatnerShilliam_Watner
    Posts: 17
    AgentJamesBond007 wrote:
    I remember that EON tried to get Laz to sign a 4 film, 7 year contract with the ability to film 3 non Bond films. Laz should've fired his agent, and accepted this deal.
    Here is a more detailed account of the contract deal and the negotiations that took place. In the end Lazenby was ready to sign and make DAF but read what his agent Ronan O'Rahilly pulled with Cubby and Harry.

    http://www.angelfire.com/nm/lazenbyland/lazenbyonefilm.html

  • Master_DaharkMaster_Dahark
    edited January 2013 Posts: 4,813
    The Everything or Nothing documentary is now on Netflix-- pretty interesting stuff. For the first time (for me anyway) we actually see and hear Lazenby's agent.
    He was a huge hippy and poor George did indeed feel like the one 'clean cut' young guy in the middle of a million hairy 'fight the establishment' rebellious people. As George put it, he 'looked like a cop' which as you could imagine in that era, wasn't the most popular thing.

    Hindsight is 20/20 as they say-- but trying to see it from George's point of view, I suppose it it was easy to fall for what his agent was saying. As an acting noob, it made sense that he would be inclined to trust whatever his agent said. If only he had a better agent....
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,798
    Shilliam_Watner wrote:
    The writers would have made his fight scenes more violent due to his martial arts skills
    Martial arts skills??? That's pretty funny. He was a very physical dude, and learned movement well, but clearly no real martial artist. But THANKS for those movies, I never saw them before!! What a 70's blast!!! =D>
  • Master_DaharkMaster_Dahark
    edited January 2013 Posts: 4,813
    Those 70's wacky movies are no example of what Lazenby was capable of. He is a martial artist in real life (and this was before Bond). He trained hand-to-hand in the Army.

    The above movies are just silly choreography
  • NapoleonPluralNapoleonPlural
    Posts: 512
    Lazenby was spot on in a way, you have to play rough with the big guys if you want to be taken seriously and not screwed over. The problem was, he didn't have a strong hand at the time, he just thought he did. Okay, in a way he did have a strong hand - he was prepared to walk away. But that only works if it's a bargaining chip, and in this case it wasn't; George wasn't actually bluffing or holding out for a better offer. He meant it.

    I can see why he thought Bond was at an end; 1969 was an odd time. Didn't help that he didn't really get the irony of Bond; all those posh boy 'North of the Caspian' stuff would be sent up by Connery a bit, and you don't get that with Lazenby at all; he thinks it's for real. So had he carried on in that vein, yeah, the franchise would have been sunk. It took Moore's reinvention and cheeky demeanour to make it okay again. That said, if the likes of Lee Majors could be a massive success in the 1970s, I don't see why Lazenby couldn't, bland as he was. But Moore offered something different.
  • Shilliam_WatnerShilliam_Watner
    edited January 2013 Posts: 17
    chrisisall wrote:
    Shilliam_Watner wrote:
    The writers would have made his fight scenes more violent due to his martial arts skills
    Martial arts skills??? That's pretty funny. He was a very physical dude, and learned movement well, but clearly no real martial artist. But THANKS for those movies, I never saw them before!! What a 70's blast!!! =D>

    You're welome. Actually he was in a Australian commando unit and I think trained with martial arts expert Bruce Lee.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,798
    Shilliam_Watner wrote:
    I think trained with martial arts expert Bruce Lee.
    Practically a Bruce Lee biographer here, he may have trained with a student of Lee's but not Lee himself.

  • thelivingroyalethelivingroyale
    Posts: 12,837
    He did meet Lee though and I think he planned to make some films with him before he died.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,798
    Yes, he met with Lee the days before he died, working with Lee would have brought his career back in a big way. Too bad.
  • bondsumbondsum
    Posts: 3,333
    It says on the imdb Biography that he studied martial arts under Bruce Lee himself and that he was a martial arts instructor in the Australian army, and holds more than one black belt in the martial arts. Didn't Bruce also tutor other actors such as James Garner and James Coburn amongst others?
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,798
    According to all my reading & research, he only met Lee a few times in Hong Kong before Lee's death.
  • Master_DaharkMaster_Dahark
    edited January 2013 Posts: 4,813
    I didn't think George ever trained under Bruce- just more of an acquaintance. Bruce did teach Garner and Coburn, bondsum-- as well as Steve McQueen and our good friend Chuck Norris!
  • thelivingroyalethelivingroyale
    Posts: 12,837
    Still, Lazenby is definetly the toughest Bond, I don't think anybody can deny that.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,798
    I'd like to think Tim could lay him out with one perfectly timed shot (Dalton was all about timing). :))
  • OHMSS69OHMSS69
    Posts: 2,341
    It is well documented that Lazenby will be remembered as the man who snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. As an inexperienced actor (any experienced actor would have seen this) he did not comprehend how difficult it is for actors to get a break like he was offered. Most actors are not even working and would jump at the opportunity to star in a series. Actors who have been waiting tables see this and do not piss all over it when opportunity comes knocking.
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