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The Real James Bond Characters - Fleming's Inspirations

007InVT007InVT Classified
edited July 2013 in Literary 007 Posts: 893
I thought I'd start a list of the characters from the Fleming novels that were either directly based on people he knew or places he knew. Some of them are very loosely based and debatable or simply a combination of names, while others seem to be lifted directly from his real life.

James Bond - Sir Peter Henry Berry Otway Smithers and many others.
Felix Leiter - His Gardner in Jamaica, Felix and Mrs. Marion 'Oatsie' Leiter
M - Admiral Sir John Godfrey from his time in Naval Intelligence with a little Sir Stewart Menzies (Mi6 Chief)
Q - A real Major Boothroyd a firearms specialist and Charles Fraser-Smith
Le Chiffre - Aleister Crowley, a famous Satanist.
Moneypenny - Victoire Paddy Bennett Ridsdale, Fleming's administrative assistant in Naval Intelligence
Red Grant - The pilot to Princess Margaret when she flew to Jamaica
Sir Hugo Drax - Possibly french author Victor Hugo (Les Miserables), or brother-in-law Hugo Charteris, Drax Hall Estate in Jamaica and British Admiral with the quadruple-barrelled name: Sir Reginald Plunkett-Ernie-Erle-Drax
Ernst Blofeld - Ernest Cuneo, one of Fleming's oldest friends and associate of Ivar Bryce. A legal aide to Roosevelt.
Judy Havelock - Sir Henry Havelock (1795-1857), major general of the British army. Havelock was active in warfare in India and Afghanistan.
Sir James Molony - J.A. Molony, Fleming's Harley Street Dental surgeon.

Comments

  • QBranchQBranch Always have an escape plan. Mine is watching James Bond films.
    Posts: 15,411
    Vesper Lynd is a play on 'West Berlin'.
  • GerardGerard
    Posts: 6,248
    When in Japan, Fleming wet two people he would lter use as models for characters in YOLT : Richard "Dick" Hughes (an Australian who became "Dikko Henderson) and "Tiger" Saito (who became "Tiger" Tanaka).
  • 007InVT007InVT Classified
    edited July 2013 Posts: 893
    Thanks guys,

    Anyone know the inspiration for Milton Krest or Fidele Barbey from The Hildebrand Rarity?
  • QBranchQBranch Always have an escape plan. Mine is watching James Bond films.
    edited July 2013 Posts: 15,411
    Found this on Milton Krest:

    http://007underthemangotree.wordpress.com/2012/12/09/milton-krest/
  • 007InVT007InVT Classified
    Posts: 893
    QBranch wrote:
    Found this on Milton Krest:

    http://007underthemangotree.wordpress.com/2012/12/09/milton-krest/

    Good find.

    Thanks!
  • PerdoggPerdogg
    edited July 2013 Posts: 686
    Ernest Cureo (DAF) - Ernest Cuneo
    Hugo Drax - Otto Skorzeny (According to Pearson)
    Simone Latrelle - Annie Palmer
    Dexter Symthe, Kronsteen, Blofeld - Ian Fleming
    "CC" (TMWTGG) - Hugh Trevor Roper.
  • saunderssaunders Living in a world of avarice and deceit
    edited July 2013 Posts: 987
    Red Grant - Ian's Jamaican river guide
    Auric Goldfinger - Erno Goldfinger, modernist architect and distant relative of one of Ian's golfing chums.
    Von Hammerstein - former chief of German army General Kurt Von Hammerstein
    Scaramanga and Blofeld - Names of boys at school with Ian.
    Pussy Galore - name borrowed from Miss 'Pussy' Deakin, formerly Livia Stela an SOE agent.
    Kissy Suzuki - Kissy was a Japanese masseuses and prostitute Ian met while on his trip to the far east.
    Mary Goodnight - Possibly based on Ian's secretary at the Sunday Times, Una Trueblood.
    Alfred Blacking - Golf professional at Royal St Georges Alfred Whiting.
    Charmian Bond - Charmian was the name of Ian's first cousin.
    Monique Delacroix - Bond's mother named after Monique Panchaud De Bottomes, the girl Ian was engaged to in the 1930's.
    Bahamian Commissioner of Police Harling - Robert Harling, editor of House and garden magazine and friend of Ian.
    May Maxwell - Ivar Bryce's New York housekeeper.
    Duff Sutherland (Moonraker) - Friend of Ian.
    Darko Kerim - Based on Nazim Kalkavan, an Oxford educated ship-owner who became Ian's enthusiastic guide to Istanbul.
  • hullcityfanhullcityfan Banned
    Posts: 496
    saunders wrote:
    Red Grant - Ian's Jamaican river guide
    Auric Goldfinger - Erno Goldfinger, modernist architect and distant relative of one of Ian's golfing chums.
    Von Hammerstein - former chief of German army General Kurt Von Hammerstein
    Scaramanga and Blofeld - Names of boys at school with Ian.
    Pussy Galore - name borrowed from Miss 'Pussy' Deakin, formerly Livia Stela an SOE agent.
    Kissy Suzuki - Kissy was a Japanese masseuses and prostitute Ian met while on his trip to the far east.
    Mary Goodnight - Possibly based on Ian's secretary at the Sunday Times, Una Trueblood.
    Alfred Blacking - Golf professional at Royal St Georges Alfred Whiting.
    Charmian Bond - Charmian was the name of Ian's first cousin.
    Monique Delacroix - Bond's mother named after Monique Panchaud De Bottomes, the girl Ian was engaged to in the 1930's.
    Bahamian Commissioner of Police Harling - Robert Harling, editor of House and garden magazine and friend of Ian.
    May Maxwell - Ivar Bryce's New York housekeeper.
    Duff Sutherland (Moonraker) - Friend of Ian.
    Darko Kerim - Based on Nazim Kalkavan, an Oxford educated ship-owner who became Ian's enthusiastic guide to Istanbul.

    Goldfinger was also his neigbour or something and was going to sue because he didn't want him using it and Fleming was going to change it to gold something , I read it somewhere I think on here.
  • ForcelandForceland
    Posts: 42
    You'll find a lot of information on the various names and characters of the James Bond novels in ”James Bond: The Man and his world”, by Henry Chancellor. It is a book every Bond fan should own.
    It is where I get most of my information for the posts on "007 Under the Mango Tree".

    Krest: http://007underthemangotree.wordpress.com/2012/12/09/milton-krest/
    Drax: http://007underthemangotree.wordpress.com/2012/12/04/hugo-drax/
    Havelock; http://007underthemangotree.wordpress.com/2013/03/08/melina-havelock/
  • 007InVT007InVT Classified
    Posts: 893
    Pearson says that Goldfinger might also have been based on Guy Wellby.

    Also Loeila Ponsonby taken from Loeila, duchess of Westminster
    Felix Leiter perhaps also John Leiter, a millionaire.
  • ForcelandForceland
    Posts: 42
    This is about the Fleming inspiration for Colombo of Risico and FYEO
    http://007underthemangotree.wordpress.com/2013/12/20/milos-colombo/
  • Cameron_MottCameron_Mott
    Posts: 53
    We don't think Ivar Bryce is the inspiration for Felix Leiter?
  • 007InVT007InVT Classified
    edited December 2013 Posts: 893
    Yes, Ivar 'Felix' Bryce and Marion 'Oatsie' Leiter with a bit of Tommy Leiter is Felix Leiter.
  • Blofeld0Blofeld0
    Posts: 2
    I once read that Moneypenny could have been partially based on Julia Child, seeing as she was a secretary for British intelligence during WWII
  • advancedrebeladvancedrebel Montreal, QC
    Posts: 1
    Pretty sure Fleming based aspects of Milton krest on Jacques Cousteau. Aspects of a dive Fleming with Jacques Cousteau in 1943, exploring a wreck of Roman merchants near the coast of Marseilles, served as reference Material for "Live And Let Die". The comparaison between comes from their "fishing".

    Krest uses poison in order to capture the elsuive Hildebrandt rarity. killing scores of marine ife for no reason. Cousteau trades poisonfor dynamite. in the 1956 film "The Silent World" he uses it near a coral reef in order to make a more complete census of the marine life in its vicinity.

  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 18,933
    advancedrebel wrote: »
    Pretty sure Fleming based aspects of Milton krest on Jacques Cousteau. Aspects of a dive Fleming with Jacques Cousteau in 1943, exploring a wreck of Roman merchants near the coast of Marseilles, served as reference Material for "Live And Let Die". The comparaison between comes from their "fishing".

    Krest uses poison in order to capture the elsuive Hildebrandt rarity. killing scores of marine ife for no reason. Cousteau trades poisonfor dynamite. in the 1956 film "The Silent World" he uses it near a coral reef in order to make a more complete census of the marine life in its vicinity.


    Now that's what I call a great opening post! I think you're right.

    I have that film and book somewhere. Must dig it out and watch it. Fleming wrote about meeting Cousteau in his Thrilling Cities (1963).

    Anyway, I hope we get more posts from you soon. Welcome to our community, @advancedrebel!
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 18,933
    Birdleson wrote: »
    Very interesting @advancedrebel . I think you may be correct in terms of what they do/did in the name of research, or cash. But from everything that I have read and seen of Cousteau. I do not think that he and Krest shared too many personality traits, nor motivation.

    I suppose that it may have been the kernel of an idea in Fleming's mind for Krest's particular brand of villainy.
  • LudovicoLudovico
    Posts: 16,193
    It seems a bit strange to me that Krest would be inspired by a French explorer who was eco friendly for his time.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 18,933
    Ludovico wrote: »
    It seems a bit strange to me that Krest would be inspired by a French explorer who was eco friendly for his time.

    True, but I suppose the modus operandi of killing the fish specimens could have inspired Fleming to write THR and create a different kind of character in Milton Krest.
  • LudovicoLudovico
    Posts: 16,193
    Dragonpol wrote: »
    Ludovico wrote: »
    It seems a bit strange to me that Krest would be inspired by a French explorer who was eco friendly for his time.

    True, but I suppose the modus operandi of killing the fish specimens could have inspired Fleming to write THR and create a different kind of character in Milton Krest.

    More like the environment and the settings than the character then.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 18,933
    Ludovico wrote: »
    Dragonpol wrote: »
    Ludovico wrote: »
    It seems a bit strange to me that Krest would be inspired by a French explorer who was eco friendly for his time.

    True, but I suppose the modus operandi of killing the fish specimens could have inspired Fleming to write THR and create a different kind of character in Milton Krest.

    More like the environment and the settings than the character then.

    Yes, meeting Cousteau was the catalyst for the resultant story you could say. The meeting was the context in which the idea for creating Krest occurred to Fleming. It would appear that this was the case anyhow.
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