well, the world seems to have gone Bond crazy at the moment, down to a combination of this year being the 50th anniversary of the release of Dr No and the new one, Skyfall, being released. i thought i might as well jump on this band wagon, especially as yesterday i sat and watched Goldfinger and From Russia With Love with the boys, both of whom loved them!
here are a predictable in number 7 lesser known facts from the world of the James Bond movies. any facts or figures relevant to statistics are true only up to Quantum Of Solance, for i have no idea what Skyfall has in it!
fan theories speculate that the "00" part of James Bonds' agent number indicates a "licence to kill". that may very well be, but James Bond is 007 thanks to the service route for the bus Ian Fleming took from Cambridge to London daily being the number 007.
Timothy Dalton was approached for the part in the 60s, but turned it down as he felt he was too young for the role. he got his chance some 20 years later when Pierce Brosnan was contractually unavailable for the part in The Living Daylights.
The youngest ever onscreen Bond was George Lazenby, who made On Her Majesty's Secret Service when he was 30. Daniel Craig is the first actor to play the part who was not born when the first film was released.
Gert Fröbe, who played Goldfinger, was probably the most problematic piece of casting in the whole Bond series. as he spoke no English another actor (Michael Collins) overdubbed all his lines. an even bigger problem was that as Fröbe was a member of the Nazi party a number of countries initially refused to screen the film. when a Jewish family came forward and publically thanked him for protecting them and others during the war the threat to boycott the film fell away.
in other casting issues, whereas it is well known that David Bowie was the first choice to play Zorin in A View To A Kill and James Brolin screen-tested to take over the role of Bond from Roger Moore, slightly less well known is that both Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds were offered the Bond role. both, perhaps wisely, turned the job down, stating that they felt only a British actor should ever play the part.
whereas Mr Bond retains a love of alcohol, the last time he was seen to light up a cigarette was in Die Another Day. Daniel Craig, then, is the first Bond thus far to be a non-smoker.
which car or cars James Bond uses in a film is always subject to interest from certain fans. they must be constantly disappointed, then, when they watch You Only Live Twice. at no point in this film does James Bond drive a car himself, the only instance of this in the series so far.
well, i trust that some of the above has been of interest to a few of you. i am pretty sure it will have been, as for a bonus fact the best estimates and educated guesses suggest that somewhere between 66% to 75% of the world's population has at some point seen a Bond film. and with good reason, for they are rather good!
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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