James Bond

I

Introduction

James Bond, “007”, fictional British secret agent created by the novelist Ian Fleming. Fleming wrote 12 novels and several short stories featuring the Bond character and since his death various authors including Kingsley Amis (writing as Robert Markham), John Gardner, Raymond Benson, Charlie Higson, and Sebastian Faulks have taken on the mantle. The Bond character has also featured in more than 20 popular films.

II

The “Life” of Bond

The chronology of Bond’s life is a subject of debate among Bond enthusiasts with details of his biography often having been rewritten for subsequent books and films. Nevertheless, certain “facts” can be established from Fleming’s writings. In the 13th Bond novel, You Only Live Twice (1964), believing 007 to have perished on a mission to Japan, his superior “M” publishes an obituary in The Times newspaper. According to the obituary, Bond was born to a Scottish father, Andrew Bond, who worked as a representative for the munitions firm Vickers; his mother, Monique Delacroix Bond, was Swiss. Bond’s early life was spent abroad until his parents’ death in a climbing accident in the French Alps when he was 11. He was then brought up in the small village of Pett Bottom, near Canterbury, by his aunt Charmian and from the age of 13 attended Eton school, although he was expelled soon after for trouble with a maid. Bond continued his education at Fettes College, Edinburgh, his father’s alma mater, where he cut a somewhat solitary figure, but was a natural athlete, excelling at boxing and judo. At 17 he joined the forerunner of the Ministry of Defence (MOD), lying about his age to do so, and by the end of World War II had risen to become a commander in the Royal Navy. He continued to work for the MOD after the war, being rewarded with the honour of the Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) for duties that “must remain confidential”.

Fleming’s character does not age, remaining in his 30s throughout the books. The first novel, Casino Royale (1953), establishes him as an agent working for British secret intelligence with the grade of “007”, having gained his double-0 number for completing two assassination assignments. Bond is ruthless and professional about taking life, regarding his 007 “licence to kill” as a necessary function of his job, but taking no pleasure in it. His weapon of choice is the Walther PPK handgun, which he first uses in Dr No (1958).

Bond is tall, masculine, and superior, a smooth and sexually aggressive seducer of women, and a gourmand and hedonistic smoker and drinker. In Casino Royale he drinks a Vodka Martini cocktail of his own invention, “The Vesper”, which later led to the famous line “Vodka Martini. Shaken, not stirred” in Diamonds are Forever (1956). Further details of Bond’s life are revealed elsewhere, such as the distinctive scar on his cheek (Casino Royale), the loss of his virginity at 16 to a Parisian prostitute while on holiday in France (“From a View to a Kill”, 1960), and his skill at cards (Casino Royale) and golf (Goldfinger, 1959). Mention is also made of an Austrian ski instructor, Oberhauser, described as having been something of a father figure to the young Bond (Octopussy, 1966). In On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1963) Bond’s marriage to Teresa di Vicenzo ends in tragedy when his bride is murdered on their wedding day by his nemesis Blofeld.

III

Origins of the Bond Novels

In the years following World War II, Fleming built a holiday home in Jamaica, named Goldeneye, where in 1952 he wrote the first Bond novel, Casino Royale. Fleming was a keen bird watcher and named the Bond character after the American ornithologist James Bond because he liked the simplicity of the name. In subsequent years, until his death in 1964, he returned to Jamaica to write.

There are many parallels between the Bond character and his creator, who was himself Eton educated. Prior to World War II, Fleming worked as a foreign correspondent for Reuters, and in 1933 covered the Metro-Vickers trial of a group of British engineers accused of spying on the Soviet Union. During the war, Fleming was a personal assistant to the director of British Naval Intelligence, attained the rank of commander, and was responsible for devising unorthodox plots to subvert the German war effort, as well as setting up an elite unit nicknamed the “Red Indians” that carried out intelligence raids during the Allied invasion of Germany. Elements of the novels were based on true events, such as a visit Fleming made to the Estoril Casino in Lisbon during the war, which became the inspiration for Casino Royale. The Soviet counter-intelligence organization SMERSH, in Casino Royale, From Russia with Love (1963), and Goldfinger, was based on a real Soviet agency that was active during World War II; in the Bond novels SMERSH’s objective is to destabilize the West and eliminate Western spies. Other elements in the novels are wholly fictional, such as the terrorist organization SPECTRE led by the evil Ernst Stavro Blofeld in Thunderball (1961), and the various megalomaniac antagonists 007 faces in the line of duty, namely Mr Big, the Haitian voodoo cultist in Live and Let Die (1954); the Nazi Hugo Drax in Moonraker (1955); the evil metal-handed scientist of Dr No; the eponymous gold smuggler in Goldfinger; and the assassin Scaramanga in The Man with the Golden Gun (1965).

IV

Bond the Cinema Hero

Whereas the books, although escapist, are generally dark in tone, the films often depart from Fleming’s original plots, and are self-consciously extravagant and spectacular, relying on glamorous locations and beautiful women, death-defying stunts, fast cars and high-tech gadgetry (courtesy of “Q”), and tongue-in-cheek humour. Six actors have played Bond since Sean Connery first donned the tuxedo in Dr No (1962). In succession they are Connery (6 official films, 1 unofficial), George Lazenby (1), Roger Moore (7), Timothy Dalton (2), Pierce Brosnan (4), and Daniel Craig (1). The official films are produced by Eon Productions, which was established in 1961 by the producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman. In addition, claims to some of the film rights by rival producers have resulted in two non-official films, a 1967 spoof version of Casino Royale starring David Niven, who ironically was Fleming’s preferred choice for the Bond role proper, and the Thunderball remake Never Say Never Again starring Connery (1983). Connery’s interpretation of the role emphasized Bond’s ruthlessness, virility, and cockiness. Moore, as a more refined Bond, in his own words “played it more for laughs”, and Dalton gave the character a harder, more brooding edge closer to Fleming’s original, while Brosnan’s screen persona was a combination of tough guy and sophisticate. In 2006, Brosnan was replaced by the younger Daniel Craig, in a new version of Casino Royale that harks back to Fleming’s original description of Bond as “ironical, brutal, and cold”.