The Search for Bond (eBook)

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Before Connery

The search for an actor to play James Bond did not start with the journey that ultimately led to the monumental casting of Sean Connery in 1962, but a full three years before, in 1959, when 007 looked like making his cinematic debut in a film directed by Alfred Hitchcock; though Ian Fleming had his fingers heavily crossed on that one. After years of hawking his books around film studios in England and Hollywood, with no takers, Fleming teamed up with a young maverick Irish filmmaker called Kevin McClory and together they formulated a plot line that saw Bond take on nuclear terrorism.

It was during Fleming’s meetings with Paul Dehn, an early candidate to write the screenplay, that the subject of who to cast as Bond first arose. In a letter dated 11 August 1959 to his friend Ivar Bryce, Fleming announced, ‘Both Dehn and I think that Richard Burton would be by far the best James Bond!’ It’s a fascinating suggestion, and undeniably the first recorded statement by Fleming about who should play his hero. Years later Fleming would champion David Niven as Bond, a very traditional English actor and a million miles away from the wild Celtic image and brooding manner of Burton. And what a Bond a pre-Cleopatra/pre-Elizabeth Taylor Burton would have been, before vats of vodka and a heady dose of disillusionment frayed his edges beyond repair.

According to Burton’s brother, Graham Jenkins, the Welsh actor was a fan of the Bond books, numbering them amongst his favourite pulp reading along with Agatha Christie. Guy Masterson, a theatrical producer and director, and Burton’s great-nephew, recalls that the acting legend once confided in him about his decision to turn the Bond role down:

At the time he was doing Camelot on stage and enjoying great stardom because of it. My uncle told me that Ian Fleming had approached him, asking him to play Bond. But back then Bond was a new concept – nobody had any idea it would be as big as it became. My uncle told me that he thought it was going to be just another movie.1

No matter how big Bond became, Burton never admitted to family or friends that he regretted missing out on the role. ‘Had Burton played Bond,’ says Masterson, ‘I think he would have been absolutely fantastic.’2

Burton’s rejection of Bond was probably just as well: the Welsh star was far too much of a free spirit to get tied down with a film series for any length of time. Ironically, in 1965, at the height of Bondmania, Burton scored one of his biggest successes with his Oscar-nominated role in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, playing a cynical, worn-out MI6 agent who was the antithesis of 007. The potential casting of Burton as Bond also throws up a myriad of repercussions; cinema history might have been very different. Burton would almost certainly have missed his role as Marc Antony in 1963’s Cleopatra, during which he fell in love with Elizabeth Taylor. One of the great showbiz couples of all time would never have been. And, of course, Sean Connery would have lost his opportunity for international stardom.

The casting of Richard Burton was an inspired idea and showed far greater insight into what kind of actor any potential Bond film required to connect with world audiences than did a previous screen incarnation of the character. Back in 1954, Fleming sold the screen rights to his first novel Casino Royale for a paltry $1,000 to the American TV network CBS and it was broadcast as part of their Climax! anthology series that October. Due to budgetary restraints and a script that was being altered right up to showtime, much of the nuance and scope of Fleming’s novel was missing. Worse, the character of Bond was reduced to an American private detective rather than the suave gentleman spy readers knew. At one point in the proceedings, he is addressed as ‘Card Sense Jimmy Bond’.

Cast in the role of Bond was Barry Nelson, a popular enough TV and screen star. He had recently finished starring as a globetrotting businessman involved in international intrigue in The Hunter, a half-hour series that ran on CBS from 1952–54, and was currently appearing in the CBS sitcom My Favorite Husband. He was whacked, and had taken a short holiday to Jamaica, telling his agent he did not want to be disturbed.

No sooner did he land than his agent called saying that CBS desperately wanted him for Casino Royale. Nelson scrambled to get an immediate flight back to America to attend rehearsals the next day. He later confessed that the only reason for taking the job was a chance to act opposite Peter Lorre, who was playing Le Chiffre. ‘I was really having my doubts, but when they told me Peter Lorre was the villain that was the clincher.’3

Arriving to play the role, Nelson had not the first clue what he was being asked to do. ‘At that time, no one had ever heard of James Bond. I was scratching my head wondering how to play it. I hadn’t read the book or anything like that because it wasn’t well known.’4 Far from carrying out even basic research, the most pressing prospect for Nelson was the fact that the 50-minute production was going out live. Where some people developed a nervous facial twitch, Nelson had a full body spasm. ‘It was sheer fear. Peter Lorre saw me shaking and said, “Straighten up, Barry, so I can kill you.”’5

Casino Royale made little impact on audiences or critics; Susan King of the Los Angeles Times called Nelson’s portrayal of 007 ‘sexless and glum’. Nelson was later to reveal that CBS had an option on further Bond stories but didn’t pick it up. What a relief, since a 007 TV series might have reduced the appetite for any potential studio to back a film franchise. It also meant no more Barry Nelson as James Bond; he went on with his career, largely appearing on Broadway along with a few film appearances in things like Airport (1970) and The Shining (1980), as the man who interviews Jack Nicholson’s Jack Torrance for the job of the off-season caretaker of the Overlook Hotel.

When the Bond films struck gold in the 1960s, Nelson never regretted what some people might have viewed as a lost opportunity. ‘I always thought Connery was the ideal Bond. What I did is just a curio.’6

Nelson wasn’t the only actor to play James Bond before Connery. There was a TV presenter who became a cult figure in the 1980s with the quiz show Blockbusters; his name was Holness, Bob Holness. Born in South Africa in 1928, Holness was six months old when his family came to live in England. In 1953, when he was 25, the whole family moved back to South Africa, and he began to find work in the theatre in Durban:

In 1955 I started a career in radio and was in a repertory company that did a multitude of different productions from soaps to the classics. And it was with the South African Broadcasting Corporation that I was offered the chance to play 007 in a live radio adaptation of Moonraker in 1958, I think.7

Like Barry Nelson before him, Holness hadn’t even heard of James Bond, let alone read a Fleming novel. Even so, the broadcast was a great success. ‘But when enquiries were made about the possibility of doing another adaptation we were told that there were plans to turn a novel into a film and they wanted to see how that went. The rest, as they say, is history.’8

As for playing Bond on the big screen: ‘it never even occurred to me,’ admitted Holness. ‘When my children were younger, I would take them to the cinema to see the latest Bond release, but we all agree that after Sean Connery it was never really the same. Having said that, I think Daniel Craig was extremely impressive, so maybe I’ve now changed my mind.’9

The failure of the CBS production of Casino Royale did not do much to endear the Bond novels to prospective film backers. However, in 1955, Hollywood actor John Payne purchased the film rights to Fleming’s third Bond novel, Moonraker, with the intention of starring as 007 himself. Born in 1912 in Virginia, Payne was a contract player with 20th Century Fox during the 1940s and early ’50s, starring in a string of forgettable musicals and film noir crime stories. His most notable appearances were in Miracle on 34th Street (1947) and controversial drama The Razor’s Edge (1946) in which he co-starred with Tyrone Power, an actor whose dark matinee idol looks he somewhat resembled.

By the time Moonraker was published in the early part of 1955, Payne was disheartened by most of the poorly conceived scripts he was getting and very much aware that his career needed a boost. Fleming’s novel offered him something better and very different. ‘It was an agent at the William Morris Agency in Beverly Hills who first alerted him to the thrillers of Ian Fleming,’ reveals Ronald Payne, the actor’s distant cousin:

John was very receptive and enthusiastic and immediately went about seeking the option rights to Moonraker with hopes of doing a series of films. Fleming’s hard living and dangerous super spy appealed to Payne, who wanted his film to be absolutely faithful to Fleming’s novel. Payne liked the speed of Fleming’s rollercoaster plot.10

For director, Payne sought out his friend Delbert Mann, then a hot property having just directed Ernest Borgnine’s Oscar-winning performance in the drama Marty. It...