Monday, April 16, 2012

A Blagger's Guide To: James Bond

'Vices: drink, but not to excess, and women ...' - Sunday 15 April 2012 - The Independent
William Boyd (right) has been revealed as the writer behind the next James Bond novel, which will be published by Jonathan Cape next year. He follows recent official Bond novels by Sebastian Faulks, whose best-selling Devil May Care in 2008 (set in the 1960s) marked the centenary of Ian Fleming's birth, and Jeffery Deaver, whose Carte Blanche was published and set in 2011. Other writers to have tackled Bond with the blessing of the Fleming estate include Kingsley Amis, Christopher Wood, John Gardner, Raymond Benson and Charlie Higson. Boyd's novel will be set in 1969 – five years after Fleming's death.

On the Today programme on Thursday, Boyd pointed out that three Bond actors have also appeared in films that he has written or adapted. These were: Daniel Craig as Guy Crouchback in Sword of Honour, 2001, and also as Sgt Telford Winter in The Trench, 1999; Sean Connery as Dr Alex Murray in A Good Man in Africa, 1994; and Pierce Brosnan as Harry Rudbeck in Mr Johnson, 1990. (Ian Fleming appears as a character in Any Human Heart, and was played in the 2010 TV series by Tobias Menzies.) So which of the other actors who have appeared in Boyd's films and screenplays might one day be chosen to play his new Bond? Well, Colin Firth played Truelove in the TV movie Dutch Girls in 1985. Rupert Graves played Shakespeare in A Waste of Shame: The Mystery of Shakespeare and His Sonnets in 2005. And, err, Gillian Anderson was excellent as the Duchess of Windsor in Any Human Heart.

In his 1966 biography The Life of Ian Fleming, John Pearson reported that Fleming wrote Casino Royale, finished on 18 March 1952, to take his mind off his wedding to Ann Rothermere on 24 March.

According to Ian Fleming Publications Ltd, James Bond "was born in the early 1920s to Andrew Bond of Glencoe and Monique Delacroix, from the Canton de Vaud in Switzerland. When he was six days old, James' name was put on Eton's general admissions list by his father. Bond received a conditional place at Eton in the early 1930s, just before his parents died in a climbing accident in France .... After two halves at the school, James Bond was removed from Eton due to an alleged incident with one of the Boys' Maids."
Full story at The Independent


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