James Bond 007 (Connery/Moore/Villains etc)

[Imelda 621]

2 hours ago, TomTomTelekom said:

Michael Apted, director of the James Bond film The World is Not Enough died at 79 years:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/michael-apted-dead-coal-miners-daughter-director-seven-up-documentarian-was-79-1292671

 

2 hours ago, Handrejka said:

 Didn't he do the 7 up series as well?

 

 

2 hours ago, msc said:

Yep. tbh I had a feeling from the way folk were talking at the last one that he wasn't going to linger around

 

I really hope that one of the main channels has the gumption to carry on with the 7-Up series until there's nobody left either willing/able to particpate or alive. It's a huge achievement in TV, another British classic from the days of visonary programming where content and idealism were considered ideal for prime time audiences - who were not treated like dribbling cretins.

[Bemused 3]

2 hours ago, NotTheNagsHeadReading said:

 

 

 

I really hope that one of the main channels has the gumption to carry on with the 7-Up series until there's nobody left either willing/able to particpate or alive. It's a huge achievement in TV, another British classic from the days of visonary programming where content and idealism were considered ideal for prime time audiences - who were not treated like dribbling cretins.

 

From what I remember it was mainly Apted who persuaded half of them to even entertain doing it. Would be surprised if more than two or three did it without him. 

 

His death came as quite a shock to me tbf. Expected him to be around for next one. 

[Youth in Asia 1,086]

7 up is possibly the greatest TV series ever made in the UK

[Bentrovato 1,087]

11 minutes ago, Youth in Asia said:

7 up is possibly the greatest TV series ever made in the UK

I thought 7up was a porn movie with Sleeping Beauty as the star. 

[Grim Up North 3,725]

3 hours ago, Bentrovato said:

I thought 7up was a porn movie with Sleeping Beauty as the star. 

Funny but Snow White surely?

[Bentrovato 1,087]

2 hours ago, Grim Up North said:

Funny but Snow White surely?

Damn you are right. Early in the morning is my excuse. 

 

[The Old Crem 3,583]

12 hours ago, Bemused said:

 

From what I remember it was mainly Apted who persuaded half of them to even entertain doing it. Would be surprised if more than two or three did it without him. 

 

His death came as quite a shock to me tbf. Expected him to be around for next one. 

The Camerman George Jesse Turner has been doing it for decades as well and could produce the final one I suppose - through he himself is 75.

[Deathrace 1,170]

Just watching Diamonds Are Forever and quite surprised that the creepy double act of Mr Kidd and Mr Wint - Bruce Glover and Putter Smith - are still alive aged 88 and 79 respectively. Both of course have now outlived their cinematic nemesis Sean Connery. 

[DCI Frank Burnside 3,887]

If I'm not mistaken. Every main Bond Villain from For Your Eyes Only onwards with the exception of Louis Jordan from Octopussy (Although Berkoff is arguably a main protagonist as well ) is still alive

 

Julian Glover (For Your Eyes Only)

Stephen Berkoff (Octopussy)

Christopher Walken (A View To A Kill)

Jeroen Krabbe (The Living Daylights)

Robert Davi (Licence to Kill)

Sean Bean (GoldenEye)

Jonathan Pryce (Tomorrow Never Dies)

Robert Carlyle (The Worlds Is Not Enough)

Toby Stephens (Die Another Day)

Mads Mikklesen (Casino Royale)

Mathieu Almeriac (Quantum Of Solace)

Javier Bardem (Skyfall)

Christoph Waltz (Spectre) 

 

 

Klaus Maria Brandauer (Never Say Never Again) is still alive as well 

[msc 18,439]

3 minutes ago, DCI Frank Burnside said:

If I'm not mistaken. Every main Bond Villain from For Your Eyes Only onwards with the exception of Louis Jordan from Octopussy (Although Berkoff is arguably a main protagonist as well ) is still alive

 

Julian Glover (For Your Eyes Only) 

Stephen Berkoff (Octopussy)

Christopher Walken (A View To A Kill)

Jeroen Krabbe (The Living Daylights)

Robert Davi (Licence to Kill)

Sean Bean (GoldenEye)

Jonathan Pryce (Tomorrow Never Dies)

Robert Carlyle (The Worlds Is Not Enough)

Toby Stephens (Die Another Day)

Mads Mikklesen (Casino Royale)

Mathieu Almeriac (Quantum Of Solace)

Javier Bardem (Skyfall)

Christoph Waltz (Spectre) 

 

And Yaphet Kotto is the only main villain pre-FYEO alive now, after Lonsdale's death.

[CoffinLodger 1,248]

Top stuntman who was in many of the James Bond films inc View to a Kill Remy Julienne has died at 90 https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/breaking-remy-julienne-dead-james-23366138

[President Erdoğan 0]

On 09/01/2021 at 22:38, msc said:

 

And Yaphet Kotto is the only main villain pre-FYEO alive now, after Lonsdale's death.

Robert Davi (Licence to Kill) is the best on this list, the rest are lightweight 

[Vinegar Tits 606]

Sad news about Rémy Julienne - absolute legend of a driver.

[Ulitzer95 12,586]

On 05/01/2021 at 15:07, YoungWillz said:

And she's dead again: https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/breaking-tanya-roberts-dead-bond-23265843

Tanya Roberts continues to be a headache, likely due to her thick widower badly managing the press on this again.

IMDb have revised her DOB from 1955 to 1949. Makes sense as she appears to be ~30, as opposed to ~24 when she was in Charlie's Angels!

So she was probably 71, not 65 at the time of her death. The Guardian reports the official cause of death as sepsis.

[BCAlum2000 42]

I think 1949 is the more accurate year.  Tanya has been in show business since the early 70s, so it would have been more realistic if she were in her late teens and early 20s when she started out.  

 

She had a starring role in the 1975 horror movie Forced Entry, so it makes sense she was 25-26 years old, at the time and not 19-20.  

 

It's not uncommon for celebrities to shave a few years off their birthdate to give the appearance of youth.    

 

For example, I've heard persistent rumors that Beyonce Knowles was actually born in the mid to late 1970s (between 1975 to 1978), and not 1981.  And quite frankly, it wouldn't shock me if she were born in 1978 or even 1975, and not 1981.    I mean Beyonce was making music since the mid-1990s, and I remember how I always thought she looked "mature" for her age (despite her and I being born just a couple months apart).  

Put it this way, when I watched her in music videos during her Destiny's Child days, she did NOT look like she was 15 or 16 years old!  

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/beyonce-age-mathew-knowles_n_56253265e4b0bce347018e14

 

Jessica Chastain and Rebel Wilson also fudged their ages.  Jessica always claimed to be born in late 1981, when it turns out she was born in 1977.  She graduated from acting school in her mid to late 20s, so that's why she got away with it for some time.  And Rebel Wilson was born in 1980, not 1986 or 1988!  

[Toast 16,137]

1 hour ago, BCAlum2000 said:

For example, I've heard persistent rumors that Beyonce Knowles was actually born in the mid to late 1970s (between 1975 to 1978), and not 1981.  And quite frankly, it wouldn't shock me if she were born in 1978 or even 1975, and not 1981.    I mean Beyonce was making music since the mid-1990s, and I remember how I always thought she looked "mature" for her age (despite her and I being born just a couple months apart). 

Put it this way, when I watched her in music videos during her Destiny's Child days, she did NOT look like she was 15 or 16 years old!  

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/beyonce-age-mathew-knowles_n_56253265e4b0bce347018e14

 

 

One for the Deadpool Detectives?

[Ulitzer95 12,586]

Not that I’m saying that this is definite proof that the theory of an earlier birth is wrong, but it would be difficult to account for why the Texas Birth Index would be wrong.

 

[msc 18,439]

Give Ulitzer the internet and a few hours and he could find Jimmy Hoffa for you!

[Ulitzer95 12,586]

So thought I'd take a look at who's still around from the Connery-era Bond films given that we've recently lost quite a few actors from these movies (including Sir Sean himself!) By no means a complete list but I think I've included everyone with a title credit in a major role, plus one or two uncredited notables who should be on the radar.

Living actors from the Connery Bond films

Sorted by oldest first, number in brackets is age they're turning in 2021.


André Maranne (95) Thunderball DIED 12 APRIL 2021


David de Keyser (94) Diamonds Are Forever DIED 20 FEBRUARY 2021


Bruce Glover (89) Diamonds Are Forever


Tsai Chin (88) You Only Live Twice


George Roubicek (86) You Only Live Twice


Ursula Andress (85) Dr. No


Shirley Eaton (84) Goldfinger


Luciana Paluzzi (84) Thunderball

Marguerite LeWars (83) Dr. No


Michael Chow (82) You Only Live Twice


Akiko Wakabayashi (82) You Only Live Twice


Aliza Gur (81) From Russia with Love


Jill St. John (81) Diamonds Are Forever


Martine Beswick (80) From Russia with Love / Thunderball (different characters)


Putter Smith (80) Diamonds Are Forever


Daniela Bianchi (79) From Russia with Love


Mie Hama (78) You Only Live Twice


Lana Wood (75) Diamonds Are Forever


Trina Parks (74) Diamonds Are Forever
note: haven't included Lola Larson who played "Bambi" opposite Parks' "Thumper" cos I can't find any evidence that she's alive!


Ronald Rich (unknown) You Only Live Twice
note: can't find his age anywhere but still alive according to Toby Hadoke on Twitter in 2020, he reported that he wrote to him in 2013 and he was in failing health then!

[msc 18,439]

I legit thought Wint and Kidd's ages were the other way round until that post. Two of the best henchmen from the Connery era imo.

[Ulitzer95 12,586]

1 hour ago, msc said:

I legit thought Wint and Kidd's ages were the other way round until that post. Two of the best henchmen from the Connery era imo.

Two characters who definitely wouldn't be PC nowadays though!

A humorous and yet slightly odd demise for both of them... one set on fire then throws himself off the cruise liner, the other blows up after having a bomb strapped between his crotch by Bond.

Diamonds are Forever and A View to a Kill stand out as the more comical amongst the Bond films. Probably why the critics hated them.

[msc 18,439]

19 minutes ago, Ulitzer95 said:

Two characters who definitely wouldn't be PC nowadays though!

A humorous and yet slightly odd demise for both of them... one set on fire then throws himself off the cruise liner, the other blows up after having a bomb strapped between his crotch by Bond.

Diamonds are Forever and A View to a Kill stand out as the more comical amongst the Bond films. Probably why the critics hated them.

 

A solidly loving couple who just so happen to be gay, and ruthlessly efficient assassins - iirc they kill around a dozen people and only come undone due to a fluke in the finale. They may be a little camp (and aren't that much compared to half the folk I knew in nightclubs!), they still kill more people than most of the Connery era henchmen combined.

 

There's also the modern reaction to the end of the Living Daylights (Bond unites with the Taliban against a rogue Soviet general, essentially) being "naïve" when all it does is shine a mirror up to the realpolitik of the time they find uncomfortable. 

 

On the other hand, scenes where Bond hits women do make me uncomfortable and Roger Moore was right to insist they cut them out. 

 

[Ulitzer95 12,586]

44 minutes ago, msc said:

 

A solidly loving couple who just so happen to be gay, and ruthlessly efficient assassins - iirc they kill around a dozen people and only come undone due to a fluke in the finale. They may be a little camp (and aren't that much compared to half the folk I knew in nightclubs!), they still kill more people than most of the Connery era henchmen combined.

 

There's also the modern reaction to the end of the Living Daylights (Bond unites with the Taliban against a rogue Soviet general, essentially) being "naïve" when all it does is shine a mirror up to the realpolitik of the time they find uncomfortable. 

 

On the other hand, scenes where Bond hits women do make me uncomfortable and Roger Moore was right to insist they cut them out. 

 

Haha! Well I suppose that's one way to look at it. I don't think the portrayal is at all flattering though given that up until the 60s (and arguably well into the 70s), gay people were only ever portrayed on screen in three ways – the camp/femme/comical type character, the tragic/unsettled/suicidal character or the villain/evil doer. There were never any gay people portrayed in Bond up until that point – that was the first (and the last?) and it doesn't look comfortable looking back at it. They're absolutely bankrupt of any morals and are portrayed as total sneaks in the film, murdering old ladies to steal diamonds etc. I'm not sure how similar they were in Fleming's book, but regardless of whether their characterisation on screen was his invention or the studio's, it was typical of the era.

This is quite a fascinating topic but it's seldom discussed, probably because people find it embarrassing/hard to look back at, but I thoroughly recommend The Celluloid Closet (wiki), a documentary which shows 100s of clips in cinema from the 1910s up to the 1990s, narrated by Lily Tomlin and featuring interviews with the likes of Tony Curtis, Harvey Fierstein, Gore Vidal, Quentin Crisp etc. Really interesting watch!

On the slapping of women in the films, yes I find it uncomfy too. I personally don't believe in tampering with old films, but I imagine if the Bond films ever make it on to a streaming platform, a few of sexist remarks, face slaps and cliches will be omitted. It doesn't fundamentally alter the story but I still believe in film preservation. Cinema should try to be understood in the perspective of when it was made rather than aligning historical films with 21st century norms.

[gcreptile 10,967]

8 hours ago, Ulitzer95 said:

There were never any gay people portrayed in Bond up until that point – that was the first (and the last?)

 

...cough... well in my opinion, Skyfall goes there....

 

Also, it has to be said, gay spies were very common in the cold war era. People without family attachments and able to be blackmailed, always subliminally subversive.

For example here (I just checked for a short article):

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35360172

 

Bruce Glover, the actor listed above, however, is the father of prominent actor Crispin Glover.

[David Pro 14]

Yaphet Kotto (Mr. Big in Live and Let Die) has died at 81.

 

https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/breaking-yaphet-kotto-dead-live-23733350.amp