His post-Bond films included such forgettable efforts as "The Quest" with Jean-Claude Van Damme and "Spice World" with the Spice Girls. He continued to work regularly in films after handing over Bond to Timothy Dalton, but never with the same success. And while the Bond of the Ian Fleming novels that the films were based on was generally described as being in his 30s, Moore would stay with the role until he was 57. He would make six more, "The Man With the Golden Gun," ''The Spy Who Loved Me," ''Octopussy," ''Moonraker," ''For Your Eyes Only and "A View to a Kill" over the next 12 years. Three years later, he made his first Bond film, "Live and Let Die." With the company, he co-starred with Tony Curtis in "The Persuaders!" for British television and was involved in producing "A Touch of Class," which won a best-actress Oscar for Glenda Jackson. In 1970, he became managing director for European production for Faberge's Brut Productions. He appeared opposite Elizabeth Taylor in 1954's "The Last Time I Saw Paris" and with Eleanor Parker in "Interrupted Melody" the following year. He played a few small roles in theater and films before his mandatory army duty, then moved to Hollywood in the 1950s. In the 1970s, film critic Vincent Canby would dismiss Moore's acting abilities as having "reduced all human emotions to a series of variations on one gesture, the raising of the right eyebrow."īorn in London, the only child of a policeman, Moore had studied painting before enrolling in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Such success followed a Time magazine review of one of his earliest films, 1956's "Diane," in which his performance opposite Lana Turner was dismissed as that of "a lump of English roast beef." By the time the series, which also aired in the United States, ended in 1969, his partnership with its producers had made him a wealthy man. In England, he had a long-running TV hit with "The Saint," playing Simon Templar, the enigmatic action hero who helps put wealthy crooks in jail while absconding with their fortunes. 1950s-60s TV series "Maverick" as Beauregarde Maverick, the English cousin of the Wild West's Maverick brothers, Bret and Bart. He was remembered warmly by fans of the popular U.S. The actor, who came to the role in 1973 after Connery tired of it, had already enjoyed a long career in films and television, albeit with mixed success. While he never eclipsed Sean Connery in the public's eye as the definitive James Bond, Moore did play the role of secret agent 007 in just as many films as Connery did, and he managed to do so while "finding a joke in every situation," according to film critic Rex Reed. So you have to treat the humor outrageously as well." What kind of serious spy is recognized everywhere he goes? It's outrageous. Every bartender in the world offers him martinis that are shaken, not stirred. "I mean, this man is supposed to be a spy and yet, everybody knows he's a spy. "To me, the Bond situations are so ridiculous, so outrageous," he once said. Moore's relaxed style and sense of whimsy, which relied heavily on the arched eyebrow, seemed a commentary on the essential ridiculousness of the Bond films, in which the handsome British secret agent was as adept at mixing martinis, bedding beautiful women and ordering gourmet meals as he was at disposing of super-villains trying to take over the world. Moore began his acting career as an extra in the 1940s before studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.Dozens of Pride flags snapped by vandals at Stonewall National Monument in Manhattan “I’ve not done badly for a boy from Stockwell, where I used to gaze at the silver screen in wonderment, little realising I’d be a part of this magical world,” he wrote in his autobiography, My Word Is My Bond. Moore was also one of the last of the old-style movie stars, who counted Frank Sinatra and David Niven among his friends and lived in luxury in Switzerland and the French Riviera.īorn Roger George Moore, on Octoin the London suburb of Stockwell, he was the only son of a police constable and his wife, and had a happy childhood. Known for his ironically raised eyebrow and deadpan quips, Moore’s take on the suave superspy was more tongue-in-cheek than that of his manly predecessor Sean Connery.īut he outgunned Connery and all the other actors to have played 007 by taking the role he fondly called “Jimmy Bond” in a record number of seven films. Lois Maxwell as Moneypenny alongside Roger Moore in the James Bond movie, The Spy Who Loved Me.
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