The Many Lives of James Bond

by Mark Edlitz

  No, not really. It was only two days of a radio show. I was doing a hell of a lot of work at the time, and it was just something that came along. And it didn’t affect me at all, really. I liked doing it. But I wish nobody else had done it, because then they’d say, “He was the only guy who played Bond on the radio.”

  The peculiar thing was, along with two other actors, I was up for James Bond years ago, when Roger Moore was still doing it [but he’d hinted that he might be retiring from the role]. I went up for it and met Cubby Broccoli and all those people.

  You met with Cubby? How did that happen?

  They just wanted to see me. So I met Cubby Broccoli, the director [John Glen], and I think a light and cameraman was there for some reason. We had a great chat, and they said, “We’ll let you know.”

  Did you do a screen test?

  No. I was going to, but then Roger Moore decided he wanted to do some more, so that was it.

  What do you remember from that meeting?

  Cubby Broccoli was absolutely charming. His daughter [Barbara Broccoli] was there as well. His daughter was very young at the time. I only met him for about five or six minutes. Then I met the director.

  What did you and the director talk about?

  We just talked about how I would tackle it. But as I said at the time, as I’m saying to you, you play it out of your own personality. If somebody’s played it well, that doesn’t mean you can’t play it in your own way and just as well.

  But then Roger Moore wanted to do some more, so it was all dropped. Whether I’d have gotten it or not, I don’t know. And when Moore stopped playing Bond for good, I think I was too old. It was about two or three years after I was first considered.

  Do you recall the two other actors who were up to play Bond?

  Patrick Mower, who’s in Emmerdale [a long-running British soap opera]. He’s about the same age as me, about seventy-five, and I forget who the other one was. I know there were two other people up for it with me.

  What does Bond mean to England?

  It really is flying the flag, whether or not most British people would think that’s their idea of the British hero, but in some ways it is.

  Do Bond fans seek you out?

  A lot of the Bond fans know I did this on radio, but I’m not really an actor in the league of the other people who played Bond. It’s only the absolute aficionados who would know me as Bond. But it was so long ago that few people would know about it, unless they looked it up.

  Were you disappointed you didn’t play Bond in a film?

  It was one of those possibilities that lasted for only about two or three weeks, and then my agent said it’s all fallen through. Other work came along, and I didn’t think any more about it. I don’t know whether I would have liked to have been Bond in the movies, because you’re everybody’s property once you become Bond. You become a figure of iconography.

  JOSEPH MALONE IS (A DANCING) JAMES BOND

  In the line of duty, it’s occasionally necessary for James Bond to disregard his Walther PPK and to put on his boogie shoes. Such was the case in Thunderball, when 007 evades capture by taking to the dance floor and employing a perfectly timed turn that allows him simultaneously to avoid an assassin’s bullet and to kill the enemy agent with whom he’s dancing. In its remake, Never Say Never Again, Bond turns the villain’s girlfriend against him during an elaborate tango routine. In the A View to a Kill theme song, Bond, who is presumably the protagonist, beckons a woman to “dance into the fire” with him.

  But the most unexpected instance of Bond tripping the light fantastic occurred at the Oscars. On March 29, 1982, during the fifty-fourth Academy Awards ceremony, Joseph Malone was the dancing, spinning, high-kicking 007 during Sheena Easton’s performance of her nominated song “For Your Eyes Only.”90 In the presentation, Malone, as Bond, drives a laser-firing sports car onto the stage, fights a cavalcade of bad guys, shoots a laser gun, tosses grenades, dispatches a villain with a sword, bests Bond baddies Harold Sakata’s Oddjob and Richard Kiel’s Jaws, who reprised their roles from the Eon films, scares away Dr. No and Blofeld, destroys a villain’s stronghold, saves singer Sheena Easton, and escapes in a rocket ship.91 No doubt about it, Malone’s Bond is a weapon of dance destruction.

  How were you cast as James Bond for the Academy Awards tribute to the series?

  Originally, I was not cast in this role. A dancer named Blair Farrington was cast to play James Bond and I was one of the dancer henchmen who got killed during the number. As I recall, it was on the Friday or Saturday before the live performance on Monday night that Blair twisted his knee during a rehearsal. He was determined that he’d be all right and that he just needed to rest it. As many dancers have done similar things, we were sure he’d be fine by the next day. As it turned out, Blair’s knee was not improving and it was still bothering him during the next day’s rehearsal. But he absolutely soldiered on, doing his best to dance whatever portions he could while holding off on the more demanding parts of the choreography. After the second day of his injury, when it appeared he was not getting better fast enough, Walter Painter, the great choreographer who came up with that number, came to me on the q.t. and asked me to keep an eye on the staging for that part. He obviously did not want to discourage Blair in any way, hoping that Blair would be able to dance the role. I tried my best to learn the staging from my position on the stage after my demise.

  By Monday afternoon, Blair’s knee seemed to have gotten progressively worse, but Blair, like any of us with that great part, did not want to give in. He continued to rehearse. Eventually, the moment of truth came, and since the stage was now being used to complete all of the camera blocking for the awards proper, the entire cast went out into the lobby of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, and Blair tried to do the number one more time. It became obvious to all, sadly, that he was not going to be able to dance. So Mr. Painter called me over for a quick powwow with [the show’s producers] Howard Koch Jr. and Michael Seligman, both of whom were there watching. Mr. Painter explained to them that he had asked me to watch and familiarize myself with the staging after my character’s early demise and from my subsequent position on the set. They asked me if I knew the role and I said something like, “Well, I’ve never rehearsed it on my feet but I’m pretty sure I know the general staging.” This was critical to this piece because this was one of the first times a production tried to integrate computer-generated effects as well as special effects in real time during a live performance. Obviously, with the graphics and explosions onstage, the timing was extremely important and particularly specific for the success of the number. And as you will notice, due to my lack of rehearsal time, much of it was a bit late.

  Well, I did my best dancing on the carpet of the lobby while my fellow cast members approximated the levels and placement on the set. None of the principal villains or Sheena Easton were involved in this rehearsal. Truth be told, my fellow dancers basically talked me through the choreography and staging as I danced—and during the performance as well—shouting out to me where I was supposed to go next and the action that I was supposed to be doing. When I finished, I remember Mr. Koch saying something to the effect that he felt more of a Robin Hood energy from me than a James Bond energy when I did the number. He then asked if I thought I could do it. It was now sometime around 2 or 3 pm before a 6 pm live tele-cast. I promised that I’d do my best to change my energy, assuring him that James Bond was certainly one of my favorite action heroes and I would do everything I could to channel that energy on stage. I’m not sure he really had much of a choice at this point unless they were going to cut the number. You’ll need to judge how you think I did. I think I got in one more rehearsal in the lobby before all of the dancers had to be released for makeup, hair, and dinner.

  So, now I’m James Bond—at least the dance version.

  As you can probably guess, I was a bit panicked that I didn’t really know the number and that I was about to perform it onstage live for both a star-studded
audience as well as about a gazillion people watching on television. I briefly met with all the villains that I had action with, as well as Ms. Easton, and we walked through the staging that I was supposed to do with them. Nothing in real time or on the set, though. Fortunately, it was the first of several dance numbers that I was involved in that night, so I spent every spare minute trying to remember what I was supposed to be doing, where and when. So, if you can picture me wandering around backstage with a cassette of the number playing on my Walkman, desperately trying to learn the number that had been rehearsed for the better part of a week without me doing this part—well, you get the picture.

  There was also the added problem of having to drive 007’s car onstage and hit an exact mark so that all of the graphic effects would line up. Unfortunately for me, since the set was already in the position for the beginning of the show, I never got to rehearse that nor even drive the car. The first time and only time I ever did that was when I drove it onstage live.

  What do you remember about the costumes? First, you’re dressed in a jumpsuit, then three dancers strip it off, and we see you’re wearing a tuxedo underneath.

  Obviously, I hadn’t been fitted for the costume so there was now a mad dash to get Blair’s jumpsuit fitted to me. Luckily, the brilliant Bob Mackie, our costume designer, was, as always, on it. Since the jumpsuit was very specifically designed and built to reveal the tux underneath, they had to alter the original to fit me. That led to a lot of wonderful folks doing last-minute pinning and sewing. I guess Walter and Bob had spoken at some point because it seems to me that they had a tux standing by in my size.

  The boots I wore were another matter. Blair’s feet were a bit bigger than mine and there was no way to get another pair of boots like that in time. It was a problem because I had to dance in them and they needed to fit as well as possible [but since there was no time for a better remedy], I think I wound up just putting on a couple of pairs of socks.

  Richard Kiel plays Jaws in the performance. What do you remember about him?

  Due to the circumstances, I did not really have too much interaction with the Bond villains or Ms. Easton. At one point, I decided I better try to eat something, as it had already been a long day. I went to catering and there was Richard Kiel, who invited me to eat with him and his wife. As we shook hands, I was impressed that he didn’t squeeze my hand but rather let me squeeze his. Given the difference in our sizes, I felt a bit like a little boy shaking hands with an adult. As I didn’t have much time, after we sat for a minute and exchanged pleasantries, I took him up on his offer to rehearse our part again, since we had some of the more specific staging. He helped talk me through that section at the end of the dance as we performed. He was such a wonderfully sweet, charming, and gentle man.

  Did you ever feel like Bond?

  The time I felt most like James Bond was when I drove onstage in the car. Next, when the girls unzipped my jumpsuit revealing me in the tux. And in the end with Richard Kiel, when I invited him into the shuttle first and then threw the grenade in after him. Finally, when I swept Sheena Easton up and took her into that rocket for the kiss.

  What do you think of the nearly four-minute and twenty-second performance?

  I’m sure that as you watch it again, you will see how much of it was a bit out of sync. What you probably won’t know is that at the end of the number, as the ship is taking off—done with a forklift and as I kissed Sheena Easton—I was pulling desperately on a trip wire that was supposed to release a British flag. No matter how hard I pulled, I could not get it to release. It stayed rolled up until we abruptly stopped at the end of the number and then it released.

  Mr. Koch called me at home the next morning thanking me for stepping in and saying that I saved the show or something like that. Hardly the truth, but I appreciated him saying so.

  On my way offstage, the first person I saw standing in the wings watching was Roger Moore. He shook my hand, gave me a nod, and, in typical British fashion, said, “Well done.”

  COREY BURTON IS JAMES BOND JR.

  Pairing James Bond and a children’s cartoon might seem like an uneasy fit. But Bond producer and screenwriter Michael G. Wilson, along with Andy Heyward and Robby London, defied conventional wisdom and surprised Bond fans when they created James Bond Jr. (1991–1992), a half-hour animated series. James Bond Jr. was supported by a robust merchandising effort, which included comic books, novels, a video game, and action figures.

  The show depicted the exploits of 007’s daring nephew James Bond Jr., who, while still attending prep school, frequently saves the world from familiar Bond baddies—among them, Goldfinger, Dr. No, Jaws, Nick Nack, and Oddjob. With the aid of classmates Tracy Milbanks, Gordon “Gordo” Leiter, and gadget inventor Horace “IQ” Boothroyd III, Bond also faces off against outrageously named new villains like Dr. Derange, Barbella, Walker D. Plank, the Worm, Goldfinger’s daughter Goldie Finger, and Scumlord, the enigmatic head of the SPECTRE-like organization SCUM (Saboteurs and Criminals United in Mayhem).

  The animated series is not the first appearance of a character called James Bond Jr. In R. D. Mascott’s The Adventures of James Bond Junior 003½ (1967), Junior is identified as the son of Bond’s brother Captain David Bond.92 However, many viewers of the cartoon consider Burton’s character to be the son of 007 and not his nephew. There is evidence to support their theory. As previously noted, Kissy Suzuki is pregnant with Bond’s child at the end of the novel You Only Live Twice. In the 1973 novel James Bond: The Authorized Biography, John Pearson reveals that Suzuki gave birth to a son whom she names James. John Gardner, in his twelfth original Bond novel, Never Send Flowers (1993), specifies that Bond doesn’t have any siblings.93 Raymond Benson incorporates James Suzuki into the plot of his 1997 short story “Blast from the Past.” Based on the continuity established by Fleming and expanded on by Pearson, Gardner, and Benson, it stands to reason that James Bond Jr. is, in fact, Bond’s son. [Pearson also gave 007 a brother named Henry but it’s unlikely both Bonds would have a son named James. In 1967’s Casino Royale, Bond has a daughter named Mata Bond (Joanna Pettet).]

  Lineage aside, James Bond Jr. is a curious part of the character’s history. The creators of James Bond Jr. faced the unenviable task of translating the adult nature of Bond into an animated children’s show. Corey Burton, the ubiquitous voice-over actor whose credits include work for the Walt Disney Company (feature films, animated television shows, and theme parks), LucasFilm Animation, and Warner Bros., played James Bond Jr. in sixty-five episodes.

  In the following interview, which was conducted in writing, Burton looks back at the curious spin-off.

  How were you cast as James Bond Jr.?

  I don’t exactly recall. It was most likely a standard audition and callback process. Probably influenced by my previous young teen hero role of Spike in the original Transformers series [The Transfomers (1984-1987)], where I worked with Sue Blu, voice casting and session director for the James Bond Jr. shows. Though my teen days were over by then, I was called back in after what must have been a rough couple of sessions with a more age-appropriate but still green voice talent, and Sue had to rework the pilot episode soundtrack with an experienced voice actor in the lead role, dependable enough to take on upcoming session demands smoothly and efficiently. We’d always gotten on well anyway, and I could still consistently sound youthful enough for the gig, so I was suddenly onboard for the whole series.

  It was a lot of fun for us all, throughout, with a harmonious, agreeable air of camaraderie, though I’d always contended that teens mostly have lower pitched voices than typically cast, and I was a bit disappointed by the consistent reminders to keep my pitch up in the highest part of my range when I felt he should sound somewhat more mature than his goofy compatriots. I still contend that a young Bond should be disarmingly cool and collected and with a sly sense of mischief, but those decisions aren’t ours.

  Even though you weren’t playing James Bond, you had to at least evoke his
spirit. How did you create the character and determine what his voice should sound like?

  Well, I am a traditionally schooled radio actor, so I instinctively take character cues from the dialogue itself and how the voices interact within the scenes as written, and I try to match the directors’ vision of how it plays as a finished piece. While the character is based in the UK, and there were real Brits among the cast, we were told to keep accents light enough to be clearly [discernible] to American kids, and considering that James was supposed to have been raised internationally, I settled on something I’d call transcontinental BBC—with my native California teen guy musical structure underneath a basic Londoner accent, and figuring he’d spent time with family living down under, and as a nod to the underappreciated George Lazenby, I added a hint of Australian lilt and swagger to the delivery. To indicate that his was an “acquired accent,” I made his annunciation of certain vowel sounds, especially the letters I and O, carefully formed as if he’d been trained in a BBC standard English study course as a child and as if he’d be reprimanded for not shaping a proper O with his lips or fully sounding out every long I, as in Welsh dialect. I’d be able to call his voice my own concoction, if not for the frequent reminders to keep his pitch as high as possible within my range at all times.

  What did you use from the Ian Fleming novels and movies?

  What established the whole feel of the dashing 007 world of espionage adventure fare for me boiled down to Connery’s cheeky delivery of dark pun, “She’s just dead.” Wickedly cool, dangerous, and funny in what you might call an intensely subtle way. I have to confess to never having finished any of the Fleming novels, but those early films, along with 1960s TV series like The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964–1968), Danger Man (1960–1962 and 1964–1968), which was also known as Secret Agent, and even the comedy satire Get Smart (1965–1970) really made a huge impact on my childhood. I even fashioned Double-O credentials for a buddy and myself when I was maybe nine or ten. While certainly suave for his age, of course we had to avoid any real indication of randiness in his manner with the flock of fawning young groupies in his domain. I had to be merely playful—never horny as hell, as anyone would surely imagine a super-cool young stud like him to have been. And again, though I’d have preferred otherwise, the voice had to remain unmistakably teenage, avoiding all traces of maturity in tone and texture in every sound and syllable uttered.