Bond On Bond by Roger Moore Read Free Book Online Page B

same student plays.
    In 1962 Lois contacted her old friend director Terence Young and asked if there might be a part for her in his next film, as her husband had recently suffered a heart attack and they desperately needed the income. Terence said there were two possible parts: Sylvia Trench, Bond’s love interest; or Miss Moneypenny. Lois read the script and didn’t much care for the Sylvia Trench role, as it featured a scantily dressed scene with 007, so she opted for Moneypenny and received £200 for two days’ work.
    Alongside her role in the Bond movies, Lois appeared with me in an episode of
The Saint
and
The Persuaders!
before we resumed our on-stage association when I took on the role of Jimmy Bond.
    It’s interesting to note that despite her worldwide fame, Lois’s total screen time as Moneypenny in her fourteen films was less than twenty minutes, and she spoke fewer than 200 words. That’s the power of Bond for you.
    The one and only Lois Maxwell in the role she loved.
     
    Samantha Bond (no relation) played Moneypenny in all the Pierce Brosnan films.
     
    Pamela Salem was Sean Connery’s choice for the role in
Never Say Never Again
.
     
    Caroline Bliss was a two-time Moneypenny for a two-time Bond, Timothy Dalton. She had a penchant for Barry Manilow records!
     
    Two of a kind, Lois with Desmond Llewelyn – how I miss them both.
    It was a huge shock to hear of Lois’s death in 2007. She was always fun, wonderful company to be in and was absolutely perfect casting. Towards the end of my tenure as Jimbo, Lois said to Cubby that she would like to see Moneypenny become the new M. Cubby smiled and said, ‘I don’t think we can have a female head of the Secret Service.’
    It was a great pity that after I moved out of Bond they didn’t take her on to continue in the Timothy Dalton films, but I guess a younger Bond flirting with an older Moneypenny wasn’t to be.
    Other Miss Moneypennys include Caroline Bliss, Samantha Bond and – in the unofficial
Never Say Never Again
– Pamela Salem. Call me old-fashioned if you will, but there’ll only ever be one Miss Moneypenny for me.

_______________________
    BOND
    ON
    GADGETS
    _______________________
    We must get them in the shops for Christmas, Q.

BOND ON GADGETS
    A lmost every Bond film features a trip into Q-Branch, an underground Aladdin’s cave-like bunker beneath the power desks of MI6, where a group of boffins led by their Quartermaster feverishly develop and invent wonderful gadgets, gizmos and accoutrements for the field operatives of Her Majesty’s Secret Service. It’s unclear just how many of these devices are ever returned; certainly if Jim is a yardstick then very few come back intact.
    One of my first 007 gadgets. A radio transmitter housed in a hairbrush.
FINDING Q
    While being one of the most well known and favourite of the returning characters, Q’s origins are not terribly clear. There is a reference to Q in Chapter 3 of Fleming’s
Casino Royale
. M says to Bond, ‘Go over a few days before the big game starts and get your hand in. Have a talk to Q about rooms and trains, and any equipment you want.’
    The famous Walther PPK as presented to Jim by ‘The Armourer’ in
Dr. No
. The PPK was used in most of the films up to
Tomorrow Never Dies
, and then made a welcome return in
Quantum Of Solace
.
    Q-Branch features occasionally in the novels, supplying Bond with equipment and gadgets, but it is said by scholars that the true origin of the Q character lies in the first film,
Dr. No
. The secret service armourer, Major Boothroyd, replaces Jim’s Beretta with a new Walther PPK. There is no direct reference to Boothroyd being associated with Q Branch, though the character was based on a real person who advised Fleming on changing Bond’s weapon, Major Geoffrey Boothroyd.
    In the next film, Desmond Llewelyn’s character is referred to as the ‘Equipments Officer’, when he supplies Jim with his new attaché case, although he is credited