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"Roger Moore's His Own Bond" - Evening Independent,
June 28th 1973
Roger Moore doesn't sound like James Bond at all. He sounds like Roger Moore,
a bit tired perhaps, sitting in his New York hotel room, talking long distance,
on a hot June afternoon.
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He doesn't sound threatening, or deadly.
He doesn't sound like a superspy licensed to kill. And
he doesn't sound one bit like Sean
Connery. Which is the way Moore wants it.
He plays Ian Fleming's Agent 007 in the
eighth James Bond film, "Live And Let Die," which
opens Friday. And although he follows Sean Connery's many
movies as the
suave, cool hero, he says he plays James Bond with distinction.
"I play him the way Roger Moore plays
him. I'm not Sean Connery. We don't look alike so I don't
try to play
Sean Connery," he says, his soft British accent distant
over the phone, but familiar.
Roger Moore has a long history of playing
the sophistication and always-in-control hero. He has starred
in no less than
five TV series - perhaps a record - "The Alaskans," "Ivanhoe," "Maverick," "The
Persuaders!" and, of course, "The Saint," which
kept him in clover for seven years, and the series is still
being shown.
The image of a cold savoir-faire hero is therefore familiar
to Roger Moore. And he doesn't mind having a somewhat fantastic,
romantic aura. An images "is no handicap," he says. "It
pays the rent. I'm very grateful and I don't knock and image
I may have gotten." |
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Right now, Moore is stumping for this latest Broccoli-Saltzman
film. Then it's back to London for a new film, although at the
moment, Moore doesn't know which one.
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"There are lots of films in the words. It's hard
to decide what to do. The great problem is finding the
right vehicle to do in between Bonds." He's limited
by contract to non-spy roles. "I supposed action-adventure
resembles my current image. There are an awful lot of good
scripts, and an awful lot of bad ones."
More says he'd like to do a comedy, or even play a villain
in a Bond film. The villains "have wild parts," he
says. "They hide behind various disguises of guises.
They are larger-than-life people."
He already has signed to do Bond No. 9, "The Man
With The Golden Gun," scheduled to begin shooting
next year in such exotic locations as SIngapore, Bangkok
and Hong Kong.
This one, too, will be co-produced by Harry Saltzman,
who is building a home in northeast St. Petersburg [Florida,
USA] (and reportedly has purchased an antique Lincoln Continental
that once belonged to Henry Ford). |
Moore says it's easy to play a character such as James Bond,
and not simply a quick-dash thing. He approaches the character
with forethought.
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"I try to give him a background in
my mind. I ask myself what kind of education I think the
character has, his family, the training he went through
for his job. It's
not a great deal of preparation to do." But it sets
the stage for the actor.
"Then the fancy of acting comes in," Moore
says. "I
love acting. If I didn't, I wouldn't do it. I love my profession.
I like story-telling. I like entertaining people, amusing
people, endeavoring to give people pleasure."
One bit of pleasure Moore, as Bond, is
promising 007 fans - in addition to a myriad of crashes
and demolitions and
other screen destructions, and lithe women, and judo-karate
fights - is a diary. Moore and company are publishing a
diary of the making of "Live And Let Die," written,
or rather recorded, by Moore each day after shooting.
"I dictated every night into a tape
recorder," he
explains, "and then we editing out the real filth.
It has a lot of reminiscences, day-to-day things that happened
on the set that brought to mind other years and other films."
Another telephone in James Bond's
hotel suite rings, and this conversation ends. Plainly, Roger
Moore doesn't mind being bonded
and branded as a super-hero one more time.
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