My Word Is My Bond
chrisno1
LondonPosts: 3,303MI6 Agent
Just finished reaing Sir Roger's autobiography. Well, isn't he a nice guy! Hardly a bad word to say about anyone and when he really dislikes someone he either 1) doesn't tell us the name of the person he is talking about or 2) just doesn't say anything. He likes a lot of people though and seems to have lots of very close and great friends.
To be fair, writing isn't Sir Roger's forte and I think this comes across. It reads rather how he talks and even some of the humour has his laboured delivery to it.
The best bits were when he talked about his youth in south London. Amazingly he went to dances at The Locarno ballroom -which is still there on The High Road, it's called Caesars now - when my Mum and Dad went there it was Cat's Whiskers and I spent many at Saturday at the tacky Streatham Studio.
There aren't as many tales about 007 as I expected, and in terms of Sir Roger's career, the Lew Grade stuff was a bit more interesting.
Perhaps the 007 bit that really sticks out is when Sir Roger writes about his final 3 films and how he came to star in them.
By all accounts Sir Roger's agent had a hard time negotiating a deal for FYEO and Sir Roger infers that the testing of alternatie actors around this time was a bargaining ploy to get him to work cheaper. I was also quite surprised that John Glen put his foot down immediately over Sir Roger's suggestion that FYEO wasn't light enough. We thank god for that!
He doesn't dwell on the bargaining that occurred for OP,although again he mentions they tested other actors. This is strange as I had always understood Sir Roger had to be persuaded to make OP, and that Cubby virtually begged him to do it, esp as Sir Sean was on his way back in NSNA.
This strikes me as much more the case with AVTAK, which does have a "family" feel to it; it's quite a cosy Bond film. Incidently Sir Roger really didn't get on with Grace Jones!
Sir Roger's feathers get ruffled a bit when he explains how he left the role of 007 after a short chat with Cubby, especially given that it differs so drastically from Cubby's own biography. It sounds to me like the two of them knew (with hindsight) that Sir Roger looked jaded in OP and old in AVTAK, but niether really wanted to admit the end was nigh. It's like a boxer and his trainer, they both know he's past his prime, but they have to give it one last shot until the boxer is just not up to the full 15 rounds anymore.
So all in all, not a bad read. Just don't expect any really juicy gossip. Sir Roger is far too much of the knight and gentleman to tell-tales!
To be fair, writing isn't Sir Roger's forte and I think this comes across. It reads rather how he talks and even some of the humour has his laboured delivery to it.
The best bits were when he talked about his youth in south London. Amazingly he went to dances at The Locarno ballroom -which is still there on The High Road, it's called Caesars now - when my Mum and Dad went there it was Cat's Whiskers and I spent many at Saturday at the tacky Streatham Studio.
There aren't as many tales about 007 as I expected, and in terms of Sir Roger's career, the Lew Grade stuff was a bit more interesting.
Perhaps the 007 bit that really sticks out is when Sir Roger writes about his final 3 films and how he came to star in them.
By all accounts Sir Roger's agent had a hard time negotiating a deal for FYEO and Sir Roger infers that the testing of alternatie actors around this time was a bargaining ploy to get him to work cheaper. I was also quite surprised that John Glen put his foot down immediately over Sir Roger's suggestion that FYEO wasn't light enough. We thank god for that!
He doesn't dwell on the bargaining that occurred for OP,although again he mentions they tested other actors. This is strange as I had always understood Sir Roger had to be persuaded to make OP, and that Cubby virtually begged him to do it, esp as Sir Sean was on his way back in NSNA.
This strikes me as much more the case with AVTAK, which does have a "family" feel to it; it's quite a cosy Bond film. Incidently Sir Roger really didn't get on with Grace Jones!
Sir Roger's feathers get ruffled a bit when he explains how he left the role of 007 after a short chat with Cubby, especially given that it differs so drastically from Cubby's own biography. It sounds to me like the two of them knew (with hindsight) that Sir Roger looked jaded in OP and old in AVTAK, but niether really wanted to admit the end was nigh. It's like a boxer and his trainer, they both know he's past his prime, but they have to give it one last shot until the boxer is just not up to the full 15 rounds anymore.
So all in all, not a bad read. Just don't expect any really juicy gossip. Sir Roger is far too much of the knight and gentleman to tell-tales!
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