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Roger Moore

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Sir Roger Moore
File:Roger Moore 2002.jpg
Born
Roger George Moore
Spouse(s)Doorn van Steyn; Dorothy Squires; Luisa Mattioli (three children); Kristina Tholstrup
For other people named Roger Moore, see Roger Moore (disambiguation).

Sir Roger George Moore KBE (born 14 October 1927) is an English actor known for his suave and witty demeanour. He is best known for portraying two British action heroes, Simon Templar in the television series The Saint from 1962 to 1969, and James Bond in seven films from 1973 to 1985. He has been a UNICEF ambassador since 1991.

Biography

Early life

Moore was born in Stockwell, London (sometimes referred to by Moore in interviews as Saint Ockwell, in recognition of his proud, humble beginnings). The son of Lillian Pope and George Moore, a policeman. He attended Battersea Grammar School but was evacuated to Amersham, Buckinghamshire during World War II where he was educated at Dr Challoner's Grammar School. He then briefly attended the University of Durham's College of the Venerable Bede. Upon turning 18, shortly after the end of the war, Moore was called up for National Service. He was commissioned as an officer and eventually became a Captain. In his usual self-deprecatory style, he claimed that his commission was because he physically fitted the stereotype of an officer, rather than having any outstanding ability or leadership skills. Moore served in the Royal Army Service Corps, commanding a small depot in West Germany. He later transferred to the entertainment branch (under luminaries such as Spike Milligan), and immediately prior to his National Service, there was a brief stint at RADA (the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art), during which his fees were paid for by flamboyant, openly gay film director Brian Desmond Hurst, who also used Moore as an extra in his film Trottie True. Moore first appeared in films during the 1940s, as an extra.

Early career and The Saint

In the early 1950s, Moore worked as a male model, appearing in print advertisements for knitwear (earning him the amusing nickname "The Big Knit"), and a wide range of other products such as toothpaste - an element which many critics have used as typifying his lightweight credentials as an actor. His earliest known television appearance, at a time when the BBC was the only channel, was on 27 May 1950, in Drawing Room Detective, a one-off programme. Presented by veteran BBC announcer Leslie Mitchell, it invited viewers at home to spot clues to a crime during a playlet, whose actors also included Alec Ross (first husband of Sheila Hancock), and Michael Ripper. Barring interviews, Moore has not worked for BBC television since.

Although Moore won a contract with MGM in the 1950s, the films which followed were not a success and, in his own words, 'At MGM, RGM (Roger George Moore) was NBG [no bloody good]'. His starring role in The Miracle, a version of the play Das Mirakel for Warner Bros., had been turned down by Dirk Bogarde.

Eventually, it was television in which Moore made his name. He was the eponymous hero in the serial Ivanhoe, a very loose adaptation of the romantic novel by Sir Walter Scott, and he also appeared in the series The Alaskans, as well as playing Beau Maverick, an English cousin of frontier gambler Bret Maverick (James Garner) in Maverick.

It was not until 1961 that worldwide fame arrived, when Lew Grade cast Moore as Simon Templar in a new adaptation of The Saint, based on the novels by Leslie Charteris. Moore said in an interview, during 1963, that he wanted to buy the rights of Leslie Charteris's character and the trademarks, but didn't have enough money. He also joked that the role was supposed to have been meant for Sean Connery who was unavailable. The television series was made in the UK with an eye on the American market, and its success there (and in other countries) made Moore a household name. It also established his suave, quipping style which he would carry forward to James Bond. Moore would also go on to direct several episodes of the later series, which moved into colour in 1967. The opinion has often been expressed that the monochrome episodes of the series, which were closer adaptations of Charteris' work, were superior to the colour episodes, which displayed a stronger leaning towards fantasy and were arguably trying too hard to imitate other shows of that time.[citation needed]

The Saint ran for six seasons and 118 episodes, making it (in a tie with The Avengers) the longest-running series of its kind on British television. However, Moore grew increasingly tired of the role, and was keen to branch out. He made two films immediately after the series had ended: Crossplot, a lightweight 'spy caper' movie, and the more challenging The Man Who Haunted Himself (1971). Directed by Basil Dearden, it gave Moore the opportunity to demonstrate a wider versatility than the role of Simon Templar had allowed, although reviews at the time were lukewarm, and both did little business at the box office.

File:The Persuaders.jpg
Moore and Tony Curtis in The Persuaders! (1971/72).

Television lured Moore back to star, alongside Tony Curtis, in what has become another 'cult' series, The Persuaders!. Even more light-hearted in tone than The Saint, it featured the adventures of two millionaire playboys across Europe. It was for this series that Moore was paid the then unheard-of sum of one million pounds for a single series, making him the highest paid television actor in the world. However, as Lew Grade admitted in his autobiography Still Dancing, Moore and Curtis 'didn't hit it off all that well', Curtis refusing to spend more time on set than was strictly necessary, while Moore was always willing to work overtime. An article in Loaded magazine in 1995, repeating press speculation from the time of the series' production, claimed that Moore had privately referred to Curtis as "that Hungarian horse f---er".

The series failed in America, where it had been pre-sold to ABC- but it was successful in Australia and in Europe. And in Britain it was also popular, although on its premiere on the ITV network, it was beaten in the ratings by repeats of Monty Python's Flying Circus on BBC1. When Channel 4 repeated both The Avengers and The Persuaders! in 1995, it was generally agreed that the latter, which had not been seen for many years, had not aged as well as the former. It has not been seen on any of the five main UK terrestrial channels since.[1][2]

Since then, The Persuaders has enjoyed something of a renaissance both on television and DVD, with the 'rivals' Moore and Curtis reuniting to provide commentaries on the most recent issues. In France, where the series (entitled Amicalement Vôtre) had always been popular, the DVD releases accompanied a monthly magazine of the same name.

James Bond (1973-1985)

File:007Moore.jpg
Roger Moore as James Bond in the 1981 film, For Your Eyes Only

There are many apocryphal stories as to when Moore's name was first dropped as a possible candidate for the role of James Bond. Some sources, specifically Albert R. Broccoli from his autobiography When The Snow Melts, claim that Moore was considered for Dr. No, and that he was Ian Fleming's favorite for the role after apparently having seen Moore as Simon Templar in The Saint; however, this story is often debunked by fans and Bond-film historians, who point to the fact that the series did not begin airing in the United Kingdom until October 4, 1962 - only one day before the premiere of Dr. No.

Other sources, such as the insert for the special edition DVDs, claim that Moore was passed over for Bond in favour of someone who was older. As Moore is older than Sean Connery, this is probably not true. Publicly, Moore wasn't linked to the role of 007 until 1967, when Harry Saltzman claimed he would make a good Bond, but also displayed misgivings due to his popularity as Simon Templar. Nevertheless, Moore was finally cast as James Bond in Live and Let Die (1973).

Roger Moore's seven years as Simon Templar earned him enough popularity (and credibility) among fans of detective fiction to earn many Bond fans' acceptance, despite the inevitable comparisons to Connery, who was and is a friend of Moore's. Moore played Bond in:

File:Moorebond1964.jpg
Moore playing James Bond in a 1964 episode of Mainly Millicent, nine years before officially landing the role.

To date, Moore is the longest-serving James Bond actor, having spent twelve years in the role (from his debut in 1973, to his retirement from the role in 1985), and made seven official films. (Connery also made seven, but his last Bond film, Never Say Never Again (1983), is not part of the official EON Productions series.) He is also the oldest actor to play Bond: he was 46 when he debuted, and 58 when he announced his retirement on December 3, 1985, as it was agreed by all involved that Moore was too old for the role by that point. Moore himself was quoted in the contemporary press as saying that he felt embarrassed doing love scenes with actresses young enough to be his daughters...notably Jane Seymour; Barbara Bach; Lois Chiles and Tanya Roberts. [citation needed]

Moore's James Bond was light-hearted, more so than any other official actor to portray the character. Connery's style, even in its lighter moments, was that of a focused, determined agent. Moore often portrayed 007 as somewhat of a playboy, with tongue firmly in cheek. The humour served Moore and his fans well through most of his Bond tenure. Fans also relished the moments when his Bond was all business, especially in the more intense parts of The Spy Who Loved Me, For Your Eyes Only, and Octopussy (when, despite wearing a clown get-up, he defuses a bomb). Despite all the commercial success, some Bond fans were unhappy at Moore continuing to play the character until his late-fifties, with a consensus that either Moonraker (1979) or For Your Eyes Only (1981) should have been his Bond swansong; by the time of filming For Your Eyes Only, he was almost 54. Indeed, by that time Moore himself was beginning to have reservations about playing Bond, and his starring in For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy, and especially A View To A Kill, has more to do with producers not wanting him to leave rather than Moore 'not wanting to give up the role'. It is generally agreed that of the six actors to have played Bond, Moore's portrayal was the furthest removed from the character created by Ian Fleming. Some fans have also blamed Moore for turning the character into a self-parody, though he had plenty of help from the screenwriters and filmmakers, though that is not entirely fair to the actor, who did not write, direct, produce or score the films. He had plenty of complicity amongst the filmmakers for turning Bond into a campy comic book character.

Later career and UNICEF

Moore has had, and continues to have, an enormous fanbase worldwide, particularly in Western Europe and in the USA, and, as James Bond, was undeniably one of the film world's top box office stars throughout the 1970s. However, those fans of his from outside the UK have often been surprised and disappointed to find that, in Britain, he is not critically respected (in the way that Anthony Hopkins and indeed, Sean Connery are), and has sometimes been viewed as a joke figure, in the way Americans regard David Hasselhoff or William Shatner.

He has never been popular with critics, who have often derided his acting as limited and wooden. In the New York Times of December 29th, 1974, Vincent Canby sarcastically wrote that he hereby awarded Moore "the Kabuki Acting Award....in recognition of the manner in which he has reduced all human emotions to a series of variations on one gesture, the raising of the right eyebrow." And in The Good Film And Video Guide (published 1986), David Shipman wrote of A View To A Kill that Moore as James Bond was 'not so much like a piece of plastic, as something embalmed but moving'. John Brosnan, who with his 1972 book James Bond In The Cinema became the first writer to seriously consider the phenomenon of the Bond movies in themselves, as opposed to the books, consistently urged Broccoli to replace Moore, writing in his review of Moonraker in Starburst magazine that he was "plastic...more James Bland than James Bond."

The satire show Spitting Image once had a sketch in which their latex likeness of Moore, when asked to display emotions by an offscreen director, does nothing but raise an eyebrow. Moore himself has stated that he thought the sketch was funny, and took it in good humour. That series later featured a Bond movie spoof, The Man With The Wooden Delivery, with Moore's puppet receiving orders from Margaret Thatcher to kill Mikhail Gorbachev, and many other comedy shows of that time ridiculed Moore's acting, Rory Bremner once claiming to have had a death threat from an irate fan of Moore's, following one such routine. Moore is a lifelong Conservative, and publicly supported the British Conservative Party in the 2001 General Election.

It can be argued that Moore is more of a personality than an actor. In the early 1970s, the BBC very much wanted him to host a talk show; in his own words, they 'bent over backwards and offered a great deal of money'. He declined the offer, which may have been given to Michael Parkinson instead, but after giving up the Bond role, has more often been seen hosting award ceremonies, guesting on talk shows' and generally being himself, than actually acting.

In 1983, Moore's professional life changed when filming in India. Shocked at the extreme poverty around him, he became interested in the Third World humanitarian effort. His friend Audrey Hepburn had impressed him with her work for UNICEF, and consequently he became a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 1991. He was the voice of 'Santa' in the UNICEF cartoon The Fly Who Loved Me.[3]

Now approaching his 80th birthday, Moore appears only occasionally in film or television, notably as Lord Edgar Dobbs in The Quest (1996) and an episode of the American TV series Alias in 2002. In a commercial for London's 2012 Olympic bid, Moore once again suited up as James Bond. He appeared alongside Samantha Bond, who played Miss Moneypenny in the Bond films during the Pierce Brosnan era. He still appears regularly on chat shows, chiefly to promote the work of UNICEF.

Personal life

Moore left his first wife, skater Doorn Van Steyn, for singer Dorothy Squires, who was several years his senior but was, at that time, considerably more famous than he was. In turn, while filming in Italy in 1961, he abandoned Squires (who sued him for attempted reinstatement of conjugal rights) for actress Luisa Mattioli, living with her until their marriage in 1969. Moore has a daughter and two sons with Mattioli; son Geoffrey Moore is also an actor and owns a restaurant in London. Daughter Deborah Moore made a guest appearance as a flight attendant in Die Another Day. Again, he unexpectedly ended this marriage in 1993, later marrying Christina Tholstrup, a Danish beauty.

Moore was involved in the production of an informative video for PETA that protests against the production and wholesale of foie gras. Moore narrates the video, which shows how ducks and geese are force-fed in order to appease the demand for the delicacy.

Moore underwent major but successful surgery for prostate cancer in 1993, an event he later referred to as a life-changing experience. He had a pacemaker fitted after collapsing on stage in New York in 2003 during a performance of The Play What I Wrote. In 1999, Moore was created a Commander of the British Empire (CBE), and a Knight Commander of the British Empire (KBE) on June 14, 2003.

The citation on the knighthood was for Moore's charity work, which has dominated his public life for more than a decade. In perhaps his final riposte to the critics, Moore said that the citation 'meant far more to me than if I had got it for acting... I was proud because I received it on behalf of UNICEF as a whole and for all it has achieved over the years'.

Trivia

  • Although often considered a 'lightweight', Moore is the only James Bond actor other than Timothy Dalton who can boast a dramatic education at RADA, the prestigious London drama college.
  • However, Moore has made tongue-in-cheek references to the perception that he is a "lightweight" actor, remarking, 'The range of my acting? Left eyebrow raised, right eyebrow raised'.
  • Moore was a classmate at RADA with his future Bond colleague Lois Maxwell, the original Miss Moneypenny.
  • Moore won a Golden Globe in 1980 as 'World Film Favourite'.
  • Moore is referenced in the Amy Winehouse single "You Know I'm No Good." The first verse contains the line: "By the time I'm out the door/you tear men down like Roger Moore."
  • Moore was the 21st person to receive an honorary fellowship from the Literary and Historical Society (L&H), on Saturday 5th November 2004.

Publications

Roger Moore wrote a book about the filming of Live And Let Die, based on his diaries. Roger Moore As James Bond: Roger Moore's Own Account Of Filming Live And Let Die was published in London in 1973, by Pan Books. The book includes an acknowledgement to Sean Connery: 'I would also like to thank Sean Connery – with whom it would not have been possible.'

Filmography

References and footnotes

  1. ^ More precisely, BBC1, BBC2, the ITV network, Channel 4 and Five, the five 'traditional' terrestrial stations. The series has since been seen shown on the digital terrestrial-only station ITV4. (See ITV4 reference below)
  2. ^ "ITV4" article, Wikipedia. Version used dated 2006-10-29, retrieved 2006-11-06.
  3. ^ http://www.unicef.org.uk/theflywholovedme/
Preceded by
Sean Connery
1971 		James Bond actor
1973–85 		Succeeded by
Timothy Dalton
1987–1989

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