Re: 007 Connection

I didn't know Mike Billington tested for the Bond role, he would have been
infinitely better that George Lazenby. Since you asked for guesses about
other cast members, I'd have to say Ed Bishop. I think I heard Gerry
Anderson say in an interview about how underrated Bishop was as an actor and
how he'd have made a perfect Bond. No arguments from me there, he'd have
been much truer to Ian Flemming's character than Roger Moore. Straker
sacrificed his own son to duty and Ed's portrayal of that alone should have
guaranteed him a stellar career.

Sorry Bill, but Ed wasn't one of the ones to test for Bond. Had he been we
would have heard it loud and strong from Amelia the resident Bishop expert.
I think Ed might have made a good Bond too.(This should get Amelia to put her
tuppence worth in) However it wasn't until lately that American actor have
been considered for the roll. Well there was a bit of a try after the
Laszanby thing to get John Gavin for the role but I think that was more talk
to get Sean to return at a resonable rate. Actually the role Ed would have
been ideal for I think is Bond's friend Felix Leiter. He would have been
perfect for this and far better than anyone else in the role.
Since you said you didn't know about Mike Billington having been
tested for the role of 007 I will tell you that he tested 3 times. Once in
1971 unfortunately after Laszanby the United Artisted wanted insurance so
they decided on using a known actor which is how Roger Moore got cast. The
other two times were in 1978 which I find surprising after his having played
the KGB agent killed by Bond at the opening of The Spy Who Loved Me. And
then again in 1980.
Still need the names of the other two and the two guest cast members.<
g>
James K.


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Sorry to disagree, I love Ed in UFO , but as James Bond you must be joking.
He did not have the flare or charisma to carry it off, now Rodger Moore is
not the best James Bond m but I lot better than Ed would of been.

-----Original Message-----
From: Bill Adkins [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: 05 July 2002 15:43
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [SHADO] Re: 007 Connection


I didn't know Mike Billington tested for the Bond role, he would have been
infinitely better that George Lazenby. Since you asked for guesses about
other cast members, I'd have to say Ed Bishop. I think I heard Gerry
Anderson say in an interview about how underrated Bishop was as an actor and
how he'd have made a perfect Bond. No arguments from me there, he'd have
been much truer to Ian Flemming's character than Roger Moore. Straker
sacrificed his own son to duty and Ed's portrayal of that alone should have
guaranteed him a stellar career.




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"Bill Adkins" wrote:

> I think I heard Gerry Anderson say in an interview about how
> underrated Bishop was as an actor and how he'd have made a perfect
> Bond. No arguments from me there, he'd have been much truer to
> Ian Flemming's character than Roger Moore.

Bill - my first thought was to very much disagree with you (and
Gerry apparently!) there. He just doesn't have the 'Englishness'
and even if he could have got the accent right, it wouldn't have
worked. He's not that 'smooth'.

But there are some aspects of Fleming's 007 which he could have had
a good stab at - the dour, hard-edged, occasionally cynical side.
But while he's very charismatic, he's not that 'physical' - he
doesn't quite have the right kind of 'presence'.

Roger Moore was an awful Bond though. Timothy Dalton is the
best yet (I reckon).

> Still need the names of the other two and the two guest cast members.<

Gary Myers? David Warbeck? Patrick Allen? Michael Jayston?

Marc

FYI: Pam there were two Flint movies: Our Man Flint; and, In Like Flint.

As to the Bond Movies becoming comic under Roger Moore, yes they were.
I think the writers were having to write that way to suit Moore's style of
acting which would be fine on stage for Bedroom Farces.

James K.


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Congratulations Marc you got it right.

David Warbeck and Gary Myers both tested for Bond in 1978 the same year as
Micheal Billington tested for the second time.

David Warbeck and Mike both tested again in 1980 as well as Michael Jayston
who played Russ Stone in The Sound Of Silence.

Patrick Allen who played Turner in Timelash was tested as Bond in 1962 for
Dr. No.

Sorry Marc, no money or prizes but you can feel good that you were the
first to answer a tough UFO trivia question.

James K.


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I've always felt Mike B. would have made an interesting Bond. He certainly
had more emotional depth for the role than Roger Moore. I think Moore got
chosen because in the 70's the Bond films swung more to the comedic, tongue
in cheek type - almost parodies of the spy genre at times. Timothy Dalton
and Pierce Brosnan have made the character more intense and more serious,
and I think Mike would have done that had he received the role. He had that
"brooding" look to him back then, as well as that fabulous body (mwa ha
ha.........pardon me while I mop up the puddle of drool.......but I
digress.....) and his ability to handle difficult stunts. If you've seen the
KGB Wars film he did, he did ALL his own stunts, including all the
motorcycle stuff. Bond movies are physical as well as psychological, so the
choice for the role is often difficult to make. It will be interesting to
see who gets the nod now that Brosnan considers himself "too long in the
tooth" to continue. I have a friend who thinks Adrian Paul would be a good
choice.

Pam


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"Roger Moore was an awful Bond though. Timothy Dalton is the best yet (I
reckon)."

I'm actually willing to agree with the above assessment. I felt the Bond
movies themselves took a less serious turn while Moore played 007, but I
never knew if he was the reason himself, or if Cubby Broccoli and the Bond
people decided to change the tone of the movies. When Connery played Bond,
the films were meant as serious pieces. James Coburn in fact parodied the
genre in his "In Like Flint" movie (were there two of the Flint films or
just one? - I can't remember). I found Moore's Bond flicks veered off into
the ridiculous - more like Flint. By the time TD came along, the films got
serious again.

Can't say that Ed B., altho a marvellous actor, would have fit the Bond
"profile". In addition to being too American, I think he would have been
better fitted for other things. I think he might have made a very
interesting captain of the TNG Enterprise instead of Patrick Stewart, for
instance. Having played a complicated character like Straker, he would have
made a super complex leader again. I always found Stewart
too..................lacking in intensity. Dull as dishwater to be precise.
Of course, maybe that's because I was used to Shatner as an intense Kirk
both in TOS and the series of movies that followed......

Pam


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Well, Gary Myers played Lew Waterman (one of my fav UFO characters), and
Michael Jayston went on to play Nicholas II in the movie "Nicholas and
Alexandra". Interestingly enough, UFO's Mike Billington played Nicholas II
in a British miniseries on the life of King Edward VII - he did a fabulous
job of it and looked gorgeous in the beard necessary to play the ill-fated
last Tsar of Russia. I asked Mike via e-mail how he ended up playing
Nicholas and he said the director chose him because his eyes bore some
resemblance to the real Nicholas. Mike also said he'd gone to the former
Soviet Union in the early 60's with a Shakespearean theatre troop to perform
several plays there.


Pam


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Thanks for confirming for me the number of Flint flicks, James. I think I
may have only seen one of them. Cute, but obviously not meant to be taken
seriously. That's why the Roger Moore Bond films were so disappointing -
they were full of corny jokes and gags that just didn't happen in the other
Bond movies.

Pam

Hi,

Pam McCaughey schrieb:
> Cute, but obviously not meant to be taken
> seriously. That's why the Roger Moore Bond films were so
> disappointing - they were full of corny jokes and gags
> that just didn't happen in the other Bond movies.

Wrong. Those were the little bits and pieces that made the Bond-movies
with Moore the best there are. Especially the Brosnan-Bonds lack those
gags - which makes _them_ the most disappointing. If you expected more
from Brosnan, that is - like I did before I had seen "Goldeneye". For
the next ones I knew to expect nothing beforehand, and that was exactly
what I got with the following two.

RU!

find surprising after his having played
> the KGB agent killed by Bond at the opening of The Spy Who Loved Me. And
> then again in 1980.

Can I add a heads up here to folks on this list in the UK.

The Spy Who Loved me is on ITV next Wed at 8pm. I will be watching Mike's
bit then turning off to do something else.

Sheila UFOite

"Pam McCaughey" wrote:

> That's why the Roger Moore Bond films were so disappointing - they
> were full of corny jokes and gags that just didn't happen in the
> other Bond movies.
>

Too right Pam - the Moore 007 era was a write-off. He was
hopeless - a million miles from Ian Fleming's professional
killer.

Wasn't all Moore's fault though - Moonraker for example would
have been a crap film with anyone playing Bond. The scripts
started to get better from For Your Eyes Only, but Moore's
portrayal of Bond sadly didn't.

I like Roger Moore, he was a very good 'light entertainment'
actor and good at the romantic stuff he also turned his hand to
in his career, but for Bond, hopelessly miscast. About as
dangerous as a lemon yoghurt.

James

[hidden email] wrote:

> David Warbeck and Mike both tested again in 1980 as well as Michael Jayston
> who played Russ Stone in The Sound Of Silence.
>

Michael Jayston actually played Adam Halll's masterspy 'Quiller'
in a BBC TV series of the same name 20 years ago or so. Very
good, I seem to recall. Never been repeated though as far as I
know. Knowing the Beeb, they've probably recorded Jim'll Fix It
over it or something.

Very different style from Bond, though.

Just checked and the TV series was actually in 1975. Ouch.

As well as the two films there was also a pilot for a TV series version of
Our Man Flint made in 1974 or ' 75 I remember seeing. Yes, the Flint films
were spoofs and not very serious. There main charm was James Coburns
charisma. Actually there is something about Coburn that makes me think he
would have be the best person to play Felix Leiter in the Bond movies. He
looks more like the character is discribed in the books. But he has that
moody present on screen sort of like Ed did as Straker. Sort make me wound
how Ed would have done if he had been cast in Coburn's part in The
Magnificent Seven?

James K.


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Quiller? That would be the same Quiller from the film The Quiller
Memorandum which was written under The Pen Name Adam Hall by Elleston Trevor
as The Berlin Memorandum. That's another British series we didn't get over
here, darn it! It would have been most interesting.

James K.


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"Sheila" wrote:
.
>
> The Spy Who Loved me is on ITV next Wed at 8pm. I will be watching Mike's
> bit then turning off to do something else.
>

good call.

--- Pam wrote:

> James Coburn in fact parodied the genre in his "In Like Flint"
> movie (were there two of the Flint films or just one? - I can't
> remember).

There were two Derek Flint films: OUR MAN FLINT (1965) and IN LIKE
FLINT (1966) with James Coburn and Lee J. Cobb (remember the TV
series THE VIRGINIAN?). BTW, both Flint movies will be out on DVD in
America in a week or so. I've always liked the scores from Jerry
Goldsmith (which is also available on CD) :-)

Oh, I've getting a little bit off-topic here... sorry, Marc, ahem...
{:-]

Christian

I felt I had to respond to this anti-Roger Moore/Spy Who Loved Me thing. I
spent the day yesterday watching the film in the company with Caroline Munro
(naomi) and the second unit director John Glen (who went on to direct all
the Bonds in the 80s). It's always been my favourite Bond film (with You
Only Live Twice), and its appeal hadnt diminished.

Roger Moore was the only actor at the time who could have played Bond - as
he was the only bankable English actor I can think of.

BTW, it's the 25th anniversary TO THE DAY that Spy was released!


> > The Spy Who Loved me is on ITV next Wed at 8pm. I will be watching
>Mike's
> > bit then turning off to do something else.
> >
>
>good call.
>


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