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A licence to thrill

01.09.08 Tom Tivnan

I am sitting with Sir Roger Moore in the Georgian elegance of the bar at Brown's Hotel in Mayfair and the conversation has suddenly turned to sex toys.

"Why are those ladies' things called Rabbits?" he asks with a smile and just a hint of the famous raised eyebrow. I am fortunate he has directed the question towards his agent, Lesley Pollinger.
The conversational turn is not surprising. The "Who's your favourite Bond?" debate is a perennial pub topic, and whatever one thinks of Moore in the role, it is unquestionable that he delivered 007's double entendres with the greatest panache. His James Bond films had wit, a lightness of touch, and were suffused with sexual innuendo that teetered on the edge of camp.

It is a tone that he keeps up for most of our interview, perhaps prompted by the alcove we are sitting in, the walls of which are covered with arty nude photographs. "I see we are in the naughty corner," he purrs on arrival. Later, his eyes sparkle when he discovers The Bookseller's motto is "The Organ of the Book Trade"—"My, that's a heavy weapon to bear, isn't it?" His question about "ladies' things" is an aside after Pollinger presents him with a book, Accent Press' The True Confessions of a London Spank Daddy.

Connery v Moore
Of course, Moore is here to talk about his own book, My Word is My Bond, due out in October from Michael O'Mara (hb, £18.99). There are duelling Bonds this autumn, with Sir Sean Connery's book published last week by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Yet Connery's Being a Scot is more of a portrait of Scotland, while Moore's is closer to a straight autobiography, a "frank and funny account" of his Bond years and lengthy Hollywood career. "What we are going to do is put flyers in each of Sean's books saying, ‘the real Bond story is coming later,'" Moore jokes.

The two men are friendly, having known each other since Connery became the first Bond and Moore was working on his television series, "The Saint". Moore kiboshes the long-standing rumour that he was actually offered Bond first, but was unable to get out of his "Saint" contract. And he is effusive about Connery's 007. "There probably wouldn't have been a second Bond film if I had done the first; Sean was responsible for creating a very believable Bond. And 
I was responsible for a cheeky one."

He fully enjoyed making his seven Bond films and was "well paid, but not overpaid". He also understood when the producers decided to replace him with Timothy Dalton. "Quite frankly Father Time was being unkind," he says. "It got to the stage that I was looking down with 14 chins at leading ladies who were my daughter's age."

I ask if, with the iconic role of Bond and his knighthood, he feels he has become a national treasure? He deadpans: "Oh, living legend. But it is funny. It is about getting to a certain age when you start getting lifetime achievement awards—which you only get if you are able to walk up and receive them."

While he has not been overrun with acting work since his last Bond movie in 1985, Moore has been incredibly busy with a number of charitable causes, most notably Unicef (for every copy of Moore's memoir sold, Michael O'Mara is donating 20p to the charity).

"You are doing something better than worrying about whether there are sweat stains on your shirt or if your hair is out of place," says Moore.

Making ‘Roger Moore'
Moore was born in south London in 1927 and got into acting, in part, to combat his diffidence. He says: 
"I invented this Roger Moore persona. I was always shy. So to get over that I became the suave, debonair . . . wanker that is Roger Moore."

Those who know Moore only from the Bond films and "The Saint" will perhaps be surprised by the depth of his filmography. He writes of his early years as an MGM studio player and his later work in Hollywood with such British acting legends as Richard Harris, Oliver Reed and Trevor Howard. Over drinks he rattles off showbiz anecdotes which he peppers with pitch-perfect accents.

A number of the stories are "outtakes" that did not make the book. One involves a famous Bafta dinner where the actor Tom Bell, in his cups, interrupted a speech by guest of honour Prince Philip, yelling "Say something funny!" The prince icily replied, "If you want a funny story, 
I suggest you engage a professional comedian." Later Moore bumped into a flustered Barbara Windsor, who said to him (here he slips into a spot-on imitation), "Ere, what do you think of that Tom Bell? He came into the ladies and pissed on me skirt. Thank God it wasn't one of them posh actresses."

He is sure to relate more of these stories on the extensive publicity tour Michael O'Mara has mapped out for him, in which he is wholeheartedly participating. "There is absolutely no point in producing a new soap product and putting it on the shelves and telling no one it's there."

Lastly, I suggest that the lightness of tone in his work may have led to his being written off by some critics. He dismisses that idea with a shrug. "I have had more respect than is deserved," he says. "They say as long as they spell your name right, it doesn't matter. I think as an actor 
I have lived a charmed life."

tom tivnan Roger Moore profiles

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