Commander James Bond, recruited to the British Secret Service from the Royal Navy. License to kill, and has done so on numerous occasions. Many lady friends, but married

Moore’s on screen talent was immense but made to look effortless, leading to the popular myth that he could not act. He was sometimes his chief detractor but explained, “Listen, if I say I'm shit as an actor, then the critic can't, because I've already said it! For years my agents would tell me, 'You've got to stop saying these things about yourself. People will believe you.' So? They may also be pleasantly surprised!"The New York Times’s film review of “Live and Let Die” noted that the Bond movies hold a “certain insolence toward public pieties.” This certainly seems true. But why then are the films—like the books before them—so incredibly popular? The answer is that, like with any good spy, Bond has proven adept at creating a little misdirection here and there. Raymond Chandler famously suggested that Bond was “what every man would like to be and what every woman would like to have between her sheets.” This is generally perceived to mean that men want to be Bond because he daringly saves the world from megalomaniacal madmen while bedding women who lust after him because he’s dangerous. But what if all of this were just cover? What if men wanted to be Bond because secretly—or maybe not so secretly—they wanted to be less neutered, more decisive, more graceful under pressure, more accountable, and less postmodern?

This doesn’t mean that there isn’t any political appeal to James Bond. In fact, the more I revisit the world of Bond, the more I find that there is a consistently recurring political subtext to Fleming’s novels and the soon-to-be 23 films. Kingsley Amis thought so, too. In his extended essay The James Bond Dossierhe wrote: Major Fleming] had that foundation of spontaneous and almost unconscious self-suppression in the discharge of what he conceived to be his duty without which happiness, however full … is imperfect. That these qualities are not singular in this generation does not lessen the loss of those in whom they shine. As the war lengthens and intensifies … it seems as if one watched at night a well-loved city whose lights, which burn so bright, which burn so true, are extinguished in the distance in the darkness one by one. After dinner, there will be an auction of items kindly donated by well known Bond brands, with all the proceeds going to Macmillan cancer support. Towards the end of his reign as Bond, Moore left it unclear whether he would return to the role: he often said never again. However, it was part of an ongoing gambling match with his producer and friend, “I feel sorry for Cubby [Broccoli] because he’ll have a terrible job finding anybody else who will work as cheap as I do. Actually, I enjoy the work. I’m glad people are still misguided enough to employ me.” Moore’s experience gave him confidence, “I think that I've got an even-money chance to make it. After all, I've been around a long time in this business. I did The Saint on TV for seven years then The Persuaders on TV with Tony Curtis.”

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Our very special guest of honour will be John Glen, the man who directed every Bond film of the 1980s, from For Your Eyes Only through to Licence to Kill. John will be the recipient of the 'Bond & Beyond' lifetime achievement award on the evening. Glen’s films have brought so many of us so much joy and this will be an opportunity for us to show him our appreciation. Over the years Moore made Bond his own often acting with players from his past: he was at RADA with Lois “Moneypenny” Maxwell, had done TV with Robert Brown and Geoffrey Keen (M and Minister of Defence respectively), was good friends with David ‘Felix Leiter’ Hedison and had directed a number of other in episodes of The Saint, most notably Julian ‘Kristatos’ Glover. He had also gotten to know a number of the crew including the director of his last three Bonds, John Glen with whom he had worked on a slew of big, international action pictures in the seventies. The Man With The Golden Gun, 1974 With Lulu, who sang the theme tune for The Man With The Golden Gun (PA) Thanks to 007GB and From Sweden with Love golfers can enjoy 18 holes on the PGA National, with bacon rolls and refreshments before tee off.

A directive given by M, upon learning that the agent is, er, on duty in Austria. Cut, of course, to Bond in bed with his latest fancy. It is with great sadness that the global James Bond fan community has learned of the death of Sir Roger Moore at his home in Switzerland at the age of 89. Admittedly, Brosnan’s Die Another Day quip was a blatant rehash of this Moore classic from the punniest of all Bond entries – the first of three from the film.

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For Roger, it made sense, “This is a famous spy--everyone knows his name, and every bartender in the world knows he likes martinis shaken, not stirred. Come on, it's all a big joke! So most of the time I played it tongue-in-cheek." He thought of Bonds as pure hokum, "People are always reading things into the films. We set out to make entertainment. There's no hidden agenda. They're just ‘Whambam-thank-you-ma'am! here comes a pretty girl, there goes a car chase, let's shoot a helicopter down.' That's as deep as they got." Moore also understood his audience, “We have very little brutality in Bond. As Cubby once said, we are sadism for the family. Most of the violence is mechanical, Disney violence.” Roger Moore was always destined to play 007. “As a matter of fact, Cubby [Broccoli] and Harry [Saltzman] tell me that when they first started making the Bonders, I was their first choice for the role. I don't believe them, of course. But that's what they say. They also said I was Ian Fleming's first choice. But Ian Fleming didn't know me from shit. He wanted Cary Grant or David Niven." Moore had been aware of the character, “I knew that the English newspaper, the Daily Express, was running a competition to find a James Bond. I’d developed a nasty habit, or continued a nasty habit, of gambling. I found myself playing at least once a week, across the table, with Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman. They told me about it all and invited me to see Dr. No which, considering the low budget, was a great effort. I thought Sean Connery was marvellous. I started the The Saint around the same time.” Indeed whilst the first Bond film premiered in London on 5 October 1962, but the day before had seen the debut of what would go on to be a star-making vehicle for Roger as Leslie Charteris’ Simon Templar in the hit TV show, The Saint. To be honest, this barely qualifies as a double entendre: Tatiana Romanova complains about the size of her mouth, before our man gallantly comforts her.

At the end of the film, Bond is caught in a compromising position with Russian agent Anya Amasova (Barbara Bach) in a lifeboat.

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The actor gave an insight into the additional pressures of being 007 “During filming, I gave more than 150 interviews to newspaper reporters, magazine journalists and the major television interviewers of five different countries. Normally, I don't mind talking to the press because it is part of my job. I'm very aware of the interest in James Bond but, finally, there is just so much you can say about him and the film you' re doing. And it doesn't stop when the filming does. There are photo gallery sessions, film festivals, movie premieres, publicity trips to the major foreign film markets. It begins to get to you when you hear yourself saying the same things, over and over, without meaning to do so." He developed standard quips. When asked if he did his own stunts, he responded, “Of course I do! I also do my own lying." Asked about the hardest part of being Bond, he joked, "The love scenes, of course." James Bond may be unflappable. He may bed women like Caroline Munro, and he may be MGM’s saving grace. And above all he is durable—come this fall his latest big-screen adventure, “Skyfall,” hits theaters almost 50 years to the day after Sean Connery debuted as the suave super spy in “Dr. No.” But the one thing 007 can’t do is save us from ourselves. I also find a belief, however unreflecting, in the rightness of one’s cause more sympathetic than the anguished cynicism and the torpid cynicism of Messrs le Carré and Deighton. More useful in an adventure story anyway, and more powerful—so powerful that when the frogman’s suit arrives for Bond in Live and Let Die, I can join with him in blessing the efficiency of M’s “Q” Branch, whereas I know full well that given postwar standards of British workmanship, the thing would either choke him or take him straight to the bottom. Roger Moore and Barbera Bach in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). Photograph: www.ronaldgrantarchive.com Sean Connery had created the role and had become a iconic cinema hero. Moore was unperturbed, “You don’t really think about that. How many millions of actors during the last 400 years have played Hamlet? They don’t worry about how the other fella did it—they just get on with doing it their way. And everything I do comes out exactly the same! I always sound like me.”