James Bond was also being portrayed by several other people, be it in voice only, or appearing in an unofficial feature-length film, or lending their likenesses in the video games series by Rareware, Electronic Arts and Activision. Bond appears on the screen for first time in Climax! episode based on Ian Fleming's very first novel, Casino Royale, in which Barry Nelson stars as Bond.
Then, Bob Holness voiced 007 in the radio adaptation of Moonraker novel, three years prior to Sean Connery's official appearance as the British Secret Agent in Dr. No. Since 2008, Die Another Day villain, Toby Stephens voiced Bond in four radio adaptations of Ian Fleming novels, Dr. No, Goldfinger, From Russia, With Love and On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
James Bond (David Niven)
Biography
Sir James Bond 007, a legendary British spy who retired from the secret service 50 years previously, is visited by the head of British MI6, M, CIA representative Ransome, KGB representative Smernov, and Deuxième Bureau representative Le Grand. All implore Bond to come out of retirement to deal with SMERSH who have been eliminating agents: Bond spurns all their pleas. When Bond continues to stand firm, his mansion is destroyed by a mortar attack at the orders of M, who is, however, killed in the explosion.
Bond travels to Scotland to return M's remains to the grieving widow, Lady Fiona McTarry. However, the real Lady Fiona has been replaced by SMERSH's Agent Mimi. The rest of the household have been likewise replaced, with SMERSH’s aim to discredit Bond by destroying his "celibate image". Attempts by a bevy of beauties to seduce Bond fail, but Mimi/Lady Fiona becomes so impressed with Bond that she changes loyalties and helps Bond to foil the plot against him. On his way back to London, Bond survives another attempt on his life.
Bond is promoted to the head of MI6. He learns that many British agents around the world have been eliminated by enemy spies because of their inability to resist sex. Bond is also told that the 'sex maniac' who was given the name of 'James Bond' when the original Bond retired has gone to work in television. He then orders that all remaining MI6 agents will be named "James Bond 007", to confuse SMERSH. He also creates a rigorous programme to train male agents to ignore the charms of women. Moneypenny recruits "Coop", a karate expert who begins training to resist seductive women: he also meets an exotic agent known as the Detainer.
Bond then hires Vesper Lynd, a retired agent turned millionaire, to recruit baccarat expert Evelyn Tremble, whom he intends to use to beat SMERSH agent Le Chiffre. Having embezzled SMERSH's money, Le Chiffre is desperate for money to cover up his theft before he is executed.
Following up a clue from agent Mimi, Bond persuades his estranged daughter Mata Bond to travel to East Berlin to infiltrate International Mothers' Help, a school for spies that is a SMERSH cover operation. Mata uncovers a plan to sell compromising photographs of military leaders from the US, USSR, China and Great Britain at an "art auction", another scheme Le Chiffre hopes to use to raise money: Mata destroys the photos. Le Chiffre's only remaining option is to raise the money by playing baccarat.
Tremble arrives at the Casino Royale accompanied by Lynd, who foils an attempt to disable him by seductive SMERSH agent Miss Goodthighs. Later that night, Tremble observes Le Chiffre playing at the casino and realises that he is using infrared sunglasses to cheat. Lynd steals the sunglasses, allowing Evelyn to eventually beat Le Chiffre in a game of baccarat. Lynd is apparently abducted outside the casino, and Tremble is also kidnapped while pursuing her. Le Chiffre, desperate for the winning cheque, hallucinogenically tortures Tremble. Lynd rescues Tremble, only to subsequently kill him. Meanwhile, SMERSH agents raid Le Chiffre's base and kill him for his failure.
In London, Mata Bond is kidnapped by SMERSH in a giant flying saucer, and Sir James and Moneypenny travel to Casino Royale to rescue her. They discover that the casino is located atop a giant underground headquarters run by the evil Dr. Noah, who turns out to be Sir James's nephew Jimmy Bond. Jimmy Bond secretly leaves the MI6 to defect to SMERSH to take a new role of killing spies. Jimmy reveals that he plans to use biological warfare to make all women beautiful and kill all men over 4-foot-6-inch (1.37 m) tall, leaving him as the "big man" who gets all the girls. Jimmy has already captured The Detainer, and he tries to convince her to be his partner; she agrees, but only to dupe him into swallowing one of his "atomic time pills", turning him into a "walking atomic bomb".
Sir James, Moneypenny, Mata and Coop manage to escape from their cell and fight their way back to the Casino Director's office where Sir James establishes Lynd is a double agent. The casino is then overrun by secret agents and a battle ensues. American and French support arrive, but just add to the chaos. Eventually, Jimmy's atomic pill explodes, destroying Casino Royale with everyone inside. Sir James and all of his agents then appear in heaven, and Jimmy Bond is shown descending to hell.
James Bond (Andrew Bicknell)
James Bond, modeled on the likeness of Andrew Bicknell and voiced by Adam Blackwood, appeared in the 2001 James Bond video-game Agent Under Fire. Bicknell's Bond was due to appear in the following game, but to due Brosnan renewing his contract for 2002's Die Another Day, the actor was dropped from the project. Blackwood would continue, however, to supply the character's voice.
Game biography
CIA agent Zoe Nightshade, a mole in Identicon Corporation, based in Hong Kong, is discovered and captured. Identicon, a botanical research firm, is a possible front for a weapons-smuggling ring. James Bond infiltrates the facility in an attempt to rescue her, as well as retrieve a suspicious courier case in the same building. After freeing Nightshade from a submarine set to launch, the pair flee the facility with the courier case. Nigel Bloch, the head of Identicon, has his forces chase the agents through the streets of Hong Kong. The two steal a second case of vials from a nearby Identicon factory. They then rendezvous with R, who provides Bond with a gadget-laden BMW Z8. A limousine pulls up, as an assassin inside launches a rocket at the agents, killing Zoe, and steals the case. Bond gives chase, stopping an armored van which contained the stolen vials.
The vials contain nine blood samples, eight of which contained blood of world leaders. One contains the blood of British diplomat Reginald Griffin, serving in Romania, who is obsessed with protecting a room, outside of his jurisdiction, in the embassy. Bond investigates the embassy, finding Griffin dead, before a similar-looking man attacks him. After overcoming him, Bond finds a message from Bloch on Griffin's computer that mentions Malprave Industries, based in Switzerland. Bond takes the information from the computer and escapes.
At Malprave Industries, Bond, posing as a journalist, sees that the CEO is a woman he met at the embassy, Adrian Malprave. After collecting evidence, he makes his escape from the faciilty. Analysis of the computer message from Romania mentions "Defective Mercandise," believed to be a codename for Dr. Natalya Damescu, formerly in the employ of Malprave, now under protection at the British embassy in Bucharest. She also has inside information to offer. Carla the Jackal, an infamous terrorist who also killed Zoe, leads a raid on the embassy. Bond fights the terrorists before running into Damescu. After a confrontation with the Jackal, Bond picks up a data chip on something known as Poseidon, and delivers it to R for analysis.
The chip leads Bond to an oil rig in the South China
Sea. After running into Bloch, Bond follows him into Poseidon, an underwater base devoted to clone development. After destroying the lab, he climbs onto a submarine bound for a Royal Navy aircraft carrier in Mediterranean. On the submarine, Bond finds Zoe, who reveals that the woman he "saved" from the Identicon facility was a clone meant to infiltrate the CIA, and that the Jackal intended to kill Bond.
Depending on whether or not the player picked up the verification code, Bond and Zoe are either captured or are taken to the carrier unharmed after having sex on the submarine. In either case, the pair investigate the ship. It is discovered that 8 world leaders have been cloned, and are to be replaced by the clones. Bond destroys the craft carrying the clones, and the pair make their escape. They arrive at Malprave's base in the Swiss Alps, where Bond saves the ei
ght world leaders. Before he can escape from the base, however, he encounters Malprave, who has set the base to self-destruct. She reveals Bloch is still alive, and that Bond had killed his clone. After an encounter with him, Bond follows him into the main office and kills him. Just as he manages to leap free of the base before it explodes, Malprave appears and tries to jump clear too, but she is consumed and dies in the blast.
Pre-release Nightfire
Andrew Bicknell's Bond as he appears in the pre-release "Nightfire" version.
It's known that Nightfire was a follow up to Agent Under Fire which had Andrew Bicknell's physical appearance and motion capture performance used for the James Bond character. And by that time, Pierce Brosnan did not renew his contract with EON Productions for a fourth film until late 2001. Nightfire was in development already when its prequel was in the release stages and Bicknell was considered to be reprising his role as Bond. However, he was dropped from the project immediately when Pierce Brosnan returned to the role once more in Die Another Day, and the Electronic Arts company decided to take his likeness for the Bond role, and eventually, he took over the part from Bicknell. The latter's likeness, perhaps mistakenly, somewhat appears in a few cutscenes from the GameBoy Advance version of the game, while in other scenes, Brosnan's Bond pops up. Fans have cited the element as development error.
James Bond (Christopher Cazenove)
Christopher Cazenove as Bond during the torture scene from "Goldfinger" novel.
Ian Fleming's James Bond also makes appearance in the 1973 BBC documentary Omnibus: The British Hero where he was played by Christopher Cazenove. The character, in fact, was leaning more to Fleming's interpretation of the character than the one seen in the classic movie franchise. The documentary included Bond in dramatised scenes from Goldfinger —notably featuring 007 being threatened with the novel's circular saw, rather than the film's laser beam— and Diamonds Are Forever. However, the documentary's exception was that it wasn't actually a full time movie dedicated to the Bond character as Cazenove also played other characters such as Bulldog Drummond or Richard Hannay. Both of those characters served as inspirations for Bond.
Voice actors
In the video game series, starting with 1997's blockbuster GoldenEye 007 by Rareware, several actors have lent their voices and likenesses for the role of Bond. Pierce Brosnan himself physically appears as James Bond in six consisting titles, with three of them being original titles. However, he didn't voice the character until Everything or Nothing, his last appearance as 007. In Agent Under Fire, Bond's likeness was based on Andrew Bicknell's portrait, which fans described an amalgamation of the five previous actors who played the character in the films, but ever since Tomorrow Never Dies, the character was voiced by Adam Blackwood. Later, Maxwell Caulfield took over the role in Nightfire, but it still had Brosnan's likeness for the James Bond character. When Brosnan stepped aside in 2005, a video game was cancelled, Electronic Arts quickly started working on a video game adaptation of From Russia With Love. With a new script being written by Bruce Feirstein, it had Sean Connery once again as James Bond, who both voiced the character and gave the developers the permission to use his likeness. After MGM acquired the license from Electronic Arts who by that time were developing a video game tie-in to Casino Royale, they ended it up being cancelled after 15% of the progress was complete. In 2007, Activision received exclusive rights to develop and publish video games in the 007 franchise, with Daniel Craig appearing in the role of Bond for the first time in Quantum of Solace: The Game, which combined storylines from both Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace films. Craig also appeared in GoldenEye 007, a remake of the original blockbuster which had an updated storyline, then Blood Stone, an original experience by Bruce Feirstein. However, the last video game had Craig's physical appearance but was impersonated by a different voice actor called Timothy Watson in 007 Legends, a video game which combined six films into one.
Other Media
"Jimmy" (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen)
In the comic book series The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill, a character named "Jimmy" appears as an antagonist in the graphic novel Black Dossier . Because the series shifted to a mid-20th century setting where public domain characters are less common (the concept of the series strongly relies on crossing-over countless works of fiction), Alan Moore became more creative in using copyrighted characters without referring to their names directly and leaving their backstories vague in order to avoid copyright issues with the owners of those copyrights. An MI5 agent, Jimmy is the grandson of Campion Bond (a character from the first two volumes) and is identifiable as Ian Fleming's Bond with his metal cigarette-holder, love for vodka martinis and a facial scar.
In Black Dossier, it is revealed that he's knighted by Her Majesty for some actions he didn't take by himself. The character is always referred to as Sir Jimmy, and is described as an incompetent bungler, a cowardly liar, and a sadistic rapist. Betraying his country, he worked for the Americans as a double agent. However, by 2009 (Volume III: Century 2009), he is still a national treasure. Now, elderly he has been replaced by a succession of namesakes, each of whom are modeled after the official Bond actors; Sean Connery (J1), George Lazenby (J2), Roger Moore (J3), Timothy Dalton (J4), Pierce Brosnan (J5) and Daniel Craig (J6). It appears that the head of MI6 is Emma Peel (under the pseudonym "Emma Night"), a character that is originally played by a Bond alumni, Diana Rigg in The Avengers. She bears resemblance to an aged Diana Rigg in the mould of Judi Dench (who was "M" by that time) in order to get in touch with the current James Bond films.
The inclusion of James Bond as an antagonist is likely a satirical criticism of the casting of Sean Connery in the 2003 The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen film , which the comic's creators strongly disliked along with most critics.
See also
- The Literary Bond
- James Bond (Sean Connery)
- James Bond (George Lazenby)
- James Bond (Roger Moore)
- James Bond (Timothy Dalton)
- James Bond (Pierce Brosnan)
- James Bond (Daniel Craig)