Bond On Bond (10 page)

On James Bond Island the crew rigged up explosions for the finale of the movie, when Scaramanga’s HQ goes up in smoke. Everything was carefully timed for us to run from A to B as the explosions went off. Rather worryingly, the cameras were set up offshore on boats.

Guy Hamilton called ‘Action!’ and I ran. But Britt hesitated for a moment. I was faced with a split-second decision: carry on running, or be the gallant hero and go back for her. I turned around, grabbed and pulled her forward, towards me. I then felt all the tiny hairs on her back singe after the first explosion. I’m such a hero.

Barbara Bach, former model and wife-to-be of Ringo Starr, was quite a different Bond girl in that she was the Soviet oppo of Jim. As agent Triple-X she perhaps had the most prominent starring role since Diana Rigg in
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
.

Cubby was under huge pressure to get everything right on this film, and I know he had spent a long time looking for the perfect girl. He answered the question of why Barbara Bach with his usual aplomb:

‘There isn’t an actress today, with the possible exception of Barbra Streisand, who can open a film. We explored a certain lady in Hollywood who commands a $500,000 fee and that blew her right out of the box for me because she’d contribute no more than Barbara Bach.’

I used to pull her leg, of course, dubbing her Barbara-Back-to-Front, and in Luxor when we left for the location each morning we’d always pass hundreds of black-burka-clad women.

‘The nuns are out early again,’ I said, rather lightheartedly.

‘Oh, are they all Catholics here?’ she asked earnestly.

She and Ringo are now neighbours of mine in Monaco, and we still see each other from time to time.

In my final outing, I was joined by Mary Stavin, Fiona Fullerton, Tanya Roberts and Grace Jones.

A day in a hot tub with Fiona could never be considered ‘work’ really, could it? And floating away on board a submarine with Mary Stavin must be many men’s dream. As to the others, I’ll leave it there, I think.

Post-me, in the mid-1980s, HIV/AIDS was becoming a major issue in the world and Bond writers felt that Timothy Dalton’s new 007 should not be as promiscuous as my 007. He therefore became a one-woman Bond with Maryam d’Abo’s Kara Milovy in
The Living Daylights
but stepped up a gear in
Licence To Kill
with two romantic interests, Carey Lowell and Talisa Soto.

When Pierce came along, the team took the decision to introduce a few more well-known actresses to the franchise, such as Teri Hatcher, Michelle Yeoh, Denise Richards and Halle Berry – who won her Oscar mid-production on
Die Another Day
for the movie
Monster’s Ball
. In a nod to
Dr. No,
Halle emerged from the ocean in a sexy bikini in the film’s only main location; the majority of filming was studio-bound. She proved such a popular character that producers felt a
Jinx
spin-off movie would be a sure-fire hit. Neil Purvis and Robert Wade were engaged to write a script; Stephen Frears was reportedly keen to direct and all looked set … until MGM got nervous about the budget, and felt they’d rather have another Bond film than risk launching a new franchise. MGM cited ‘creative differences’.

With Daniel Craig came Eva Green as Vesper Lynd. The character’s name, incidentally, is a pun on West Berlin, signifying Vesper’s divided loyalties as a double agent under Soviet control. Eva became the fifth French actress to be cast as a Bond girl. Following in her footsteps was Ukrainian-born Olga Kurylenko in
Quantum Of Solace
as Camille, with a backstory of child abuse akin to Ian Fleming’s original flawed heroines.