The James Bond Fan Club Newsletter Autumn 2013

Newsletter                                               Autumn 2013

Dear Colin... Early Clues on Bond 24 Now that Sam Mendes is firmly back on board, anticipation seems to be building already about the shape of Bond 24, which starts filming in 2014, based on a screen treatment by John Logan. James Bond actor Daniel Craig spoke in the USA recently about his acting career generally and, in the process, gave some tantalising hints about some possible aspects of his evolving version of the James Bond character. Interviewed with his wife Rachel Weisz as they prepared for their new stage version of the Harold Pinter play Betrayal (which has gone on to break theatre box-office records after opening to the American public on Broadway in October), Craig confirmed that he will start preparatory work on Bond 24 after the end of the 14-week run of Betrayal in January, 2014. He said he wants to build on the reborn Bond seen at the end of Skyfall. He appears to want to inject more irony into the character, but also does not want to overdo this. He commented: ‘Hopefully we’ll reclaim some of the old irony, and make sure it doesn’t become pastiche. I can’t do shtick, I’m not very good at it. Unless it kind of suddenly makes sense. Does that make sense? I sometimes wished I hammed it up more, but I just can’t do it very well, so I don’t do it’. Licence Reviewed Naomie Harris, who played the MI6 field agent who became the new Miss Moneypenny in Skyfall, is possibly going to have her role significantly expanded in Bond 24. Far from being deskbound as ‘M’s loyal secretary, it would appear her duties as a field agent with a licence to kill may be far from over. Well, that’s the theory put forward by the Daily Mail recently. According to the gossip columnist Baz Bamigboye, the Bond producers are big fans of Naomie’s and don’t want her to be too deskbound, as other Moneypennys have been. Bamigboye claimed that an un-named executive ‘close to the production’ told him: ‘The idea formulating in Bond-land is for Naomie to be much more of a sidekick to James, and for her to get out and harm the bad guys’. Make of that what you will. Meanwhile, Naomie has embarked on the promotion of her latest movie Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, in which she plays Winnie Mandela. While early reviews of the movie have been mixed, Naomie is still being tipped for major awards for her strong and moving role as Mandela’s wife. The movie, which was premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in September, received its South African premiere in Johannesburg on November 3, and Naomi was one of the very special guests at the event. Live Another Day? November 15 saw a brief announcement from Danjaq and Metro-Goldwin-Mayer that sent some parts of the ‘Bondiverse’ into a frenzy of excitement and speculation. In a joint press release issued from Los Angeles, in California, the James Bond producers, together with MGM and the estate of the late Irish film producer Kevin McClory, announced that Danjaq and MGM have finally acquired all the Bond rights belonging to the McClory estate and family, ‘thus bringing to an amicable conclusion the legal and business disputes that have arisen periodically for over 50 years’. Commentators immediately seized upon this news to speculate endlessly on whether this will herald the return of the character of Ernst Stavro Blofeld to the official EON series, a character Kevin McClory had always laid claim to. In fact, back in the 1970s, the legal conflict between the Irish producer and EON over ownership of the character became so bitter that Cubby Broccoli was forced to drop plans to revive Blofeld for the third Roger Moore movie The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). In a sense, Broccoli got his revenge by using an un-named Blofeld in the opening credits of For Your Eyes Only (1981). So, what are the long-term implications of the new settlement? Quite simply, it raises the tantalising possibility that EON could now revive Blofeld for a future 007 movie if they so wished, perhaps in a very fresh form for the 21 st century. Imagine what Sam Mendes could possibly do with such a character. On Her Majesty’s Radio Service It is not often we can say ‘You read it here first’ but… you definitely read it here first: in our June/July JBIFC Newsletter we revealed that Joanna Lumley had recorded a role in a new radio version of the classic Ian Fleming adventure On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. At the time we were unable to say more, which was frustrating. But it can now be officially confirmed: Joanna Lumley will play Tracy in a new BBC radio version of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, alongside Toby Stephens who returns as 007. It must have felt like returning to an old friend for Joanna: the 1969 movie version of OHMSS was her ‘breakthrough’ into the world of movie and TV acting. Janie Dee will also return for a third time as Miss Moneypenny, and Martin Jarvis (the producer) will provide his usual narrative services as Ian Fleming. The new version of OHMSS has been produced by the same team (Jarvis and Ayres Productions) that brought you the previous very successful BBC radio versions of Dr. No (2008), Goldfinger (2010), and From Russia With Love (2012), all starring Stephens as James Bond. Stephens, of course, played the villain Gustav Graves in Die Another Day, Pierce Brosnan’s final movie as 007. No information is available from the BBC yet on when the new play will be transmitted. As far back as June, 2012, the JBIFC learnt from very reliable sources that Jarvis and Ayres wanted OHMSS to be their next production in the series and, in late May, 2013, we were tipped off that none other than Joanna Lumley (who played the ‘English girl’, one of Blofeld’s ‘Angels of Death’ in the original 1969 EON movie) had recorded her key role in the new radio play. However, we could only drop heavy hints at the time. But now you know! To Eon With Love In a press release issued on October 30, the Producers Guild of America (PGA) announced that they have selected the James Bond Producers, Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, to be recipients of the highly prestigious 2014 David O. Selznick Achievement Award in Motion Pictures. The special award will be presented to the popular EON brother-and-sister duo at the 25 th Annual Producers Awards ceremony on January 19, 2014, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. PGA Awards co-chairs Lori McCreary and Michael De Luca told the media: ‘Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli are the driving force behind one of the most cherished franchises in the history of film’. The PGA also pointed out that EON’s latest James Bond adventure, the multiple award-winning Skyfall, the 23 rd movie in the 50-year old series, topped an amazing $1 billion in worldwide grosses earlier this year. What Would ‘M’ Say? Although Daniel Craig has added a suitably gritty and authentic tone to the adventures of secret agent 007, the reality behind the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, or ‘MI6’ as it is more commonly known) is somewhat less glamorous than the silver screen would have us believe. Instead of regularly jetting off abroad, these days most SIS agents spend large amounts of time sitting behind desks in their ‘wedding cake’ HQ building near Vauxhall Bridge, in London, something Fleming’s 007 would undoubtedly have hated. Possibly the most daring thing some of them do is to nip over to the local ‘Pret-a-Manger’ coffee shop on the nearby corner of Vauxhall Bridge, instead of using the MI6 canteen. Real-life MI6 chief Sir John Sawyers, otherwise known as ‘C’, appearing before the UK’s parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee recently, sought to dispel a number of myths surrounding the work of SIS agents: ‘It’s not like James Bond’, he said. He added: ‘The idea of sending an agent into the field like James Bond, it doesn’t work like that’. When the parliamentary hearing was over, he then strapped on a rocket jet-pack and flew off over the Thames (only kidding!). But seriously, the JBIFC is aware that the real-like MI6 staff are not immune to the charms of the James Bond movies. They took a close interest in the filming that took place in 1999 for The World Is Not Enough, which utilised the Thames embankment area overlooked by their Vauxhall Bridge HQ. More recently, MI6 security guards closely watched events on Vauxhall Bridge, when some key scenes were shot for Skyfall, involving Dame Judi Dench and Rory Kinnear. When ‘M’ met ‘C’ (and ‘Q’?!) Interestingly, Dame Judi revealed in an interview given to the UK’s Daily Mirror newspaper back in February, 2012, that she was once invited for lunch at the real MI6 HQ. She recalled that: ‘This room filled up with people and I kept looking at them and thinking, “They’re all kind of 007s and they’re all very tweedy, like you find at University”. The head of MI6 gave me this tiny camera which had been used to break a very, very important case. They wouldn’t tell me what the case was but when you look through the lens, the precision of what you can pick up is mind-blowing. It was all very thrilling’. According to some commentators, the idea for Dame Judi to become a female ‘M’ in Goldeneye (1995) was originally inspired by the real-life Intelligence officer Stella Rimmington, who was appointed the first female head of MI5 (the British domestic Security Service) in the early 1990s. When Whicker met Bond The summer saw the very sad announcement that British journalist and super-suave broadcaster Alan Whicker had passed away on July 12, aged 91. Whicker, who was born in 1921, had served in the Second World War and helped capture a German S.S. General in Italy, amongst other things. He was also one of the first British soldiers to arrive on the scene to film the dead body of fascist dictator Mussolini. After the War, Whicker went into journalism and became particularly famous in Britain for presenting the award-winning TV documentary series Whicker’s World, which spanned 30 years. Always dapper and very English, Whicker had a genuine curiosity about human beings and their lives, and was able to conduct highly successful interviews with a whole range of people: from the good and the bad, the famous and the not-so-famous, to celebrities and ordinary people, often winning their complete trust and teasing out genuine insights. In 1966-1967, Whicker was given a unique opportunity to base an episode of his programme on the making of the latest James Bond movie, You Only Live Twice, the fifth in EON’s smash-hit series. The resulting 53-minute episode of Whicker’s World, broadcast by the BBC on March 25, 1967, was a real eye-opener for British TV audiences at the time, taking the viewer on set and behind the scenes, and managing to capture both the razzmatazz but also the sheer pressures and tensions involved in making the latest multi-million pound 007 movie. Whicker visited both the set at Pinewood Studios and also the Japanese locations, and he conducted interviews with Sean Connery, his wife Diane Cilento, designer Ken Adam, director Lewis Gilbert, screenwriter Roald Dahl, and the EON producers Harry Saltzman and Cubby Broccoli. Sean was already indicating that he was very fed up with the way he felt he had been treated by the producers, and Whicker also witnessed the way the press was making life extremely difficult for the 007 star, who often felt under siege and unable to appear in public. The episode remains a fascinating investigation into the making of a James Bond film in the 1960s. Alan Whicker (1921-2013), R.I.P. Pilot Royale The JBIFC was equally sad to learn of the death of Wing Commander Ken Wallis, who proved a great and loyal friend to the Club over the years. He passed away on September 1, aged 97. Wallis served as a pilot with RAF Bomber Command in World War Two (a highly dangerous job, with a high mortality rate) and, after his retirement from the RAF in 1964, he devoted his time to cultivating his considerable skills as an aviator, inventor, and engineer, becoming one of the world’s leading advocates of the autogyro mini-helicopter, building up and piloting his own personal collection. His machines were housed in special sheds at his home in Norfolk, in East Anglia. As many Bond fans know, Wallis was also recruited to fly a WA-116 autogyro and be a stunt double for Sean Connery in You Only Live Twice, his heavily-armed machine earning the name ‘Little Nellie’ in the movie. The Wing Commander subsequently made many appearances with his famous and iconic Bond autogyro at air shows, charity events, model flying clubs, and other events, and he was always very generous with his time for Bond fans. He was also patron of a campaign to augment some bells at a local church not far from his home, and, just this year, local villagers erected a sign showing an autogyro flying above the church. Fittingly, in July, 2013, just weeks before his death, he was awarded a campaign medal for his 28 bombing missions over Germany in the War. A special memorial event for Ken held at Old Buckenham Airport in England on September 29 saw an estimated 3-4,000 people in attendance! Ken Wallis (1916-2013), R.I.P. Surrey’s Skyfall Location Used by UNCLE Here’s a delicious irony, perhaps one that would have amused Ian Fleming in particular. The cast and crew of the new movie version of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. descended on Hankley Common, near the village of Elstead in Surrey, England, for a few days in October, to shoot some action sequences. The Common is, of course, where key scenes for the Skyfall Lodge sequence were shot on location in 2012. A full-size Bond ancestral Lodge was built for Daniel Craig’s third 007 movie, together with a nearby chapel and Bond family graveyard, and strong links were made in the story to Bond’s family background as described by Ian Fleming in the original books. Interestingly, Fleming had a hand in the original creation of UNCLE back in the early 1960s, which went on to become a smash-hit TV series on both sides of the Atlantic. He was briefly recruited as a consultant on the show, and is said to have created the main character Napoleon Solo. Indeed, the show’s original name was going to be Solo, but then the Bond producers (who were by then making Goldfinger) intervened. They asked Fleming to end his involvement in the show and for the show’s title to be changed. The new movie version has Henry Cavill playing Solo and Armie Hammer as his fellow spy Illya Kuryakin. And here’s another irony: Cavill was on the final 3-man short-list to play James Bond back in 2005, but lost out to Daniel Craig. And in a strange circularity, William Boyd has just used the title Solo for his new Bond novel! Live and Let Lie? Speaking of Surrey, former seven-times 007 Sir Roger Moore recently embarked on another round of his hugely successful stage tour ‘An Evening with Roger Moore’, and this included some fixtures in the Skyfall county. Appropriately enough, Sir Roger gave some highly entertaining interviews to various publications in Surrey, including the Kingston Magazine (October, 2013) and the newspaper leisure guide What’s On (25 October), which appeared in newspapers throughout the county. In the magazine interview, given to Rob Edwards, Sir Roger said that people ‘didn’t seem too bored on the last tour’ and he promised to talk in his show about his origins, his work for charity, ‘Bond, of course’, his friends, ‘and a whole lot of other lies that I can dream up!’ In the newspaper interview, given to Jenny Stanton, Sir Roger, when again asked what a Surrey audience can expect from his show, replied: ‘I hope I can entertain them with stories about my start in life, my career, my general opinion on everything which is rather negative. I promise not to dance and sing’. As those who attended the event on the last tour will know, Sir Roger is interviewed on stage by Gareth Owen, who helped Moore with his autobiography My Word is My Bond and the best-selling 50 th Anniversary book Bond on Bond. Sir Roger revealed to Stanton that Gareth ‘has been my assistant for a number of years, at least 20. He knows more about me than I know myself. He is amazing. I think the audience will enjoy him more than me!’ Licence to Thrill: Solo Sets Sail So, have you read it yet? The new Bond book Solo, penned by acclaimed author William Boyd, was launched in the UK in September at the famous Dorchester Hotel, and Mr. Boyd also gave numerous interviews to both the UK and world media to help promote the novel. The majority of reviews were highly enthusiastic, noting that Mr. Boyd has really managed to capture the atmosphere of Fleming’s novels but via his own unique writing style. And it really is a great read! Many people tend to forget that Boyd is also an accomplished film director and screenwriter and so, appropriately enough, one of the interviews he gave was to the BBC’s distinguished film critic Barry Norman, which appeared in the Radio Times magazine on October 5. Barry Norman himself is something of a Bond expert, and got to know the young Sean Connery just before he achieved world-wide fame as Bond. Norman was also full of praise for Skyfall when it came out, regarding it as returning Bond back to strong plotting and a character-driven story. William Boyd, who is a friend of Sean Connery, Pierce Brosnan, and Daniel Craig, having worked with all three, emphasised again that, in researching his own 007 novel, he did not watch any of the Bond movies. Instead, he made a meticulous study of all the Ian Fleming books and short stories. In fact, he did this so thoroughly, he told Norman that he now reckons he could choose the literary James Bond as a specialist subject for the famous BBC quiz show Mastermind! He also told Barry Norman at one point: ‘I wanted to write a gritty, realistic spy novel with no gimmicks or gadgets, nothing fantastical, about a man on a mission’. But perhaps Boyd’s version of Bond is closer to Craig’s interpretation than the Solo author realises? Solo available on Amazon Write Another Day: Young Bond to Return A press release issued in September by Random House announced that a new author, Steve Cole, will pen further adventures in the ‘Young Bond’ children’s book series, starting in autumn, 2014. Cole takes over from the original creator and author of the Young Bond series, Charlie Higson. Cole has previously authored several Dr. Who novels and other work for children, and is also a lifelong fan of Ian Fleming’s Bond novels. He said: ‘I first encountered Bond in print as a teenager, when I read From a View To a Kill. Fleming’s writing was so vivid and authentic, Bond and the world he inhabited seemed suddenly real to me – and the danger and glamour led me through book after book. It’s both a thrilling privilege and an exciting challenge now to be shaping a new era in the life of such an iconic character – with many firsts and surprises to come as James’s life in the 1930s develops’. Cole’s first new Young Bond book will pick up from where Higson’s last one, By Royal Command (2008), left off. Dial ‘M’ for Bond Dedicated fans of the first James Bond movie Dr. No (1962) were provided with a rare treat in July when Dial M For Murder, the famous thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and starring Ray Milland and Grace Kelly, was given a special digital re-release in its newly restored original 3D presentation (it was first released in 1954 in ‘Natural Vision’, an early version of 3D, which did not really catch on at the time). Apart from Milland and Kelly, the other major figure in the movie was... Anthony Dawson (1916-1992). In fact, although Dawson had been in films since 1943, it was really his role as the seedy and rather dubious Captain Lesgate in Hitchcock’s 1954 movie that brought him to much wider studio attention. In the movie, Tony Wendice (Milland) blackmails his old friend Lesgate into murdering Wendice’s wife Margot (Grace Kelly). Dawson went on to take a number of similar roles and, in a sense, became stereotyped as an untrustworthy Englishman. But he didn’t seem to mind. The Edinburgh-born actor also became good friends with director Terence Young, who cast Dawson in a number of his movies, including, of course, as Professor R.J. Dent in Dr. No. Indeed, who can forget the classic scene where a clearly very nervous Dent has to go to Crab Key, enter a strange metallic room (brilliantly designed by Ken Adam), and is instructed to collect a spider that the evil doctor hopes will finish off 007? Did You Know? Terence Young used Anthony Dawson in two more James Bond movies. Dawson played Ernst Stavro Blofeld in From Russia With Love (1963) and Thunderball (1965). However, only Dawson’s hands and outline profile were used. The voice of Blofeld was provided by the Austrian actor Eric Pohlmann. Dawson also appeared alongside Adolfo Celi, Daniela Bianchi, Lois Maxwell, and Bernard Lee in the Italian Bond-spoof O.K. Connery (1967), which starred Sir Sean’s younger brother, Neil (and was re-titled Operation Kid Brother for its American release). Sean was not best pleased with his brother, the film and its other stars! Bond Bits: Brief News Items You May Have Missed Simply the best. It was revealed in mid-July that the 73-year old singer Tina Turner, who sang the main theme song to Goldeneye (1995), has married her long-term partner, the music executive Erwin Bach, at a registry office in Zurich, Switzerland. Well done, Tina... Tina has lived in Switzerland for nearly two decades now and is beloved on the continent. She recently became the oldest Vogue cover star by appearing on the front cover of the German edition of the famous magazine... Tributes poured in for the ‘gifted’ and ‘deep thinking’ 53-year old stage actor Paul Bhattacharjee, whose roles included a small part as a doctor in Daniel Craig’s Casino Royale, after it was confirmed on Thursday, July 18, that his body had been found near cliffs at Seaford, in East Sussex, UK, two days after he disappeared after leaving rehearsals at the Royal Court Theatre in London... Mads Mikkelsen, the award-winning actor who played the sinister villain Le Chiffre in Craig’s first Bond movie Casino Royale, was very much in the news in Britain in late August when he gave various interviews to help promote the DVD and Blue Ray release in the UK of the first season of Hannibal on September 2. The critically-acclaimed and very unusual TV series has Mikkelsen playing an early version of Dr. Hannibal (‘the cannibal’) Lecter… In one of the interviews, given for the free London magazine ShortList on August 29. Mads revealed that Anthony Hopkins (who memorably played Lecter twice on the big screen) had been in touch: ‘He’s wished me well and I’m sure he’s seen it’. The former Bond villain also revealed that there is talk about a sequel to his recent movie Valhalla Rising, which was directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. Mads said he would be ‘most excited’ about working with the director again… Interestingly, it was rumoured earlier this year that Nicolas Winding Refn was one of the names on a list of possible directors for Bond 24 before Sam Mendes officially confirmed he was on board again for Bond 24… Sky high: great news emerged on July 24 that the British Film Institute’s annual Statistical Yearbook, a 250-page report, has confirmed that Skyfall was the highest-grossing film of all time at the British box office, earning an astonishing £103m, easily knocking James Cameron’s Avatar off the top spot... The BFI’s Yearbook also revealed that the British film industry is in good health, with UK films performing very strongly across the globe in 2011-12, helped considerably by Skyfall, The Dark Knight Rises and successful independent movies such as The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (which included Dame Judi Dench in the cast)... Golden touch: Honor Blackman, who played kick-ass Cathy Gale in ITV’s iconic series The Avengers in the 1960s, and also played Bond woman Pussy Galore in Goldfinger (1964), is still maintaining her remarkable acting career at full strength. Honor was a guest star in an episode of the BBC’s Casualty medical drama, transmitted in the UK on August 3. She played Agatha Kirkpatrick, an old woman with a romantic mission... Honor also appeared as Celia Butler, a lady who allows a surveillance team to use her house, in the third episode of the BBC crime drama series By Any Means, transmitted on Sunday, October 6... Another former member of The Avengers, Joanna Lumley, who played karate-kicking Purdey in The New Avengers series in the 1970s, and whose latest role is Tracy in a new radio version of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (see earlier), was interviewed for the Sunday magazine of the UK’s Observer newspaper on June 6. Did you know she is now a member of the Royal Geographical Society, as a result of her extensive travelling and documentary-making across the globe? Earlier this year, Joanna also picked up a Lifetime Achievement Award at the UK’s National Television Awards… Interestingly, Joanna Lumley attended the special evening held at the Dorchester Hotel in London to launch William Boyd’s new 007 novel Solo in September, and was photographed standing next to Boyd and also former Bond author Sebastian Faulks. At one point in the evening, she spoke to the gossip columnist Mandrake (Tim Walker) and told him she would love to return to the Bond movies: ‘Of course I would. Ralph Fiennes is replacing Judi Dench as ‘M’, but, with Bond, you’d be mad not to take any role. I’d even play a dog!’ Are you listening, EON?... Here’s a great story, which confirms what a truly nice guy Sam Mendes is: one Friday evening in early August, a small group of long-standing Bond fans went to the Royal Festival Hall to book their tickets for the special Solo launch event with William Boyd on September 26. They were having a drink in the bar and looked up and, much to their surprise, there stood Skyfall director Sam Mendes, who had just emerged out of a small production during an interval. Sam generously posed for a photo and even signed a Skyfall Japanese flyer which one of the group just happened to have on him (as you do!)… Spanish actor Javier Bardem, whose latest film The Counsellor has just gone on general release, was interviewed in the December, 2013, issue of the UK’s popular movie magazine Total Film, which hit the news-stands in early November. Inevitably, Javier was quizzed at one point about Skyfall and said he was ‘very proud’ of the movie. He added that he had told Sam Mendes after he first saw the movie at a private screening: ‘I think it’s a great movie. Not just a great James Bond movie, but a great movie’… Rory Kinnear, who reprised his role as Bill Tanner in Skyfall, has been very busy lately: he had a role as a journalist in the disturbing new four-part Channel-4 crime thriller Southcliffe. Rory played David Whitehead, a journalist who returns back to the town where he was raised to investigate why a gunman went on the rampage... Congratulations are also very much in order for Rory who has been made the joint-winner of the Best Actor prize in the London Evening Standard awards, alongside his co-star Adrian Lester, for their roles in the National Theatre’s recent production of Othello. The award was announced in mid-November. Rory was also shortlisted for the ‘most promising playwright’ category in the same awards, for his first play, The Herd, which ran at the Bush Theatre in London recently and was very well-received by critics… What next for Rory? He is, of course, contracted to appear in Bond 24. He is also to play the mysterious Lord Lucan in two-part drama for British TV based on the final moments of the controversial aristocrat, who vanished in 1974 after the murder of the family nanny. The drama also assumes that Lucan did not commit suicide, but successfully went on the run around the world… When Fleming met Strawberry Fields: photos emerged in the British press on August 5 of Dominic Cooper and Gemma Arterton, who posed together for the paparazzi at the Audi Polo Challenge, held at the UK’s famous Ascot race course, on August 4. Cooper will star as the Bond author in Sky Atlantic’s new four-part biopic about Fleming, now due early in 2014... Gemma Arterton also appeared at the world premiere of her new crime thriller Runner Runner, held in Las Vegas in mid-September. She was joined on the red carpet by her co-stars Justin Timberlake and Ben Affleck… Rosamund Pike (Miranda Frost in Die Another Day) attended the U.S. premiere in Los Angeles in late August of the hit British comedy The World’s End. She was joined by co-star Simon Pegg at the glitzy event… Late August also saw the world premiere of former ‘M’ Dame Judi Dench’s new film, Philomena, co-starring Steve Coogan. The movie, which is already being seen as a potential Oscar winner, was premiered at the Venice Film Festival, and when it later went on general release in the UK in early November there was widespread acclaim for the moving performances of both Dame Judi and Coogan… Licence to chill? Dame Judi had a bit of fun with the Daily Mail gossip columnist Baz Bamigboye (October 11). She said she is going to ‘haunt’ the next Bond film! In Bond 23 she was replaced as ‘M’, of course, by Ralph Fiennes. She said: ‘That was a good secret to keep’, and she expressed admiration for the number of critics and members of the general public who refused to give the surprise ending away to other people. When told that John Logan is doing the screenplay for Bond 24, and that Sam Mendes will begin filming the next 007 movie in autumn, 2014, she said: ‘How dare he do that! How dare he! I’ll come back in the window of M’s office, showing the red card to Ralph Fiennes, and I’ll have a big, big photograph on his desk with my tongue out. I’ll haunt them!’… While promoting Phylomena Dame Judi gave various interviews to the UK press, including one to the Reader’s Digest magazine. She said she believes that her appearances as ‘M’ in the Bond movies helped draw a younger generation to the theatre... What next for the ex-M? According to the Daily Mail (November 22), Dame Judi will commence shooting on The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel in Spain this December, which is a follow-up to the smash-hit first film... From ‘M’ to ‘M’: Ralph Fiennes, meanwhile, is clearly relishing his impending role as the new ‘M’ in Bonds 24 and 25. Speaking to the Associated Press in October, he said: ‘I’m looking forward to it very much’... Licence to spill: The sad news came in September that actor Richard Gere and his beautiful wife Carey Lowell, who played Pam Bouvier in Tim Dalton’s second Bond movie Licence to Kill (1989), are divorcing. Gere, 64, and Powell, 52, married in 2002 and the marriage has lasted 007 years… According to the London Metro newspaper (November 1), a letter has emerged written by Ian Fleming in 1962 to a 12-year old schoolboy which shows that the James Bond author urged the young fan not to ‘emulate’ 007. The note to Terry Wing states that the young schoolboy is ‘already an adventurous chap with plenty of guts’ for writing to Fleming in the first place. The letter was auctioned at Bonhams in Knightsbridge, London, on November 12... The UK’s ‘Classic FM’ radio station has a regular Saturday afternoon programme called ‘Saturday Night at the Movies’, which plays various movie themes and pieces of soundtrack music. The November 2 programme was devoted to the work of Yorkshire’s most famous film music maestro, composer John Barry, and, inevitably, there were some great pieces from the Bond movies, including an instrumental piece from Goldfinger and the brilliant space capsule theme from You Only Live Twice. Barry, who sadly passed away in 2011, remains enormously popular with both film fans and the wider UK listening public... Fancy seeing out the year with a James Bond concert at the Barbican Hall in central London, where some scenes for Quantum of Solace were shot? A concert called Bond and Beyond will celebrate the music from the Bond movies and also pay tribute to other spies and detectives. John Rigby will conduct the Raymond Gubbay Big Band Orchestra for the event on Saturday, December 28, starting at 7.30pm. Contact: www.barbican.org.uk for ticket details... Just a stone’s throw from the Barbican you can find the buildings of the famous Smithfield meat market, where some sequences for Skyfall were shot on location in November, 2011, with Rory Kinnear, Daniel Craig, and Dame Judi Dench, including at a nearby car-park entrance that doubled-up in the film as the guarded entrance to the relocated ‘emergency’ MI6 HQ. However, there is currently a highly controversial plan to re-develop the famous market buildings, and local residents and businesses have been mounting a strong campaign to resist this. A local petition was signed by nearly 5,000 people... Double-O-heaven: It was a case of Skyfall Redux in early November when former Skyfall women Naomie Harris and Berenice Marlohe both attended the Bafta Britannia Awards held in Los Angeles… Now pay attention, 007: The new ‘Q’ Ben Whishaw, who will return as the gadget-master in Bond 24, has been cast by director Ron Howard as one of the characters in a new film version of Moby-Dick: or The Whale, the famous 1851 book by Herman Melville. There have been at least 5 movie and theatre versions of the famous and dramatic tale over the years, and suddenly interest in the novel has taken off again: the BBC is also doing its own new version to rival the new Howard movie… Whishaw has recently been on stage again in London in the play Mojo, which is about the tough world of gangs in the Soho area of London in the 1950s. It opened on October 26 at the Harold Pinter Theatre and runs until January 25, 2014… Give him a break, boys: former 007 Sir Sean Connery is still very much alive and kicking! Despite being one of Britain’s best-known and most successful actors, the British press tend to give Sir Sean a hard time these days, possibly because he makes it clear he finds many UK journalists frankly irritating, and wants to enjoy his retirement from acting in relative peace. And who can blame him? There is good evidence that Sir Sean was one of the targets in the UK’s recent phone-hacking scandal, but he has graciously decided not to take any legal action over it... But recent months have seen various scare stories about Sir Sean’s health being recycled yet again. Clearly determined to put these latest stories to rest, Connery made a rare public appearance in September in New York, where he went for stroll with his bodyguards. The 83-year old actor looked trim and fine. He also attended the U.S. Open Tennis Championship in the city to watch a game and also cheer on fellow Scot Andy Murray... Fans of the book Bond were treated to an excellent abridged version of William Boyd’s new 007 novel Solo in BBC Radio-4’s ‘Book at Bedtime’ slot over the course of two weeks. The 10-part abridged version, which started on September 30, was read by Paterson Joseph... The name’s Salmon, Colin Salmon. The actor, who appeared as MI6 agent Robinson in three Pierce Brosnan Bond movies, has still not given up hope of one day playing 007 himself. He told the Radio Times (September 28): ‘Pierce Brosnan has put my name out there a few times. I do believe I could do it’... In fact, not many people realise that Salmon has (in a sense) already played 007. He was regularly used by EON as Bond when new women were being tested for possible main roles in the Bond movies. One scene often re-enacted was the hotel bedroom scene in From Russia With Love... And last, but not least, we must mention one of the UK’s leading Bond fans, Daryl Burchmore, and his astonishing collection of 007 memorabilia. Daryl has been collecting Bond material since the 1970s and was an early member of the JBIFC. With his house bursting at the seams, he recently decided to put a major part of his collection up for auction... Golden high: the ‘Burchmore Collection’ formed the climax to the two-day Vectis TV and film sale held in October. Top spot went to an SD Studio James Bond replica prop Golden Gun from Roger Moore’s second Bond adventure, no.370 of 7,500 produced. It ‘shot’ through its estimate of £700 to realise a cool £1,560...