On This Day

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  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    Posts: 12,916
    January 1st

    1925: Zena Marshall is born--Nairobi, Kenya. (She dies 10 July 2009 at age 84--London, England.)
    1937: Suzy Kendall is born--Belper, Derbyshire, England.
    1938: Kenneth Tsang is born--Shanghai, China.
    1961: Ian Fleming returns to his Goldeneye Estate and begins writing the ninth Bond novel. In failing health, he uses a screenplay from a 1958 project as its basis.
    1965: Agente 007 - Missione Goldfinger (Agent 007 - Goldfinger Mission) released in Italy.
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    Not to be confused with.
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    1968: Dr. No re-release in the UK.
    1972: Diamenty sa wieczne (Diamonds Are Eternal) released in Poland.
    1977: Dr. No re-release in the UK.
    1982: Jonathan Cape publishes John Gardner's Bond novel For Special Services.
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    1998: Zítrek nikdy neumírá (The Tomorrow Never Dies) released in the Czech Republic.
    1998: Zajtrajsok nikdy nezomiera released in Slovakia.
    2000: The World Is Not Enough released in Taiwan.
    2003: Die Another Day released in Egypt and Panama.
    2003: Πέθανε μια άλλη μέρα (He Died Another Day) released in Greece.

    2010: The original date Ian Fleming material would have entered the Public Domain (based on Casino Royale's 1953 publish date, plus 28 years for the copyright period, plus another 28 year renewal). [But the US law changed 1976 and went into effect 1978.]
    2015: James Bond becomes public domain in Canada. (The books and stories, not the films. Based on the Berne Convention allowing a copyright for 50 years after Fleming's death.)
    2035: Under the Copyright Extension Act of 1998 (applying the year of the author's death plus 70 years), Fleming books and stories enter the public domain.
    2049: Under US copyright law in effect from 1978 (applied to products published 1950-1964), the copyright period lasting 95 years from the author's death ended the previous day. So it's public domain for Fleming books and stories everywhere.
    [Legal commentary welcome.]

  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    Posts: 12,916
    January 2nd

    1964: In The Daily Express, Fleming proposes to interviewer John Creusemann that "Bond is Scottish. On both sides."
    1975: Roger Moore is photographed at London's Gerrick Club with wife Luisa and co-star Susanna York from their film "Heaven Save Us From Our Friends".
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    2003: Die Another Day released in New Zealand.
    2003: Dnes neumírej (Do Not Die Today) released in the Czech Republic.
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    2003: Dnes neumieraj (Today Do Not Die) released in Slovakia.
    2003: The New York Times publishes Seoul Journal's article "The Power of Film: A Bond That Unites Koreans".
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    Seoul Journal; The Power of Film: A Bond That Unites Koreans
    https://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/02/world/seoul-journal-the-power-of-film-a-bond-that-unites-koreans.html
    By JAMES BROOKE - JAN. 2, 2003

    In real life, President Bush wrestles with policies to force North Korea to stop selling missiles and making atom bombs.

    On the big screen, at movie theaters here today, James Bond wrestled with a crazed North Korean colonel who was using a space-based laser to burn a massive hole in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea.

    ''The U.S. put North Korea in 'the axis of evil' and then the director merely followed the plot,'' said Kim So Won, a 19-year-old student taking a break from a New Year's Eve anti-American rally.

    As her girlfriends nodded, she added, ''We won't go see the movie.''

    The new 007 movie, ''Die Another Day,'' opened here on New Year's Eve to a fledgling boycott. But reflecting the love-hate relationship with the United States -- the fact that James Bond is British is a fine point lost on many people here -- there were long lines of people waiting to see the film at the Seoul Theater.

    Min Kyung Woo, a 28-year-old pacifist, lined up too, but on a picket line. ''This is Hollywood's strategy toward Northeast Asia,'' said Mr. Min, who had not been converted by a pre-release showing of the movie intended by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to head off a boycott here.

    ''The movie industry is related to politics,'' he said.

    Indeed, the boycott has been fueled by rising anti-American sentiment and the feeling among many here that North Koreans are replacing Colombians as Hollywood's current international bad guys.

    ''North Korean criminals in the movie are no different from Iraqi, Cuban or Russian terrorists, who easily commit mass murders in Hollywood action movies,'' the newspaper JoongAng Ilbo said in apparent surprise at the Bondian depiction of state-sponsored torture in North Korea, a nation that ranks high atop many ''worst'' lists compiled by international human rights groups.

    While North and South Korea remain bitterly divided, judging by such reviews and those of some moviegoers here, the two sides have finally found common ground when confronting 007.

    ''I think there is plenty for Koreans to complain about in this movie,'' Doug E. Shin, a Korean-American pastor from Los Angeles, said as he walked in a jostling, and largely merry, flood of young South Koreans leaving a showing tonight. ''Half the North Koreans were speaking with South Korean accents. That ox looked like it was from the Philippines. That shack at the end looked like it was from Japan.''

    ''I guess the director didn't care,'' he continued. ''But if the movie was about Japan, would they have treated the Japanese that way?''

    A recurring complaint here is about a final scene where befuddled Korean farmers, goading an ox, look at luxury cars that James Bond has dropped, upended, in a rice paddy. While North Korean agriculture plods along on ox power, South Koreans say the only ox carts seen here are in museums.

    The correct image of South Korea, people say, is a nation with among the world's highest rates of cellphone ownership, high-speed Internet access and college-educated youth.

    Then there is a scene where an American officer orders a South Korea military mobilization, which prompted someone to write in an Internet chat room that ''Korea in the movie is viewed as America's colony.''

    After watching the movie today, Kim Yu Min, a 24-year-old office worker, said, ''My girlfriends said, 'At least James Bond doesn't go to bed with a Korean girl.' ''

    MGM, which distributes 20th Century Fox movies, has worked hard to try to smooth ruffled feathers here, a nation of 43 million people that is now the 10th-largest foreign box office territory for American movies.

    Lee Joo Sung, president of 20th Century Fox Korea, told opinion makers at one showing here: ''It's a movie. Not reality. Viewers must understand that it's fiction.''

    The movie, which stars Pierce Brosnan and Halle Berry and is already expected to be the most lucrative Bond movie yet, ran into early controversy when a South Korean actor, Cha In Pyo, turned down the bad-guy role, normally a coveted ticket to Hollywood stardom. He became a local hero last fall when he told reporters that the script was ''demeaning.''

    Rick Yune, the Korean-American actor who stars as the movie's crazed North Korean officer, has found himself at news conferences here parrying hostile questions from reporters concerned about South Korea's image. In one burst of patriotism, Lee Jung Hyun, a pop singer, declined an invitation to appear alongside Mr. Yune on a popular talk show, ''Happiness Channel.''

    North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency has obligingly given MGM free publicity by playing true to character.

    Two weeks before the release here and well before pirated copies could have made their way to reviewers in North Korea, the news agency denounced the film as a ''dirty and cursed burlesque'' that clearly proved that the United States was ''the root cause of all disasters and misfortune of the Korean nation.''

    A version of this article appears in print on January 2, 2003, on Page A00004 of the National edition with the headline: Seoul Journal; The Power of Film: A Bond That Unites Koreans.
    2008: George MacDonald Fraser dies age 82--Strang, Isle of Man.
    (Born 2 April 1925--Carlisle, Cumberland, England.)
    2008: Filming starts for Quantum of Solace.

  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    edited March 2019 Posts: 12,916
    January 3rd

    1922: Dana Wilson (Dana Natol) Broccoli is born--New York City, New York.
    (She dies 29 February 2004 at age 82--Los Angeles, California.)
    Dana Broccoli
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1455828/Dana-Broccoli.html
    12:03AM GMT 03 Mar 2004

    Dana Broccoli who died on Sunday aged 82, was the widow of Albert "Cubby" Broccoli, the producer of the James Bond films; during their 37-year marriage she was her husband's unofficial adviser and muse, and became, after his death, the custodian of the James Bond franchise.

    Elegant and well-connected, Dana Broccoli was the perfect foil to her husband who was the son of an Italian-American bricklayer; but while the vast and affable Cubby - who liked to cook pasta for his cast and crew - was noted for his geniality, it was the chic, raven-haired Dana who had a more steely reputation. "I'm half Irish and half Italian," she would explain. "I'm just bloody-minded." Even her adoring husband described her as "formidable" several times in his autobiography. "Dana," he wrote, "takes no prisoners. She does not have the gift of forgiveness".
    In 1959 Broccoli was already a successful producer when he married Dana Wilson, a divorcee, following a six-week courtship. A year later Broccoli and the Canadian producer Harry Saltzman set up a film company with the intention of putting Ian Fleming's James Bond novels on the big screen. Broccoli was not the first film-maker to approach Fleming, but, aided by his shrewd and glamorous wife, the bear-like New Yorker struck up an unlikely friendship with Fleming, an Old Etonian with a marked disdain for Hollywood. "I found him a lovely man," Dana Broccoli recalled years later, "charming and intelligent."

    Moreover, it was Dana Broccoli who decided that an unknown beefcake named Sean Connery was the right man to play Bond in Dr No (1962), the first of the Bond films. Connery had come to Cubby Broccoli's attention playing a burly farmhand in a Walt Disney film about leprechauns.

    "One day," Dana Broccoli later recalled, "Cubby called me and said: 'Could you come down and look at this Disney leprechaun film, Darby O'Gill and the Little People, at the Goldwyn Studios? I don't know if this Sean Connery guy has any sex appeal.' I saw that face and the way he moved and talked, and I said: 'Cubby, he's fabulous!' He was just perfect, he had star material right there."

    But she had little sympathy with Connery after he referred, in 1966, to "fat-slob producers living off the backs of lean actors", and after Connery issued a law-suit in 1984 against Broccoli demanding more royalties from the Bond films. Connery eventually abandoned the dispute after settling for merchandising rights.

    But, following Cubby Broccoli's death in 1996, Dana Broccoli was surprised and disappointed when Connery did not appear at the memorial service. "I don't have to understand Sean," she said in 2000, "and he doesn't need my understanding; he's doing very well without my understanding."
    She was born Dana Natol in New York on January 3 1922. Having decided at an early age to become an actress, she attended Cecil Clovelly's Academy of Dramatic Arts at Carnegie Hall in New York. There she met her first husband, Lewis Wilson, who was the first actor to play Batman. In 1942 she gave birth to a son, Michael, and three years later the family moved to California where Dana Wilson and her husband joined the Pasadena Playhouse.

    After separating from Wilson, she moved to Beverly Hills where she became a screenwriter; in 1959, at a party, she met Broccoli, whose previous wife had died. Broccoli, had been born into an impoverished family of Italian immigrants in Queens, and was a self-made man, descended, apparently, from farmers who had invented broccoli by crossing a cauliflower and a pea.

    A keen gambler, he had had a sketchy career, working as a vegetable packer and coffin polisher before getting a job as a tea boy at Twentieth Century Fox. In 1947, while trying to earn some extra dollars, he had got a job selling Christmas trees on a street corner and was particularly struck by a beautiful young woman who had bought one of the trees and for whom he had constructed a stand to hold it. When he was finally introduced to Dana Wilson, 12 years later, he realised that she was the same woman, and she too remembered the incident. Both believed that fate had brought them together.

    Following their wedding in Las Vegas (Cary Grant was the best man), the couple returned to Cubby Broccoli's house in London. Dana adopted Cubby's two children from his previous marriage and the following year gave birth to a daughter, Barbara.
    In 1967, Danjaq LLC, the film company set up by Cubby and Dana Broccoli, produced Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, another of Fleming's books; and in 2002 Dana Broccoli produced the successful stage version, which is still running in the West End.
    Dana Broccoli also published two novels, Scenario for Murder, and Florinda. She adapted the latter for the musical, La Cava, which was staged in London in 2000.

    The Broccolis lived in London for many years until, in 1977, they reluctantly sold their house in Mayfair and moved to Los Angeles for tax reasons. Although the couple enjoyed the wealth acquired through the Bond films (they had a large collection of paintings, including a Renoir and a Picasso) they also raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for charities, particularly the NSPCC, which benefited greatly from the Broccolis' largesse.
    In 1977 Dana Broccoli's son, Michael G Wilson, and daughter, Barbara Broccoli, took over production of the Bond films, and after her husband's death Dana Broccoli took over as chairman of the board. "It was all family," she explained, "that was a large part of our success; the big extended family . . . We still see a lot of Timothy Dalton, and Roger [Moore] is always popping in. Roger always liked the pasta and the backgammon."
    Cubby Broccoli's death left her bereft but by no means bowed. "I was very happy taking care of Cubby," she said recently, adding, "I would never marry again. Cubby was irreplaceable. We went through so much together, ups and downs, but it has been a fabulous journey."

    Dana Broccoli is survived by her two sons and two daughters.
    1926: Sir George Henry Martin, CBE, is born--Holloway, London, England.
    (He dies 8 March 2016 at age 90--Colesshill, Oxfordshire, England.)
    1960: Bond comic strip Diamonds Are Forever ends its run in The Daily Express.
    (Started 10 August 1959. 340-487) John McLusky, artist. Henry Gammidge, writer. 1962: In a letter to Geoffrey Boothroyd, Ian Fleming sends greetings. "I feel safe in wishing you a Prosperous New Year, and if the tax man becomes too difficult, I suggest you shoot him."
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    The strange tale of the man who armed James Bond
    https://www.scotsman.com/news/the-strange-tale-of-the-man-who-armed-james-bond-1-558731
    Published: 23:58

    THE expert behind the guns used by James Bond has been revealed as a Glaswegian whose world-class knowledge of firearms earned him the role of the Armourer in the 007 books.

    Geoffrey Boothroyd, who worked for ICI in Glasgow, wrote to the author Ian Fleming shortly after reading Casino Royale in 1956, pointing out that the gun Bond used, a .25 Beretta, was inappropriate for the character.

    The strength of his argument persuaded Fleming not only to incorporate his suggestions, but also to adopt Boothroyd as a paid adviser on arms-related matters in the Bond novels.

    Fleming used Boothroyd’s persona as the Armourer in Dr No, describing him as Major Boothroyd, "a short slim man with sandy hair" with "very wide apart, clear, grey eyes that never seemed to flicker".

    The character of Boothroyd makes a dramatic entry in Dr No: "M bent forward to the intercom. ‘Is the Armourer there? Send him in.’ M sat back. ‘You may not know it, 007, but Major Boothroyd’s the greatest small-arms expert in the world." Not surprisingly, the major had a rather acerbic view of Bond’s Beretta. When asked as to its use, Boothroyd replied in a clipped manner: "Ladies’ gun, sir."

    Correspondence between Fleming and Boothroyd, which is to go under the hammer at Bloomsbury Auctions, the London specialist saleroom for books and manuscripts, reveal how far the author took on board the latter’s technical advice. Fleming frequently asked Boothroyd for more information on weapons and even borrowed his Smith & Wesson to be painted by Richard Chopping for the dust-jacket of From Russia with Love.

    Academics and archivists hope the correspondence will not be broken up but kept together and deposited in a library where scholars can use it. Bloomsbury is to offer it as one lot with a pre-sale estimate of 15,000-20,000.

    The collection of 30 previously unknown letters, written between 31 May, 1956, and 30 September, 1963, demonstrate Fleming’s passion for guns and attention to detail, coupled with Boothroyd’s intense knowledge and enthusiasm for the subject.

    From that first letter on, Bond was never without the correct firearm and his enemies were suitably equipped in return.

    Potential problems over legally holding guns arise in the letters. Fleming assures Boothroyd that, as the Deputy Commissioner of Scotland Yard is "a close personal friend, we should have no complications over firearms certificates."

    The two men’s dry sense of humour often comes through in the correspondence. In a letter dated 3 January, 1962, Fleming writes: "I feel safe in wishing you a Prosperous New Year, and if the tax man becomes too difficult, I suggest you shoot him."

    Boothroyd was paid for his technical advice. In a letter to him, Fleming wrote: "I propose to pay you 25 per cent of all revenue I get from this piece and I suggest we needn’t draw up any legal contracts as my secretary, Miss Griffie-Williams, is an extremely honest person and will see that you get your due!" Fleming even signed himself in 1962 as "Comptroller of the Boothroyd Privy Purse".

    Boothroyd, who was born in Lancashire but lived in Glasgow from the age of three, became one of the greatest authorities on the history and development of the sporting gun and was a regular contributor to the Shooting Times. He wrote several books, including A Guide to Guns in 1961 and The Handgun in 1988. He died in 2001. Stagecoach chief executive Martin Griffiths.

    A series of first edition 007 books from Boothroyd’s library are also to be sold by Bloomsbury. Fleming signed very few books and, consequently, there is a large premium for signed and presentation copies. As Boothroyd played such a key role in shaping the character of Bond, two of the books are likely to fetch new world records.

    A copy of From Russia with Love is dedicated by Fleming "To Geoffrey Boothroyd - herewith appointed Armourer to J. Bond from Ian Fleming." The inscription in Dr No reads, "To Geoffrey Boothroyd - alias The Armourer from Ian Fleming". Each is expected to make up to 5,000.

    Read more at: https://www.scotsman.com/news/the-strange-tale-of-the-man-who-armed-james-bond-1-558731
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    1972: 007 - Os Diamantes São Eternos released in Brazil.
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    1977: Bond comic strip When the Wizard Awakes begins its run in The Sunday Express. (Ends 22 May 1977. 1-54)
    Yaroslav Horak, artist. Jim Lawrence, writer. 1988: Joie Chitwood dies at age 75--Tampa, Florida. (Born 14 April 1912--Denison, Texas.)
    2003: "Two Koreas Blast New James Bond Film", so reports The Associated Press and multiple news outlets.
    Two Koreas Blast New James Bond Film
    https://www.mrt.com/news/article/Two-Koreas-Blast-New-James-Bond-Film-7720206.php
    SOO-JEONG LEE Published 6:00 pm CST, Thursday, January 2, 2003
    Associated Press Writer

    Some in South Korea are complaining that the latest James Bond movie unfairly depicts their communist neighbor to the north as a diabolically evil regime.

    "Die Another Day" attracted crowds at its Seoul premiere on New Year's Eve. But in recent days some moviegoers have been siding with the communist North in condemning the film despite the nuclear standoff that has increased tensions between the nations.

    "I don't want to see a movie where North Korea is depicted as a menace to peace on the Korean Peninsula and the United States is depicted as a hero that resolves the crisis," said Jin-young Park, a 22-year-old university student waiting for a different picture Friday. "It's really getting old."

    In the movie, Bond is sent to North Korea to investigate a rogue communist officer who is planning an invasion of South Korea. The British spy is caught, imprisoned and subjected to extreme torture.

    Later, the rogue North Korean officer uses a satellite-based laser to burn a swath through the demilitarized zone separating the Koreas. His plot is foiled by Bond and an American agent.

    "I initially wanted to see the movie, but I decided not to because I heard some stuff from the media that the film is critical of North Korea and so I changed my mind," said Yi Hye-mi, a university student in Seoul.

    On Friday, a South Korean civic group announced plans to boycott the film, which stars Pierce Brosnan as Bond. Critics say it's demeaning and distorts the situation between the two nations, which have been divided by a demilitarized zone since the Korean War of 1950-1953.

    North Korea criticized the movie when it opened last year, calling it an example of the "corrupt sex culture," in the United States.

    Despite calls for a boycott, however, many are still lining up for the movie.

    "I want to see the movie just to see what the critics are complaining about," Lee Se-young, 27, said after buying his ticket.
    2006: Principle photography for Casino Royale commences.
    2016: The Independent reports that Christoph Waltz is signed for two more Bond films. As long as Craig returns.
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    Christoph Waltz will appear in two
    more James Bond films as long as
    Daniel Craig returns as 007

    https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/christoph-waltz-will-appear-in-two-more-james-bond-films-as-long-as-daniel-craig-returns-as-007-a6794351.html
    'Christoph could make a brilliant ongoing man for Bond to battle like in the old days'
    Jack Shepherd - @JackJShepherd - Sunday 3 January 2016 10:03

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    Christoph Waltz makes his debut as Franz Oberhauser ( Spectre )

    Christoph Waltz's appearance in the latest James Bond film was originally surrounded in mystery, with many wondering if the actor was playing the evil genius Blofeld.

    On Spectre’s release, it was revealed that he was indeed the iconic villain, the film ending with Waltz’s character having been defeated by Bond and captured by the police.

    Many expect the 59-year-old to return to the series to reprise the role, with it now being revealed he has signed on for two more films - but with a catch.

    The Inglourious Basterds actor will only return if Daniel Craig returns as the titular MI6 agent.
    2019: Planned production start for BOND 25 with director Danny Boyle. 25 October release date, same year.
    (Update to: March production start; director Cary Fukunaga; 14 February 2020 release date.)

  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    edited January 2019 Posts: 12,916
    January 4th

    1900: Ornithologist James Bond is born--Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
    (He dies 14 February 1989 at age 89--Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.)
    January 4 — James Bond Born (1900)
    http://todayinconservation.com/2018/01/january-4-james-bond-born-1900/
    January 3, 2018

    “Bond. James Bond.” Those words are now immortal among the fans of Ian Fleming’s super-spy. James Bond has been played by Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Daniel Craig and a number of others. But who was the real James Bond? Not a spy, not a dapper man-about-town. No, the real James Bond was an ornithologist.

    James Bond was born on January 4, 1900, in Philadelphia (died in 1989). He later moved to England with his father and studied at Trinity College, Cambridge University. Returning to Philadelphia, he soon gave up a career in banking to focus on his first love—natural history. He followed in his father’s footsteps by sailing on a collecting expedition to the lower Amazon River in 1925 on behalf of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. Now completely hooked, he became a volunteer curator there—one of “the last of a traditional museum breed, the independently wealthy, non-salaried curator, who lacked advanced university degrees.”

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    Bond was intrigued especially with the bird fauna of the Caribbean. He explored more than 100 Caribbean islands during his career. His most influential work is the definitive guide to the birds of the region, first published in 1936 as The Birds of the West Indies. Bond is credited with discovering that the birds of the Caribbean are related to those of North America, not South America, as had been previously assumed. He also published books about the birds of Maine and Bolivia, along with dozens of other scientific papers. Bond received many honors and awards for his work, including the Brewster Medal in 1954, the highest honor of the American Ornithologists’ Union.

    But it was The Birds of the West Indies that earned him fame as the namesake for the world’s favorite spy. Ian Fleming, the creator of the fictional James Bond, spent months at a time at his Jamaican home (Goldeneye) and was an amateur bird-watcher. When he was writing his first spy novel, Casino Royale, in 1952, he was casting around for a name for the hero that would be unremarkable. Fleming later wrote:

    “I was determined that my secret agent should be as anonymous as possible….At that time one of my bibles was, and still is, Birds of the West Indies by James Bond, and it struck me that this name, brief, unromantic and yet very masculine, was just what I needed and so James Bond II was born…”

    The real James Bond—JB authenticus, as his wife referred to him—wasn’t amused by the appropriation of his name. He never played up the connection, even when offered $100 to land in a helicopter on the roof of a movie theater. Ian Fleming appreciated the couple, however, and, at their only meeting, gave them a pre-publication copy of his novel, You Only Live Twice, inscribed “To the real James Bond, from the Thief of his identity, Ian Fleming, Feb. 5, 1964—a great day!” That book sold recently at auction for $84,000.

    Next time you watch the Bond film, Die Another Day, pay attention to the early scenes. As usual, Bond is pretending to be something other than a spy. This time, he claims to be an ornithologist and holds a copy of The Birds of the West Indies.

    References:

    Blakely, Julia. 2016. Bond, James Bond: The birds, the books, the bond. Unbound, blog of the Smithsonian Libraries. Available at: https://blog.library.si.edu/2016/06/bond-james-bond-birds-books-bond/#.WG0aeVMrKpp . Accessed January 3, 2017.

    New York Times. 1989. James Bond, ornithologist, 89; Fleming adopted name for 007. New York Times, February 17, 1989. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/17/obituaries/james-bond-ornithologist-89-fleming-adopted-name-for-007.html. Accessed January 3, 2017.

    Parkes, Kenneth C. 1989. In memoriam: James Bond. The Auk, 106:718-720. Available at: http://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/auk/v106n04/p0718-p0720.pdf. Accessed January 3, 2017.
    1962: Michael France is born--St. Petersburg, Florida.
    (He dies 12 April 2013 at age 51--St. Pete Beach, Florida.)
    1990: John Cleese spoofs James Bond in a Schweppes soft drinks commercial.
    1991: Richard Maibaum dies, age 81--Santa Monica, California.
    (Born 26 May 1909--New York City, New York.)
    1996: GoldenEye released in the Philippines.
    1996: Zlaté oko (The Golden Eye) released in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
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    1998: Tomorrow Never Dies released in the Philippines.
    2000: The World Is Not enough released in the Philippines.
    2007: Puffin Books publishes Charlie Higson's Young Bond novel Double or Die in paperback.
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    2013: Unannounced, Activision and Steam's online stores quietly remove online copies and pages for Quantum of Solace, Blood Stone, 007 Legends.
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    2019: National Bird Day in the US.

  • edited January 2019 Posts: 2,887
    1990: John Cleese spoofs James Bond in a Schweppes soft drinks commercial.

    I remember that--it was included on the VHS of Licence to Kill and ran before the film. Perhaps it was inspired by people complaining about LTK's violence and/or rating. Cleese is excellent as usual, but the clumsy direction and slow editing tend to blunt the jokes.
  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    edited January 2019 Posts: 12,916
    January 5th

    1945: Roger Spottiswoode is born--Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
    1970: 007 - A Serviço Secreto de Sua Majestade (007 - To Her Majesty's Secret Service) released in Brazil.
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    1975: 007 Contra o Homem com a Pistola de Ouro (007 Against the Man with the Golden Gun) released in Brazil.
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    1984: Richard Joseph Hughes CBE dies at age 77--Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Hong Kong.
    (Born 5 March 1906--Prahran, Melbourne, Australia.)
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    Obituaries
    RICHARD HUGHES, 77, IS DEAD; AUSTRALIAN COVERED THE WARS
    https://www.nytimes.com/1984/01/05/obituaries/richard-hughes-77-is-dead-australian-covered-the-wars.html
    By WILLIAM G. BLAIRJAN. 5, 1984
    ...

    Richard Hughes, a Far East expert and flamboyant foreign and war correspondent for Australian and British publications for more than 40 years, died yesterday of a liver ailment in Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Hong Kong. He was 77 years old and lived in Hong Kong.

    Mr. Hughes, an Australian, covered the North African campaigns in World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War and was one of two Western journalists first summoned to meet the fugitive British spies, Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess, when they turned up in Moscow in 1956. The other journalist was from Reuters.

    Based in Hong Kong since 1948, first for The Sunday Times of London and then, since 1973, for The Times of London, Mr. Hughes covered China and Southeast Asia for those publications and others, including The Economist, The Herald and Sun of Melbourne, The Far Eastern Economic Review and The New York Times, for which he wrote many Sunday magazine articles.
    A Model for Novels

    John le Carre used Mr. Hughes as the model for the fictional character Old Craw in his 1977 novel ''The Honourable Schoolboy,'' much of which is set in Hong Kong. The late Ian Fleming, at one time Mr. Hughes's foreign editor on The Sunday Times, portrayed Mr. Hughes as the fictional character Dikko Henderson in the 1964 James Bond novel ''You Only Live Twice.''

    In ''The Honourable Schoolboy,'' Mr. le Carre wrote that Old Craw was ''the ancient mariner'' to other journalists. ''Craw had shaken more sand out of his shorts, they told each other, than most of them would walk over, and they were right,'' he wrote.

    Robert M. Shaplen of The New Yorker, a former Hong Kong-based Far East correspondent for that magazine, recalled Mr. Hughes yesterday as a big, robust man with a dry wit. Mr. Hughes was ''a terrific storyteller, a raconteur with a raconteur's big laugh, a tremendous fund of knowledge and an incredible memory,'' Mr. Shaplen said.

    Mr. Hughes's round, beneficent face and manner of quoting from the Bible won him the nicknames of ''monk,'' ''bishop'' and ''your grace'' among friends and colleagues.

    Entertaining was his forte. He had an immense fund of stories frequently prefaced by the admonition, ''My son, you will take this little jest as an expression of my worldly experience.''

    He Knew the Far East

    Beneath his ribald jokes and careless, sometimes slovenly exterior was an intelligent and industrious reporter. He knew the Far East, as he would say, ''like the back of me hand.''

    Richard Hughes was born in Melbourne on March 6, 1906. He left school there at the age of 14, trying his hand successively as a poster artist, shunter of railroad cars and public relations officer before joining The Star of Melbourne as a reporter in 1934.

    He shifted to The Daily and Sunday Telegraph of Sydney in 1935 and quickly rose to principal assignment editor for both papers by 1939. He returned to reporting the next year as a foreign correspondent for the papers in Tokyo and Shanghai. After covering the war in North Africa in 1942-43, he returned to Sydney to serve first as acting editor of The Sunday Telegraph and then as a foreign correspondent again in Tokyo in 1945. He remained there for three years before moving to Hong Kong.

    Mr. Hughes was the author or editor of four books, the best known of which was ''Hong Kong: Borrowed Place, Borrowed Time,'' published in 1968.

    In 1980, as the widely respected dean of Asia's foreign press corps and its most colorful personality, Mr. Hughes was honored by Queen Elizabeth II, who named him a Commander of the British Empire.

    Mr. Hughes is survived by his wife, Ann, daughter of a Chinese general, and a son by a previous marriage, Richard, of Sydney.

    A version of this obituary appears in print on January 5, 1984, on Page B00013 of the National edition with the headline: RICHARD HUGHES, 77, IS DEAD; AUSTRALIAN COVERED THE WARS.

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    Conversation With Richard Hughes
    https://www.timbowden.com.au/2012/01/28/conversation-with-richard-hughes/
    By timbowden On January 28, 2012 · 1 Comment

    CONVERSATION WITH RICHARD HUGHES
    With Tim Bowden

    Just before World War II Australians seemed unaware that they were geographically linked to Asia, and not simply ‘British to the bootstraps’ as Prime Minister Robert Menzies later put it. There were no Australian foreign correspondents working in Asia, and Richard Hughes (and colleagues like Denis Warner) were determined to redress this balance.

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    Hughes (against the wishes of his newspaper proprietor Frank Packer) went to Japan in 1940 to report from Tokyo on the growing threat of war, and returned in 1945 (still defying Packer who sacked him) to cover the Occupation under General Douglas Macarthur.

    Hughes came late to journalism. He was 28 when he became a reporter on the Melbourne Star, having left school at 14 to become a boy shunter with the Victorian Railways, progressing to become the public relations assistant of Sir Harold Clapp, the head of Vic rail.

    But he was always attracted to a good story, and tells hilarious tales of his time with the Victorian Railways, and indeed of his introduction to journalism in Melbourne. His achievements were legendary, but he quickly nominates his finding two of the ‘Cambridge spies’, Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean in Moscow in 1956, as his most memorable scoop.
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    Richard Hughes worked directly to Ian Fleming, his boss at the Sunday Times.

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    Hughes and Fleming during a tour of Southern Japan in 1959. They became good friends, and Fleming drew on Hughes’ character, writing him into his last James Bond book, as Dikko Henderson, head of Australian security in Japan. (Pictured in Japan in 1962.)

    In the 1950s he began to work for the Sunday Times in London, directly to Ian Fleming, the author of the James Bond books. Fleming made several trips to the Far East researching several books, and Richard Hughes (and Hughes’ Japanese friend ‘Tiger’ Saito) travelled with him.

    Fleming included both men in his last Bond novel You Only Live Twice. Hughes was the model for Dikko Henderson, the head of Australian security in Japan.

    As portraying a foreign correspondent as a spook is one of the worst insults to journalistic integrity that can be imagined, Hughes (tongue in cheek) threatened to sue Fleming, who responded by telling him to go right ahead, adding, ‘If you do, I’ll really write the truth about you Dikko.’

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    Richard Hughes in Laos in 1959 when he had his curious meeting with the Blind Bonze of Luang Prabang.

    In 1975 I was lucky enough to record an extensive interview with Richard Hughes looking back at his remarkable life.
    ...
    2006: Player One publishes a mobile game based on Charlie Higson's Young Bond novel SilverFin. 2006: Puffin Books publishes Charlie Higson's Young Bond novel Blood Fever.
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    2007: 007 - Casino Royale released in Italy,
    2010: Reports say Sam Mendes is connected with BOND 23. (MGM at the time denies he's signed as director. EON later confirms he was hired as a consultant until MGM worked out its financial issues.)

  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    Posts: 12,916
    January 6th

    1955: Rowan Atkinson is born--Consett, County Durham, England.
    1966: Operación Trueno (Operation Thunder) released in Colombia.
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    Not to be confused with
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    1972: Los diamantes son eternos (Diamonds Are Eternal) released in Argentina. 1998: Sutra ne umire nikad (He Never Dies Tomorrow) released in Serbia.
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    2012: Robert Wentworth John (Bob) Holness dies at age 83--Pinner, England.
    (Born 12 November 1928-- Vryheid, South Africa.)
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    Bob Holness obituary
    Modest quizmaster who achieved cult status at the helm of Blockbusters

    https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2012/jan/06/bob-holness
    Dennis Barker - Fri 6 Jan 2012 12.06 EST

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    Bob Holness in the Blockbusters studio in 1987. He always made a point of sympathising with contestants who lost. Photograph: ITV/Rex

    Before television and radio quizmasters became increasingly raucous, clever-clever and sarcastic, Bob Holness, who has died aged 83, saw the role as that of a rewarder of knowledge rather than the ringmaster of a hysterical circus. Indeed, one of the worst mistakes one could make with Holness was to refer to any of the many quizzes he conducted as gameshows. In his unostentatious clothes, he resembled a jovial and thoughtful golfing companion rather than a smirking media man, and he always made a point of sympathising with contestants who lost.

    Blockbusters, the TV quiz for 16- to 18-year-old contestants but aimed at a much wider audience, consolidated Holness's popularity and also gained him cult status. In the programme, he posed questions, the answers to which began with a letter of the alphabet that had been chosen by contestants from a honeycomb grid. A favourite wheeze of the contestants was to tease him by asking, "Can I have a P please, Bob?" or even "Can I have U?" Holness, who said that he always recognised the "little snigger" in the contestants' voices, took all this in good part, knowing that it helped to build up the programme's audience to more than 6 million.

    A variant of a show first screened in the US, Blockbusters was the most popular programme Holness conducted. Produced by Central, it was first broadcast in the UK in 1983 and ran for 10 years at differing times in various regions on the ITV network, before being taken up by Sky – with Holness still as quizmaster – for a short run. There followed variations of the show, hosted by Michael Aspel and Liza Tarbuck.

    Holness was born in Vryheid, Natal, in South Africa. His grandfather had fought in the South African wars at the turn of the century and settled there as a mining engineer and prospector. He had many contacts with Zulu people, and taught King Solomon how to drive a car. Holness's father, too, enjoyed the country, and regularly drove across Natal, paying out the wages at the mines, and returning with lumps of gold that had been discovered.

    When he was young, Holness's family relocated to the UK and he won a scholarship to Ashford grammar school, now the Norton Knatchbull school, in Kent. During the second world war he and a gang of schoolmates plundered shot-down German aircraft for souvenirs. He enjoyed listening to forces radio, and would sometimes stay up all night, tuned to American stations.
    After attending Maidstone College of Art, he was persuaded by his father to become a printing apprentice. He took up a printer's job in South Africa and joined a repertory theatre in Durban within two months of arriving. In the 1950s he acted first in repertory, where he met his future wife, Mary, and then on radio. He was one of the first actors to portray James Bond, taking the role in a Durban radio production of Ian Fleming's Moonraker in the mid-50s. He also presented music and magazine programmes on radio.

    After he and Mary had started a family, they decided to move to the UK. It took the couple a few years to save up enough money for the tickets, and when they arrived at Southampton, it was with virtually empty pockets. They stayed with Mary's family in London while Holness looked for work.

    The British actors he had met in South Africa had spoken with great enthusiasm about the booming television industry in the UK. Within three weeks of approaching companies, Holness was put under contract by Granada in Manchester. The company introduced him to audiences in 1961 on the TV shows Take a Letter and Junior Criss Cross Quiz, as well as using him as a continuity announcer and newsreader.

    This lasted for three years until he moved south, buying a modest house in Pinner, north-west London, which remained the family home for more than three decades. Over the years, he worked as a reporter, interviewer and announcer for TV programmes such as World in Action and Today, and radio shows including the unscripted Late Night Extra. He delivered LBC radio's traffic reports from a helicopter and for many years, he and Douglas Cameron co-hosted LBC's morning news show, AM, which required him to get up at 3.30am.

    Holness had a long association with BBC Radio 2, chiefly as presenter of Bob Holness and Friends, and with the BBC World Service, for which he presented Anything Goes, a weekly anthology of words and music. Once Blockbusters had put him on the path to celebrity, he became recognised as a master of the quizshow genre and in the 1990s, he was seen presiding over Raise the Roof and Call My Bluff.

    He also lent his support to a number of children's charities including Teenage Cancer Trust, Young People's Trust for the Environment and, as vice-president from 1994, National Children's Home (now Action for Children).

    Holness, who had suffered a number of minor strokes in recent years, is survived by Mary and their children, Carol, Rosalind and Jonathan.

    • Robert Wentworth John Holness, quizmaster, presenter and actor, born 12 November 1928; died 6 January 2012
    2016: Dynamite's Vargr #3 comic is published.
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    2018: Daniel Craig announces he'll purchase the Brooklyn NY home of Martin Amis.
    James Bond is about to be a Brooklynite
    https://pagesix.com/2018/01/06/james-bond-is-about-to-be-a-brooklynite/
    By Oli Coleman and Emily Smith
    January 6, 2018 | 4:59pm

    James Bond is Brooklyn bound.
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    Sources in the borough are buzzing that Bond star Daniel Craig is the mystery buyer of a Brooklyn brownstone sold by author Martin Amis and his wife, Isabel Fonseca, for $6.75 million. The home burned in a fire on New Year’s Eve a year ago, and Amis and his family have reportedly decamped to a Downtown Brooklyn high-rise.

    The 1901 Cobble Hill home was bought through an LLC called On the Rows last year, according to property records. Reps for Craig and his wife, Rachel Weisz, did not respond to repeated requests for comment. A broker for the property declined to comment on Friday.

    Craig and Weisz reportedly lived previously in an $11.5 million Soho penthouse purchased in 2012 after Craig sold a Tribeca pad. They’d be just the latest celebs to call booming Brooklyn home, following stars such as Michelle Williams, Jason Sudeikis and Olivia Wilde, Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys, and John Krasinksi and Emily Blunt (who are reportedly selling their $8 million Park Slope home).

    Amis and Fonseca bought the home for $2.5 million, in 2010. But last year, a faulty chimney led to an accidental blaze that ignited the roof. A Corcoran listing for the 6,600-square-foot property explained it was being “offered as a clean, blank slate and ready for a purchaser to finish to their specifications. This home has just received a brand new roof and extensive repair after damage from a fire that was contained to the top floor and is ready for a contractor to begin the finishing work . . . Wall studs are intact, and most mechanical systems are in good working order (including radiant heat in two of the bathrooms and the garden level).”

    Amis reportedly said the fire was like “the last kick in the arse of 2016.”

    Amis’ famous father, Kingsley Amis, published a 1968 Bond novel, Colonel Sun — under the pseudonym Robert Markham — after the death of Ian Fleming. He also wrote a book called The James Bond Dossier, analyzing Fleming’s novels.

  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    edited January 2019 Posts: 12,916
    January 7th

    1966: Sean Connery appears on the cover of Life magazine.
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    1973: Richard Maibaum finishes the first draft of the screenplay for The Man with the Golden Gun.
    1976: Producer Kevin McClory announces in Variety his planned film James Bond of the Secret Service, to begin filming in the Bahamas with the involvement of Len Deighton and Sean Connery.
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    1981: Moonraker released in South Korea.
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    1981: RCA Selectavision buys the laser-disc rights to the 007 films for $1.5 million
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    1985: Pinewood's Albert R. Broccoli 007 Stage re-opens, rebuilt after a July 1984 fire. A huge Peter Lamont set of Zorin's mine interior is already constructed.
    July 1984.
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    January 1985.
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    2000: Ο κόσμος δεν είναι αρκετός (James Bond, praktor 007 - O kosmos den einai arketos) released in Greece.
    2000: Swiat to za malo released in Poland.
    2012: Shooting resumes for Skyfall with the funeral scene following the explosion at MI6 Headquarters. Old Royal Navy College in Greenwich, Michael G. Wilson on hand.
    2015: Spectre cast members Daniel Craig, Léa Seydoux, Dave Bautista pose on Gaislachkogl's peak, Sölden, Austria prior to filming there.
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  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    Posts: 12,916
    January 8th

    1937: Dame Shirley Bassey is born--Tiger Bay, Cardiff, Wales.
    1962: Ian Fleming begins writing On Her Majesty's Secret Service at Goldeneye.
    1966: Bond comic strip You Only Live Twice ends its run in The Daily Express. (Began 17 May 1965. 275-475)
    John McLusky, artist. Henry Gammidge, writer.
    https://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/comics/yolt.php3

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    Danish reprint: James Bond 007 no. 39 (1977) http://www.bond-o-rama.dk/en/jb007-dk-no12-1967/
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    Danish reprint of James Bond Agent 007 no. 12/1967 http://www.bond-o-rama.dk/en/jb007-dk-no39-1977/
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    1971: 카지노 로얄 (Casino Royale) released in the Republic of Korea.
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    1976: Richard Maibaum completes the screenplay for The Spy Who Loved Me.
    1992: Anthony Dawson dies at age 75--Sussex, England. (Born 18 October 1916--Edinburgh, Scotland.)
    2008: Norvic FDC (First Day Cover) issues James Bond commemorative stamps for the Fleming Centenary.
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    2013: Bernard Horsfall dies at age 82--Isle of Skye, Scotland.
    (Born 20 November 1930--Bisshops Stortford, Herfordshire, England.)

  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    edited March 2019 Posts: 12,916
    January 9th

    1943: Scott Walker is born--Hamilton, Ohio. (He dies 22 March 2019 at age 76--London, England.)
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    Scott Walker, Pop Singer Who
    Turned Experimental, Dies at 76

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/26/obituaries/scott-walker-dead.html

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    Scott Walker with the Scottish pop singer Lulu during an awards ceremony in the late 1960s. Evoking the blue-eyed soul of the Righteous Brothers, his group, the Walker Brothers, had several hits, two of which rose to No. 1 on the British charts.
    Credit Ballard/Hulton Archive

    By Richard Sandomir | March 26, 2019

    Scott Walker, who with his American pop group, the Walker Brothers, became a teenage idol in Britain in the 1960s, but who later immersed himself in experimental music that influenced artists like David Bowie and Radiohead, died on Friday in London. He was 76.

    His record label, 4AD, said the cause was cancer. He had been living in England since the 1960s.

    The Walker Brothers arrived in England in early 1965, reversing the earlier British invasion of America. There, the group — made up of Mr. Walker (his real name was Noel Scott Engel), a dramatic baritone who played bass; John Maus, a guitarist and vocalist; and Gary Leeds, the drummer, all of whom used the surname Walker — found the success that had eluded them in the United States.

    Though their popularity never reached Beatlemania levels, their fans, like those of the Beatles, would scream during their performances — and, in one harrowing incident, turned over a van taking them from a concert in Dublin.

    Evoking the blue-eyed soul of the Righteous Brothers, the Walker Brothers had several hits, two of which rose to No. 1 on the British charts: “Make It Easy on Yourself,” a ballad by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, and “The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore,” which had first been recorded by Frankie Valli of the Four Seasons. Both songs also rose to the Top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States.

    Mr. Walker left the group in 1967 to start a solo career that became a rejection of his rock-star phase. In one iteration he recorded songs by the Belgian singer and songwriter Jacques Brel. But his most critical period was a retreat into the studio to create avant-garde music that was hard to categorize: ominous and clangorous, existential and electronic, with big blocks of sound, his baritone voice now used to almost operatic effect. For many years, he did not appear in concert.

    Reviewing a recording on which Mr. Walker collaborated with the metal band Sunn O))) in 2014, Ben Ratliff of The New York Times described his music as “intricate puzzles of shock, indiscretion, non-resolution, theatrical uses of text and extended technique, often with a 40-piece orchestra.” He added that Mr. Walker was always looking for a “whoops factor”— “a moment of incomprehension from the listener.”

    In a message on Twitter, Thom Yorke, the lead singer and main songwriter of Radiohead, wrote that Mr. Walker had shown him “how I could use my voice and words.”

    “Met him once at Meltdown,” he added, referring to the annual music and art festival in England, “such a kind gentle outsider.”

    Noel Scott Engel was born on Jan 9, 1943, in Hamilton, Ohio, about 30 miles north of Cincinnati, the only child of Noel and Elizabeth Marie (Fortier) Engel. His father was an oil company geologist whose job took the family to various cities. When Scott was about 6 his parents divorced, and he went to live in Denver with his mother.

    They subsequently moved to New York, where in the mid-1950s Scott, still a schoolboy, began his entertainment career. He had small roles in the Broadway musicals “Plain and Fancy” and “Pipe Dream” and recorded singles, including “When Is a Boy a Man?” (1957), as Scotty Engel — hoping, without success, to break through as a teenage idol. Many of those songs were later released in the compilation album “Looking Back With Scott Walker” (1968).

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    Mr. Walker performing on television in an undated photo. After leaving the Walker Brothers in 1967, he began a solo career that became a rejection of his rock-star phase, eventually retreating into the studio to create avant-garde music that was hard to categorize.
    Credit David Redfern/Redferns

    Around 1960 he and his mother moved to Los Angeles, where he attended high school and the Chouinard Art Institute. He also played in various music groups, worked as a session bassist and, in 1964, formed the Walker Brothers with Mr. Maus (who had already been using John Walker as a pseudonym). They played at the Whisky a Go Go and other clubs along the Sunset Strip.

    Although the best-known songs of his Walker Brothers period did not portend how radical his music would become, Mr. Walker began to demonstrate a willingness to free himself from the conventions of pop and rock as early as 1967, when he began releasing a series of solo albums — “Scott,” “Scott 2,” Scott 3” and “Scott 4.” He did so again on “Nite Flights” (1978), an album made during a brief reunion of the Walker Brothers.

    Along the way, he found an admirer in David Bowie. Mr. Bowie, a transcendent musical experimenter, was in a relationship with a woman who had dated Mr. Walker and kept his albums. Mr. Bowie listened to the music and became so enamored that he later took the role of executive producer of “Scott Walker: 30 Century Man” (2007), a documentary directed by Stephen Kijak.

    “I like the way he can paint a picture with what he says,” Mr. Bowie said in the film. “I had no idea what he was singing about. And I didn’t care.”

    Mr. Walker, who worked on his albums slowly and meticulously, continued his musical evolution with “Climate of Hunter” (1984). With “Tilt” (1995) and “The Drift” (2006), he drew closer to matching his ambition to his creative visions — and to those that crept into his mind while he slept.

    “I have a very nightmarish imagination,” he said in the documentary, which focuses on the recording of “The Drift.” He added: “I’ve had bad dreams all my life. Everything in my life is big, it’s out of proportion.”

    “Clara,” a song on “The Drift,” reimagines the executions of Benito Mussolini and his mistress, Claretta Petacci, at the hands of Italian partisans in 1945. (It was inspired by newsreels Mr. Walker had seen as a child.) Another song, “Jesse,” imagines a conversation between Elvis Presley and Jesse, his stillborn twin brother, as a vehicle to write about the destruction of the World Trade Center.

    In a plaintive, eerie vocal reminiscent of Mr. Bowie, Mr. Walker sings:
    Fame is a tall, tall tower
    A building left in the night
    Jesse, are you listening?
    It casts ruins in shadows
    Under Memphis moonlight
    Jesse, are you listening?
    Howard Kaylan, a founding member of the Turtles, said in a 2013 interview that he had been listening to Mr. Walker since the 1960s. He was a fan of the Walker Brothers, he said, but thought of Mr. Walker’s solo music as the work of genius.

    “My jaw hit the ground when I heard ‘Tilt,’ ” Mr. Kaylan told the newspaper Record Collector News. “And by the time he got to ‘Drift,’ I understood what he was doing: He is doing the most conventional pop music I ever heard. He is just doing it as if he was observing it from outer space and then trying to tell you what he saw as an alien.”

    Mr. Walker’s survivors include his partner, Beverly; his daughter, Lee; and a granddaughter. Mr. Maus died in 2011.

    Some of Mr. Walker’s lyrics were published last year in the book “Sundog,” with an introduction by the Irish novelist Eimear McBride, who compared Mr. Walker to James Joyce.

    “Walker’s work, as Joyce’s before it, is a complex synesthesia of thought, feeling, the doings of the physical world and the weight of foreign objects slowly ground together down into diamond,” Ms. McBride wrote. “This is not art for the passive. It does not impart comfort or ease. Tempests will not be reconciled by the final bars, and no one is going home any more.”
    A version of this article appears in print on March 27, 2019, on Page B14 of the New York edition with the headline: Scott Walker, 76, Pop Idol Who Turned Experimental.
    Scott Walker, "The Experience of Love", Soundtrack version


    Scott Walker, "The Experience of Love", GoldenEye end titles

    Scott Walker cover, "The Look of Love"
    1964: Goldfinger general release in the US.
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    1972: The RMS Queen Elizabeth catches fire and sinks in Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong, ending plans to use it as "the Floating College".
    1998: Το αύριο ποτέ δεν πεθαίνει (To avrio pote den pethainei, or Tomorrow Never Dies) released in Greece.
    2000: The World Is Not Enough released in Egypt.
    2003: Die Another Day released in the Netherlands.
    2012: Producers announce Thomas Newman will score Skyfall.
    Wikipedia entry, Skyfall:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyfall:_Original_Motion_Picture_Soundtrack
    Development

    Producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli announced on 9 January 2012 that Thomas Newman, frequent collaborator of Skyfall director Sam Mendes, would score Skyfall.[1] On describing how the job became his, Newman said, "I very shyly gave [Mendes] a call or emailed him and said, just so you know, I’d be overjoyed to do it, but would never want to be presumptuous. He emailed me back, saying I was just about to call you, let’s meet for lunch!"[2] Newman took over musical duties for the film from David Arnold who was busy directing the musical aspects of the 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic closing ceremonies. However, Arnold later commented that the reason behind the selection of Newman had been because of his past work with Mendes.[3] Newman's collaborator J. A. C. Redford did the orchestration.[4]

    On 6 October 2012, the album's track list was revealed featuring the running times of each track.[5] The first preview of the score was released a few days later on 9 October 2012,[6] while the soundtrack itself was released less than a month later by Sony Classical.[7] This was the second time the label had released a Bond soundtrack, with the first being the Casino Royale soundtrack album.

    Unlike most other Bond soundtracks, the soundtrack album to Skyfall does not contain the title song performed by Adele. This marks only the second time that this has happened, the first being the Casino Royale soundtrack album. Despite this, at the producer's insistence Newman added an interpolation of "Skyfall" in the track "Komodo Dragon", used in a scene where Bond enters a casino in Macau.[8][9]

    The CD booklet mentions that the score contains interpolations of the "James Bond Theme", written by Monty Norman. Arnold's arrangement of the "James Bond Theme" (which appears on the Casino Royale soundtrack as "The Name's Bond…James Bond") plays over Skyfall's end titles (which begin with the film's gun barrel sequence); however, the track does not appear on the soundtrack album. Newman's arrangement of the theme plays over the reveal of Bond's Aston Martin and his escape with M to Scotland; the track appears on the album as "Breadcrumbs."

  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    Posts: 12,916
    January 10th

    1908: Bernard Lee is born--Brentford, Middlesex, England.
    (He dies at age 73--Hampstead, London, England.)
    1966: Bond comic strip The Man with the Golden Gun begins its run in The Daily Express. (Ends 9 September 1966. 1-209) Yaroslav Horak, artist. Jim Lawrence writer. They go on to adapt five more Fleming titles, plus Colonel Sun and 20 original Bond adventures. 1977: ABC-TV premiere of The Man With the Golden Gun.
    Television-friendly titles.
    2003: 007 - Um Novo Dia Para Morrer (007 - A New Day to Die) released in Brazil.
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    2003: 007 - Morre Noutro Dia (007 - Die Another Day) released in Portugal.
    2013: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announces Skyfall has 5 Oscar nominations, includes Best Song.
    2016: The award for Best Original Song at the 73rd Grammy awards goes to Sam Smith for "Writing's on the Wall".

  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    Posts: 12,916
    January 11th

    1966: Principle photography begins for Casino Royale.
    1990: The Hollywood Walk of Fame honors Albert R. Broccoli with a star.
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    1999: Principal photography for The World Is Not Enough begins at Pinewood Studios.
    2000: A second soundtrack album for Tomorrow Never Dies is released. (The original soundtrack release occurred before the actual score of the film was completed.) Chapter III Records removed the theme songs, Moby's Bond theme remake, "Station Break". Added: new music tracks plus an interview with composer David Arnold.
    2002: Die Another Day begins filming at Pinewood Studios.
    2012: MGM and EON Productions announce the 9 November 2012 release date for BOND 23. Sam Mendes directing. John Logan assisting with the script.

  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    Posts: 12,916
    January 12th

    1937: Shirley Eaton is born--Edgware, Middlesex, England.
    1996: Επιχείρηση Χρυσά Μάτια (Epiheirisi Hrysa Matia, Enterprise Golden Eyes) released in Greece.
    1996: Agente 007 - GoldenEye released in Italy.
    2002: BBC News reports "Pierce Brosnan agrees to a fifth 007 film".
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    Saturday, 12 January, 2002, 07:56 GMT
    Brosnan agrees to fifth 007 film
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/1753809.stm

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    Bond is to drive an Aston Martin again in the new film

    Actor Pierce Brosnan has extended his contract to play James Bond for a fifth time.

    The Irish performer told reporters at the launch of his fourth 007 adventure he was keen to make one more film, but admitted it would probably be his last.

    The 20th James Bond movie - as yet untitled - starts shooting officially at Pinewood Studios, Buckinghamshire on Monday before taking in locations including Hawaii, Iceland, Spain and London.

    The movie marks the 40th anniversary of the series that began in 1962 with Dr No, starring Sean Connery.

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    Sean Connery starred in many classic Bond films

    Brosnan, 48, said he was delighted to be continuing in the role.

    "I will do another one. Time has gone by so quickly. It seems like only yesterday I was sitting here for GoldenEye," he said.

    But he said he might be too old for a sixth appearance as the British spy.

    "It takes stamina to play this role. I would like to get off the stage with grace.

    "I am honouring my contract here but it would be wonderful to do another one. After that, I do not know."

    The 20th film will be directed by Lee Tamahori, whose previous successes include Along Came a Spider and The Edge.

    Swordfish star Halle Berry and newcomer Rosamund Pike will be Brosnan's glamorous female co-stars.

    Berry, who also worked on X-Men, said it a dream come true to be playing opposite 007.

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    Halle Berry is tipped for an Oscar for Monsters Ball

    She said: "I hope I will fit in and do as fine a job as the women before me."

    Pike, who has never starred in a movie before, admitted she was not keen on Bond when she was growing up, but said she was looking forward to an "electrifying" experience.

    British actor Toby Stevens will play the villainous bad guy.

    Other stars returning include Dame Judi Dench as M, Samantha Bond as Miss Moneypenny and John Cleese in the role of Q following the death of Desmond Llewelyn.

    Bond will once again drive an Aston Martin, after a deal with the manufacturer.

    The V12 Vanquish will be the fourth Aston Martin that Bond has driven since the association began in 1964 with the film Goldfinger - when the DB5 was fitted with ejector seats and rockets.

    Award

    Co-producer Barbara Broccoli is the daughter of Cubby Broccoli, the producer who originally brought Ian Fleming's spy to the big screen, and who died in 1996.

    Broccoli and fellow producer Michael G Wilson, will receive a special award from the London Film Critics' Circle.

    The award will be presented at the Circle's 22nd awards ceremony on 13 February.

    It is being given to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the James Bond films, and the organisers say they expect some familiar Bond faces to be among the guests at the event.
    2011: Ian Fleming International Airport (formerly Boscobel Aerodrome) in Jamaica, a $300 million renovation, is officially re-opened by Prime Minister Bruce Golding plus Ian Lucy Fleming, Fleming's niece. A 10 minute drive from Golden Eye (sic) Resort.
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    2011: The Telegraph prints Tim Robey's article "Sam Mendes may have problems directing new James Bond movie."
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    Sam Mendes may have problems directing new James
    Bond movie

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/jamesbond/8255072/Sam-Mendes-may-have-problems-directing-new-Bond-movie.html
    Director could have to battle for his 'vision' if past Bond films are a guide, says
    Tim Robey.

    By Tim Robey, Film Critic | 2:05PM GMT 12 Jan 2011

    It's a full year since Sam Mendes was first put in the frame as a potential Bond director, in which time MGM’s financial woes derailed the production schedule, allowing 007’s more possessive fans to forget their immediate beef and prematurely mourn the whole franchise.

    Now it’s back on, but they’re still not happy about the (reconfirmed) Mendes appointment. “It’ll be all middlebrow and safe!” seems to be the standard assumption. The Bond they want is gleeful, sly and viscerally over-the-top, qualities it’s fair to say haven’t been much in evidence in Mendes’s movies to date.

    Bond, though, is simply not a director’s franchise. Fans on message boards love to rail against the last one, Quantum of Solace, and throw a lot of blame at Marc Forster, the Swiss helmer of Monster’s Ball, Finding Neverland and other literary Oscar-bait, whose face-value credentials for the job were every bit as elusive as those of Mendes.

    The argument goes that you need a real action-director’s pair of hands, and that Martin Campbell, who rebooted the series twice with GoldenEye and Casino Royale, is the right type of guy. Directors with artistic pretensions tackle Bond at their peril and everyone else’s.

    Because their names carry unexpected pedigree for the task of a mass-market blockbuster, Forster, and now Mendes, become convenient stooges for what’s actually a producer’s logistical nightmare – and responsibility.

    It’s about marshalling an army of second unit/assistant directors, stunt co-ordinators and effects technicians. In the Brosnan years, people such as Roger Spottiswoode and Michael Apted may have had the helm, but most of the standout set-pieces were famously masterminded by Vic Armstrong and his team.

    Sure, directors of Bond movies have their work cut out to get the actors and story into shape, but they have less autonomy to foist any particular vision of their own on to the screen than in most other franchises this side of Police Academy. You could pick apart the auteur theory on the evidence of editor-turned-director John Glen, who directed the last three Roger Moore instalments, then made the terrific first Timothy Dalton one, The Living Daylights, and then followed it up with surely the nadir of the entire series, Licence To Kill.

    This proves my point: who directs a Bond movie has almost nothing to do with how good it is. (A further dent in the just-use-Martin-Campbell argument is available to anyone who’s actually tried to watch GoldenEye lately, Famke Janssen’s ace villainess honourably excepted.)

    So imagining that Mendes will somehow attempt to turn Bond into Revolutionary Road II or The Cherry Orchard: Dawn Inferno is a mug’s game. He won’t be allowed.

    Whether his instalment is praised or pilloried will be down to the entire creative team, the script, the editing, effects, production design, score, and the harmony of all those elements, as it always is – and, as usual, it'll be mainly the producers', not Mendes's, concern to foster that harmony.

    Oh, and the casting. Rumours are abroad that Simon Russell Beale is currently being considered for a role. He’d love to be a baddie. I’d love him to be a baddie. The petition starts here.

  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    Posts: 12,916
    January 13th

    1925: Count Robin Ian Evelyn Milne Stuart de la Lanne-Mirrlees is born--Cairo, Egypt.
    (He dies 23 June 2012 at age 87--Stornoway, Scotland.)
    https://www.mi6-hq.com/news/index.php?itemid=10262
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    Obituary: Robin de la Lanne-Mirrlees; title-loving prince who found peace on isle of Great Bernera
    https://www.scotsman.com/news/obituaries/obituary-robin-de-la-lanne-mirrlees-title-loving-prince-who-found-peace-on-isle-of-great-bernera-1-2382350
    Published: 00:00 Friday 29 June 2012

    Born: 13 January, 1925, in Cairo. Died: 23 June, 2012, in Stornoway, aged 87.

    COUNT Robin de la Lanne-Mirrlees was the dashing figure whose colourful career lay at odds with his decision to adopt self-imposed exile on the island of Great Bernera, off Lewis. He encompassed lives as an army captain, herald, laird, count and prince, as well as aiding Ian Fleming in writing On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, in which he is cast as the main character.

    This fluent linguist, international heraldic figure, one-time Lloyds’ “name”, property owner and castle restorer became revered in the Western Isles as a benevolent laird, who swapped a Paris flat for a croft, and was known to the 350 islanders on Great Bernera simply as “Robin”.

    In spite of holding a Yugoslav royal title, attending the Queen as a herald at her coronation and being in direct descent of Louis Philippe I of France, he latterly became anti-monarchist. In a reference to his own princely title, he remarked, “Any old fool can be a prince, and in my case legitimately”, adding, “I’m quite a man of the people really”.

    Robin Ian Evelyn Milne Stuart de la Lanne-Mirrlees was born Robin Grinnell-Milne in Cairo, son of Captain Duncan Gribbell-Milne, a Great War pilot, and the Countess Frances de la Lanne. He initially changed his name when his mother later married another Great War hero, Major-General William Mirrlees. His second change of name occurred two decades ago.

    Learned and outgoing, he was a born networker, whose godfather was the 11th Duke of Argyll. Educated at the English School of Cairo, in Paris and Merton College, Oxford, he was commissioned in the Royal Artillery and saw service in India. Passionate about heraldry, his career began in 1952 at the College of Arms in London as Rouge Dragon Pursuivant, being promoted to Richmond Herald. In later years, he was a regular at Edinburgh meetings of the Heraldry Society of Scotland.
    In his 15 years at England’s centre of heraldry, he corresponded with Fleming, then researching On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Bond’s cover role was based on Mirrlees, the fictional spy having the title Sable Basilisk Pursuivant, suggested by Robin. Villain Stavro Blofeld also bears the “deformity” of having no ear lobes.

    Robin too was lobeless. His friendship with Fleming resulted in a jointly written book, Sable Basilisk (1965), centring on Bond’s “genealogy”, with 007’s coat-of-arms on the cover and motto: “The World Is Not Enough”.
    Critics accused Count Robin of basking in “flummery” – and he did love titles. That of count came through his mother’s line, recognised in 1964 by the Republic of San Marino. His claim to his princedom emanated in 1967 from the exiled King Peter II of Yugoslavia, his “Prince of Coronata” covering islands off Dalmatia. Further titles followed: in 1975, he was recognised as Baron of Inchdrewer and Laird of Bernera. He was also a Knight of Honour and Devotion of the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta.

    In 2005, he began to assert his princely title, informing friends: “Maybe it will help me find a princess at my age”. His only marriage, at 45 to a nurse half his age, lasted less than a week.

    Robin proved a generous and witty host, enormously enjoying good company and stimulating conversation. In the early 1970s he restored Inchdrewer Castle near Banff, but never occupied the place. His purchase sight unseen in 1962 of Great Bernera off Lewis and his croft home there made him an adopted islander. He refused to raise rents, and donated land for community use. Three years ago when in a care home on Great Bernera, he and the only other resident faced being made to move by Western Isles Council; the pair retained their residency through becoming “tenants”.

    The Lloyds crash of the early 1990s almost ruined him but Count Robin paid off more than £2 million in debts after “a property clear-out”. He lost his house in Holland Park, London, chateau in France, flats in Paris and Switzerland, and Ratzenegg Castle in Austria, yet good humouredly, joined the Lottery syndicate on his beloved Bernera.

    He is survived by Patrick de la Lanne,, his natural son through his relationship with Margarethe, Duchess of Wurttemberg; and three grandchildren.

    Read more at: https://www.scotsman.com/news/obituaries/obituary-robin-de-la-lanne-mirrlees-title-loving-prince-who-found-peace-on-isle-of-great-bernera-1-2382350
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    https://www.scotsman.com/news/obituaries/obituary-robin-de-la-lanne-mirrlees-title-loving-prince-who-found-peace-on-isle-of-great-bernera-1-2382350
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    1948: The Gleaner in Jamaica announces the arrival of Fleming and (still married) Lady Ann Rothermere the day prior. With photo. 1972: 007: Los diamantes son eternos (007 - Diamonds Are Eternal) released in Mexico.
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    2000: Jeden svet nestací (One World Is Not Enough) released in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
    2012: Journalists post an image of Daniel Craig at the Four Seasons (doubling for Shanghai) on the web--the first leak of Skyfall filming.
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  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    Has anyone read SABLE BASILISK? Sounds interesting.
  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    edited January 2019 Posts: 12,916
    I had the same thought, @Thunderfinger, but very unlikely. It's a privately printed volume, estimated six total at the time of printing. Described as a sort of Holy Grail for book collectors of Fleming and Bond material.

    See the auction description linked below.
  • Posts: 2,887
    I wonder who owns those six copies? At last, a Fleming-related book harder to find than Talk of the Devil!
  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    Posts: 12,916
    January 14th

    1947: Stuart Baird is born--Uxbridge, Middlesex, England.
    1956: Ian Fleming begins writing From Russia With Love at Goldeneye.
    1962: EON's crew arrives in Jamaica to start filming 2 days later. Monty Norman and wife--actress-singer Diana Coupland--also arrive on island this date.
    1965: Jonathan Cape publishes Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Volume 3.
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    1965: James Bond 007 - Goldfinger released in West Germany.
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    1972: Diamonds Are Forever released in Ireland.
    1974: January 14: ABC-TV airs network premiere of From Russia with Love
    2000: 007 - Il mondo non basta released in Italy.
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    2000: Dünya Yetmez (World Is Not Enough) released in Turkey.
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    2002: Scheduled start to filming Die Another Day.

  • edited January 2019 Posts: 1,637
    January 1969 : OHMSS still shooting in Swiss.....
    (Feb '69 : Jen Aniston born , Telly was her godfather)
  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    edited January 2019 Posts: 12,916
    January 15th

    1931: Derek Meddings is born--Pancras, London, England.
    (He dies 10 September 1995 at age 64--London, England.)
    1952: This morning Ian Fleming begins writing Casino Royale at Goldeneye.
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    1964: Guy Hamilton takes a film crew to Miami and shoots aerial footage of the Fountainbleu Hotel.
    1976: Bond comic strip The Torch-Time Affair ends its run in The Daily Express.
    (Started 15 October 1975. 2984-3060) Yaroslav Horak, artist. Jim Lawrence, writer. 1998: El mañana nunca muere (The Tomorrow Never Die) released in Argentina.
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  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    edited January 2019 Posts: 12,916
    January 16th

    1946: Kabir Bedi is born--Lahore, Punjab, British India.
    1949: Caroline Munro is born--Windsor, Berkshire, England.
    1962: Dr. No filming begins on location in Jamaica. Exteriors of Crab Key and Kingston, in the vicinity of the Fleming Goldeneye estate (and he was a frequent visitor with guests). Scenes filmed at Oracabessa, the Palisadoes strip, plus Port Royal in St. Andrew.
    1970: In geheime dienst van Hare Majesteit (In Secret Service of Her Majesty. Flemish title) released in Belgium.
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    1971: Bond comic strip The Golden Ghost ends its run in The Daily Express.
    (Began 21 August 1970. 1394–1519) Yaroslav Horak, artist. Jim Lawrence, writer. 1976: Bond comic strip Hot-Shot begins its run in The Daily Express.
    (Ends 17 January 1976. 3061-3178) Yaroslav Horak, artist. Jim Lawrence, artist. 1981: Bernard Lee dies at age 73--Hampstead, London, England.
    (Born 10 January 1908--Brentford, Middlesex, England.)
    1984: Nunca digas nunca jamás (Never Say Never) released in Spain.
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    1995: First day of GoldenEye filming at EON Studios.
    1998: 007 - O Amanhã Nunca Morre (Tomorrow Never Dies) released in Brazil.
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    1998: 007: El mañana nunca muere released in Mexico.
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    1998: Jutro nie umiera nigdy released in Poland.
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    2003: Otro día para morir (Another Day to Die) released in Argentina.
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    2008: Mythbusters airs their James Bond Special: Part 1.
  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    Posts: 12,916
    January 17th

    1962: The Gleaner reports that filming of Dr. No started the 16th at Palisadoes airport. Also noted are local casting, includes the beautiful 1961 Miss Jamaica 1961: Marguerite LeWars.
    1966: 007 Contra a Chantagem Atômica (007 Against Atomic Blackmail) released in Brazil.
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    1998: Tomorrow Never Dies released in the Republic of Korea.
    2003: Baska Gün Öl (Die Another Day) released in Turkey.
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    2009: 007/慰めの報酬 (007/Remuneration for Comfort) limited release in Japan.
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    2011: The title and cover art for Jeffrey Deaver's Bond novel revealed.
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    2012: Naomie Harris denies her Skyfall character is Miss Moneypenny.
    2012: The National Motor Museum in Beaulieu, Brockenhurst, England, opens its Bond in Motion display, a celebration of 50 Years of James Bond Movies with the largest collection of Bond film vehicles to date.
    2018: Dynamite's James Bond: The Body goes on sale.
    James Bond: The Body #1 (Preview)
    https://cbr.com/james-bond-the-body-1/
    01.15.2018 by CBR Staff in Comic Previews Comment

    James Bond: The Body #1
    Story by Ales Kot
    Art by Luca Casalanguida
    Cover by Luca Casalanguida
    Publisher Dynamite Entertainment
    3.99(USD) 2018-01-17

    PART ONE – THE BODY

    As Bond undergoes a post-mission medical examination, he relays the story of his previous mission to the examiner. Each cut, bruise, and broken bone connected to a specific event of the mission. A connection is made between two people with different purposes: one to save lives, the other to take them.

    From writer Ales Kot (Secret Avengers, Zero) comes a James Bond story that explores the secret agent in ways that we have yet to experience!

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  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    007 AGAINST ATOMIC BLACKMAIL, quite the title.
  • ClarkDevlinClarkDevlin Martinis, Girls and Guns
    Posts: 15,423
    Well, if they want to expand to the adult film business, be my guest. ;)
  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    Posts: 12,916
    January 18th

    1936: Joseph Rudyard Kipling dies at age 70--Middlesex Hospital, London, England.
    (Born 30 December 1865--Bombay, Bombay Presidency, British India.)
    The Day's Work, by Rudyard Kipling Ian Flemings 007 prefix ?
    http://www.007museum.com/rudyard_kipling.htm
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    ...

    Fleming had picked up number 007 from the title of a novel by the famous British writer and Nobel laureate Rudyard Kipling (best known for "The Jungle Book"). Kipling wrote a short story that actually was called ".007", which is about a steam engine and is part of his collection of short stories The Days Framework, published in 1898. The steam engine is in the short story number 007, the short story has nothing whatsoever with agents or so to do.

    The Day's Work, by Rudyard Kipling
    ·007

    A locomotive is, next to a marine engine, the most sensitive thing man ever made; and No. .007, besides being sensitive, was new. The red paint was hardly dry on his spotless bumper-bar, his headlight shone like a fireman’s helmet, and his cab might have been a hard-wood-finish parlour. They had run him into the round-house after his trial—he had said good-bye to his best friend in the shops, the overhead travelling-crane—the big world was just outside; and the other locos were taking stock of him. He looked at the semicircle of bold, unwinking headlights, heard the low purr and mutter of the steam mounting in the gauges—scornful hisses of contempt as a slack valve lifted a little—and would have given a month’s oil for leave to crawl through his own driving-wheels into the brick ash-pit beneath him. .007 was an eight-wheeled “American” loco, slightly different from others of his type, and as he stood he was worth ten thousand dollars on the Company’s books. But if you had bought him at his own valuation, after half an hour’s waiting in the darkish, echoing round-house, you would have saved exactly nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine dollars and ninety-eight cents...

    Complete story linked here.
    https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2569/2569-h/2569-h.htm#link2H_4_0009
    1969: Dave Bautista is born--Washington, District of Columbia.
    1971: Bond comic strip Fear Face begins its comic strip run in the Daily Express.
    (Ends 20 April 1971. 1520–1596) Yaroslav Horak, artist. Jim Lawrence, writer. 1984: Mai dire mai (Never Say Never) released in Italy.
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    1997: Second unit filming begins for Tomorrow Never Dies, handled by Vic Armstrong. First up: pre-titles action at the Peyresourde Airport, French Pyrenees.
    1998: James Villiers dies at age 64--Arunddel, Sussex, England. (Born 29 September 1933--London, England.)
    2017: Dynamite Entertainment releases Bond comic book Hammerhead #4 (of 6).
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  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    Posts: 12,916
    January 19th

    1941: Putter Smith is born--Bell, California.
    1960: Jack Whittingham reports to Ivar Bryce the progress he's making with Kevin McClory on a Thunderball screenplay.
    Ian Fleming, Andrew Lycett, 1995.

    ..."We are both working in the dark so far as Ian Fleming is concerned--and Bond is very much his personal creation. Thus they needed to get together with Ian to discuss their first draft. "I know he will be very helpful at this much more detailed stage, and it would encourage us enormously if we felt we were all still pulling at the same rope."
    1981: The For Your Eyes Only production crew at Metoria, Greece, feels of the wrath of monks who place laundry and other eyesores on their dwellings to disrupt filming. A show of displeasure, potentially over to small a stipend paid to them by the producers. Filming continues nonetheless.
    2015: To capitalize on Fleming and Bond material becoming public domain in Canada, Independent Toronto publisher ChiZine Publications announces Licence Expired: The Unauthorized James Bond. An anthology of short stories, available only in Canada.
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    2016: Titan Books publishes James Bond: Spectre: The Complete Comic Strip Collection.
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    2017: Anthony Horowitz announces on Twitter he's writing a second Bond novel due out October 2018.

  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    edited January 2019 Posts: 12,916
    January 20th

    1923: John McClusky is born--Dennistoun, Glasgow, Scotland.
    (He dies 5 September 2006 at age 83--Hatfield, Hertfordshire, England.)
    James Bond comic strip artist John McLusky has died aged 83
    https://mi6-hq.com/news/index.php?itemid=4069"]https://mi6-hq.com/news/index.php?itemid=4069
    08-Sep-2006 • Bond News

    John McLusky, best known for his long tenure as James Bond comic strip artist, has died at the age of 83. He passed away on Tuesday 5th September 2006.

    Four years before Sean Connery would bring 007 to the silver screen with "Dr No", Daily Express readers in the UK got their first sight of James Bond in 1958. The face John McLusky gave to Bond would be many people's first and lasting image of 007, including composer John Barry.

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    Above: John McLusky's representation of James Bond 007.

    Fleming's first James Bond novel "Casino Royale" would also become the starting point for the newspaper series, with the first strip published in the Daily Express on July 7th 1958. Staff writer Anthony Hearne adapted the novel, and John McLusky was brought in to illustrate.

    Initially sticking closely to Fleming's source material, the strips created by Hearne and McLusky were an instant success and boosted sales of the newspaper. The punchy, fast-paced style and daily "cliff-hangers" suited Bond's adventures perfectly.

    McLusky teamed up with writer Henry Gammidge for the following seven years, recreating Fleming's novels and short stories in the graphic form almost chronologically (except for a one-off partnership of writer Peter O'Donnell with McLusky for 1960's "Dr. No" adaptation).

    Thirteen adventures since the Express began publishing Bond strips back in 1958, Gammidge and McLusky stepped aside for the new team of Jim Lawrence and Yaroslav Horak as writer and artist respectively. In 1981, series writer Lawrence was then paired with the original strip artist John McLusky returning for a further four adventures.

    As well as his long run as James Bond comic strip artist, McLusky also drew strips such as "Secret Agent 13" for Fleetway's "June" and illustrations for "Look and Learn", and also worked for 15 years on "TV Comic" with strips such as "Orlando", "Laurel & Hardy" and "Pink Panther". In the early 1980's he worked on Thames TV series "Hattytown". He the retired but was lured back in to action in 1986 when Gerald Lip, the Express strip Editor, asked him to draw the last James Bond strips, which he did for three years. He then regularly lectured in the History of Art and was also a Punch and Judy Professor and Puppeteer. He spent his final years taking it easy at his home due to heath reasons but enjoyed reading, meeting his friends and listening to his favourite Jazz collections.

    John McLusky will be best remembered for giving to the world "the face of James Bond", and with Titan Books republishing the original strip adventures, fans old and new can enjoy his timeless work again.

    Click here to read more about John McLusky's artwork and the James Bond comic strip series.
    mi6-hq.com/sections/comics/index.php3
    1964: Goldfinger principal photography begins at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami, Florida. Director Hamilton plus Broccoli, Adam, and cinematographer Ted Moore. Only Cec Linder of the main cast is present in Miami. Connery is filming elsewhere in the US.
    1998: Jack Lord dies at age 77--Honolulu, Hawaii. (Born 30 December 1920--New York City, New York.)
    1980: ITV broadcast of Live and Let Die attracts 23.5 million viewers, a record for the UK.
    1984: Never Say Never Again released in Denmark. 1984: James Bond 007 - Sag niemals nie (James Bond 007 - Never Say Never) released in West Germany.
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    2000: Vse in še svet (Everything and the World) released in Slovenia.
    2006: Rose Alba dies at age 85--London, England. (Born 5 February 1920--Cairo, Egypt.)
    2006: Swiss businessman pays $1.9 million (£1.1 million) for a 1965 Aston Martin DB5 coupe used to promote Goldfinger and Thunderball.
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  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    Posts: 12,916
    January 21st

    1922: Telly Savalas is born--Garden City, Long Island, New York.
    (He dies 22 January 1994 at age 72--Sheraton Universal Hotel, Universal City, California.)
    1942: Michael G. Wilson is born--New York City, New York.
    1976: Maiden flight of Air France's Concorde, by the first plane delivered in 1975. The route from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport through Dakar to Rio is the same route used by the arriving Concorde in Moonraker. The two weekly Air France flights from Paris to Rio continued through 1982.
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    1980: The United States Bullion Depository at Fort Knox, 48 km (30 miles) south-west of Louisville, Kentucky, USA, has been the principal federal depository of US gold since December 1936, where 147 million fine oz are currently stored. Golds peak price was $850 on January 21, 1980.
    1983: Octopussy filming finishes this date.
    1995: The Press meets the new Bond cast at EON Studios, Leavesdon. 1998: Jack Lord dies at age at age 77--Honolulu, Hawaii. (Born: 30 December 1920--New York City, New York.)
    2013: 007:大破天幕杀机 (007: Dàpò tiānmù shājī) released in China.
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  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    Posts: 12,916
    January 22nd

    1950: Pamela Salem is born--Mumbai, India.
    1977: Bond comic strip Ape of Diamonds finishes its run in The Daily Express.
    (Started 5 November 1976. 3313 - 3437) Yaroslav Horak, artist. Jim Lawrence, writer. 1977: Bond comic strips end in the Daily Express, but begin anew 30 January in the Sunday Express with the title When the Wizard Awakes. Yaroslav Horak, artist. Jim Lawrence, writer.
    1994: Telly Savalas dies at age 72--Sheraton Universal Hotel, Universal City, California.
    (Born 21 January 1922--Garden City, Long Island, New York.)
    1998: Tomorrow Never Dies released in Hong Kong.
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    2000: The World Is Not Enough released in Kuwait.
    2008: Bond fans notice the domain name of quantumofsolace.com as registered by Sony Pictures this date, leaking the title ahead of its 24 January press conference and official announcement.

  • Posts: 1,637


    25 yrs ago today , I miss him and wish i couldve met him :(
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