Future King Charles with Daniel Craig on the set of No Time To Die in 2019. Photo: Chris Jackson/Getty
When It Happens In the mid-1990s, it was announced that James Bond's new boss was to be a woman — with Judi Dench taking over the role of «M» — it felt like the franchise's producers wanted to be congratulated for keeping up with time. But throughout his 70-year career as a spy, James Bond's real boss has always been a woman, and the man Dench called «M» a «sexist, misogynistic dinosaur» actually prided himself on serving the late Queen.
A copy of Annigoni's portrait of Queen Elizabeth II hangs in Bond's study; in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, he toasts a painting after he decides to leave the service, saying «Sorry, ma'am.» Of course, everyone who has seen the film knows that Bond's sense of duty will never allow him to retire permanently — one of the many similarities between Bond and the late queen. (Another reason was the late queen's fondness for a dry martini at the end of the day, until her health forced her to give it up in 2021: I'll bet any lackey who stirred it instead of shaking it was mildly corrected.)
It seems only fitting that Charlie Higson publish a new James Bond novel to commemorate Charles III's accession to the throne, in which Bond's mission is to thwart the super-rich villain's efforts to disrupt the coronation. Bond and the royal family have been closely linked for the past 70 years.
Ian Fleming's first Bond novel, Casino Royale, was published 70 years ago on April 13, just a few weeks before the coronation of Elizabeth II. One might argue that these two peers, Bond and the Queen, were similar in that they were figures that evoke a comforting sense of nostalgia for an era that came to an end in the fifties, when the British controlled the world and its monarchs held power in their hands. . real power in the world.
But whether it's true or not, the worldwide popularity of the Queen and Bond means that they have, in many ways, made a vital contribution to cultural soft power, which has become one of Britain's most successful means of promoting its interests after the war. Empire — or, as Roger Moore put it in The Spy Who Loved Me, «keep the British in the end.»
The late Queen meets Sean Connery at the You Only Live Twice premiere. Photo: Shutterstock
Ian Fleming was a big fan of Princess Elizabeth long before she became queen, and in 1950 he hinted to his wife's cousin, who turned out to be Martin Charteris, the princess's private secretary, that he would try to write speeches for her. . The offer was accepted.
In drafting the speech the princess was to give to American journalists ahead of her upcoming trip to Washington, Fleming was determined to offer more than «a few ordinary phrases» — he felt that the American press was «America's intelligentsia [and] rather different cauldron of fish than the meager scribes of England.» However, Clarence House rejected his non-banal speech; and that's a good thing, since Fleming might never have written Bond if he had become the king's speechwriter.
The first mention of the Queen in the James Bond saga occurs in Fleming's third novel, Moonraker (1955), when multimillionaire businessman Hugo Drax writes directly to the Queen offering funding for Britain's «superatomic rocket» and duly receives a knighthood. However, Drax, a secret Nazi, has more sinister plans at his construction site, and this underscores his reputation as a boor (he also cheats at cards) that he must lie directly to the Queen.
Bond's admiration for the queen and her role in his romantic self-perception becomes apparent when he contemplates whether to accept a knighthood himself at the end of The Man with the Golden Gun (1965). . “Don’t you want to go to Buckingham Palace and see the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, kneel so that your shoulder touches the sword, and the queen says: “Rise, sir knight”?” asks the last Bond girl. Mary Goodnight.
The late Queen meets with Pierce Brosnan, Halle Berry and director Lee Tamahori at the premiere of Die Another Day. Photo: WireImage
“I would like it all,” Bond replies. «Romantic streak of SIS». (However, in the end, he cannot bear the thought of becoming Sir James: «I laughed at myself every time I looked in the mirror to shave.»)
Bond films may have an even deeper connection to the royal family than Fleming's novels. The element of patriotism was heightened in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), which coincided with the Queen's Silver Jubilee, especially in the memorable stunt in which Bond, skiing, is driven off a cliff, but he happily escapes by deploying his Union Jack parachute. .
Nearly every Bond premiere was attended by a member of the royal family. The Queen herself attended the premiere of You Only Live Twice in 1967, at which she reportedly asked Sean Connery to confirm that it was his last outing as 007 (which he did, as it turned out, inaccurately). Her Majesty also made it to the premiere of Die Another Day in 2002—another anniversary year celebrated in the film by Bransonian businessman Gustav Graves (Toby Stevens) parachuting into Buckingham Palace in a vulgar publicity stunt as he walks, to receive your reward. chivalry; like Drax, he turns out to be a villain, of course.
Honor Blackman, also known as Pussy Galore, photographed with the Duke of Edinburgh in 1964. Photo: Daily Mirror. tolerate. But one of her biographers, Giles Brandreth, confirmed that the Queen was generally a sincere fan of the Bond pictures — or at least the first ones, «before they got so loud.»
The Duke of Edinburgh's views on films' loudness are unknown, but he is credited with unwittingly rescuing the franchise in its early days, or at least allowing it to follow the rather daring path it began to follow in the mid-sixties. .
The story goes that American film censors had a grudge against Goldfinger (1964)—especially the character Honor Blackman, who was mischievously called Pussy Galore. Fortunately, however, Blackman was photographed with the Duke at an event in London, and, as she later recalled, «Americans saw a front-page picture of an English newspaper of me talking to Prince Philip, with the headline saying: The Prince and the Pussy.» They were stunned, but took it as permission, that this is a worthy film and a worthy character, otherwise Prince Philip would not have spoken to me.»
As the world knows, the skit culminated with the Queen escorting Bond in a helicopter and apparently arriving at the opening ceremony by parachute. Of the international front page headlines the next day, I liked Die Welt's «Das neue Bond-Girl ist 86» the most. All of this was a testament to how much the late queen valued Bond as a British brand.
Her son and heir seems to share his late mother's enthusiasm. The King has visited Bond sets during filming in the past — most notably during the making of Living Daylights (1987), when he and then-Princess Diana visited Pinewood Studios' Q Lab and the Princess seemed to be delighted. in that she was given the opportunity to smash a fake bottle of wine on her husband's head.
The original script for the film included a scene with Charles and Diana, à la Janet Brown, and John Wells as Margaret and Denis Thatcher in For Your Eyes Only, but the idea was hastily scrapped when it was revealed that the Prince Charles doppelgänger, was hired, recently served a prison sentence for a serious crime.
However, the King's enthusiasm for Bond seems unabated, and he also visited the set of the latest of the films, No Time to Die; Veteran producer Barbara Broccoli said: «He had a lot to talk about with Daniel [Craig]. They both love Aston Martin. Boys with toys! It was also reported that he was offered the part, although I don't remember seeing the future King on Lucifer Safin Island when the film came out. (Meghan Markle was also reportedly on the shortlist of actresses to appear in the film before the emergence of her relationship with Prince Harry made her unacceptable.)
We may one day see a royal cameo in the film . A real Bond movie. For now, let's imagine Bond raising a dry martini to his former boss, as for the first time in 70 years he thinks he's no longer in Her Majesty's Secret Service.
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