George Robert Lazenby AC (born September 5, 1939) is an Australian actor best known for portraying James Bond in the 1969 film, On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
James Bond[]
George Lazenby as James Bond
George Lazenby's first serious acting role was as James Bond in the film On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969). Lazenby is the second official actor to portray the British secret agent. It was rumoured that Lazenby had been "difficult to work with" in this project. According to Lazenby, however, the difficulties were caused by director Peter R. Hunt, who apparently refused to talk directly to him—and this in turn was caused by Lazenby (unaware of studio politics or Hunt's sensibilities) passing on a request for Hunt's friends to clear a set before filming. During the film's production, Lazenby's manager, Ronan O'Rahilly, talked him into refusing a seven-movie contract on the grounds that the Bond character was out of touch with the times. Unsurprisingly, Lazenby describes this as the biggest mistake of his life.
Reception of Lazenby's performance often varies greatly, as some view him to be the quintessential James Bond while some view him as the worst of the actors to play 007. Likewise, feelings about the film usually vary greatly as well. From a commercial perspective On Her Majesty's Secret Service paled in comparison to the previous Bond film You Only Live Twice and the later Diamonds Are Forever (both featuring Connery as Bond); this has been partly attributed to a poor publicity campaign.
Critical response to On Her Majesty's Secret Service remains sharply divided. Many fans, perhaps especially fans of Fleming's original novels, regard it as one of the best Bond films. Other critics name it as one of the lesser Bond films. Nevertheless it is widely considered one of the best and most faithful adaptations of Ian Fleming's original novels, especially in contrast to the films that immediately preceded and succeeded it, both of which took subtantial liberties with the source material.
Lazenby was also approached to play Bond again in both Live and Let Die (1973) and Never Say Never Again (1983). The offer for Live and Let Die was not supported by the director, however. During a Q&A session at the Sydney 2014 Supanova pop culture expo, Lazenby stated that the reason was because he was "too hairy" at the time. Kevin McClory considered Lazenby for his rival Bond film but opted for Connery when he agreed to do the film after initially refusing to return to the role.
Lazenby has portrayed Bond several times over the years in numerous parodies and unofficial 007 roles, most notably the 1983 TV movie The Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E. and an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, titled "Diamonds Aren't Forever". In Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E., Lazenby plays a character referred to as "JB," drives an Aston Martin DB5 with gadgets, and another character utters the phrase "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" as "JB" and Napoleon Solo nod to each other. (This was an acknowledgement of Ian Fleming's uncredited involvement in the development of U.N.C.L.E.) In the Hitchcock episode, Lazenby plays a retired spy named James (though his full first name is never clearly uttered).
Lazenby is unique among his Bond peers as being, at present, the only James Bond actor known to attend fan conventions, something Connery, Niven and Moore never did; Nelson reportedly did only once; and Dalton, Brosnan and Craig have yet to do.
Bond filmography[]
External links[]
| Preceded by: Sean Connery 1962–1967 |
James Bond actor 1969 |
Succeeded by: Sean Connery 1971 |
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This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at George Lazenby. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with the James Bond Wiki, the content of Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License. |