Cary Grant was offered the part of Bond but the deal didn’t happen because he said he’d do only one. Hitchcock too turned down the project which was ironical coz it was the huge success of N by NW, that encouraged United Artistes to finance EON’s Dr No. Fleming wanted David Niven to play the part but the producers found him too old. They also tried a young Roger Moore who was playing The Saint on TV. And then the producers introduced an unknown actor Sean Connery to the author. Fleming apparently was doubtful, but his woman companion insisted that Sean Connery had ‘it.’

But the man who truly made Bond come alive on screen was director Terence Young who added style, wit and charm to both the script and the lead actor. Young directed three Bond films and the special edition DVDs have delightful trivia about the process of creating the character.

Bond is obviously a romanticised version of a real spy. The plots are outrageous and campy but none of that matters. What matters is the high, the rush and the excitement. The films have collectively made more than ten billion dollars and given trillions of hours of pure pleasure to viewers all over the world.

For me, Bond was pure escape—at a time when the Cold War meant my dad not talking to me for four days after seeing my report card.

Barring a few exceptions, the Bond novels are quite different from the films. The books are often dark, more cold-blooded, without any of the sexual innuendo. But they are great reads, full of the spy process, fascinating details about places, manners and more. If you want to know when and where Bond lost his virginity, you’ll have to read the books.

... contd.