name	Ian Fleming
birth name	Ian Lancaster Fleming
birth date	May 28, 1908
birth place	Mayfair, London, England
death date	August 12, 1964
death place	Canterbury, Kent, England
occupation	Author and journalist
nationality	British
period	1953–1964
genre	Spy fiction, children's literature, travel writing
spouse	Anne Geraldine Charteris(1952–1964, his death)
children	Son (deceased)
relatives	Valentine Fleming (father, deceased)Evelyn St. Croix Fleming (mother, deceased)Amaryllis Fleming (half-sister, deceased)Peter Fleming (brother, deceased)
signature	Ian Fleming signature.svg
website	http://www.ianfleming.com }}

Ian Lancaster Fleming (28 May 1908 – 12 August 1964) was a British author, journalist and Naval Intelligence Officer. Fleming is best known for creating the fictional British spy James Bond and for a series of twelve novels and nine short stories about the character, which are one of the best-selling series of related novels of all time having sold over 100 million copies worldwide. Fleming also wrote the children's story Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and two works of non-fiction. Fleming is reputed to have been the designer of Operation Mincemeat and Operation Goldeneye, the former of which was successfully carried out during the Second World War.

In 2008, The Times ranked Fleming fourteenth on its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".

Birth and connections

Ian Fleming was born in Mayfair, a wealthy district of London. His father was Valentine Fleming, a British Member of Parliament and his mother was Evelyn St. Croix Rose. Fleming's elder brother Peter became a travel writer. He also had two younger brothers, Michael and Richard Fleming (1910–1977) and an illegitimate younger maternal half-sister, cellist Amaryllis Fleming. Fleming was a grandson of the Scottish financier Robert Fleming, who founded the Scottish American Investment Trust and the merchant bank Robert Fleming and Co (since 2000, part of JP Morgan Chase).

Fleming was a nephew of Philip Fleming, a step-cousin of Christopher Lee, the actor, and his brother Peter married actress Celia Johnson; their daughter Lucy Fleming is also an actress. Fleming's nephews Rory and Matthew Fleming played cricket for England,and great-nephew is composer Alan Fleming-Baird.

Education

Fleming was educated at three independent schools: first at Durnford School, a preparatory school on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset, near to the estate of the Bond family, who could trace their ancestry back to an Elizabethan spy called John Bond and whose motto was Non Sufficit Orbis – The World Is Not Enough. He then attended two independent schools in Berkshire: first, Sunningdale School near Ascot, and then Eton College at Eton, Berkshire, and the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, on the border between Berkshire and Surrey. He was Victor Ludorum at Eton for two years running, only the second person ever to accomplish this. After leaving Eton, however, he found life at Sandhurst difficult and after an early departure from the Royal Military Academy, his mother sent him to study languages on the continent. He first attended a small private school in the town of Kitzbühel, Austria, run by the Adlerian disciple Ernan Forbes Dennis and his American wife, the novelist Phyllis Bottome. This was in order to improve his German and prepare him for examinations for entry into the Foreign Office. From Kitzbühel he went to Munich University, and, finally, to the University of Geneva to improve his French; however, he was unsuccessful in his application to join the Foreign Office and worked as a sub-editor and journalist for the Reuters news service, spending part of 1933 in Moscow. He then worked as a stockbroker with Rowe and Pitman, in Bishopsgate, London.

World War II

In 1939, on the eve of World War II, Rear Admiral John Henry Godfrey, Director of Naval Intelligence of the Royal Navy, recruited Fleming, then a reserve subaltern in the Black Watch, as his personal assistant. Fleming was commissioned first as a lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and later as Lieutenant Commander, then Commander. His codename was 17F.

In 1940, Fleming and Rear Admiral Godfrey contacted Kenneth Mason, Professor of Geography at Oxford University, about the preparation of reports on the geography of countries involved in military operations. These reports were the precursors of the Naval Intelligence Division Geographical Handbook Series produced between 1941 and 1946.

Fleming instigated a plan named Operation Ruthless to obtain details of the Enigma codes used by the German Navy by crashing a captured German aircraft into the English Channel, where the British crew, dressed in Luftwaffe uniforms, might be rescued by a German patrol boat. The "survivors" could then kill the German crew and hijack the ship, thus obtaining the required information. Much to the annoyance of Alan Turing and Peter Twinn at Bletchley Park, the mission was never carried out. Fleming's niece Lucy Fleming, on a BBC Radio Four programme entitled "The Bond Correspondence" broadcast on 24 May 2008, stated that the reason given was that an official at the Royal Air Force pointed out that if they were to drop a downed Heinkel bomber in the English Channel, it would probably sink rather quickly. However, the plan necessitated that the bomber was to sink so as to avoid its identification by the Germans – the "survivors" were to take to a rubber dinghy to await rescue.

Fleming also conceived a plan to use the British occultist Aleister Crowley to trick Rudolf Hess into attempting to contact a fake cell of anti-Churchill Englishmen in Britain, but this plan was not used because soon afterwards Rudolf Hess flew to Scotland in an attempt to broker peace behind Hitler's back. Anthony Masters, in his book The Man Who Was M: The Life of Charles Henry Maxwell Knight asserts that Fleming himself conceived the plan that lured Hess into flying to Scotland in May 1941, to negotiate Anglo–German peace with Churchill, and which resulted in Hess's capture. This claim has no other source, however.

Operation Goldeneye was also one of Fleming's conceptions, a plan to maintain communication with Gibraltar and help in its defence in the unlikely event that Spain joined the Axis Powers and assisted Germany in invasion. Fleming is also credited with the idea for Operation Mincemeat, a highly successful deception by the Allies, before the invasion of Sicily in 1943.

30 Assault Unit

In 1944, Fleming was given control of a specialist unit of commandos, known as 30 Commando, or 30 Assault Unit (30AU: not to be confused with the Auxiliary Units in which his elder brother had served). He was not their field commander but their planner. As an intelligence officer at the Naval Intelligence Division (NID), he had an idea of what information and equipment the enemy had that might be of interest to the Allies and where it was likely to be located. He detailed the "scalps" he required and his "Red Indians", as he called them, were then sent off to acquire them.

30 Assault Unit consisted of teams of trained commandos that specialised in targeting enemy headquarters, to secure documentation and items of equipment with an intelligence value; items that the ordinary Allied soldier, or commando, might ignore or destroy. Each team would attach itself to whatever main force could get them closest to their intended targets. They were adept in lock picking, safe cracking, unarmed combat and general techniques and skills for collecting intelligence. The unit contained some of the most enterprising men in the commandos.

In the final stages of the war, the teams were trained and equipped to fight their own way into a headquarters building and secure whatever items they required, before the enemy could remove it or destroy it before leaving. They relied upon surprise, toughness and ruthless efficiency. Prior to D-Day, most of the operations were in the Mediterranean. However, because of their successes in Sicily and Italy, 30AU (based at the Marine Hotel, Littlehampton, West Sussex) became greatly trusted by naval intelligence. Having shown the scope of its achievements and its potential to deliver even more, with the right support and direction, the unit was greatly enlarged and given the job of acquiring specific items and documents. Fleming was the man who would issue these specific objectives.

Fleming visited 30AU in the field during and after Operation Overlord, especially following an attack on Cherbourg. He was concerned that the unit had been incorrectly used as a regular commando force, rather than as an intelligence-gathering unit. This wasted the men's specialist skills, risked their safety on operations that did not justify the use of such skilled operatives and threatened the vital gathering of intelligence. Following this, the management of these units was revised. The film "Age of Heroes" is based on the exploits of 30 Commando.

T-Force

Following the success of 30 Assault Unit, it was decided to establish a "Target Force", which became known as T-Force. Fleming sat on the committee that selected the targets for this unit, helping to create what were known as the "Black Books" which were issued to the officers of this unit. The infantry component of T-Force was in part made up of the 5th Battalion of the King's Regiment, which supported the British 2nd Army. It was responsible for securing targets of interest to the British military. These included nuclear laboratories, gas research centres and individual rocket scientists. The unit's most notable coup was during the advance on the German port of Kiel, where it captured the research centre for German engines used for the V-2 rocket, Messerschmitt Me 163 fighters and high speed U Boats.

Ian Fleming was to use elements of this activity in his 1955 James Bond novel Moonraker. The story of T-Force and Fleming's connection to its work remained unknown until it was revealed in Sean Longden's book T-Force, the Race for Nazi War Secrets, 1945, published in 2009.

Writing career

Fleming's intelligence work in the Naval Intelligence Division provided the background for his spy novels. In 1953, his first novel was published, Casino Royale, in which the British Intelligence agent James Bond, also famously known by his code number, 007, was introduced to the world. A number of real-life inspirations have been suggested for James Bond. See Inspirations for James Bond for a complete list. Amongst them are Sir William Stephenson and what Fleming had learned from him. Sir William Stephenson had set up Camp X, a Second World War paramilitary and commando training installation in Ontario, Canada, which Fleming may or may not have attended. Other possible influences upon Fleming's characterisation of James Bond are the naval officer Patrick Dalzel-Job and Fleming's brother Peter.

In Fleming's novel Casino Royale, James Bond appears with the beautiful heroine Vesper Lynd, who was modelled on SOE agent Krystyna Skarbek. Some ideas for his characters and the locations in which Bond operates came from his time at Boodle's. Bond's fictional spymaster, M, is a member of the Blades Club, at which Bond is an occasional guest. This club was partially modelled on Boodle's. The name of Bond's arch enemy, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, was based on a fellow member's name.

The name James Bond itself came from a famed ornithologist James Bond, the son of the Bond family who allowed Fleming the use of their estate in Jamaica to write (perhaps also by an Elizabethan Bond from Fleming's earlier years). The Bonds were wealthy manufacturers whose estate outside Philadelphia eventually became the grounds of Gwynedd Mercy College. Fleming reputedly used the name after seeing James Bond's 1936 book Birds of the West Indies.

Initially, Fleming's Bond novels were not best-sellers in North America. But when President John F. Kennedy included From Russia With Love on a list of his favourite books, sales quickly jumped.

In the late 1950s, the financial success of Fleming's James Bond series allowed him to retire to Goldeneye, his estate in Saint Mary Parish, Jamaica. The name of the house and estate where he wrote his novels has many possible sources. Ian Fleming himself cited Operation Goldeneye, a plan to hinder the Nazis should the Germans enter Spain during World War II. He also cited the 1941 novel, Reflections in a Golden Eye by Carson McCullers. The location of the property may also have been a factor: Oracabessa, from the Spanish for "golden head". There is also a Spanish tomb on the property with a carving that looks like an eye on one side. It is likely that most or all of these factors played a part in the name Fleming chose for his Jamaican home. In an interview published in Playboy magazine in December 1964, Fleming states, "I had happened to be reading Reflections in a Golden Eye by Carson McCullers, and I'd been involved in an operation called Goldeneye during the war: the defence of Gibraltar, supposing that the Spaniards had decided to attack it; and I was deeply involved in the planning of countermeasures which would have been taken in that event. Anyway, I called my place Goldeneye." The estate, which was a few miles away from that of Fleming's friend Noel Coward, is now the centrepiece of a resort of the same name.

The Spy Who Loved Me, published in 1962, departed stylistically from Fleming's previous novels in the Bond series as it was written in the first person, from the perspective of the (fictional) protagonist, Vivienne Michel, whom Fleming credits as co-author. It is the story of her life, up to the moment when James Bond rescues her.

Besides writing twelve novels and nine short stories featuring James Bond, Fleming also had a hand in creating another spy series, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and he wrote the children's novel Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Fleming also wrote a guide to some of the world's most exciting cities of the 1950s, Thrilling Cities (originally a round-the-world series for The Sunday Times newspaper, London), and a study of international crime, The Diamond Smugglers. Fleming wrote an account of events during the Istanbul Pogroms, which many Greek and some Turkish scholars attributed to secret orchestrations by Britain: "The Great Riot of Istanbul" was published in The Times on 11 September 1955.

In 1961, Fleming sold the film rights to his already-published as well as future James Bond novels and short stories to Harry Saltzman, who, with Albert R. "Cubby" Broccoli, co-produced the film version of Dr. No, which was released in 1962. For the cast, Fleming suggested friend and neighbour Noël Coward as the villain Dr. Julius No, and David Niven or, later, Roger Moore as James Bond. Both were rejected in favour of Sean Connery, who was both Broccoli and Saltzman's choice (Moore would later play the part of James Bond in the films made from 1973–85). Fleming at first disapproved of Connery taking the lead role. He had also previously suggested his cousin, Christopher Lee for the part, or as Dr No. Although Lee was selected for neither role, in 1974 he portrayed the assassin Francisco Scaramanga, the villain of The Man with the Golden Gun.

Dr No was followed by From Russia with Love (1963), with twice the budget of its predecessor. This second James Bond film was to be the last that Ian Fleming saw. Having visited the set, he had come to approve of the casting and even wrote a Scottish lineage for Bond into his later works, in deference to Connery's portrayal. A close inspection of a film sequence in From Russia with Love involving the Orient Express appears to show Fleming himself alongside the track, caught on camera during his visit to the shoot in Europe. The third Bond film, Goldfinger (1964), was in production at the time of the author's death and he had again visited the set at Pinewood Studios and worked with the producers.

Dr No was far more of a success than even Saltzman or Broccoli had expected. It was an instant worldwide sensation that sparked a spy craze in film and television that lasted through the 1960s and beyond. The film series continued, as planned, with ever-increasing budgets and profits, and continues to do so into the twenty-first century, with token references to Fleming and his writing.

Later life and death

Ian Fleming was a bibliophile and collected a library of books that had, in his opinion, "started something" and therefore were significant to the history of western civilisation. He concentrated on science and technology, had a copy of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species but also owned other significant works ranging from Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf to Scouting for Boys. He was a major lender to the 1963 exhibition Printing and the Mind of Man. Some six hundred books from Fleming's collection are held (2010) in the Lilly Library at Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana.

Fleming was a member of Boodle's, the gentleman's club in St. James's Street, London, England, from 1944 until his death. He married Anne Charteris, granddaughter of the 11th Earl of Wemyss and former second wife of the second Viscount Rothermere and widow of the third Baron O'Neill, in Jamaica in 1952. The ceremony was witnessed by his friend, the playwright Noel Coward. This made Fleming a brother in law of the Scottish novelist Hugo Charteris.

In March 1960, Fleming met John F. Kennedy through Marion Oates Leiter who was a mutual friend and who had invited both to dinner. Leiter had introduced Kennedy to Fleming's books during his recovery from an operation in 1955. After dinner, Fleming related his ideas on discrediting Fidel Castro; these were reported to Central Intelligence Agency chief Allen Welsh Dulles who gave them serious consideration.

Fleming was a heavy smoker and heavy drinker and suffered from heart disease. In 1961 he suffered a heart attack. Three years later, at 56, he had another heart attack and died in the early morning of 12 August 1964 – on his son Caspar's 12th birthday – in Canterbury, Kent, England. He was buried in the churchyard of Sevenhampton village, near Swindon. Fleming's son Caspar (1952–1975) committed suicide with a drug overdose and was buried with his father. Fleming's widow, Anne Geraldine Mary Fleming (1913–1981), was also buried with her husband after she died.

Legacy

After Fleming's death, his literary executors periodically hired other authors to continue the James Bond novels. These were Kingsley Amis (who wrote as "Robert Markham"), John Gardner, and Raymond Benson. In observance of what would have been Fleming's 100th birthday in 2008, Ian Fleming Publications commissioned Sebastian Faulks to write a new Bond novel entitled Devil May Care. This book, released in May 2008, is credited to "Sebastian Faulks, writing as Ian Fleming".

In May 2010, American thriller author Jeffery Deaver was chosen to write the next James Bond novel, entitled Carte Blanche, published in May 2011.

In 2011, Fleming became the world's first English-speaking writer to have an International Airport named in his honour. Ian Fleming International Airport, near Oracabessa, Jamaica was officially opened on 12 January 2011 by Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding and Fleming's niece, Lucy Fleming.

Works

James Bond books

{|class="wikitable sortable" |- !Nr !Name !Year !Order of film release !Note |- |1. ||Casino Royale || 1953 ||21 (or 5 if the Columbia Pictures spoof is considered, or 1 if the 1954 TV version is considered)|| (1) |- |2. ||Live and Let Die || 1954 || 08 || |- |3. ||Moonraker || 1955 || 11 || (2) |- |4. ||Diamonds Are Forever || 1956 || 07 || |- |5. ||From Russia, with Love || 1957 || 02 || |- |6. ||Dr. No || 1958 || 01 || |- |7. ||Goldfinger || 1959 || 03 || |- |8. ||For Your Eyes Only || 1960 || 12 , 14-A View to a Kill, 22-Quantum of Solace (Title Only) || (3,8) |- |9. ||Thunderball || 1961 || 04 || (4) |- |10. ||The Spy Who Loved Me || 1962 || 10 (Title Only) || (5) |- |11. ||On Her Majesty's Secret Service || 1963 || 06 || |- |12. ||You Only Live Twice || 1964 || 05 || |- |13. ||The Man with the Golden Gun || 1965 || 09 || (6) |- |14. ||Octopussy and The Living Daylights || 1966 ||13 & 15 || (7,8) |} ;Notes (1) First US paperback edition of Casino Royale was retitled You Asked for It. (2) First US paperback edition of Moonraker was retitled Too Hot to Handle. (3) Short story collection: (i) "From a View to a Kill," (ii) "For Your Eyes Only," (iii) "Risico," (iv) "Quantum of Solace", and (v) "The Hildebrand Rarity." (4) Subject of a legal battle which led to the book's storyline also being credited to Kevin McClory and Jack Whittingham; see the controversy over Thunderball (5) Fleming gives co-author credit to "Vivienne Michel", the fictional heroine of the book; Fleming refused to allow a paperback edition to be published in the UK, but one was eventually published after his death. His agreement with Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman only allowed the use of the title for a film. (6) For years, it has been alleged that William Plomer, and/or others, completed this novel as Fleming died before a finished manuscript was created. Many Fleming biographers dispute this; see the controversy over The Man With The Golden Gun. (7) Posthumously compiled short story collection. Originally published with two stories: (i) "Octopussy" and (ii) "The Living Daylights". The 1967 paperback edition's title was shortened to Octopussy and a third story, "The Property of a Lady", increased its page count. In the 1990s, the collection's longer, original title was restored, and with the 2002 edition, the story, "007 in New York" (originally published in some editions of Thrilling Cities (see below) was added. (8) In 2008, a collection entitled "Quantum of Solace" was released including the contents of "For Your Eyes Only" and "Octopussy and The Living Daylights" (all stories from the 2002 edition).

Children's story

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1964)

Non-fiction

The Diamond Smugglers (1957)

Thrilling Cities (1963; the American editions contain the short story "007 in New York")

Unfinished or unpublished works

Fleming kept a scrapbook containing notes and ideas for future James Bond stories. It included fragments of possible short stories or novels featuring Bond that were never published. Excerpts from some of these can be found in The Life of Ian Fleming by John Pearson.

The author Geoffrey Jenkins worked with Fleming on a James Bond story idea between 1957 and 1964. After Fleming's death, Jenkins was commissioned by Bond publishers Glidrose Productions to turn this story, Per Fine Ounce, into a novel, but it was never published.

In 1960, Fleming was commissioned by the Kuwait Oil Company to write a book on the country and its oil industry. The typescript is entitled State of Excitement: Impressions of Kuwait but it was never published due to disapproval by the Kuwaiti Government. According to Fleming: "The Oil Company expressed approval of the book but felt it their duty to submit the typescript to members of the Kuwait Government for their approval. The Sheikhs concerned found unpalatable certain mild comments and criticisms and particularly the passages referring to the adventurous past of the country which now wishes to be 'civilised' in every respect and forget its romantic origins."

Biographical films

Goldeneye: The Secret Life of Ian Fleming, 1989. A TV film starring Charles Dance as Fleming. The film focuses on Fleming's life during World War II, his love life and the writing of James Bond.

Spymaker: The Secret Life of Ian Fleming, 1990. A TV film starring Jason Connery (son of Sean) as the writer in a dramatisation of his career in British intelligence.

Ian Fleming: Bondmaker, 2005. A TV documentary/drama by Wall to Wall first broadcast on BBC in August 2005. Laurence Olivier Theatre Award-winning British actor Ben Daniels portrays Ian Fleming.

Ian Fleming: Where Bond Began, 2008. TV documentary about the life of Ian Fleming, broadcast 20 October 2008 by the BBC. Presented by former Bond girl, Joanna Lumley.

See also

Age of Heroes

James Bond

References

Bibliography

External links

Ian Fleming Official website of Ian Fleming & Ian Fleming Publications Limited.

Curtis Brown Literary Agency Official representatives for James Bond novels and future James Bond literary works.

Ian Fleming Centenary Celebrating the centenary of Fleming's birth.

007 MAGAZINE – From 1979–2005 a printed magazine, now an online publication featuring many articles and features relating to Ian Fleming and his works.

Penguin Group UK's Ian Fleming webpage

Ian Fleming bibliography of James Bond first editions

Ian Lancaster Fleming biography

30 Commando Assault Unit – Ian Fleming's 'Red Indians' – Literary James Bond's wartime unit

"James Bond's TLS": a collection of articles, reviews and commentaries – on and by Ian Fleming – in the Times Literary Supplement

Voice Recording of Ian Fleming interviewing Raymond Chandler for BBC Radio, July 1958

CBC Digital Archives – The man with the golden pen Ian Fleming interview

Ian Fleming at Camp-X – Fact or Fiction?

The Ian Fleming Collection of 19th–20th Century Source Material Concerning Western Civilization together with the Originals of the James Bond-007 Tales Lilly Library. Bloomington: Indiana, 1971

Ian Fleming collections at the Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington

Ian Fleming International Airport

Category:English spy fiction writers Category:English children's writers Category:English novelists Category:English short story writers Category:English thriller writers Category:Book and manuscript collectors Category:British spies Category:Anglo-Scots Category:English people of Scottish descent Category:World War II spies Category:Sandhurst graduates Category:Black Watch officers Category:Royal Navy officers Category:Old Etonians Category:Old Sunningdalians Category:People from Mayfair Category:Deaths from myocardial infarction Category:1908 births Category:1964 deaths Category:Bibliophiles Category:Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve personnel of World War II Category:People educated at Durnford School

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name	James Bond
author	Ian Fleming
country	United Kingdom
language	English
subject	Spy fiction
genre	Action/Suspense
publisher	Jonathan Cape
pub date	1953–present
followed by	}}

James Bond 007 is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. The fictional British Secret Service agent has also been used in the longest running and most financially successful English-language film franchise to date, starting in 1962 with Dr. No.

After Fleming's death in 1964, subsequent James Bond novels were written by Kingsley Amis, John Gardner, Raymond Benson, Sebastian Faulks and Jeffery Deaver. Moreover, Christopher Wood novelised two screenplays, Charlie Higson wrote a series on a young James Bond, John Pearson wrote an authorised biography, while other writers have authored unofficial versions of the character.

There have been 22 films in the Eon Productions series to date, the most recent of which, Quantum of Solace, was released on 31 October 2008 (UK). In addition there has been an American television adaptation and two independent feature productions. Apart from films and television, James Bond has also been adapted for many other media, including radio plays, comic strips and video games.

The Eon Productions films are generally termed as "official", by fans of the series, originating with the purchase of the James Bond film rights by producer Harry Saltzman in the early 1960s.

Creation and inspiration

Commander James Bond, (CMG, RNVR) is an intelligence officer of the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS; commonly known as MI6). He was created in January 1952 by British journalist Ian Fleming while on holiday at his Jamaican estate, Goldeneye. The hero was named after the American ornithologist James Bond, a Caribbean bird expert and author of the definitive field guide book Birds of the West Indies. Fleming, a keen birdwatcher, had a copy of Bond's field guide at Goldeneye. Of the name, Fleming once said in a Reader's Digest interview, "I wanted the simplest, dullest, plainest-sounding name I could find, 'James Bond' was much better than something more interesting, like 'Peregrine Carruthers.' Exotic things would happen to and around him, but he would be a neutral figure — an anonymous, blunt instrument wielded by a government department."

Nevertheless, news sources speculated about real spies or other covert agents after whom James Bond might have been modelled or named, such as Sidney Reilly or William Stephenson, best-known by his wartime intelligence codename of Intrepid. Although they are similar to Bond, Fleming confirmed none as the source figure, nor did Ian Fleming Publications nor any of Fleming's biographers, such as John Pearson or Andrew Lycett. Historian Keith Jeffery speculates in his authorised history of MI6, that Bond may be modelled on Fleming's close friend, Bill "Biffy" Dunderdale, a MI6 agent whose sophisticated persona and penchant for pretty women and fast cars closely matches that of Bond.

James Bond's parents are Andrew Bond, from village of Glencoe (Argyll, Scotland), and Monique Delacroix, from Yverdon (Vaud, Switzerland). Their nationalities were established in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Fleming emphasised Bond's Scottish heritage in admiration of Sean Connery's cinematic portrayal, whereas Bond's mother is named after a Swiss fiancée of Fleming's. A planned, but unwritten, novel would have portrayed Bond's mother as a Scot. Ian Fleming was a member of a prominent Scottish banking family. Although John Pearson's fictional biography of Bond gives him a birth date on 11 November (Armistice Day) 1920, the books themselves are inconsistent on the matter. In Casino Royale, he is said to have bought a car in 1933 and to have been an experienced gambler before World War II. Two books later, in Moonraker, he is said to be in his mid-thirties; the setting of this book can be no earlier than 1954 as it refers to the South Goodwin Lightship, which was lost in that year. There is a further reference to Bond's age in You Only Live Twice, when Tanaka tells him he was born in the Year of the Rat (1924/25 or 1912/13). The books were written over a 12-year period during which Bond's age, when mentioned, thus varies, but is usually around 40. In the novel On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Bond's family motto is found to be Orbis non sufficit ("The world is not enough"). The novel also states that the family that used this motto may not necessarily be the same Bond family from which James Bond came.

After completing the manuscript for Casino Royale, Fleming allowed his friend (and later editor) William Plomer to read it. Plomer liked it and submitted it to Jonathan Cape, who did not like it as much. Cape finally published it in 1953 on the recommendation of Fleming's older brother Peter, an established travel writer.

Most researchers agree that James Bond is a romanticised version of Ian Fleming, himself a jet-setting womaniser. Both Fleming and Bond attended the same schools, preferred the same foods (scrambled eggs and coffee), maintained the same habits (drinking, smoking, wearing short-sleeve shirts), shared the same notions of the perfect woman in looks and style, and had similar naval career paths (both rising to the rank of naval Commander). They also shared similar height, hairstyle, and eye colour. Some suggest that Bond's suave and sophisticated persona is based on that of a young Hoagy Carmichael. In Casino Royale, Vesper Lynd remarks, "Bond reminds me rather of Hoagy Carmichael, but there is something cold and ruthless." Likewise, in Moonraker, Special Branch Officer Gala Brand thinks that Bond is "certainly good-looking . . . Rather like Hoagy Carmichael in a way. That black hair falling down over the right eyebrow. Much the same bones. But there was something a bit cruel in the mouth, and the eyes were cold."

Fleming did admit to being partly inspired by a story recounted to him which took place during his service in the Naval Intelligence Division of the Admiralty. The incident is depicted in Casino Royale, when Ralph Izzard finds himself involved in a card game, playing poker against covert Nazi intelligence agents at a casino in Pernambuco, Brazil.

Novels and related works

Ian Fleming novels

In February 1952, Ian Fleming began writing his first James Bond novel. At the time, Fleming was the foreign manager for Kemsley Newspapers, owners of The Daily Express in London. Upon accepting the job, Fleming asked for two months' yearly vacation in his contract—time spent writing in Jamaica. Between 1953 and his death in 1964, Fleming published twelve novels and one short-story collection (a second collection was published posthumously).

Fleming had long planned to become an author and whilst serving in the Naval Intelligence Division during World War II he had told a friend, "I am going to write the spy story to end all spy stories." Fleming used his experiences of his espionage career and all other aspects of his life as inspiration when writing.

Casino Royale (novel)>Casino Royale

Live and Let Die (novel)>Live and Let Die

Moonraker (novel)>Moonraker

Diamonds Are Forever (novel)>Diamonds Are Forever

From Russia, with Love (novel)>From Russia, with Love

Dr. No (novel)>Dr. No

Goldfinger (novel)>Goldfinger

For Your Eyes Only (short story collection)>For Your Eyes Only – short stories

Thunderball (novel)>Thunderball

The Spy Who Loved Me (novel)>The Spy Who Loved Me

On Her Majesty's Secret Service (novel)>On Her Majesty's Secret Service

You Only Live Twice (novel)>You Only Live Twice

The Man with the Golden Gun (novel)>The Man with the Golden Gun

*1966 Octopussy and The Living Daylights – short stories

Post-Fleming novels

After Fleming's death a continuation novel, Colonel Sun, was written by Kingsley Amis (as Robert Markham) and published in 1968. Although a novelisations of two of the films appeared in print - James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me and James Bond and Moonraker, both written by screenwriter Christopher Wood - the series of novels did not continue until the 1980s.

In 1981 John Gardner, picked up the series with Licence Renewed, publishing 16 books in total. Gardner moved the series into the 1980s, although retained the ages of the characters as they were when Fleming had left them. In 1996, Gardner retired from writing James Bond books due to ill health and he was replaced by Raymond Benson, who was the first American author of James Bond. Benson wrote six James Bond novels, three novelisations, and three short stories.

In July 2007, it was announced that Sebastian Faulks had been commissioned to write a new Bond novel to commemorate Fleming's 100th Birthday. The book — titled Devil May Care – was published on 27 May 2008. Ian Fleming Publications Ltd. the commissioned best-selling thriller writer Jeffery Deaver who wrote Carte Blanche, which was published on May 26, 2011.

Young Bond

The Young Bond series of novels was begun in 2005, by Charlie Higson. Between 2005 and 2008 5 books were published, with the first Young Bond novel, SilverFin being released as a graphic novel on October 2, 2008 by Puffin Books.

Adaptations

Films

The Eon films

In the late 1950s, Eon Productions guaranteed the film adaptation rights for every 007 novel except for Casino Royale (those rights were recovered in 1999). In 1962, the first adaptation Dr. No was made, which featured Sean Connery as 007. Connery starred in six more films after his initial portrayal (including 1983's Never Say Never Again, which was not part of the Eon series). George Lazenby replaced Connery (for one film) before the latter's last Eon film Diamonds Are Forever, after which the part was played by Roger Moore (for seven films), Timothy Dalton (for two films), Pierce Brosnan (for four films) and Daniel Craig (two films to 2008). As of 2008, there have been 22 films in the Eon series. The 21st film, Casino Royale, with Daniel Craig as James Bond, premiered on 14 November 2006, with the film going on general release in Asia and the Middle East the following day. Notably, it is the first Bond film to have been released in China. The second James Bond film to feature Craig is Quantum of Solace, which gets its title from a short story of the same name by Ian Fleming (For Your Eyes Only, 1960), but shares no similarities with the plot.

In April 2010, Eon Productions suspended development of Bond 23 indefinitely due to MGM's crippling debt and uncertain future. Prior to this suspension, Craig was expected to return to the franchise for a third time. On 11 January 2011, MGM sent out a press releasing announcing the 23rd Bond film, starring Daniel Craig, will be released on 9 November 2012. The press release reveals that "Sam Mendes [is] directing [the] screenplay written by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and John Logan."

The film series has grossed over $4 billion (£2 billion) (nearly $11 billion when adjusted for inflation) worldwide, making it the highest grossing film series ever. The 22nd and newest movie in the series, Quantum of Solace, was released in the UK on 31 October 2008. As of 9 November 2008, global box office totals for Quantum of Solace were almost $161 million (£103 million), placing the Bond series ahead of the Harry Potter film series even when not adjusting for inflation.

Franchise Count	Title	!Year	Actor	Director	!Total Box Office *	!Budget *	!Inflation Adjusted Total Box Office *†
		1962		rowspan="2" style="text-align:center;"
		1963
		1964
		1965	style="text-align:center;"
			1967
		1969
		1971
		1973
		1974
		1977
		1979
		1981	rowspan="5" style="text-align:center;"
	Octopussy	1983
		A View to a Kill	1985
	The Living Daylights	1987
	Licence to Kill	1989
	GoldenEye	1995
	Tomorrow Never Dies	1997
	The World Is Not Enough	1999
	Die Another Day	2002
		2006
	Quantum of Solace	2008
	Bond 23	2012
Totals	Films 1–22

* All figures are in US Dollars † Figures are inflated to 2008 dollars as of 24 March 2008 figures based on the Consumer Price Index.

Non-Eon films

In 1967, Casino Royale was adapted into a spoof Bond film starring David Niven as Sir James Bond 007 and Ursula Andress as Vesper Lynd. David Niven, had, in fact, been Ian Fleming's preference for the part of James Bond. Eon Productions, however, chose Sean Connery. David Niven is the only James Bond actor who is mentioned by name in the text of two of Fleming's James Bond novels. In On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Bond visits an exclusive ski resort and is told that David Niven is a frequent visitor and in You Only Live Twice Kissy Suzuki mentions him as the only man who had been kind to her in her brief foray to Hollywood. Ursula Andress is also mentioned in the text of On Her Majesty's Secret Service as being present at the ski resort.

A legal loophole allowed Kevin McClory to release a remake of Thunderball titled Never Say Never Again in 1983. The film, featuring Sean Connery as Bond, is not part of the Eon James Bond series of films because it is not part of the Bond film franchise from Eon Productions and United Artists, although it is currently owned by United Artists parent MGM. Its original theatrical release in October 1983 actually created a situation in which two Bond movies were playing in cinemas at the same time, as the Eon Bond film, Octopussy was still playing in cinemas. Since then, MGM has bought the name "James Bond", preventing a repeat of this episode.

Title	Year	Actor	Director	!Total Box Office *	!Budget *	!Inflation Adjusted Total Box Office *†
	1967	David Niven
Never Say Never Again	1983	Sean Connery	Irvin Kershner
Totals

* All figures are in US Dollars † Figures are inflated to 2008 dollars as of 24 March 2008 figures based on the Consumer Price Index.

Television programmes

In 1954, CBS paid Ian Fleming for the rights to adapt Casino Royale into a one hour television adventure as part of their Climax! series. However, Barry Nelson played a CIA agent named Jimmy Bond, Clarence Leiter was a British agent played by Michael Pate and Peter Lorre was Le Chiffre.

According to Andrew Pixley's notes to Danger Man Original soundtrack, Ian Fleming collaborated with Ralph Smart to bring James Bond to television, but dropped out taking his creation with him. Ralph Smart went on to develop Danger Man with Patrick McGoohan who would later turn down the opportunity to play James Bond.

The 1973 BBC documentary Omnibus: The British Hero featured Christopher Cazenove playing a number of such title characters (e.g. Richard Hannay and Bulldog Drummond), including James Bond in dramatised scenes from Goldfinger – notably featuring the hero being threatened with the novel's circular saw, rather than the film's laser beam — and Diamonds Are Forever.

A TV cartoon series James Bond Jr. was produced in 1991 with Corey Burton in the role of the young James Bond.

Radio programmes

In 1956, Bob Holness starred in a South African radio adaptation of Moonraker, making him the second actor to portray James Bond.

In 1990, a radio adaptation of You Only Live Twice was produced starring Michael Jayston.

Radio adaptations featuring Toby Stephens have been produced, with Dr. No in 2008 and Goldfinger in 2010.

Actors

Cultural impact

James Bond has long been a household name and remains a huge influence within the genre. The Austin Powers series by writer, producer and comedian Mike Myers, and other parodies such as Johnny English (2003), Bons baisers de Hong Kong, OK Connery, the "Flint" series starring James Coburn as Derek Flint, the "Matt Helm" movies starring Dean Martin, and Casino Royale (1967) are testaments to Bond's prominence in popular culture.

The Bond series also received many homages and parodies in popular media. The 1960s TV imitations of James Bond such as I Spy, Get Smart, Charles Vine, Matt Helm and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. went on to become popular successes in their own right, the last having enjoyed contributions by Fleming towards its creation: the show's lead character, "Napoleon Solo", was named after a character in Fleming's novel Goldfinger; Fleming also suggested the character name April Dancer, which was later used in the spin-off series The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. A reunion television movie, The Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1983), is notable for featuring a cameo by George Lazenby as James Bond in tribute to Fleming (for legal reasons, the character was credited as "JB").

George Lucas has said on various occasions that Sean Connery's portrayal of Bond was one of the primary inspirations for the Indiana Jones character, a reason Connery was chosen for the role of Indiana's father in the third film of that series.

His association with Aston Martin sports cars has helped further boost the brand's already strong image and popularity since Bond (then played by Sean Connery) first drove an Aston Martin in Goldfinger in 1964. A poll by Lloyds TSB in September 2010 revealed that Aston Martin was the most desired brand of "dream" car in Britain.

Music

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The "James Bond Theme" was written by Monty Norman and was first orchestrated by the John Barry Orchestra for 1962's Dr. No, although the actual authorship of the music has been a matter of controversy for many years. In 2001, Norman won £30,000 in libel damages from the British paper The Sunday Times, which suggested that Barry was entirely responsible for the composition.

Barry did go on to compose the scores for eleven Bond films in addition to his uncredited contribution to Dr. No, and is credited with the creation of "007", used as an alternate Bond theme in several films, as well as the popular orchestrated theme "On Her Majesty's Secret Service." Both the "James Bond Theme" and "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" have been remixed a number of times by popular artists, including Art of Noise, Moby, Paul Oakenfold, and the Propellerheads. The Beatles used a portion of the "Bond theme" in the introduction of their song "Help" as released on the American version of the "Help" LP. The British/Australian string quartet also named bond (purposely in lower case) recorded their own version of the theme, entitled "Bond on Bond."

Barry's legacy was followed by David Arnold, in addition to other well-known composers such as Chris Minear and Corbin Ott and record producers such as George Martin, Bill Conti, Michael Kamen, Marvin Hamlisch and Éric Serra. Arnold is the series' current composer of choice and composed the score for the 22nd Bond film, Quantum of Solace.

A Bond film staple are the theme songs heard during their title sequences sung by well-known popular singers (which have included Tina Turner, Paul McCartney and Wings, Sheryl Crow and Tom Jones, among many others). Shirley Bassey performed three themes in total. After Doctor No, On Her Majesty's Secret Service is the only Bond film with a solely instrumental theme, though Louis Armstrong's ballad "We Have All the Time in the World", which serves as Bond and his wife Tracy's love song and whose title is Bond's last line in the film, is considered the unofficial theme. Likewise, although the credit sequence to From Russia with Love features an instrumental version of the film's theme, another version, with lyrics sung by Matt Monro, can be partially heard within the film itself, and is featured on the film's soundtrack album.

The themes usually share their names with their film. "Nobody Does It Better", the theme for The Spy Who Loved Me, was the first Bond theme not to share its title with that of the movie, although the words "the spy who loved me" do appear in the lyrics. The song is featured in both credit sequences of the film, and in orchestral form throughout. "Nobody Does It Better" was nominated for an Academy Award for "Best Original Song" of 1977, but lost to the theme song to You Light Up My Life. Hamlisch's score for the film was also nominated for an Oscar, but lost to John Williams' score for Star Wars.

The only other Bond themes to be nominated for an Academy Award for best song are "Live and Let Die", written by Paul and Linda McCartney and performed by their band Wings, and "For Your Eyes Only", written by Bill Conti and Michael Leeson and performed by Sheena Easton, though a few of John Barry's scores have been nominated.

The only Bond theme to reach number one on the pop charts in the U.S. was Duran Duran's "A View to a Kill".

The only singer, to date, to appear within a title sequence is Sheena Easton during For Your Eyes Only. The only singer of a title song to appear as a character within the film itself, to date, is Madonna, who appeared (uncredited) as fencing instructor Verity, as well as contributing the theme for Die Another Day. The title sequence in Die Another Day is notable, however, for being the only one in which the visuals actually serve to further the plot of the film itself, as opposed to being merely a montage or collage of abstract images related to the film or to the larger James Bond mythos.

The theme song from Quantum of Solace is Alicia Keys and Jack White's "Another Way to Die", which is the first James Bond theme song to be a duet. It is also the fourth theme song not to reference the name of the movie in its lyrics.

In 1998, Barry's music from You Only Live Twice was adapted into the hit song "Millennium" by producer and composer Guy Chambers for British recording artist Robbie Williams. The music video features Williams parodying James Bond, and references other Bond films such as Thunderball and From Russia with Love. It should also be noted that the video was filmed at Pinewood Studios, where most of the Bond films have been made.

In 2004 the Cavaliers Drum and Bugle Corps won the Drum Corps International World Championship with "007," using the music of James Bond as composed by David Arnold. The Cavaliers performed selections from GoldenEye, Die Another Day ("Hovercraft Theme" and "Welcome to Cuba"), and Tomorrow Never Dies.

Burt Bacharach's score for 1967's Casino Royale included "The Look Of Love", nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song, has become a standard for its era, with the biggest-selling version recorded by Sérgio Mendes and Brasil '66 (#4 on the Billboard pop charts in 1968). It was heard again in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, which was to a degree inspired by Casino Royale.

Video games

In 1983, the first Bond video game, developed and published by Parker Brothers, was released for the Atari 2600, the Atari 5200, the Atari 800, the Commodore 64, and the ColecoVision. Since then, there have been numerous video games either based on the films or using original storylines.

Bond video games, however, did not reach their popular stride until 1997's revolutionary GoldenEye 007 by Rare for the Nintendo 64. Subsequently, virtually every Bond video game has attempted to copy the accomplishments and features of GoldenEye 007 to varying degrees of success; even going so far as to have a game entitled GoldenEye: Rogue Agent that had little to do with either the video game GoldenEye 007 or the film of the same name. Bond himself plays only a minor role in which he is "killed" in the beginning during a 'virtual reality' mission, which served as the first level of the game.

Since acquiring the licence in 1999, Electronic Arts has released eight games, five of which have original stories, including the popular Everything or Nothing, which broke away from the first-person shooter trend that started with GoldenEye 007 (including the games "Agent Under Fire" and "Nightfire") and instead featured a third-person perspective. It also featured well known actors including Willem Dafoe, Judi Dench, John Cleese and Pierce Brosnan as James Bond, although several previous games have used Brosnan's likeness as Bond. In 2005, Electronic Arts released a video game adaptation of From Russia with Love, another game in the same vein as Everything or Nothing. This was the second game based on a Connery Bond film (the first was a 1980s text adventure adaptation of Goldfinger) and the first to allow the player to play as Bond with the likeness of Sean Connery. Connery himself recorded new voice-overs for the game, the first time the actor had played Bond in twenty-two years.

In 2006, Activision secured the licence to make Bond-related games, briefly sharing but effectively taking over the licence from EA. The deal became exclusive to Activision in September 2007. Activision studio Treyarch has released the new James Bond game "Quantum of Solace" a movie tie in of "Casino Royale" and "Quantum of Solace" it (not unlike "Goldeneye 007") is a first person shooter and it does include a new 'dashing to cover' and 'cover fire' third person game play.

In relation to the twenty-first film in the series Sony Ericsson released a Casino Royale edition of their K800i mobile phone. In this edition, a Java ME game loosely based on the movie was included. Vodafone has also published a game for the same platform called 007: Hoverchase and developed by IOMO.

Activision released a reimagining of the N64 GoldenEye 007, which was released for the Wii and DS in 2010. A number of changes are present in the game, most notable being Daniel Craig playing Bond, rather than Pierce Brosnan, who was Bond in the original game, and the film.

Comic strips and comic books

In 1957 the Daily Express, a newspaper owned by Lord Beaverbrook, approached Ian Fleming to adapt his stories into comic strips. After initial reluctance by Fleming who felt the strips would lack the quality of his writing, agreed and the first strip Casino Royale was published in 1958. Since then many illustrated adventures of James Bond have been published, including every Ian Fleming novel as well as Kingsley Amis's Colonel Sun, and most of Fleming's short stories. Later, the comic strip produced original stories, continuing until 1983.

Titan Books is presently reprinting these comic strips in an ongoing series of graphic novel-style collections; by the end of 2005 it had completed reprinting all Fleming-based adaptations as well as Colonel Sun and had moved on to reprinting original stories.

Several comic book adaptations of the James Bond films have been published through the years, as well as numerous original stories.

Most recently, a thinly veiled version of Bond (called only "Jimmy" to avoid copyright issues) appeared in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier. In this story, Bond is the villain; he chases the heroic duo of Mina Murray and Allan Quatermain across London, aided by disguised versions of Bulldog Drummond ("Hugo Drummond") and Emma Peel ("Miss Night"). Jimmy is portrayed as an unpleasant incompetent servant of the US who only pretends to work with Britain.

Characters

The James Bond series of novels and films have a plethora of allies and villains. Bond's superiors and other officers of the British Secret Service are known by letters, such as M and Q. In the novels, Bond has employed two secretaries, Loelia Ponsonby and Mary Goodnight, who in the films typically have their roles and lines transferred to M's secretary, Miss Moneypenny. Occasionally Bond is assigned to work a case with his good friend, CIA agent Felix Leiter.

Throughout both the novels and the films there have only been a handful of recurring characters. Some of the more memorable ones include Bill Tanner, Rene Mathis, Jack Wade, Jaws and recently Charles Robinson. J.W. Pepper is also a recurring character.

Vehicles and gadgets

Exotic espionage equipment and vehicles are very popular elements of James Bond's literary and cinematic missions. These items often prove critically important to Bond in successfully completing his missions.

Fleming's novels and early screen adaptations presented minimal equipment such as the booby-trapped attaché case in From Russia with Love. In Dr. No, Bond's sole gadgets were a Geiger counter and a wristwatch with a luminous (and radioactive) face. The gadgets, however, assumed a higher profile in the 1964 film Goldfinger. The film's success encouraged further espionage equipment from Q Branch to be supplied to Bond. In the opinion of critics, some Bond films have included too many gadgets and vehicles, such as 1979's science fiction-oriented Moonraker and 2002's Die Another Day.

James Bond's cars have included the Aston Martin DB5, V8 Vantage (80s), V12 Vanquish and DBS (00s); the Lotus Esprit; the BMW Z3, BMW 750iL and the BMW Z8. Bond's most famous car is the silver grey Aston Martin DB5, first seen in Goldfinger; it later features in Thunderball, GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, and Casino Royale. The films have used a number of different Aston Martin DB5s for filming and publicity, one of which was sold in January 2006 at an auction in Arizona for $2,090,000 to an unnamed European collector. That specific car was originally sold for £5,000 in 1970.

In Fleming's books, Bond had a penchant for "battleship grey" Bentleys, while Gardner awarded the agent a modified Saab 900 Turbo (nicknamed the Silver Beast) and later a Bentley Mulsanne Turbo.

In the James Bond film adaptations, Bond has been associated with several well-known watches, usually outfitted with high-tech features not found on production models. The Rolex Submariner, one of the few recurring models, was worn by Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, and Timothy Dalton's versions of James Bond. Roger Moore also sported a number of digital watches by Pulsar and Seiko. Pierce Brosnan's and Daniel Craig's James Bonds were both devotees of the Omega Seamaster. The selection of James Bond's watch has been a matter of both style and finance, as product placement agreements with the watch manufacturers have frequently been arranged.

Bond's weapon of choice in the beginning of Dr. No is an Italian-made Beretta 418 .25 calibre, later replaced by the German-made Walther PPK, chambered in 7.65 mm (a peculiar choice, as Valentin Zukovsky remarks in GoldenEye: the PPK as found in the U.S. and Western Europe is most commonly chambered in .380 ACP). The PPK was used in every subsequent film and became his signature weapon until the ending of Tomorrow Never Dies, when Bond upgraded to the Walther P99. He has subsequently used the P99 pistol in Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough, Die Another Day, and Casino Royale. Strangely, Bond resumed use of the PPK in Quantum of Solace, the direct sequel of Casino Royale.

See also

Shaken, not stirred

Sir Fitzroy MacLean, 1st Baronet

The Battle for Bond

9007 James Bond Asteroid named after the character

References

External links

; Official sites:

James Bond Official Website

Ian Fleming Publications Official Website

Young Bond Official Website

Pinewood Studios – home of Bond

Pinewood Studios Albert R. Broccoli 007 Stage Official Website

Ian Fleming's 'Red Indians' – 30AU – Literary James Bond's Wartime unit

;Unofficial sites:

007James – The Site's Bond, James Bond

MI6 – The Home of James Bond

Licensed to Kill – The fan compendium

Category:Characters in British novels of the 20th century Category:Fictional Scottish people Category:Fictional secret agents and spies Category:Media franchises Category:Fictional characters introduced in 1953

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Name	Raymond Chandler
Birth date	July 23, 1888
Birth place	Chicago, Illinois, United States
Death date	March 26, 1959
Death place	La Jolla, California, United States
Occupation	Novelist
Nationality	American (1888–1907, 1956–59)British (1907–56)
Period	1933–59
Genre	crime fiction, suspense, hardboiled
Influences	Dashiell Hammett
Influenced	Ross Macdonald, Mark Knopfler, Robert B. Parker, Paul D. Marks, Michael Connelly, Robert Crais, Kelli Stanley, John Shannon, Haruki Murakami, Paul Auster
Website	}}

Raymond Thornton Chandler (July 23, 1888 – March 26, 1959) was an American novelist and screenwriter.

In 1932, at age forty-five, Raymond Chandler decided to become a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Depression. His first short story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in 1933 in Black Mask, a popular pulp magazine. His first novel, The Big Sleep, was published in 1939. In addition to his short stories, Chandler published just seven novels during his lifetime. In the year before he died, he was elected president of the Mystery Writers of America. He died on March 26, 1959, in La Jolla, California.

Chandler had an immense stylistic influence on American hard-boiled detective fiction, and is considered by many to be a founder, along with Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain and other Black Mask writers, of the hard-boiled school of detective fiction, especially in the style of the writing and the attitudes characteristic of the genre. His protagonist, Philip Marlowe, along with Hammett's Sam Spade, is considered by some to be synonymous with "private detective," both having been played on screen by Humphrey Bogart, whom many considered to be the quintessential Marlowe.

Some of Chandler's novels are considered to be important literary works, and three are often considered by to be masterpieces: Farewell, My Lovely (1940), The Little Sister (1949), and The Long Goodbye (1953). The Long Goodbye is praised within an anthology of American crime stories as "arguably the first book since Hammett's The Glass Key, published more than twenty years earlier, to qualify as a serious and significant mainstream novel that just happened to possess elements of mystery".

Early life

Chandler was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1888, but spent his early years in Plattsmouth, Nebraska, living with his mother and father near his cousins, aunt (mother's sister) and uncle. After Chandler's family were abandoned by his father, an alcoholic civil engineer who worked for the railway, and to obtain the best possible education for Ray, his mother moved them to London, England in 1900. Another uncle, a successful Quaker lawyer in Waterford, supported them, while they lived with his maternal grandmother. Chandler was classically educated at Dulwich College, London (a public school whose alumni also include the authors P.G. Wodehouse and C. S. Forester). He spent some of his childhood summers in Waterford with his maternal family. He did not attend university, instead spending time in Paris and Munich improving his foreign language skills. In 1907, he was naturalised as a British subject in order to take the civil service examination, which he passed, and then took an Admiralty job, lasting just over a year. His first poem was published during that time. Chandler regained his US citizenship in 1956 ).

Chandler disliked the servility of the civil service and resigned, to the consternation of his family, and became a reporter for the Daily Express and the Bristol Western Gazette newspapers. He was an unsuccessful journalist, published reviews and continued writing romantic poetry. Accounting for that time he said, "Of course in those days as now there were … clever young men who made a decent living as freelances for the numerous literary weeklies" but "I was distinctly not a clever young man. Nor was I at all a happy young man."

In 1912, he borrowed money from his Waterford uncle, who expected it to be repaid with interest, and returned to America, visiting his aunt and uncle before settling in San Francisco for a time, where he took a correspondence bookkeeping course, finishing ahead of schedule, and where his mother joined him in late 1912. Eventually they moved to Los Angeles in 1913. Along the way he strung tennis rackets, picked fruit and endured a time of scrimping and saving. Once in Los Angeles he found steady employment with The Los Angeles Creamery, both in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. In 1917, when the US entered World War I, he enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, saw combat in the trenches in France with the Gordon Highlanders, and was undergoing flight training in the fledgling Royal Air Force (RAF) when the war ended.

After the armistice, he returned to Los Angeles by way of Canada, and soon began a love affair with Cissy Pascal, a married woman 18 years his senior, and the step-mother of Gordon Pascal, with whom Chandler had enlisted. Cissy amicably divorced her husband Julian in 1920, but Chandler's mother disapproved of the relationship and refused to sanction the marriage. For four years Chandler supported both his mother and Cissy. When Florence Chandler died on September 26, 1923, Raymond was free to marry Cissy, and did so on February 6, 1924. By 1931, he had become a highly paid vice-president of the Dabney Oil Syndicate, but a year later, his alcoholism, absenteeism, promiscuity with female employees and threatened suicides contributed to his being fired.

His life as a writer

Due to his meager financial circumstances during the Depression, Chandler turned to his latent writing talent to earn a living, teaching himself to write pulp fiction by deconstructing the Perry Mason story formula of Earle Stanley Gardner. Chandler's first professional work, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in Black Mask magazine in 1933; his first novel, The Big Sleep, was published in 1939, featuring his famous Phillip Marlowe detective character speaking in the first person.

In 1950, Chandler described in a letter to his English publisher, Hamish Hamilton, why he began reading pulp magazines and later wrote for them:

:"Wandering up and down the Pacific Coast in an automobile I began to read pulp magazines, because they were cheap enough to throw away and because I never had at any time any taste for the kind of thing which is known as women's magazines. This was in the great days of the Black Mask (if I may call them great days) and it struck me that some of the writing was pretty forceful and honest, even though it had its crude aspect. I decided that this might be a good way to try to learn to write fiction and get paid a small amount of money at the same time. I spent five months over an 18,000 word novelette and sold it for $180. After that I never looked back, although I had a good many uneasy periods looking forward."

His second Marlowe novel, Farewell, My Lovely (1940), became the basis for three movie versions adapted by other screenwriters, including 1944's Murder My Sweet (which marked the screen debut of the Marlowe character), starring by Dick Powell (whose depiction of Marlowe Chandler reportedly applauded). Literary success and film adaptations led to a demand for Chandler himself as a screenwriter. He and Billy Wilder co-wrote Double Indemnity (1944), based on James M. Cain's novel of the same name. The noir screenplay was nominated for an Academy Award.

Chandler's only original screenplay was The Blue Dahlia (1946). Chandler had not written a denouement for the script, and according to producer John Houseman, Chandler agreed to complete the script only if drunk, which Houseman agreed to. The script gained Chandler's second Academy Award nomination for screenplay.

Chandler collaborated on the screenplay of Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train (1951), an ironic fantasy murder story based on Patricia Highsmith's novel, which he thought implausible. Chandler clashed with Hitchcock to such an extent that they stopped talking, especially after Hitchcock heard that Chandler had referred to him as "that fat bastard". Hitchcock reportedly made a show of throwing Chandler's two draft screenplays into the studio trash can while holding his nose; however, Chandler's name retains the lead screenwriting credit along with Czenzi Ormonde.

In 1946 the Chandlers moved to La Jolla, California, an affluent coastal neighborhood of San Diego, where Chandler wrote the final two Phillip Marlowe novels, The Long Goodbye and his last completed work, Playback, derived from an unproduced courtroom drama screenplay he had written for Universal Studios.

Four chapters of a novel, unfinished at his death, were transformed into a final "Chandler" Phillip Marlowe book, Poodle Springs, by mystery writer and Chandler admirer Robert B. Parker, author of the "Spenser" series, in 1989. Parker shares the authorship with Chandler, and subsequently wrote his own Marlowe sequel to The Big Sleep entitled Perchance to Dream, which was salted with quotes from the original novel.

Chandler's final Marlowe short story, circa 1957, was entitled "The Pencil". It later provided the basis of an episode for an HBO mini-series (1983–86) entitled Phillip Marlowe, Private Detective starring Powers Boothe as Marlowe.

Later life and death

In 1954 Pearl Eugenie (Cissy) Chandler died after a long illness. Heartbroken and drunk, Chandler neglected to inter Cissy's cremated remains, and they sat for 57 years in a storage locker in the basement of Cypress View Mausoleum.

After Cissy's death, Chandler's loneliness worsened his natural propensity for clinical depression; he returned to drink, never quitting it for long, and the quality and quantity of his writing suffered. In 1955, he attempted suicide; literary scholars documented that suicide attempt. In The Long Embrace: Raymond Chandler and the Woman He Loved, Judith Freeman says it was "a cry for help", given that he called the police beforehand, saying he planned to kill himself. Chandler's personal and professional life were both helped and complicated by the women to whom he was attracted — notably Helga Greene (his literary agent); Jean Fracasse (his secretary); Sonia Orwell (George Orwell's widow); and Natasha Spender (Stephen Spender's wife), the latter two of whom assumed Chandler to be a repressed homosexual.

After a respite in England, he returned to La Jolla. He died at Scripps Memorial Hospital of pneumonial peripheral vascular shock and prerenal uremia (according to the death certificate) in 1959. Helga Greene inherited Chandler's $60,000 estate, after prevailing in a 1960 lawsuit filed by Fracasse contesting Chandler's holographic codicil to his will.

Raymond Chandler is buried at Mount Hope Cemetery, San Diego, California. As Frank MacShane noted in his biography, The Life of Raymond Chandler, Chandler wished to be cremated and placed next to Cissy in Cypress View Mausoleum. Instead, he was buried in Mount Hope Cemetery because he had left no funeral or burial instructions.

In 2010, Chandler historian Loren Latker, with the assistance of attorney Aissa Wayne (daughter of John Wayne), brought a petition to disinter Cissy's remains and reinter them with Chandler in Mount Hope. After a hearing September 2010 in San Diego Superior Court, Judge Richard S. Whitney entered an order granting Latker's request.

On Valentine's Day (February 14) 2011, Cissy's ashes were conveyed from Cypress View to Mount Hope, and interred under a new grave marker above Chandler's, as they had wished. About one hundred people attended the ceremony, which included readings by the Rev. Randal Gardner, Powers Boothe, Judith Freeman and Aissa Wayne. The shared gravestone reads "Dead men are heavier than broken hearts", a quote from The Big Sleep. A video of the ceremony is available at http://raymondchandler.info/reunite. Chandler's original gravestone, placed by Jean Fracasse, is still at the head of his grave, while the new one is at the foot.

Chandler's thoughts on pulp fiction

In his introduction to Trouble Is My Business (1950), a collection of twelve of his short stories, Chandler provided insight on the formula for the detective story and how the pulp magazines differed from previous detective stories:

:"The emotional basis of the standard detective story was and had always been that murder will out and justice will be done. Its technical basis was the relative insignificance of everything except the final denouement. What led up to that was more or less passage work. The denouement would justify everything. The technical basis of the Black Mask type of story on the other hand was that the scene outranked the plot, in the sense that a good plot was one which made good scenes. The ideal mystery was one you would read if the end was missing. We who tried to write it had the same point of view as the film makers. When I first went to Hollywood a very intelligent producer told me that you couldn't make a successful motion picture from a mystery story, because the whole point was a disclosure that took a few seconds of screen time while the audience was reaching for its hat. He was wrong, but only because he was thinking of the wrong kind of mystery."

Chandler also described the struggle that the writers of pulp fiction had in following the formula demanded by the editors of the pulp magazines:

:"As I look back on my stories it would be absurd if I did not wish they had been better. But if they had been much better they would not have been published. If the formula had been a little less rigid, more of the writing of that time might have survived. Some of us tried pretty hard to break out of the formula, but we usually got caught and sent back. To exceed the limits of a formula without destroying it is the dream of every magazine writer who is not a hopeless hack."

Critical reception

Critics and writers from W. H. Auden to Evelyn Waugh to Ian Fleming greatly admired Chandler's prose. In a radio discussion with Chandler, Fleming said that the former offered “some of the finest dialogue written in any prose today”. Although his swift-moving, hardboiled style was inspired mostly by Dashiell Hammett, his sharp and lyrical similes are original: "The muzzle of the Luger looked like the mouth of the Second Street tunnel"; "He had a heart as big as one of Mae West's hips"; "Dead men are heavier than broken hearts"; "I went back to the seasteps and moved down them as cautiously as a cat on a wet floor". Chandler's writing redefined the private eye fiction genre, led to the coining of the adjective "Chandleresque", and inevitably became the subject of parody and pastiche. Yet the detective Philip Marlowe is not a stereotypical tough guy, but a complex, sometimes sentimental man with few friends who attended university, who speaks some Spanish and sometimes admires Mexicans, and who is a student of chess and classical music. He will refuse a prospective client’s money if he is ethically unsatisfied with a job.

The high regard in which Chandler is generally held today is in contrast to the critical sniping that stung the author during his lifetime. In a March 1942 letter to Mrs. Blanche Knopf, published in Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler, Chandler complained, "The thing that rather gets me down is that when I write something that is tough and fast and full of mayhem and murder, I get panned for being tough and fast and full of mayhem and murder, and then when I try to tone down a bit and develop the mental and emotional side of a situation, I get panned for leaving out what I was panned for putting in the first time."

Although his work enjoys general acclaim today, Chandler has been criticized for certain aspects of his work; in an interview, Washington Post reviewer Patrick Anderson described his plots as "rambling at best and incoherent at worst", and chastised his treatment of black, female, and homosexual characters, calling him a "rather nasty man at times". Anderson nevertheless praised Chandler as "probably the most lyrical of the major crime writers".

Chandler’s short stories and novels are evocatively written, conveying the time, place and ambiance of Los Angeles and environs in the 1930s and 1940s. The places are real, if pseudonymous: Bay City is Santa Monica, Gray Lake is Silver Lake, and Idle Valley a synthesis of rich San Fernando Valley communities.

Raymond Chandler was also a perceptive critic of pulp fiction; his essay "The Simple Art of Murder" is the standard reference work in the field.

All but one of his novels have been cinematically adapted. Arguably the most notable is The Big Sleep (1946), by Howard Hawks, with Humphrey Bogart as Philip Marlowe. William Faulkner was a co-writer on the screenplay. Raymond Chandler's few screen writing efforts and the cinematic adaptation of his novels proved stylistically and thematically influential upon the American film noir genre.

Praise for Chandler's work

“Chandler wrote like a slumming angel and invested the sun-blinded streets of Los Angeles with a romantic presence.” –Ross Macdonald

“Raymond Chandler invented a new way of talking about America, and America has never looked the same to us since.” –Paul Auster

“The prose rises to heights of unselfconscious eloquence, and we realize with a jolt of excitement that we are in the presence of not a mere action-tale teller, but a stylist, a writer with a vision … The reader is captivated by Chandler’s seductive prose.” –Joyce Carol Oates, New York Review of Books.

“Chandler is one of my favorite writers. His books bear rereading every few years. The novels are a perfect snapshot of an American past, and yet the ruined romanticism of the voice is as fresh as if they were written yesterday.” –Jonathan Lethem

“Chandler seems to have invented our post-war dream lives–the tough but tender hero, the dangerous blonde, the rain-washed sidewalks, and the roar of the traffic (and the ocean) in the distance … Chandler is the classic lonely romantic outsider for our times, and American literature, as well as English, would be the poorer for his absence.” –Pico Iyer

Works

References

Notes

Further reading

Dorothy Gardiner and Katherine Sorley Walker (eds.; 1962), Raymond Chandler Speaking. Boston: Houghton Miflin.

Bruccoli, Matthew J. (ed.; 1973). Chandler Before Marlowe: Raymond Chandler's Early Prose and Poetry, 1908-1912. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press.

Corman, Catherine (2009). Daylight Noir: Raymond Chandler's Imagined City Milan: Charta.

MacShane, Frank (1976). The Life of Raymond Chandler. N.Y.: E.P. Dutton.

MacShane, Frank (1976). The Notebooks of Raymond Chandler & English Summer: A Gothic Romance. N.Y.: The Ecco Press.

Chandler, Raymond (1976). The Blue Dahlia (screenplay). Carbondale and Edwardsville, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.

Gross, Mirian (1977). The World of Raymond Chandler. N.Y.: A & W Publishers.

MacShane, Frank (ed.) (1981). Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler. N.Y.: Columbia University Press.

Chandler, Raymond (1985). Raymond Chandler's Unknown Thriller (unfilmed screenplay for Playback). N.Y.: The Mysterious Press.

Hiney, Tom (1999). Raymond Chandler. N.Y.: Grove Press. ISBN 0-80213-637-0

Hiney, Tom and MacShane, Frank (eds.; 2000). The Raymond Chandler Papers: Selected Letters and Nonfiction, 1909-1959. N.Y.: Atlantic Monthly Press.

Ward, Elizabeth and Alain Silver (1987). Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles. Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press. ISBN 0-87951-351-9

Howe, Alexander N. "The Detective and the Analyst: Truth, Knowledge, and Psychoanalysis in the Hard-Boiled Fiction of Raymond Chandler." CLUES: A Journal of Detection 24.4 (Summer 2006): 15-29.

Howe, Alexander N. (2008). "It Didn't Mean Anything: A Psychoanalytic Reading of American Detective Fiction". North Carolina: McFarland. ISBN 0786434546

Moss, Robert (2002) "Raymond Chandler A Literary Reference" New York Carrol & Graf

Freeman, Judith (2007). The Long Embrace: Raymond Chandler and the Woman He Loved. N.Y.:Pantheon. ISBN 978-0-375-42351-2 (0-375-42351-6)

External links

Shamus Town: Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles

Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles: In A Lonely Place bus tour

Jonathan Lethem on Raymond Chandler at The Paris Review

"Down the Mean Streets with Philip Marlowe" BBC streaming audio programme on Chandler

Photographs of Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles by Catherine Corman at The New Yorker

"Chandler's double identity: Adrian Wootton on a writer's secret cameo"; The Guardian, June 5, 2009

Raymond Chandler at Thrilling Detective

Bibliography of UK 1st Editions

Video of February 14, 2011 Cissy Chandler burial ceremony

Category:1888 births Category:1959 deaths Category:American crime fiction writers Category:American mystery writers Category:American novelists Category:American screenwriters Category:English crime fiction writers Category:English mystery writers Category:English novelists Category:English screenwriters Category:Writers from California Category:Writers from Los Angeles, California Category:Edgar Award winners Category:American people of English descent Category:American writers of Irish descent Category:Old Alleynians Category:People from Chicago, Illinois Category:Pulp fiction writers Category:Burials in California Category:Alcohol-related deaths in California Category:Royal Air Force airmen Category:Gordon Highlanders soldiers Category:Royal Air Force personnel of World War I Category:British Army personnel of World War I Category:Canadian military personnel of World War I Category:American emigrants to the United Kingdom Category:Civil servants in the Admiralty Category:People from Upper Norwood

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name	Peter Lorre
birth name	László Löwenstein
birth date	June 26, 1904
birth place	Rózsahegy (now Ružomberok), Austria-Hungary (now Slovakia)
death date	March 23, 1964
death place	Los Angeles, California, U.S.
occupation	Actor
years active	1929–64
spouse	Celia Lovsky(1934–45)Kaaren Verne(1945–50) Anne Marie Brenning(1953–64) 1 child
website	}}

Peter Lorre (26 June 1904 – 23 March 1964) was an Austrian-American actor frequently typecast as a sinister foreigner.

He caused an international sensation in 1931 with his portrayal of a serial killer who preys on little girls in the German film M. Later he became a popular featured player in Hollywood crime films and mysteries, notably alongside Humphrey Bogart and Sydney Greenstreet, and as the star of the successful Mr. Moto detective series.

Biography

Lorre was born as László Löwenstein into a Jewish family in Rózsahegy (Hungarian), Rosenberg (German), Kingdom of Hungary, part of Austria-Hungary, now Ružomberok, Slovakia. His parents were Alois Loewenstein and Elvira Freischberger. When he was a child his family moved to Vienna where Lorre attended school. He began acting on stage in Vienna at the age of 17, where he worked with Richard Teschner, then moved to Breslau, and Zürich. In the late 1920s, the young actor moved to Berlin where he worked with German playwright Bertolt Brecht, most notably in his Mann ist Mann. He also appeared as Dr. Nakamura in the musical Happy End by Brecht and composer Kurt Weill, alongside Brecht's wife Helene Weigel and co-stars Carola Neher, Oskar Homolka and Kurt Gerron.

The German-speaking actor became famous when Fritz Lang cast him as a child killer in his 1931 film M. In 1932 he appeared alongside Hans Albers in the science fiction film F.P.1 antwortet nicht about an artificial island in the mid-Atlantic. When the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, Lorre took refuge first in Paris and then London, where he was noticed by Ivor Montagu, Alfred Hitchcock's associate producer for The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), who reminded the director about Lorre's performance in M. They first considered him to play the assassin in the film, but wanted to use him in a larger role, despite his limited command of English, which Lorre overcame by learning much of his part phonetically. He also was featured in Hitchcock's Secret Agent, in 1935.

Eventually, Lorre went to Hollywood, where he specialized in playing sinister foreigners, beginning with Mad Love (1935), directed by Karl Freund. He starred in a series of Mr. Moto movies, a parallel to the better known Charlie Chan series, in which he played John P. Marquand's seminal character, a Japanese detective and spy. He did not enjoy these films — and twisted his shoulder during a stunt in Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation — but they were lucrative for the studio and gained Lorre many new fans. In 1939, he was picked to play the role that would eventually go to Basil Rathbone in Son of Frankenstein; Lorre had to decline the part due to illness.

In 1940, Lorre co-starred with fellow horror actors Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff in the Kay Kyser movie You'll Find Out. Lorre enjoyed considerable popularity as a featured player in Warner Bros. suspense and adventure films. Lorre played the role of Joel Cairo in The Maltese Falcon (1941) and portrayed the character Ugarte in the film classic Casablanca (1942). Lorre branched out into comedy with the role of Dr. Einstein in Arsenic and Old Lace (filmed in 1941, released 1944). In 1946 he starred with Sydney Greenstreet and Geraldine Fitzgerald in Three Strangers, a suspense film about three people who are joint partners on a winning lottery ticket.

In 1941, Peter Lorre became a naturalized citizen of the United States. After World War II, Lorre's acting career in Hollywood experienced a downturn, whereupon he concentrated on radio and stage work. In Germany he co-wrote, directed and starred in Der Verlorene (The Lost One) (1951), a critically acclaimed art film in the film noir style. He then returned to the United States where he appeared as a character actor in television and feature films, often spoofing his "creepy" image.

In 1954, he had the distinction of becoming the first actor to play a James Bond villain when he portrayed Le Chiffre in a television adaptation of Casino Royale, opposite Barry Nelson as an American James Bond. (In the spoof-film version of Casino Royale, Ronnie Corbett comments that SMERSH includes among its agents not only Le Chiffre, but also "Peter Lorre and Bela Lugosi".) Also in 1954, Lorre starred alongside Kirk Douglas and James Mason in 20,000 Leagues under the Sea.

A famous story is told in Hollywood that in 1956, both Lorre and Vincent Price attended Bela Lugosi's funeral. According to Price, Lorre asked him "Do you think we should drive a stake through his heart just in case?" However, according to Lugosi biographers Arthur Lennig and Gary Don Rhodes, neither actor attended Lugosi's funeral.

In 1959, Lorre appeared in NBC's espionage drama Five Fingers, starring David Hedison, in the episode "Thin Ice". In the early 1960s he worked with Roger Corman on several low-budgeted, tongue-in-cheek, and very popular films. He appeared in a supporting role in the 1961 film, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. In 1961, he was interviewed on the NBC program Here's Hollywood.

Marriages and family

He was married three times: Celia Lovsky (1934 – 13 March 1945, divorced); Kaaren Verne (25 May 1945 – 1950, divorced) and Anne Marie Brenning (21 July 1953 – 23 March 1964, his death). In 1953, Anne Marie bore his only child, Catharine. His daughter Catharine made headlines after Hillside Strangler serial killer Kenneth Bianchi confessed to police investigators after his arrest that he and his cousin and partner in crime Angelo Buono had stopped Catharine Lorre disguised as police officers with the intent of abducting and murdering her in 1977, but after learning that she was the daughter of Peter Lorre, the pair let her go. It was only after Bianchi was arrested that Catharine Lorre realized whom she had met. Catharine died in 1985 of complications arising from diabetes.

In 1963 an actor named Eugene Weingand, who was unrelated to Lorre, attempted to trade on his slight resemblance to the actor by changing his name to "Peter Lorie", but his petition was rejected by the courts. After Lorre's death, however, he referred to himself as Lorre's son.

Health and death

Lorre had suffered for years from chronic gallbladder troubles, for which doctors had prescribed morphine. Lorre became trapped between the constant pain and addiction to morphine to ease the problem. It was during the period of the Moto films that Lorre struggled and overcame his addiction.

Overweight and never fully recovered from his addiction to morphine, Lorre suffered many personal and career disappointments in his later years. He died in 1964 of a stroke. Lorre's body was cremated and his ashes interred at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood. Vincent Price read the eulogy at his funeral.

Legacy and mimicry

Lorre has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 6619 Hollywood Boulevard.

Lorre's distinctive accent and large-eyed face became a favorite target of comedians and cartoonists. For example, several Warner Bros. cartoons used a caricature of Lorre's face with an impression by Mel Blanc, including Birth of a Notion, Hair-Raising Hare and Racketeer Rabbit.

Books and comics

In the early 1940s, the adventures of Batman and Robin appeared in daily newspapers. One story, The Two-Bit Dictator of Twin Mills, drawn by Batman co-creator Bob Kane, featured a hitman called Jojo who was, according to writer Al Schwartz, made to look like Lorre.

Films, television, and music

Musician and filker Tom Smith won a Pegasus award for Best Classic Filk Song in 2006 entitled "I Want to be Peter Lorre" which appears on his filk album "Homecoming: MarCon 2005", which includes his vocal impersonation of the actor.

The Jazz Butcher's song "Peter Lorre" was first featured on the group's Conspiracy album, which was released in May 1986.

The stop motion film Corpse Bride features "The Maggot", a small green worm who lives inside the title's character head. His features and voice (provided by Enn Reitel) are caricatures of Peter Lorre. "From the very beginning Tim wanted the Maggot to be a Peter Lorre-esque character, and we had a good time working with that and it went through various design changes," said co-director Mike Johnson in the book Tim Burton's Corpse Bride: An Invitation to the Wedding.

On September 11, 2007 Brooklyn-based punk band The World/Inferno Friendship Society released a full-length album about Lorre called Addicted to Bad Ideas: Peter Lorre's Twentieth Century, which traces Lorre's film career, drug addiction, and death. It has been performed at the Famous Spiegeltent. The album was subsequently adapted into a multi-media stage production directed by Jay Scheib, which premiered at Webster Hall in New York City on January 9, 2009, and went on to play major arts festivals around the world, including Spoleto Festival USA (Charleston, SC), Luminato Festival (Toronto), Noorderzon Festival (Groningen, Holland) and Theaterformen (Hanover, Germany).

Filmography

Die Verschwundene Frau (1929) (uncredited)

Der weiße Teufel (1930) aka The White Devil

Mann ist Mann (1931) aka A Man's a Man

M (1931)

Bomben auf Monte Carlo (1931) aka Bombs Over Monte Carlo

Die Koffer des Herrn O.F. (1931)

Fünf von der Jazzband (1932)

Schuß im Morgengrauen (1932)

Der weiße Dämon (1932) aka Dope

Stupéfiants (1932)

F.P.1 antwortet nicht (1932)

Les Requins du pétrole (1933)

Du haut en bas (1933)

Was Frauen träumen (1933)

Unsichtbare Gegner (1933)

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)

Mad Love (1935)

Crime and Punishment (1935)

Secret Agent (1936)

Crack-Up (1936)

Nancy Steele Is Missing! (1937)

Think Fast, Mr. Moto (1937)

Lancer Spy (1937)

Thank You, Mr. Moto (1937)

Mr. Moto's Gamble (1938)

Mr. Moto Takes a Chance (1938)

I'll Give a Million (1938)

Mysterious Mr. Moto (1938)

Mr. Moto's Last Warning (1939)

Mr. Moto in Danger Island (1939)

Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation (1939)

Strange Cargo (1940)

I Was an Adventuress (1940)

Island of Doomed Men (1940)

Stranger on the Third Floor (1940)

You'll Find Out (1940)

Der Ewige Jude (1940) (archive footage)

The Face Behind the Mask (1941)

Mr. District Attorney (1941)

They Met in Bombay (1941)

The Maltese Falcon (1941)

All Through the Night (1941)

Invisible Agent (1942)

The Boogie Man Will Get You (1942)

Casablanca (1942)

The Constant Nymph (1943)

Background to Danger (1943)

The Cross of Lorraine (1943)

Passage to Marseille (1944)

The Mask of Dimitrios (1944)

Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)

The Conspirators (1944)

Hollywood Canteen (1944)

Hotel Berlin (1945)

Confidential Agent (1945)

Three Strangers (1946)

Black Angel (1946)

The Chase (1946)

The Verdict (1946)

The Beast with Five Fingers (1946)

My Favorite Brunette (1947)

Casbah (1948)

Rope of Sand (1949)

Quicksand (1950)

Double Confession (1950)

Der Verlorene (1951) (also wrote and directed)

Beat the Devil (1953)

Casino Royale, a episode of the television series Climax!

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)

Around the World in Eighty Days (1956)

Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956) (uncredited)

Congo Crossing (1956)

The Buster Keaton Story (1957)

Silk Stockings (1957)

The Story of Mankind (1957)

The Sad Sack (1957)

Hell Ship Mutiny (1957)

The Big Circus (1959)

Scent of Mystery (1960)

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961)

Tales of Terror (1962)

Five Weeks in a Balloon (1962)

The Raven (1963)

The Comedy of Terrors (1964)

Muscle Beach Party (1964)

The Patsy (1964)

References

Further reading

External links

Watch Peter Lorre in Fritz Lang's M

The Lorre Library of Sound

The Peter Lorre Companion

Photographs of Peter Lorre

The Lodger on Mystery in the Air, 1947, starring Peter Lorre and Agnes Moorehead

Listen to Jack Benny Show 1941-03-09 (402) Guest Peter Lorre - Murder at the Racquet Club

Listen to Jack Benny Podcast 1946-03-24 (579) Guest Peter Lorre - I Stand Condemned

Mystery in the Air (1947)

Category:1904 births Category:1964 deaths Category:20th-century American people Category:20th-century Austrian people Category:20th-century Hungarian people Category:20th-century actors Category:Jewish actors Category:American film actors Category:Austrian film actors Category:Hungarian film actors Category:Hungarian Jews Category:Hungarian emigrants to the United States Category:Austrian emigrants to the United States Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States Category:American people of Austrian-Jewish descent Category:American people of Hungarian-Jewish descent Category:People from Ružomberok Category:Deaths from stroke Category:Burials at Hollywood Forever Cemetery

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