| George Lazenby |
|
| Birth name |
George Robert Lazenby |
| Born |
September 5 1939 (1939--) (age 68)
 Queanbeyan, NSW |
| Spouse(s) |
Christina Gannett (1971-1995)
Pam Shriver (2002-) |
George Robert Lazenby (born September 5 1939) is an
Australian actor best known for portraying James Bond only once in the 1969 James
Bond film, On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
Biography
George Lazenby was born in Queanbeyan, New South Wales, Australia. After leaving school he worked as a salesman at a Morris
Motor Company dealership in Canberra and as a ski instructor. He also won several skiing
competitions and played bass guitar in a band called The Corvettes. He served in the Australian Army Special forces, reaching the rank of
Sergeant and becoming an unarmed combat
instructor. He moved to London in 1964 as a
model, then as an advertising actor. By 1968, he was the
highest-paid male model in the world (reportedly, in 1967, he made £40,000 directly from modelling,
and £60,000 from commercials and product endorsements — equivalent to more than one million pounds in 2004); he was also the European Marlboro Man.
Despite starring in On Her Majesty's Secret Service
(1969) and The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977)
(the combined gross earnings of which exceeded $100 million worldwide in the 1970s, then the standard establishing an actor as a
box office success), Lazenby's acting career did not flourish.
In the 1970s, Lazenby worked in Hong Kong with Bruce
Lee. A planned luncheon meeting with Lee and Raymond Chow to discuss a movie project
for the upcoming Golden Harvest Lee film Game of
Death 1978 collapsed after Lee's sudden death, although Lazenby would still go on to
make 3 of the 4 films he signed to do with Lee in Hong Kong, The Shrine of
Ultimate Bliss (1974), The Man From Hong Kong
(1975) (also known as The Dragon Files), and A Queen's Ransom (1976). Lazenby was only featured with archive footage
when Game of Death was finally released in 1978, after a 5-year delay caused by Lee's death
while it was still in production.
Lazenby's Hong Kong martial arts action films were very successful financially and are
to this day considered classics of the genre, but without Lee the films did not have much commercial impact. For example, it is
widely believed that all four of the planned Lee/Lazenby films would have grossed in excess of $100 million US at the box office
worldwide in the early to mid 1970s (astronomical grosses in today's dollar values), which would have even rivaled the James Bond
franchise at the time. Lee's death effectively derailed Lazenby's comeback after he had left the role of James Bond in
1969.
He then focused on business and real estate investments and ended up owning mansions in Hawaii, Brentwood, California, Australia, and a 600-acre (2.4 km²) ranch estate in Valyermo,
California, a small town about 17 miles southeast of Palmdale, California;
he also owns a portside penthouse apartment in Hong Kong, and an estate home in
Maryland. Lazenby had a son, Zachary (who died from brain cancer) and an adult daughter,
Melanie, from his first marriage to Christina Gannett, heiress to the Gannett Newspaper
Publishing empire.
In 2002, Lazenby married his second wife, former tennis player
Pam Shriver; they have three children, George (b. 12 July
2004) and twins Caitlin Elizabeth and Samuel Robert (b. October 2005). Today, Lazenby enjoys sailing, motorcycle racing, car racing, reading,
watching movies, playing golf, and playing tennis. On the May 6, 2007 episode of Where Are They Now, Lazenby said he
wanted his children to grow up in Australia and the family would "try living [there]".
James Bond (1969)
Although he had previously worked in TV advertising and an Italian B-movie spy movie, Lazenby's first serious acting role was as James
Bond in the film On Her Majesty's Secret Service
(1969). Lazenby is the second official actor to portray the British secret agent in a movie, following Sean Connery, who had become a cultural icon in the role (there had been a live TV version of
Casino Royale in 1954 with American actor Barry Nelson and a spoof movie version of Casino Royale in 1967 with James Bond played by
David Niven — Ian Fleming's own first choice for a cinematic James Bond, but this is
generally considered not to be a 'proper' Bond film.) Lazenby had a difficult task in filling Connery's shoes, and nearly
everything about his portrayal of Bond has been controversial.
The film's producers, perhaps mistrusting Lazenby's ability to carry the picture, took the unusual step of overdubbing
Lazenby's voice with that of George Baker in major scenes in which Bond
impersonated Baker's character. The technique had never been used in a Bond film for a leading actor whose first language was
English. According to an interview with Lazenby, the difficulties were due to director Peter R.
Hunt refusing to talk directly to Lazenby, who was too brusque in passing on a request that Hunt's friends clear a set
before filming[1]. Allegedly, there also were personality
conflicts with leading lady Diana Rigg, who was already an established star. However,
according to director Hunt, these rumours are untrue and there were no such difficulties - or else they were minor - and he would
have agreed to direct Diamonds Are Forever if Lazenby had accepted
the contract.[2]. Rigg herself acknowledged having eaten
food spiced with garlic just before her kissing scenes with Lazenby, though witnesses also acknowledge that was done in an ironic
and jesting tone, demonstrating a very English sense of humour on the part of Rigg.
During the film's production, Lazenby's manager Ronan O'Rahilly talked him into
refusing a seven-movie contract on grounds that the James Bond character was out of touch with the times; Lazenby later stated
that he regretted the decision not to continue playing Bond.
Lazenby's performance as James Bond is controversial. Most viewers appreciate his athletic prowess in the part, especially in
action scenes, but many have been dismissive - even hostile - toward his interpretation of Bond. Moreover, viewers tend either to
find Lazenby's laconic style cold-blooded, at times callous and humorless, or else perfectly appropriate to the character of a
determined and superficially charming spy. However, for those who have read the Fleming books, Lazenby's Bond is probably the
closest to the author's intent. Certainly, Lazenby's Bond is a man less amused by life than that of Connery, less accessible,
stoic and resigned. This treatment was the deliberate approach of the film's director, Peter Hunt, who has stated in an
interview: "I was very insistent that we stay with the story of the book". Hunt later re-shot scenes in which he was unhappy with
Lazenby's portrayal of emotion ([1]).
Critical response to On Her Majesty's Secret Service also remains sharply divided, affecting estimates of Lazenby's
potential as Bond. It followed the plot of the novel more closely than the other film adaptations of the eponymous source novels,
including serious dramatic subject matter pivotal to the development of Bond's character: Bond's contemplated resignation from
MI6; his comically-botched impersonation of a sexually ascetic
genealogist at a mountaintop allergies clinic for beautiful young women; and his brief, tragic
marriage to Tracy Draco, the daughter of a Corsican crime
syndicate leader. American movie reviewer Leonard Maltin has suggested that had Connery
held the leading role, On Her Majesty's Secret Service would have epitomised the series.
Although the film was not as commercially successful at the box office as previous Bond films, some aficionados consider this
the best film of the series, with many critics feeling Lazenby 'nailed' Ian Fleming's
characterization of 007. Commercially, On Her Majesty's Secret Service is widely believed to have paled in comparison to
the previous Bond film, You Only Live Twice, and to the following,
Diamonds Are Forever (both featuring Connery); this has been partly
attributed to a poor publicity campaign.
In fact, the film was not much less successful than You Only Live Twice, taking about 80% of the box office gross with
74% of the budget[3][4], and was the second highest-grossing film of 1969. When adjusted for
inflation, On Her Majesty's Secret Service is the median performer of the entire James
Bond franchise; the box office was undoubtedly compromised by Lazenby's public announcement before the film's release that he had
refused to play the part again.
Lazenby is, along with Daniel Craig, one of only two actors to portray James Bond in
only one 'proper' Bond film, though Craig has since signed on for another take as 007 in a follow-up movie in production for
2008, tentatively called Bond 22. Lazenby is also, at age 30, the youngest actor to portray Bond
at the time of filming. He is also the only James Bond who, during the gun barrel sequence, dropped to one knee to fire his gun. Lazenby is also the only
official Bond to make reference to the fact that other actors have played the role. In the opening teaser, after taking a
particularly rough thrashing, he states "This never happened to the other fellow", obviously referring to Sean Connery. The only
other Bond film to draw attention to this is the unofficial spoof film Casino
Royale. Lazenby is also the tallest actor to play James Bond.
Post-Bond career
Lazenby has portrayed James Bond several times over the years in numerous parodies and unofficial 007 roles, most notably the
1983 TV movie The Return of the Man from
U.N.C.L.E. and an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents,
entitled "Diamonds Aren't Forever". He also made a guest appearance on the popular TV series Superboy during the show's second season in 1990. He appeared with Sylvia Kristel in several new Emmanuelle films in the 1990s.
Selected filmography
References in popular culture
External links
References
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