Sir Roger Moore is a real life Saint

A couple of years back, after infiltrating a Macedonian refugee camp with an assignment of children’s toys, James Bond, posing as Unicef goodwill ambassador Sir Roger Moore was asked if his mission was simply to capture a little self-serving publicity, reports Scotland on Sunday.

Sir Roger raised one of his famous eyebrows. "People can be as cynical as they like," he said. ‘Fund-raising is only successful when the punter buys tickets for people he wants to see or hear, even if you bore the hell out of them." Then, aware he was blowing his cover as Laid Back Bond, he added, "Anyway, all the kids thought I was Sean Connery."

This week, the former 007 took aim again, at hotels and schools in Beijing for turning away a group of Aids orphans, saying they "should hang their heads in shame" for not helping the 72 children.

His friend Audrey Hepburn introduced him to Unicef years ago. When she died, and at her request, he took over as special ambassador; he had already become entrenched in the cause of helping children in embattled and poverty-stricken countries. Now he only agrees to interviews that will plug his cause, and when he boards planes, has been known to take over the in-flight announcements to demand donations from his fellow passengers.

Here then, is the paradox of Sir Roger Moore. For years he seems to have been content to play the indolent lounge lizard, sleepwalking through his Bond-age, and as a passive partner in four rather bossy marriages. Yet since turning 70, he has found a passionate Geldofian sense of purpose, travelling around the world for Unicef despite treatment for heart problems that caused him to collapse on stage last year, and prostate cancer.

Even the 76-year-old actor appreciates that he is unlikely casting in his current role, which earned him a knighthood last year: ‘When I was swanning around the world as James Bond, my priorities were, would my jacket be pressed, and what’s for lunch? I just never noticed the poverty. It has changed my life. Made me less aware of my own problems, more aware of other people’s." Perhaps his activity now is symptomatic of Moore’s mild guilt about the success that has turned him, a policeman’s son from Stockwell, into one of Britain’s most enduring teak-veneered actors.

His was a family with a zest for self-improvement, which goes some way to explaining his creamy jet set accent. "My mother was very strict about the way I spoke. I’d get a quick clip around the ear for ‘Ain’t’. And manners were most important - almost as close to godliness as cleanliness."

He faked his way through school, he has said, relying on a retentive memory rather than any real intelligence. Another bonus was the matinee-idol looks that would serve him well in the acting profession. During his National Service, Moore claims he was picked out as officer material because he "looked like a leading man. I looked good in uniform."

His looks were also useful when he was modelling (he did so many cardigan poses that Michael Caine nicknamed him "the big knit") but they were a drawback when he tried his luck at acting. The gay impresario Binkie Beaumont made a casual pass and implied that he wouldn’t get far without submitting to the male casting couch. "I wasn’t handsome, I had a baby face. But I was pretty - so pretty, that actresses didn’t want to work with me."

It was 1952 when the big breaks arrived for Roger Moore. He was a chorus boy in the Brixton Empress pantomime, Jack and the Beanstalk when he met the successful singer Dorothy Squires. He was accused of using her to promote his career when the two went to Hollywood, but Moore quickly eclipsed his wife by landing a Warner Bros contract.

They married despite Moore’s toy-boy status; he was 12 years younger than his wife. She adored him but seven years later he went to Italy to make The Rape Of The Sabine Women and fell in love with his co-star, Luisa Mattoli. "I learned a great deal from Dot," he has said. "I learned to be my own person. I used to be rather timid, and like a lot of actors, I was glad to hide behind a character. But with Dot I started to develop a persona, I became someone called Roger Moore."

Unfortunately for Moore, Squires was also an enthusiastic litigant so she sued him. Then for that personal touch, she went round and smashed his windows.

She tried to sue so many times in the High Court that in 1982 she was named "a vexatious litigant" and banned from trying again without the permission of the courts. By then she had launched 20 legal actions in ten years for libel, assault, piracy of her autobiography and misrepresentation in Moore’s biography.

Yet when she was stricken by cancer Moore paid for her treatment, after she had been left penniless by all her legal actions. And on her deathbed, word that he had phoned to wish her well brought the simple response: "Magic"

What is it about Roger Moore and his wives? Could it be his estimated £25m fortune? Financial security alone doesn’t explain the desolation that his second wife Squires obviously felt (his first short marriage was to skater Doorn Van Steyn). And his whole family was shocked when, during his prostate treatment five years ago, he left Luisa and set up home with Christina Tholstrup, a widow and former neighbour in the south of France. Tholstrup was also a cancer survivor, and this shared experience was one of the factors that led them to become close during his recuperation.

Luisa, who went on to receive a £10m divorce settlement, gave some bitter interviews but Moore kept silent on the matter. "Well, she is the mother of my wonderful children and I did not wish them to be any more hurt than they were by engaging in a war of words."

His elegantly caddish behaviour towards women may have been the reason why the Bond producers wanted Roger Moore to star in their first James Bond movie Dr No - but ironically it was decided he looked too young, and in any case Moore was then tied up with the British TV series The Saint.

Ten years later, however, the role came up again and Moore jumped at the chance, despite knowing he would be compared with Connery’s quintessentially thuggish 007.

Maybe Moore’s Bond was rather too close to the suave shtick he employed for The Saint and later The Persuaders - but then Connery is hardly the world’s greatest actor either. Moore’s performance was further compromised by the increasing emphasis on Bond’s export value, forcing the films to jettison dialogue for sake of international clarity and those roving panto eyebrows.

Connery had the swinging Sixties’ harder edge. The Seventies were flabby and unstylish; qualities personified by Moore, a man born to wear a safari suit that would wipe the smile off a hyena. Cubby Broccoli, producer of the Bond films, used to jokingly refer to Moore as ‘Roger Moo’, a nickname that echoed the bovine amiability with which he ambled across the screen to his stunt-double’s next set-piece. Still for a whole generation too young too see Connery at the cinema, Moore was Bond.

After his last outing as 007 in 1985’s A View To A Kill, Moore’s workload tailed off and he admits his career has been characterised by his own apathy. There was also a weakness for easy money. Early on he was offered both Shakespeare at Stratford and MGM in the same week. Moore chose MGM, which began his movie career.

"Otherwise," he once drawled "I would probably still be a spear carrier."

Thanks to `JP` for the alert.

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