Richard Johnson could have been the first James Bond actor

British actor Richard Johnson, a veteran of the West End stage and screen for over 50 years, has confirmed in a magazine interview he was the first choice to play James Bond in 1962 - and he turned the role down!

Johnson, who was briefly married to Hollywood legend Kim Novak, was named by director Terence Young as his ideal 007 for the first Bond film Dr No.

In the latest edition of the cult film magazine Cinema Retro, out this week, Johnson reveals: "The producers, Albert Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, asked me - at Terence Young's instigation - and I turned the job down. I was under contract to MGM anyway, so that gave me a reasonable excuse to say no, because they told me I'd have to be under exclusive contract to them for seven years.

"Eventually they offered it to Sean [Connery], who was completely wrong for the part. But in getting the wrong man they got the right man, because it turned the thing on its head and he made it funny. And that's what propelled it to success."

Johnson was considered by many to be almost identical to Bond as creator Ian Fleming (born 100 years ago this year) originally envisaged him in the books.

Now 80 and still acting, Johnson insists in a five-page interview in the magazine that he harbours no regrets about declining the part of cinema's most famous super-spy. "I don't think I would have wanted the contract. Sean didn't want the contract for seven years. He hated it eventually. And I would have liked it probably less than he did."

In Cinema Retro, which focuses on the cinema of the 1960s and 70s, Johnson recalls his marriage to Novak and working with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson as a young actor in Hollywood. Poised for celluloid stardom himself in the late 1960s, his career fell back after the virtual collapse of the British film industry in the next decade.

"I was probably making around a £1m a year in today's money," he tells Cinema Retro. "I don't have anything now but I'm still working. It keeps you young, healthy and going. I can play the grandfather in any film now."

Cinema Retro, issue 10, is available in newsagents or at: www.cinemaretro.com

Thanks to `Ian` for the alert.

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