Custody battle heats up for George Lazenby

Australia's one-time agent 007, George Lazenby, was a dejected figure as he walked out of a Los Angeles court today.

The silver-haired 68-year-old actor, embroiled in a bitter divorce and child custody battle with estranged wife and former tennis professional Pam Shriver, failed to have a temporary restraining order lifted by a Superior Court judge - reports The Australian.

Lazenby also was told he would be restricted to three monitored daytime visits a week with his three young children.

"No, I'm not happy," an upset Lazenby said outside the Superior Court Building in downtown Los Angeles.

"I want to see my kids the way I always saw them. I put them to bed and I'd wake up in the morning and they'd jump into my bed. I loved that and I missed that."

Lazenby and Shriver were married for six years, but the five-time Wimbledon doubles champion filed for divorce earlier this month and has temporary custody of their children, George Jr, 4, and 2-year-old twins Samuel and Kaitlin.

Lazenby wants equal joint custody of his children.

Lawyers for the duelling couple agreed to the temporary arrangement today after failing to find a judge to hear their case.

Lazenby, Shriver and their legal teams spent three hours bouncing from four different court rooms in the cavernous Superior Court building.

By the time they found a seat in Judge Robert Schnider's courtroom, it was too late in the day for him to hear the matter.

The delays made for a tense and uncomfortable time for Lazenby and Shriver, who did not look each other in the face despite standing just a few metres from each other at times.

Their children were not present in court.

Queanbeyan-born Lazenby, who played debonair martini-sipping spy James Bond in the 1967 film On Her Majesty's Secret Service, at one point during the day held court with reporters.

"She's dead frightened of me," Lazenby, sitting in a corridor, said, with Shriver sitting about 10m away.

Shriver has accused Lazenby of being an aggressive drunk, offering beer to their children and also making anti-Semitic remarks to Israeli government officials in an LA restaurant.

"You better stay away from me because I'm anti-Semitic," he sarcastically told reporters.

The allegation that he was anti-Jewish, had hurt his ability to work in Hollywood, he said.

"It puts the knockers on me working in this town," Lazenby said.

The actor has hit back at Shriver, alleging in court documents she drinks a "cocktail" of prescription painkillers and sleeping pills with vodka and rum "each night and during the day".

Lazenby also alleges he has homemade video of Shriver during a holiday in Queanbeyan encouraging George Jr, when he was 2, to sip beer.

US-born Shriver, 46, declined to talk to the media.

"Not a chance," she told reporters.

Judge Schnider adjourned the matter to October 15.

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