Book review: Sir Roger Moore - My Word Is My Bond

11-Oct-2008 • Actor News

Roger Moore: My Word Is My Bond by Roger Moore - Review by The Telegraph.

Far from his dashing on-screen image, Roger Moore is a cheery, down-to-earth and surprisingly skilful actor, says Sinclair McKay

Sir Roger Moore has been a national treasure since the 1970s, the decade with which most people still associate him. His personation of James Bond - the slick quips, the flapping flares and casual sexism - now for many stands as a synecdoche of that decade.

But this consistently self-deprecating actor - in fact, he is a skilled light comedian, as you will find if you watch his Bond or Simon Templar now - has been around for longer than that. Indeed, the first surprising thing about his memoirs is learning exactly how long.

Moore is the south-London-born son of a policeman. An otherwise tranquil childhood in Stockwell was interrupted first by the Blitz, then by some strange medical emergencies, such as the time a friend shot him with an air pistol and young Moore remained unaware of the pellet embedded in his knee joint until he could no longer walk; and by occasional outbreaks of surrealism, such as the time his family adopted a monkey that eventually became so unmanageable it had to be given to Chessington Zoo. Moore was an only child; his family was warm, affectionate and close. It's a refreshing change from misery memoirs.

His first love was animation but, owing to youthful muddle-headedness, he was given the boot from the film company where he started work. He then attended Rada (with Lois Maxwell, Miss Moneypenny-to-be), and soon went into rep, touring provincial theatres and staying in frowsy boarding houses with floral chamber-pots.

Occasionally, the comely young Moore attracted the predatory attention of theatrical Uncle Montys such as Binkie Beaumont, but the actor skates over such incidents as though this was something that happened to everyone. Television beckoned with Ivanhoe; then a spell in 1950s Hollywood followed. While hotshots such as James Dean may have been taking drugs and having weird sex, Moore was leading a comparatively quiet life, despite having married the obviously bonkers singer Dorothy Squires. In one passage, he recalls an occasion when Squires heckled Lenny Bruce and then got into a foul-mouthed screaming match with the comedian.

Incidentally, a few years later, on the set of the kitschy thriller series The Persuaders!, Moore was witness to further foul language when Tony Curtis lost his rag with guest star Joan Collins and called her a ****. In outrage, Collins went around, shrilly repeating the offending term. Only Moore could calm everyone down.

The 1960s brought Moore true international fame in The Saint, which purported to be set in exotic locations all over the world but was in fact filmed solely at Elstree Studios. While everyone else was swinging away, between 1962 and 1969 Moore's world largely consisted of pretending that a Hertfordshire studio set was Venice or Paris.

His name was touted for Bond many times. The gig finally became his in 1972. Those hoping for accounts of blazing rows on set won't get them; the Bonds were notoriously happy films to work on. His seven-film tenure goes by in an enjoyable whirl of villains with bad breath, socks kept on for bed scenes, director Lewis Gilbert addressing him as "dear", kidney stones, and Bernard "M" Lee disappearing off to get drunk.

Moore's only real complaint seems to be that the producer Cubby Broccoli hinted in a book that he was given the push from the role at the age of 57, rather than leaving of his own volition.

The cast of characters wandering through these pages is amusingly diverse, from Hylda Baker to Audrey Hepburn and David Niven and old chums such as Sir Michael Caine. Little, if any, dirt is dished; Moore is clearly a very nice man who prefers to nurse resentments privately. And if, on the one hand this makes his memoirs a little short of drama - even his marriage break-ups are presented with high decorum, and we are told of Gstaad evenings spent watching old Dad's Army videos and eating beans on toast - what we do get is the amused voice of an endlessly cheering actor who was always very much better than either he or his critics ever thought.