Kevin McClory was shaken, stirred and destroyed by James Bond

'James Bond absolutely destroyed him," remembers artist Brighid McLaughlin of her very close friend, Kevin McClory, who successfully sued Bond creator Ian Fleming for plagiarism - reports The Independent. "Wherever he was, every room he had would be full, from the floor to the ceiling, with legal documents; it was crazy, crazy. He wasted all his life in the hallucinatory dream of revenge."

These accusations of plagiarism revolved around a screenplay for the first ever James Bond movie called Thunderball. Irish film producer Kevin McClory, who died on November 20, 2006, wrote the screenplay and held the rights to the story, but for financial reasons the movie wasn't made as originally planned. Soon after, though, an ill Ian Fleming wrote a James Bond novel of the same name, which led McClory to sue for plagiarism and infringement of copyright.

This gave rise to a high-profile case in London's High Court in November 1963.

"Fleming had penned his eight Bond novels and he was under pressure to produce number nine in 1961. He went off to his estate, Goldeneye in Jamaica. But it seems his imagination had run dry because he took up McClory's abandoned film script and re-wrote it as a novel. Obviously, Fleming believed he owned the character and the franchise and that there was no way the Irishman could stop him," explains film critic Breandan MacGearailt on RTE's Scannal series.

In the end, an unexpected settlement was reached whereby McClory, originally from Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin, was awarded stg£50,000 compensation and secured the film rights to Thunderball, which ultimately proved a money-spinner for the Irishman.

Those close to him remembered McClory as a man who lived somewhat vicariously through James Bond 007, one of cinema's most iconic figures. "Every time you went to Straffan House [McClory bought the property, which is now the K-Club, in the mid-1960s], he had some gadget to show you. I am sure he was getting them all for nothing, that he was convincing people he would put them in a movie,'' recalls a friend. "They were all Bond-style gadgets."

Married twice, he was also regarded as something of a ladies' man. "He was utterly charming. He was very gracious. He always had some lady, some beautiful lady, with him -- a secretary, a girlfriend, a starlet. I could overhear people say, 'that's Kevin McClory who was involved in James Bond', so I, as a young person in my 20s, was fascinated," admits Brighid McLaughlin.

"I do think of him often, usually when I see daffodils. He was very generous, he was always bringing big bunches of daffodils to my mother, and sometimes to me, too.''

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