Roger Moore could never stop being Roger Moore. By his own admission, he invariably played himself. He couldn’t help it. He knew what he was good at, bending roles to suit his strengths, and if you met him in person, you’d get pretty much the same again. He just loved being Roger Moore – as you would, really.
Those eyes shone to the end – at a public appearance just a few months ago, aged 89, he sparkled with life, playful, effortlessly charming and hilariously self-deprecating. A lucky bastard, he called himself, playing down any supposed talent – not true, but in any case, what fun he had with it all.
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Born in Stockwell, south London, in 1927, he began acting as a teen, and bagged various roles before becoming The Saint’s unfeasibly slick Simon Templar in 1962. Then, of course, he became Bond, a role he inherited from Sean Connery but turned inside out; it might be more accurate to say that James Bond became Roger Moore.
Moore thought Bond was inherently ridiculous, refusing to take it seriously – this was a supposed superspy who told everybody his name and ordered the same cocktail everywhere he went. To Moore, this was “hysterically funny,” and he played it accordingly. Moore hated guns, thought he himself looked comedic, and confessed he felt “gawky” when he ran. Brawn was swapped for wit – out went Connery’s gravelly alpha stylings, and in came the raised eyebrow, and whatever ridiculous additions amused Moore – it was his idea, for example, to lob a fish out of the window when The Spy Who Loved Me’s Lotus Esprit emerged from the water.
And despite those Connery diehards who insist Moore’s Bond was sacrilege, the pro-Moore camp is just as vocal. On Twitter today, they’re all coming out of the woodwork. We’re getting a lot of, “He was my Bond” as the affection pours in following Moore’s death. Besides, despite having faced some derision over the years, Moore’s brand is back in fashion. As effective as Daniel Craig’s iteration is, they brought much gloom, and after a couple of turns the old Moore films suddenly seemed like a tonic. Indeed, Mark Millar and Matthew Vaughn’s Kingsman films, with their wild plots, fabulous gadgets and, well,fun, were a direct response, an attempt to resurrect the spirit of Moore’s Bond. “For me it’s all about Roger Moore,” Millar told me a couple of years ago. “Even as a Scottish guy, he’s my favourite Bond. His delivery’s great. He’s perfect.”
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Famously, Moore was still playing Bond at 58, and even after he’d long put away the pistols, he enjoyed his 007 heritage, loving the attention it brought him, always appreciating the association. Somehow, he never stopped being Bond, because his Bond was, well, him. In 2014, when the Herald Express tweeted – bizarrely – that Moore enjoyed a scotch egg on his way to a show, Moore responded with, “Actually, I had the ham hock terrine.” Try reading that without hearing his Bond. Impossible.
The saddest thing about ageing, he said a couple of years ago, is that most of his friends were now “in the other room.” He’s in that room now. Keeping the British end up, no doubt.
