George Lazenby
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| George Lazenby | |
|---|---|
| Born | George Robert Lazenby September 5, 1939 Queanbeyan, NSW, Australia |
| Spouse(s) | Christina Gannett (1971-1995) Pam Shriver (2002-) |
George Robert Lazenby (born September 5, 1939) is an Australian actor best known for portraying James Bond in the 1969 James Bond film, On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
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[edit] Biography
George Lazenby was born in Queanbeyan, NSW, Australia. After leaving school he worked as a salesman at a Morris Motor Company dealership in Canberra and as a ski instructor. He also won several skiing competitions and played bass guitar in a band called The Corvettes. He served in the Australian Army Special forces, reaching the rank of Sergeant and becoming an unarmed combat instructor. He moved to London in 1964 as a model, then as an advertising actor. By 1968, he was the highest-paid male model in the world (reportedly, in 1967, he made £40,000 directly from modelling, and £60,000 from commercials and product endorsements — equivalent to more than one million pounds in 2004); he was also the European Marlboro Man.
Despite starring in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) and The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977) (the combined gross earnings of which exceeded $100 million worldwide in the 1970s, then the standard establishing an actor as a box office success), Lazenby's acting career did not flourish.
In the 1970s, Lazenby worked in Hong Kong with Bruce Lee. A planned luncheon meeting with Lee and Raymond Chow to discuss a movie project for the upcoming 1978 Golden Harvest film Game of Death collapsed after Lee's sudden death, although Lazenby would still go on to make 3 of the 4 films he signed to do with Lee in Hong Kong, The Shrine of Ultimate Bliss (1974), The Man From Hong Kong (1975) (also known as The Dragon Files), and A Queen's Ransom (1976). Lazenby was only featured with archive footage when Game of Death was finally released in 1978, after a 5-year delay caused by Lee's death while it was still in production.
Lazenby's Hong Kong martial arts action films were very successful financially but without Lee the films did not have much commercial impact. Lee's death effectively derailed Lazenby's comeback after he had left the role of James Bond in 1969.
He then focused on business and real estate investments and ended up owning mansions in Hawaii, Brentwood, California, Australia, and a 600-acre (2.4 km²) ranch estate in Valyermo, California, a small town about 17 miles southeast of Palmdale, California; he also owns a portside penthouse apartment in Hong Kong, and an estate home in Maryland. Lazenby had a son, Zachary (who died from brain cancer) and an adult daughter, Melanie, from his first marriage to Christina Gannett, heiress to the Gannett Newspaper Publishing empire.
In 2002, Lazenby married his second wife, former tennis player Pam Shriver; they have three children, George (b. 12 July 2004) and twins Caitlin Elizabeth and Samuel Robert (b. October 2005). Today, Lazenby enjoys sailing, motorcycle racing, car racing, reading, watching movies, playing golf, and playing tennis. On the May 6, 2007 episode of Where Are They Now, Lazenby said he wanted his children to grow up in Australia and the family would "try living [there]".
[edit] James Bond (1969)
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Although he previously had worked in television advertising and an Italian B-movie spy movie, Lazenby's first, serious acting role was as James Bond in the film On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969). Lazenby is the second official actor to portray the British secret agent in a Bond film after Sean Connery, who had become a cultural icon in the role, but had difficulty filling the role, and nearly everything about his portrayal is controversial.
The film's producers, mistrusting Lazenby's ability to carry the film, overdubbed his voice with George Baker's in scenes where Bond impersonated Sir Hilary Bray (Baker's character), something not done with a leading actor whose original language is English. According to an interview, his difficulties were because director Peter R. Hunt refused to speak directly with him, and was brusque in asking Lazenby's friends to clear the set before filming[1]. Allegedly, he had a personality conflict with leading lady Diana Rigg, an established star, however, per director Hunt, these rumours are untrue, and he would have agreed to direct Diamonds Are Forever if Lazenby had accepted the contract.[2]. Rigg acknowledged having eaten garlic-spiced food before kissing scenes, though witnesses acknowledge it as ironic English humour.
During the film's production, Lazenby's manager Ronan O'Rahilly convinced him to refuse a seven-film contract, because he thought James Bond passé in the youth culture of the times; Lazenby later regretted his decision.
Critical response to On Her Majesty's Secret Service is divided, affecting opinions of Lazenby's potential as James Bond. The film closely adhered to the novel, more than the other films of eponymous source novels, including the dramatic subject, pivotal to developing Bond's character: his resignation from MI6; his impersonation of a homosexual genealogist indifferent to the beautiful women he meets in the villain's allergy clinic; and his tragically brief marriage to Tracy Draco, daughter of a Corsican gangster. American movie reviewer Leonard Maltin said that if Sean Connery had done On Her Majesty's Secret Service, it would have epitomised the series, nevertheless, purists consider it the series' best film, because George Lazenby epitomises Ian Fleming's true characterization of James Bond as a secret agent always on the firm's time.
Financially, On Her Majesty's Secret Service earned less than the previous film, You Only Live Twice, and the following, Diamonds Are Forever (both feature Connery); that poor income is attributed to a poor publicity, in fact, the film was not less successful than You Only Live Twice, as it earned 80 per cent of gross income with 74 per cent of the production budget[3][4], and was the second highest-earning film of 1969; adjusted for inflation, On Her Majesty's Secret Service is the median economic performer of the entire James Bond franchise; Lazenby's public announcement, before the film's release, that he would not reprise the role compromised ticket sales.
Currently, George Lazenby is one of two actors who have played James Bond in only one official Bond series film, though Daniel Craig will reprise the role in 2008, in Quantum of Solace. At age thirty, Lazenby was the youngest and the tallest James Bond; the only Bond to kneel and shoot in the gun barrel opening; the only Bond to address the viewer and refer to his cinematic predecessor: This never happened to the other fellow, after losing the girl he rescued in the teaser. Moreover, the unofficial, 1967 version of Casino Royale also refers to the matter of interchangeable actors. There is also the mention of a later Bond movie when Sir Hillary Bray is coaching James Bond to portray him, they research Bond's coat of arms and Bray tells him His family motto is "The world is not enough".
[edit] Post-Bond career
Lazenby has portrayed James Bond several times over the years in numerous parodies and unofficial 007 roles, most notably the 1983 TV movie The Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E. and an episode of The New Alfred Hitchcock Presents, entitled "Diamonds Aren't Forever". He also made a guest appearance on the popular TV series Superboy during the show's second season in 1990. He appeared with Sylvia Kristel in several new Emmanuelle films in the 1990s.
[edit] Selected filmography
- Espionage in Tangiers (1966)
- On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)
- Universal Soldier (1971)
- Life and Legend of Bruce Lee (1973) (archive footage)
- The Last Days of Bruce Lee (1973)
- The Shrine of Ultimate Bliss (1974)
- The Man From Hong Kong (Alternate title: The Dragon Flies) (1975)
- A Queen's Ransom (1976)
- The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977)
- Bruce Lee, The Legend (1977)
- Game of Death (1978) (archive fighting footage)
- Death Dimension (Alternate title: Black Eliminator) (Alternate title: Freeze Bomb) 1978)
- Saint Jack (1979)
- The Nude Bomb (1980) - cameo appearance as James Bond
- General Hospital (1982) (TV Series)
- The Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1983) (TV Movie) - as the Bond-like character "JB"
- The Master (1984) (TV Series)
- Never Too Young to Die (1986)
- Superboy (1988) (TV Series) - recurring guest role as Jor-El
- The Evil Inside (1992)
- Emmanuelle's Secret (1992)
- Emmanuelle's Revenge (1992)
- Emmanuelle's Perfume (1992)
- Emmanuelle's Magic (1992)
- Gettysburg (1993) - as Confederate Brig. Gen Johnston Pettigrew
- YuYu Hakusho: Eizo Hakusho (1993) (voice)
- Emmanuelle's Love (1993)
- Emmanuelle in Venice (1993)
- Emmanuelle Forever (1993)
- Batman Beyond (1999) (TV Series) - recurring role as King (voice)
- Batman Beyond: The Movie (1999) (TV Movie) (voice)
- The Pretender (1999–2000) (TV Series) - recurring guest role as the hero Jarod's father Major Charles
- Four Dogs Playing Poker (2000)
- Spider's Web (2001)
- YuYu Hakusho: Ghost Files (2002) (TV Series) (voice)
- Winter Break (Alternate title: Sheer Bliss) (2003)
[edit] References in popular culture
- On an episode of The Simpsons, Lisa tells Marge that their Smart House has the voice of James Bond. Marge responds, "George Lazenby?!". Lisa corrects her, saying that it's Pierce Brosnan.
[edit] References
- ^ Interview in Bondage, magazine of the James Bond 007 Fan Club
- ^ Retrovision magazine interview with Peter R. Hunt
- ^ IMDB business data for On Her Majesty's Secret Service
- ^ IMDB business data for You Only Live Twice
[edit] External links
- George Lazenby at the Internet Movie Database
- Lazenby page from JamesBond.com
- George Lazenby Interview
- Official George Lazenby Site
- George Lazenby at the National Film and Sound Archive
- A 1999 discussion by Lazenby about his role as James Bond.
| Preceded by Sean Connery |
James Bond actor | Succeeded by Sean Connery |
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