Moore Roger - My Word Is My Bond: A Memoir

Memoirs of an Aspiring Actor

F or years, people have said to me Write your book, and for years I said, No, there are too many people Id have to write about, and even if theyre dead, what I might say would be an intrusion on their privacy. And apart from that, Im too lazy.

Irving Swifty Lazar persuaded my friend Michael Caine to write his book, and tried the same tactics with me. Unfortunately, Swifty is now dead. He had said, Ill get you a ghostwriter. Well, maybe he is that ghost now; it would be nice to think so. He was a great character, miniature in stature but a giant of a human being.

In 1992, I decided to put pen to paper, or finger to keyboard, to be more accurate. I thought Id start by relating my many childhood illnesses and operations. Illness is a theme that youll find permeates my writingand Im only on the first page. I tapped away at 6,000 words or so on my laptop and then, later that year, tragedy struck. There we were, just before Christmas, at Geneva airport, having flown in from London; I stayed in the baggage area to claim the luggage, leaving my former wife, Luisa, to go through to the car with the carry-on baggagewhich turned out to be carry off baggage, as it happens. Distracted for a moment, and believing that our driver had taken care of putting the small things in the back of the car, Luisa settled down happily to await my arrival with the other luggage.

Imagine our horror when we discovered that the driver had not put the bags in the back at all. Instead they had, we presumed, been put in the back of some other vehicle and were well on their way to make some airport thieves Christmas a happy one. We spent the next two hours reporting our loss to the police: jewels, cash, gifts, all gone. It was much later that I realized I had also lost my precious words.

In the years since then Ive resisted returning to the keyboard. No, thats not strictly true. I havent resisted, but rather have always been kept busy with so many other things that the idea of sitting down to put finger to keyboard was not one I could entertainor at least that was my excuse. However, with renewed encouragement from my darling wife Kristina, my daughter Deborah and my dear friend Leslie Bricusse, I have decided it is now indeed time to make time and stop making excuses.

When, on the eve of my eightieth birthday in October 2007, I announced that I was starting work on my story again, I was adamant that it would be a fun book with no recycled scandal, tittle-tattle or dirtdishingthe expected inclusion of which had worried me so much when I tackled my earlier version. But, dear reader, that isnt to say this will be a fluffy book. I want to tell things as I saw them: relay the funny stories and recall the many wonderful characters and friends that have enriched my life. When I have nothing nice to say about a person, Id rather not say anything at all (unless pushed to say a few words by my editor!). Why give them the publicity, I say? No, Id far rather fill these pages with words about me. This is, after all, a book about me: a suave, modest, sophisticated, talented, modest, debonair, modest and charming individualof whom there is much to write.

Throughout my tenure as James Bond, there were many wonderful scripts to work with, and one of my favourite lines from any Bond film came from Tom Mankiewicz, who wrote the screenplay for The Man With the Golden Gun . Trying to find out where the million-pounds-a-hit assassin Scaramanga is, Jimmy Bond tracks down gun-maker Lazar and aims a gun at Lazars crotch saying, Speak now or for ever hold your piece.

Fearful of losing my piece, I feel its time for me to speak

I was an only child. You see, they achieved perfection first time round

I t was just after midnight on 14 October 1927, when Lily Moore (ne Pope) gave birth to a twenty-three-inch-long baby boy at a maternity hospital in Jeffreys Road, Stockwell, London SW8. The babys father, George Alfred Moore, was twenty-three and a police constable stationed at Bow Street. Of course, Im only quoting this from hearsay. I was much too young to recall such a momentous event as my entry to this world.

I was christened Roger George Moore and we lived about a mile from the hospital, on Aldebert Terrace, London SW8. I was to be the couples only child. You see, they achieved perfection first time round.

I dont remember what the flat on Aldebert Terrace was like, we moved before I was old enough to absorb my surroundings. However, I do remember our new home: it was a third-floor flat 200 yards away in Albert Squarenumber four, I think. It had two bedrooms and a living room-cum-kitchen. I remember the mantelpiece seeming so high to me; above it was a mirror and the only way I could see my reflection was to stand on the bench positioned along the opposite wall.

Life was happy in Albert Square. Its funny how little things stick in your mind: the beautiful smell of freshly cut wood from the timberyard next to our garden. To this day I can visualize the two gas brackets on either side of the mirror in the living room. There was no electricity, you see, and these were our only means of light. The china mantles gave off a low, hissing illumination. It was a comforting sound and one I associated with being home in the bosom of my family. The main source of heating was a coal fire. Oh, how this schoolboys bare legs would be red-mottled on the shin side from sitting too close to the burning coals; especially when making toast with a long-handled fork. Wed spread beef dripping on it, oh what joy! When I was a little older, I took pleasure in helping my mother black-lead the grate. I was a very obliging child.

Illness played a greatand unwelcomerole in my early life. Mumps were soon followed by a raging sore throat, and it was decided that I should have my tonsils removed and adenoids scraped at the same time. I wasnt really too sure what this would entail, but was promised that when I woke up from the tonsillectomy I would be fed ice cream. That alone would make my stay in hospital worthwhile, I decided.