Latest news with #SPECTRE
Daily Mirror
30-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
The James Bond film Sean Connery almost died filming is on TV tonight
Sean Connery almost died filming one of the James Bond films, but despite the near death experience, the movie still remains one of his favourites The James Bond movie that 'almost killed' legend Sean Connery is airing on TV tonight (Friday, May 30). The legendary actor was the first to play 007, but just a year after his first appearance, the star 'almost died' filming the second. ITV will be taking fans all the way back to 1963 tonight, as they air the second film in the James Bond franchise, From Russia With Love. Out of the 27 James Bond movies, many fans name this one as one of their favourites, as does actor Sean Connery. The movie will be airing at 22.45 tonight, shortly after the ITV News at Ten. The movie will play into Saturday morning, wrapping up at 0.40, allowing times for adverts. Despite being one of Connery's favourite James Bond films, it was revealed that the actor, who did a lot of his own stunts in this film, almost died during filming. It was the helicopter scene near the end of the movie that gave all a fright. The pilot in the scenes was reportedly inexperienced, and flew too close to Connery, causing him to nearly fall to his death. It wasn't the only near miss during filming of the movie. Director Terrance Young was involved in a helicopter crash while filming one of the film's thrilling scenes. Young was being carried across a body of water shooting a scene when the vehicle crashed. He was then reportedly trapped underwater in an air bubble, while those around tried to rescue him. Not even letting a near death experience stop him, a relentless Young came back to finish off the picture. In the 1963 film, which follows on from Dr. No, James Bond is sent to Istanbul on a mission to obtain a highly sought-after Lektor decoder device from Russian defector Tatiana Romanova (Daniela Bianchi). However, she's actually a ruse devised by crime cartel SPECTRE as an attempt to gain revenge for the killing of Dr. No. Connery originated the role of 007 in 1962's Dr. No, and then went on to star in fan favourite, From Russia with Love just a year later. After a break following Diamonds Are Forever in 1971, the star's final movie was Never Say Never Again in 1983. Sean died in October 2020 at the age of 90. The star died peacefully in his sleep in the Bahamas, having been "unwell for some time", his son said.
Yahoo
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
20 Bond Girls Behind the Scenes Photos
Bond girls are as much a part of the 007 films as James Bond himself. Here are 20 Bond girls behind the scenes. Whether out for themselves, their mother countries, or even, sometimes, James Bond, Bond girls add mystery, style and stakes to stories of glamour and espionage. (And yes, we recognized the term 'Bond girls' is anachronistic, but we think it's been grandfathered into the movie lexicon — it even has its own Wikipedia entry.) Is being a Bond girl as fun as it looks onscreen? These images would suggest that yes, it is. Related Headlines The 12 Top-Grossing Movies With a Zero on Rotten Tomatoes The 13 Best Sleazy Movies We've Ever Seen 10 Movie Sex Scenes Someone Should Have Stopped Though she was preceded onscreen by Sylvia Trench and Miss Taro, Honey Ryder, a Jamaican shell diver played by a dubbed Ursula Andress, is widely considered the first Bond girl. Perhaps it's because of her unforgettable entrance in Dr. No, emerging from the ocean in a white bikini and belt, bearing shells. Her chemistry with Bond is one of the driving forces in Dr. No, the film that spawned one of the most successful and longest-running of all film franchises. The first Bond sequel found Bond traveling to Turkey to help Soviet consulate clerk Tatiana Romanova — played by Daniela Bianchi, with Connery above. Of course, this being a Bond movie, sparks fly. But Tatiana is, of course, a pawn in a plan by SPECTRE to enact vengeance against Bond for some things that happened in Dr. No. But the pawn soon becomes the key player in the film. She was Miss Universo Italia and first runner up at Miss Universe 1960 before becoming one of the most famous Bond girls. And in 1967, she appeared opposite Connery's brother, Neil Connery, in Operation Kid Brother, a Bond spoof. Honor Blackman, rehearsing an infamous fight scene with Sean Connery, above, has perhaps the most famous name of any of the Bond girls — and we're not even sure we can print it here given the cautious sensibilities of some of our syndication partners. Suffice it to say that Blackman, who was also known for the TV series The Avengers, is one of the most iconic Bond girls of all — a woman who could very much hold her own against Bond, or anybody. Shirley Eaton played Jill Masterson, aide to the villain who gives Goldfinger its title. When she spends a night with Bond, he enacts a cruel but colorful vengeance: Having her killed via 'skin suffocation' from being painted gold. The image was iconic enough to land Eaton on the cover of LIFE magazine for its November 6, 1964 issue. If you're wondering, it took about 90 minutes to apply all that gold paint. The task fell to makeup artist Paul Rabiger, who also worked on the Bond movies Thunderball, You Only Live Twice and From Russia With Love. Claudine Auger earned the titles of Miss France Monde 1958 and became first runner up in the 1958 Miss World compeition before landing the role of Dominique 'Domino' Derval in Thunderball, the fourth Bond film. Her chemistry with Sean Connery, onscreen and behind the scenes, should be obvious. She later starred in the 1966 World War II drama Triple Cross, and, in 1968, appeared with fellow Bond girl Ursula Andress in the Italian comedy Anyone Can Play. Luciana Paluzzi as SPECTRE agent Fiona Volpe helped create the template for the Bond femme fatale. She's one of the fiercest early Bond girls. Her later roles included playing as a Southern belle in the 1974 film The Klansman — with her voice dubbed — for Thunderball director Terence Young. Diana Rigg (left) is the first of the Bond girls to be arguably more famous than her co-star: She had already the lead of The Avengers when she was cast as new Bond George Lazenby's partner in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Lazenby, an Australian model, played Bond just once before Connery returned for Diamonds Are Forever. Rigg also holds the distinction of being the only woman to marry Bond — though, horribly, she was murdered moments after their wedding, making On Her Majesty's Secret Service perhaps the biggest bummer of all Bond movies. Still, Rigg did very well — her many post-Bond roles included playing Olenna Tyrell in Game of Thrones. And she played a crucial part in Edgar Wright's 2021 Last Night in Soho, which was completed just before her death. Live and Let Die, the first film to feature Roger Moore as Bond, was produced at the height of the Blaxploitation trend and has several attempts at nods to Black culture, including the casting of Gloria Hendry as Rosie Carver, who is the first Black woman to be romantically entwined with 007 onscreen. One could argue that Jane Seymour's Solitaire is the most prominent of the movie's Bond girls, but we don't have a picture of Jane Seymour posing behind the scenes by a pinball machine in one of the most gloriously 1970s images ever, so. Oh wait, we may have found a more 1970s image. We hope you'll forgive us for the fact that not one but two Bond girls are in this photo. Maud Adams, left, played Andrea Anders in The Man With the Golden Gun, and returned to play the title character in a 1983 Bond film we don't think we can name here for reasons previously mentioned. Meanwhile, Britt Ekland, right, played Mary Goodnight. Mary as been derided for being kind of clumsy as Bond girls go — but also praised as one of the most fashionable. Don't blame Ekland for the writing. Director Guy Hamilton has said in audio commentary for the film that she was so 'elegant and beautiful that it seemed to me she was the perfect Bond girl.' And yes, that's Fantasy Island star Hervé Villechaize, who also starred in the film, hanging out with Moore, Adams and Ekland. Perhaps reflecting the advances of the women's liberation movement, Soviet spy Major Anya Amasova is one of the most coolly capable of all the women in Bond movies — though even she needs an assist against the hulking Jaws (Richard Kiel). Almost to the final seconds of The Spy Who Loved Me, we don't know if Amasova loves Bond or wants to kill him or both. In the last of the Roger Moore Bond movies, Tonya Roberts (right) — best known at the time for Charlie's Angels — plays the heiress of an oil company who tries to fend off the advances of the evil Max Zorin (Christopher Walken). But the coolest character in the movie is May Day, Zorin's lover and chief assassin, played by Grace Jones (left). She's one of the most memorable of all Bond characters, and even kind of gets to die a hero. Timothy Dalton became the new James Bond in the late '80s, when fears of HIV/AIDS were very prevalent and an effort was made to tone down 007's promiscuity. That meant fewer, but more memorable, female counterparts, including the charismatic Carey Lowell as pilot and DEA informant Pam Bouvier, who helps James battle a drug lord. (Why was Bond messing with cocaine kingpins instead of mad scientists? It was the '80s.) Lowell went on to be known for playing smart and capable characters in many other roles, including as Jamie Ross in Law & Order. Tomorrow Never Dies is most noteworthy for being the movie that introduced Malaysian action star Michelle Yeoh to Western audiences, a quarter-century before she won Best Actress for her role in 2022's Best Picture winner Everything Everywhere All At Once. Yeoh plays Wai Lin, a supremely capable Chinese agent. She may be best known for reality TV today, but Denise Richards had two excellent back-to-back appearances in Starship Trooper (1997) and Wild Things (1988) before joining the Bond franchise to play an oddly named nuclear physicist. She holds her own against terrific 007 Pierce Brosnan, but her name seems like a setup for the worst line ever to appear in a Bond movie: 'I thought Christmas only comes once a year.' Blech. Halle Berry is another Bond girl who at least matched her Bond co-star in stardom: At the time of the film's release, she had just won a Best Actress Oscar for 2001's Monsters was the final Pierce Brosnan movie, but Berry basically hijacked it with her sheer watchability, and not just by paying homage to Ursula Andress' entrance in Dr. No. Vesper Lynd is widely recognized as one of the greatest of all Bond girls, if not the greatest: She breaks the heart of Daniel Craig's Bond in this film, and he never quite recovers. Besides being the most glamorous British Treasury agent of all, Lynd is a smooth operator who keeps everyone guessing until the very end — especially Bond. Ana de Armas isn't in No Time to Die for very long — just long enough to steal the whole movie. Dressed in evening wear, her Cuban secret agent shoots it out with Bond in a Havana fight scene that is one of the best set pieces in any Bond film. Can she be the next 007? Léa Seydoux is a standout among Bond girls — or Bond women, as we should probably call them in the modern age. Her character is the only woman to be the female lead in two Bond films, and the only woman known to have a child with him. Besides On Her Majesty's Secret Service, No Time to Die is the biggest bummer among Bond films. But Swann and her daughter, Mathilde, provides glimmers of light. You might also enjoy these behind the scenes images of Goldfinger. Editor's Note: Ursula Andress, Eva Green and Halle Berry in character for Dr. No, Casino Royale and Die Another Day, respectively. MGM Editor's note: Corrects main image. Related Headlines The 12 Top-Grossing Movies With a Zero on Rotten Tomatoes The 13 Best Sleazy Movies We've Ever Seen 10 Movie Sex Scenes Someone Should Have Stopped
Yahoo
04-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Oscars James Bond Tribute Contained One Bizarre Mistake
Opinions from Bond fans on the Internet were mixed on the Oscar's big musical tribute to 007. While some loved the singing and the vibe of the send-up, others were confused. Regardless of how you felt about the James Bond tribute at the 97th Academy Awards, there was one small detail that stuck out. Despite paying tribute to EON producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson—who were seen in the audience—one shot from the opening video montage included a scene very much not from one of EON's Bond movies, but instead, a rival film produced in 1983 by Jack Schwartzman. In her tender introduction, former Bond girl Halle Berry referenced Wilson and Broccoli specifically, which was interesting since the news of their handing over the Bond franchise to Amazon is so recent. But, while the tribute was respectful and celebratory, someone putting together the clip montage must have gotten their wires crossed. And that's because when Sean Connery says "Bond, James Bond" in the montage, it's a moment taken from the 1983 film Never Say Never Again, which was not an EON-produced Bond movie. Instead, Never Say Never Again was an unofficial, one-off rival Bond movie that was largely a remake of 1965's Thunderball. How could there have been an "unofficial" James Bond movie starring Sean Connery in 1983 you ask? Well, because the story of Thunderball was originally co-written by Ian Fleming and Kevin McClory back in the early 1960s, the intellectual property rights of certain James Bond concepts became murky. Specifically, by the mid-1970s, McClory successfully sued EON for the sole rights to the concepts of the character of Blofeld, as well as the criminal organization of SPECTRE. It wasn't until well into the Daniel Craig era that EON got these rights back, which allowed the 2015 film, Spectre to exist. This is also why all Bond films from 1977 to 2012 do not overtly mention SPECTRE, and never name Blofeld. So, into this nebulous gray area emerged Never Say Never Say Again in 1983, a Bond movie in which 007 (Connery) comes out of retirement to battle Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Max von Sydow). Kim Basinger also starred in the movie as Bond girl Domino, who was originally played by Claudine Auger in the 1965 version. Never Say Never Again was directed by Empire Strikes Back filmmaker Irvin Kershner and went head-to-head at the box office with an official James Bond movie, Roger Moore's Octopussy, which was also released in 1983. But despite Connery's iconic status, and Octopussy being nobody's favorite Bond movie, Never Say Never Again lost the Battle of the Bonds. It grossed $160 million, while Octopussy did $187 million. Today, most Bond fans regard Never Say Never Again with a shrug. And, in recent years, it seems that the powers-that-be at EON even tolerate the film's existence in a way that wasn't the case in previous decades. Along with the 1967 spoof film Casino Royale, Never Say Never Again was included in the lush 2021 coffee table book, The James Bond Archives, which chronicled the entire film history of the franchise. Still, nobody counts Never Say Never Again among the official Bond films from EON. So, in paying tribute to EON and the Broccoli family, having this renegade version of Bond was shocking. Positively shocking.
Budapest Times
15-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Budapest Times
Building a career and then destroying it
Actor Robert Shaw took his craft seriously, when he thought it was worthy, starting on stage in Shakespearean plays and graduating to film roles. So might it pain him if he were to discover from the Great Beyond that two of his best silver-screen appearances fondly remembered here at The Budapest Times involved dying rather spectacular final exits in "blockbuster' commercial films? We approach John French's book with great interest. Many other cinemagoers, we are sure, still recall with horror the bloody, scarifying moments when Shaw slipped slowly into the gaping mouth of the huge Great White Shark at the climax of 'Jaws' in 1975. And it was in 'From Russia with Love', the second James Bond film, released in 1963, that Shaw suffered another momentous cinematic exit. In that one, he plays SPECTRE assassin Donald 'Red' Grant, who has been trained to assassinate Bond (played by Sean Connery). The two engage in a ferocious fight to the death in a carriage on the Orient Express train, and Grant is about to prevail until Bond tricks him into setting off a booby trap, one of the gadgets hidden in a special briefcase supplied to 007 by Q Branch. Triumph for Bond, end of Grant, naturally. John French knew Robert Shaw well, professionally and personally, having been Shaw's agent for the last five years of the actor's life, which ended in 1978 aged a relatively young 51 years. For three years before that, French worked for Shaw's then-agent as an assistant. French thus appears in his own book around the two-thirds mark, with the decision to do so in the third-person 'he' and not the first-person 'I', thus avoiding what he feared might be the risk of changing his Shaw biography into a sort of hybrid autobiography. But despite the closeness between the two men, readers are assured by French's publisher of a 'perceptive, sympathetic, but unsparing portrait of the blessings and curses endowing this mercurial, engimatic but deeply engaging man'. What's that old phrase – warts and all? Impressively, considering that the agent/author enters the picture so late on, French delivers an absolutely fulsome account, as detailed pre-himself as it is post-himself. Readers are still given a treat, with no short shrift of the actor's early years. Robert Archibald Shaw was born in Westhoughton, near Bolton, Lancashire, UK, on August 9, 1927, and so with his death in 1978 it means a good number of Shaw's contemporaries were still around to tell their tales for the biography, which went into print 15 years later in 1993. It remains available through Dean Street Press. In a way, then, can Shaw's demise be considered a case of 'Live fast, die young and leave a good-looking corpse'? Perhaps not quite, although Shaw had become an awful alcoholic and the book tells us that, 'The flipside to Shaw's diverse abilities was his well-earned reputation as a hellraiser. A fiercely competitive man in all areas of his life, whether playing table tennis or drinking whisky, he emptied mini-bars, crashed Aston Martins, fathered nine children by three different women, made (and spent) a fortune, and set fire to Orson Welles' house'. It certainly doesn't sound like a recipe for life longevity, and French recounts how Shaw's passing came after he had driven himself too hard and too fast but was never able to get past the tortured relationship to his father, who had committed suicide by taking poison in 1938 when Shaw was just 11 years old. His father Thomas was a General Practitioner, and in 1926 he married Doreen Avery, who trained as a nurse. Doctor Shaw was a chronic drunk, always carrying a hip flask and often borrowing money to frequent the pub until closing time. His drinking got progressively worse and he would go into Robert's room after an evening of imbibing and weep on his son's bed. Shaw never got past the relationship, his feelings becoming harder and harder to cope with. As an adolescent he became prey to brooding and unpredictability, a loner whose moodiness made him difficult to get close to. Winning was essential because he hated losing, whether playing rugby, tennis, boules or arm-wrestling, for instance. If he wasn't good at something he worked on it until he was proficient. He delighted in doing down opponents, even if, at golf, it was a one-legged man. Shaw had success on the school stage and by his late teens was set on becoming an actor, and, he would always add, a writer. While he is most probably remembered as being a celebrated Oscar-nominated star, for 'A Man for All Seasons' in 1967, he wrote six published novels, the second one, 'The Sun Doctor' in 1961, winning the Hawthornden Prize for novels by writers under the age of 41. It was sold for translation to France, Sweden, Denmark and Holland. Some of these books received ecstatic reviews. Shaw also wrote plays, and they included the praised 'The Man in the Glass Booth', written in 1967 and filmed in 1975. He passed entry to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London in 1946 but from being Head Boy at Truro School in Cornwall, and the natural centre of attraction, now he was just another student, small fish in a big pond. French says his predictable reaction, conditioned by his inability to 'win', was to become aggressive and uncooperative, an outsider. He despised the teaching methods and the organisation of RADA, describing it as a concentration camp. When he graduated in summer 1949 he was on the employment market with 200 other actors that year. So it was slow going for him at first, with lowly stage appearances as a 'spear-carrier' and months out of work waiting for offers. Here The Budapest Times can reveal that your correspondent Osterberg is so ancient that as a 6- and 7-year-old he used to watch Shaw when he made a breakthrough by landing the role of Captain Dan Tempest in the action-packed television series 'The Buccaneers' that ran for 39 episodes. Where's that credit card? – now you can buy the complete series on DVD. Eventually, over the years Shaw worked himself into the position where he didn't have to look for work because work, instead, came looking for him. Though heavily discontented with his parts, he was undoubtedly making an impact on his fellow professionals. At the same time he had inflated ideas of his worth. In his personal life he was a man's man, uneasy with women, occasionally lusting after them but not really understanding nor making a true friendship with one. While never a womaniser, he would pursue one relentlessly if captivated. As a young man he hardly drank at all, regarding alcohol in much the same way as he did the opposite sex, of interest but a matter of no great passion. He could be wildly extravagant but generous, hating snobs, and his life was often in total turmoil. Eventual professional and financial pressures saw him become a fall-down drunk. Tax problems forced the family into exile in western Ireland. A favourite word of his had been 'energy', created from the adrenelin of success, establishing himself as an actor of quality with a certain degree of public fame. His writing was being applauded internationally, he was mixing with people he admired intellectually, earning almost as much as he spent and getting regular offers of work. But he did not feel he had reached the first rank of actors, and in time the energy died. He would take any part – even if he knew they were 'pieces of shit' – for the money. The only quality threshold was the size of his fee. The huge success of 'Jaws' helped right the Shaw ship for a while but the following six films were all failures, if not disasters. John French has the details in full, and they make sad and sorry but fascinating reading. Robert Shaw felt ill while driving in Ireland, stopped the car, got out and died of a heart attack at the roadside on August 28, 1978. The price of success, and a troubled childhood, indeed.
