James Bond

An Interview With James Bond
Screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz

By TOM SOTER
from the NEW YORK VOICE
August 22, 1987

"The Living Daylights" introduces a new James Bond, in the person of dashing, intense Timothy Dalton. He's as much a success with his serious sty[e, as his immediate predecessor, Roger Moore, was with his flip one. What did the man who wrote Moore's first Bond epic, "Live and Let Die," think of his leading man? In the following interview, Mankiewicz provides some answers to that and other questions. Mankiewicz co-wrote ''Diamonds Are Forever" and "The Man with the Golden Gun, " and wrote "Live and Let Die." His non-Bond efforts include "Superman II" and "Superman III, " and the Bill Cosby film "Mother, Jugs and Speed. " He created and supervised the TV series "Hart to Hart."

New Bond on the beat: Roger Moore (seated) with (left to right) producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman on location for "Live and Let Die."

Q: You worked on three Bond pictures as screenwriter with two different Bonds. Can you compare your relationships with Sean Connery and Roger Moore?

A: I had a terrific relationship with both. With Sean, I was really surprised because when I first met him in Las Vegas on the day he arrived, he had read the script and made notes on it. I was surprised by how much homework he had done. He had gone through it very carefully and the thing that was surprising to me was that most of the notes he had were for other parts. For instance, he would say, "Couldn't she say something better than this to that guy?" Most of the time it had nothing to do with him.

I never really had a meeting with Roger like that. Roger's contributions are more in the dialogue area. He's very quick and his contributions tend to happen on the spur of the moment. For instance, Roger had an ad-lib in "Live and Let Die" where the girl says, "I guess as an agent I'm a total bust." And he said, "I'm sure we'll find some way to lick you into shape." Which I loved. Roger is terrific to work with.

Q: How was it writing for the two actors? Their styles are very different.

A: I think you write to their strengths. Roger's is comedy. For instance, Roger Moore walking into the Filet of Soul, a Black bar in Harlem in his very British Chesterfield coat. You get great comedy out of it because he looks like a twit. On the other side, Sean walking into the Filetof Soul – Sean carries violence with him. He looks like a bastard; he's got a glint in his eye. So I think the audience's impression as Sean walks in is, "Uh-oh, look out. Something's going to happen here." And one does think that if Roger starts to do exactly the same sort of things that Sean did, the audience is going to resent that.' So it's part and parcel of trying to write to their strengths.

Q: Connery reportedly enjoyed working on "'Diamonds Are Forever." Did they try and get him back for the next one, "Live and Let Die"?

Sean Connery and Lana Wood in "Diamonds Are Forever."

A: At the last minute they made another attempt to get Sean back. I remember having dinner with him just before "Live and Let Die" began shooting and he said, "How's the script?" And I said, "It's just terrific, Sean. It really would be a lot of fun." And we didn't have a Bond then and I said, "Would you like to read it?" And he refused. I think that's because he didn't want to get tempted again like he was with "Diamonds." He said to me, "Boyo, all they can offer me is money." And that's what he didn't need. And I brought up the quesiton of his "obligation" to his public to play Bond. He said to me, "Six pictures over ten years; How much of an obligation have I got? When does it run out? Should we put a limit on it, say I5 pictures over 30 years? One more this year and then is my obligation over?" He said the only two things he ever wanted in his life were to own a golf course and a bank. And he had both.

Q: I understand there were some casting problems in "Live and Let Die"?

A: When we started writing "Live and Let Die," one of the things that I wanted very much, and the director, Guy Hamilton, wanted very much, was for, the heroine, Solitaire, to be played be a Black woman. United Artists, the distributor, was'very scared of it. I thought having, a Black heroine would ease the basic problem of the film, a white man beating up Blacks. But when it carne time to do it, U.A, was quite frightened of it for legitimate reasons from their point of view. The picture was going to be very expensive and they wondered, outside of cities like New York and London. How well that would go over with a new Bond. They'd had the experience of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service," which had done poorly. But we didn't know they were going th renege on this idea. And the first person who was brought up in casting sessions for the Solitaire part was Catherine Deneuve. And I said, "Well, she's not terribly Black." Sort of the antithesis of it.

Q: What about the casting of Moore?

A: Cubby and Guy went over to the Goldwyn lot to meet an actor named Burt Reynolds, who was doing a series called "Dan August."And Guy thought he was charming as hell. And as a matter of fact, the choice wlls between Burt Reynolds and Roger Moore. Roger Moore. He had just done "Deliverance" and I think the biggest problem with him would have been getting him to sign for three pictures. And Cubby was the one who said, "I don't care what happens. Bond must be British." So Reynolds was out.

Q: What was it like working with the producers Albert R. (Cubby) Broccoli and Harry Saltzman?

A: Harry is so mercurial. He gets these brainstorms. He had an obsession that Bond would wake up in bed in "Live and Let Die" and there would be a crocodile next to him. And I said, "Harry, first of all, they've got such little legs. How does he get up there? Harry said, "Somebody put him there." I said: "Who?" He said. "I don't know – but I know that Bond gets up and there's a crocodile right next to him." "Why doesn't the crocodile eat Bond?' "He's noi hungry." He really wanted it and we didn't get it in.

Now Cubby is more the conscience.of the audience. He wants to make sure everyone understands everything. I used to use the example-that never happened – that you could say to the two of them, "Bond falls off the boat and as he's sinking underwater, he meets an octopus. But it has nine arms.'' Harry would say, "And he's bright red and he's on roller skates and he blows up." And Cubby would say, "I still don't understand what's funny about the nine arms." You'd say, "But, Cubby, octopusses usually have eight arms." And he'd say, "1 know that. But do you think everyone in the audience is going to get that?'"

Q: Do you know why they split up?

Christopher Lee and Maude Adams in "The Man with the Golden Gun."

A: There were all kinds of reasons. Basically, they had totally different lifestyles. Cubby's life is those films. He loves working on them, Harry is just a natural wheeler-dealer. He has such an active and unfocused mind that he loves to be into 12 things at a time. There are people like that who just need that kind of action. There's a story about Harry. He wanted to have a sequence in a salt mine in "You Only Live Twice" and he said, "We've got to have one in a salt mine." He took an art director and a bus and he went all over Japan before finding out two weeks later that there are no salt mines in Japan. But that wouldn't stop Harry. He would say, "Nonsense. The just haven't found any yet."