The Search For Bond The final part of an exclusive 3-part article

Discarding Collins, Broccoli flew in American actor James Brolin to perform three days of extensive tests that UA chiefs regarded highly and for a brief period it looked like he might take over from Moore in Octopussy. Brolin has since spoken about looking around London with Broccoli for accommodation where he’d be staying for the duration of the shoot and has made the claim that the producer did not intend to hide his obvious American accent, hopeful that audiences would see Brolin’s physical presence and ignore the issue. Although not a big star at the time, Brolin was a well known and decent film performer with a string of starring roles in top American movies like Westworld, Capricorn One and The Amityville Horror.

Michael Billington was also tested, and for the last time, too, bringing to an end his long association with Bond. Perhaps more than anyone else Billington got the closest to winning the coveted 007 role, narrowly missing out repeatedly, as he believed, because the time was never quite right. “The timing was the very essence of it, you had to be what they wanted at a time when they wanted you and that all depended on who the chief executive at United Artists was and if they didn’t feel like taking on the responsibility of putting another Bond on, then they just kept on with whoever it was. Why Tim Dalton got thrown into it later was that the chief execs at UA said, no more Roger Moore. But I’d already gone off the scene by that time. If that had happened two pictures earlier I would have been thrown into the role. But it was just that Roger managed to hang in there for a couple more movies and Cubby couldn’t change the actor without getting the approval of the executives. I don’t know how I would’ve fared in the role because I thought the movies were real turkeys by then. I think the turkeys started with For Your Eyes Only, so how I would have fared I don’t know. It wasn’t really until GoldenEye that things really got back on track, they’d got new writers in, a new director and they approached it in a much more adult way. Fortunately for Pierce, he was available at the right time.”

In the end Moore did return for Octopussy and finally bowed out following 1985s A View To A Kill when it looked like his era had finally run out of steam. Critics had begun to comment on his unsuitable age. One newspaper cartoon had Q presenting Moore’s Bond with a new gadget – a turbo charged wheelchair. “Some critics were rather nasty, saying Roger was too old and the like,” said John Glen. “Well, it was his last Bond, and really the truth was we couldn’t find anyone to measure up to him. We couldn’t show United Artists an alternative. And so we were particularly glad to have him for the film. I think he’d have liked to have finished with Octopussy, but we needed him.”

Just like when Connery left, the filmmakers were faced with the daunting task of choosing a new 007 to take over from an actor who had made the role completely his own. During his 12 year tenure Roger Moore became totally synonymous with the Bond character, and one of the most recognizable faces in the world. He was going to be as tough a job to replace as Connery had been.

The makers were looking for an actor who could put his own stamp on the role while still embodying the classic 007 characteristics. Interestingly, Broccoli’s search for Bond number four took him to Australia. Inevitably names like Mel Gibson and Bryan Brown were tossed around, but they were too established. Instead Broccoli turned his attention to up and coming young Aussie actor Andrew Clarke. Born in 1954 in Adelaide, Clarke was best known for regular roles in Aussie soaps Prisoner Cell Block H and Sons and Daughters. But it was a lead role in the 1985 television mini-series Anzacs, which followed the lives of a small group of Australian soldiers during World War 1, that got him noticed by the Bond team and he was flown over to London for a screen test. According to Clarke the test went so well that he was presented with a contract to sign. “I was thinking I’d get a mil for a film, but I would have cleared 50 grand a year. I’d never seen a 55-page contract in my life! They wanted to own me for 10 years. I said, ‘Look, make it double the money and halve the years?’ They said, ‘Nuh, you’re on the next plane out of town.’ I’ve loved James Bond ever since I was a kid so it was a bit of a pity. I was thrilled to be asked, but I couldn’t accept it on those terms. They wanted to own me body and soul. When I wasn’t filming, they could hire me out to any studio they liked and pay me a small wage while they took whatever from the studio, so it was all just unbelievably terrible.”

Broccoli next looked over to America and Tom Selleck, the star of one of TVs most popular shows, Magnum. Another hot television actor seriously considered was John James, a face known all over the world thanks to his role as Jeff Colby in the soap opera blockbuster Dynasty. Born in 1956 in Minneapolis, John James was genuinely bewildered when his agent rang one day out of the blue with the news that Broccoli wanted a meeting with him at MGM to talk about the role of James Bond. “I said, what!” James recalls with humour. “And my agent said, no, they’re serious. I was kind of shocked because I just assumed that the role of Bond would always be an Englishman. So off I went and drove through the gates at MGM and proceeded up to Cubby Broccoli’s office where he was seated behind his desk with a couple of other producers.”

It was a very informal meeting which began with Broccoli congratulating James on the success of Dynasty, then among the top rated shows in America. “He also talked about the international appeal of the series, I think at the time it was being shown in about 90 countries. Maybe that was one of the reasons why I was considered. I also think the style of Dynasty played a part, characters usually wore tuxedos, and certainly my character had a definite demeanour about him that probably made them think of me.”

Once the niceties were over Broccoli got down to business and wanted to know James’ feelings about 007. “I told him I saw my first Bond movie while holidaying with my parents aboard the cruise liner the Queen Elizabeth in the Bahamas, it was Goldfinger. I said I was obviously a big fan of Bond, but then I cut to the chase and said, thanks for the offer but I hate to tell you this Mr. Broccoli but my feeling is that Bond should be played by an Englishman. I’m very flattered that you would think of me for this role but I just feel in my gut that it would be a mistake, that I’d be hung, drawn and quartered by Bond fans as an American playing this role. After all he is the consummate English gentleman.” James had played English before, appearing alongside Roddy McDowell in a national theatrical tour of Dial M For Murder as the ex-tennis playing murderer. “But Bond was different, Bond is a trademark, and it’s extremely important that the right person play that role.”

It was an incredibly honest reply, undertaken with some considerable guts, “and I remember Broccoli being quite taken aback by this actor turning him down,” says James. “But I think I made the right decision. Do I regret it? Here’s what I do regret. I regret not being in such a high quality production, the Bond people, they really pull out all the stops. But I just knew that however good my English accent was the audience would know and the publicity surrounding the film would focus on my being an American and unless I was anything other than a smashing success, my career would be in difficulty. I would be crucified, absolutely crucified. I was really concerned about that.”

Not that James didn’t think he could have done a good job had Broccoli managed to persuade him to change his mind. So how would he have gone about playing Bond? “I would have probably carried on with what they obviously saw and liked about my role on Dynasty. I would have stepped it up a notch, of course, this very quiet, reserved type, almost like James Coburn in his early movies. There was also my age; I was around 30, so I would have been a young Bond. Roger Moore was now much too old and the style of his movies had run their course and I think Broccoli was looking to re-invent the series and ended up really coming out of left-field with his eventual choice of Timothy Dalton. Interestingly, with Casino Royale and Daniel Craig, I think that’s what they were trying to do 20 years ago.”

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