"Almost" James Bond

[The Burgomaster]

A couple of nights ago I didn't feel like watching an entire movie, so I grabbed my copies of DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER and LIVE AND LET DIE and watched the 30 minute documentaries in the special features sections.  They mentioned that there was a brief period of time in the early 1970s when the producers considered making Bond more "Americanized."  American actor John Gavin (who was in PSYCHO) was actually signed to play Bond in DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER.  Eventually, they convinced Connery to do it (for $1.2 million), but they paid Gavin his entire contract anyway.  They also mentioned that Adam "Batman" West and Burt Reynolds (!!!) were considered to play 007.  Maybe many of you Bond trivia experts out there already knew about these "almost" Bonds.  But this was the first time I heard about it and I thought it was pretty interesting (and amusing).  Okay . . . I'll shut up now.

[peter johnson]

I worked with the very pudgy Mr. Ward once -- I cannot imagine his having anything at all to do with Bond --
And that's after seeing Woody Allen as Bond!(Casino Royale)
peter johnson . . . denny crane

[The Burgomaster]

peter johnson wrote:

"I worked with the very pudgy Mr. Ward once"

I assume that you mean Burt "Robin" Ward, rather than Adam "Batman" West???

[Yaddo42]

Patrick McGoohan was an early favorite of producer when they were getting ready to start the first Bond film, but he reportedly refused the role due to his dislike of the sex and gratuitous violence that the books had and would turn up in the films. From what I've read, McGoohan has (or had) a weird Puritan streak about such stuff. Guess he got over the violence to Edward "Longshanks" in "Braveheart".

I swear I read that Albert Finney was considered at one time when they were first casting the role, but I may be mixing this up with him being the original choice for "Lawrence of Arabia".

I remember during the doldrum between the last Timothy Dalton Bond film and the casting of Pierce Brosnan, Entertainment Weekly had an article where they asked various producers for ways to revamp or modernize the Bond Franchise. Most of the idiots they asked (many of whom asked to not be identified) had goofy casting ideas like making Bond American and have him played by someone like Tom Cruise. Others wanted to give the role to Wesley Snipes (making him black and American was supposed to get the kids to watch apparently) or Sharon Stone (other than the fact that she was still riding high from "Basic Instinct" at the time and hadn't begun to make her string of mostly bad movies that followed, I'm not sure what she was supposed to bring to the series). That's all of the casting ideas they listed I remember, most of the suggestions involved either involved a back to basics approach (not unlike the Quentin Tarantino writer/director suggestion that has made the rounds lately) or overhauling the character in bizarre ways, someone actually suggested making him gay (I'm convinced this was someone from a rival studio wanting to destroy the franchise, and they felt free to make such a goofy suggestion by hiding behind the writer not using their name). The bad part is that years later, during the Brosnan era, perhaps when his third Bond film got such bad reviews (but still made money), EW had a similar article and actually referred to some of the bad casting ideas in the eariler article.

[peter johnson]

Re.  Burgomeister --
Yes, Burt "Robin" Ward -- who is/was a very nice person, just physically very rotund & un-Bondish -- was/is the mad bomber Harry Hodgkins Jr. in ROBOCHIC.
peter johnson/denny crane