Wait… who?!
A Blind Date and a Thrown Punch Led to Lazenby
Born in Australia in 1939, George Lazenby was a highschool dropout who adopted a lady to London and ended up turning into a profitable male mannequin for a string of print and TV advert campaigns. Performing wasn’t on his thoughts, and positively not getting into the position of the world’s biggest spy, when he went on a last-minute blind date with an agent. She known as him a number of days later and urged that he is likely to be proper for a top-secret half she’d heard about.
When Lazenby discovered the position was James Bond, he didn’t concern himself along with his skinny (or fairly, nonexistent) performing resume. He was, nonetheless, nervous about his look, which featured the lengthy hair and sideburns fairly prevalent in Swinging ‘Sixties’60s London. However he didn’t simply go to any barber: he went to Sean Connery’s very personal barber and bought the identical lower because the Scottish actor. Then he went to Connery’s tailor, who simply occurred to have a go well with readily available that the previous 007 star hadn’t claimed and which match Lazenby completely. It was virtually as if it was destiny.
Lazenby talked his method into the workplace of Saltzman, too, and spun some tall tales about his work as an actor in Australia. (Oh, to use for jobs in a pre-internet world!) Instructed to return again the subsequent day to satisfy with director Peter Hunt, Lazenby requested his neighbor, an performing coach, for a fast lesson or two that night. However when he met with Hunt, he confessed that he had no performing expertise. Hunt was nonetheless impressed that he managed to idiot the robust, no-nonsense Saltzman. “Stick with your story and I’ll make you the subsequent James Bond,” he instructed the Australian upstart.
The producers screen-tested Lazenby in secret to cease phrase from getting out that they had been trying critically at a mannequin to tackle the position of Bond. In addition they noticed him swimming, driving horses, taking part in baccarat, and allegedly even having intercourse—a manufacturing assistant was assigned to carry ladies to Lazenby’s condo and observe discreetly how he carried out to find out that he was not homosexual.
His ultimate take a look at was a mock battle with a stuntman in order that the producers might see whether or not he would look convincing in hand-to-hand private fight. However Lazenby, who had no expertise in staged fisticuffs however had participated in his share of real-life brawls, punched the stuntman for actual, bloodying his nostril and sending him to the ground. “That’s when Harry stepped over him, grabbed me, and says, ‘We’re going with you,’” Lazenby recalled for Some Sort of Hero.
