Roger Moore, the dapper British actor who brought tongue-in-cheek humor to the James Bond persona in seven films, eclipsing his television career, which had included starring roles in at least five series, died on Tuesday in Switzerland. He was 89.
The death, attributed to cancer, was confirmed in a family statement on Twitter.
Moore was the oldest Bond ever hired for films in the official series — although David Niven was in his 50s when he played Bond in the 1967 spoof Casino Royale — taking on the role when he was 45.
Photo: AFP
Sean Connery, who originated the film character and with whom Moore was constantly compared, was 32 when the first Bond film, Dr No, was released.
Moore also had the longest run in the role, beginning in 1973 with Live and Let Die and winding up in 1985 with A View to a Kill.
When he became 007, author Ian Fleming’s secret agent with a license to kill, Moore was already well known.
After playing the title role in a British medieval-adventure series, Ivanhoe, shown in the US in syndication in 1958, and starring in The Alaskans, a short-lived ABC television gold-rush series, he replaced the departing James Garner in the fourth season of the western hit Maverick.
His decidedly non-Western accent was explained away by the British education of his character, the original hero’s cousin.
From 1962 to 1969 Moore was Simon Templar, the title character of The Saint, a wildly popular British series about an adventurous, smooth-talking thief. It did so well in syndication in the US that NBC adopted it for its prime-time schedule from 1967 to 1969.
Two years later, Moore and Tony Curtis starred in ABC’s one-season series The Persuaders as playboy partners solving glamorous European crimes.
After surrendering the Bond role to Timothy Dalton, Moore appeared in a half-dozen largely unexceptional movies, made a few TV appearances and did voice work in animated films.
Mostly he turned his attention elsewhere, becoming a UNICEF goodwill ambassador in 1991.
He was made a Commander of the British Empire in 1999 and was knighted in 2003.
Moore had definite opinions about playing heroic adventurers long before he became Bond.
“I would say your average hero has a super ego, an invincible attitude and an overall death wish,” he told the New York Times in 1970. “He’s slightly around the twist, isn’t he?”
“In theatrical terms, I’ve never had a part that demands much of me,” he added. “The only way I’ve had to extend myself has been to carry on charming.”
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