ROGER MOORE
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NGUYEN KINH DOANH
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In 1973 I saw “Live and Let Die” in a pack-jammed theater on
Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles. At
the point in time, President Nixon was fighting for his political life in the
growing Watergate Scandal, facing an increasingly hostile Congress, which holds
the power of appropriations, and a hostile public, tired of the Vietnam
War. Prior to that, young anti-Vietnam War protestors, wearing
t-shirts, denim jeans and with long hair like The Beatles, staged a sit-in and
were called Hippies by NYPD officers and reporters. The police fought with and swung their batons at them to chase
off the escalators. They fought back
and were arrested.
Live and Let Die was the first of seven James Bond movies
Roger Moore was starring. He played the
suave, sophisticated, and dynamic agent in:
The
Man with the Golden Gun (1974)
The Spy
Who Loved Me (1977)
Moonraker
(1979)
For Your
Eyes Only (1981)
Octopussy
(1983)
A View to a Kill (1985)
My 1978 favorite movie was The
Wild Geese in which Roger Moore was Lt. Shawn Fynn and Colonel Allen
Faulkner was Richard Burton. A British multinational seeks to overthrow a
vicious dictator in Central Africa. It
hired a group of mercenaries in London and sends them in to save the virtuous
but imprisoned opposition leader who is critically ill and due for
execution. Just when the team has
performed a perfect rescue, the vicious leader makes a deal with the
multinational leaving the mercenaries escape under their own steam and exact
revenge.
Roger Moore achieved international celebrity in 1973 when he essayed
replacement work. Becoming a highly
successful successor to Sean Connery in “Live and Let Die”, the first of seven
“James Bond” films he would make into the mid-80s. Moore’s last Bond effort was “A View to a Kill” (1985). His career was very much a dashing leading
man rather than a character star and he subsequently made only occasional
appearances on film and TV. His most
high profile turn was as the roguish villain in Jean-Claude Van Damme’s “The
Quest” (1996).
Roger Moore was born on October 14, 1927 in London, England, the son of
a policeman. He attended Dr.
Challoner’s Grammar School and Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in England. Moore appeared in films in the 1940s, as an
extra, and then was a leading man, notably in television. Besides having been The Saint, many episodes of which he also directed, Moore was
Ivanhoe, the noble knight, and Maverick, the Wild West cardsharp, and featured
as the leading man of The
Persuaders! For this, he was paid
the then unheard of one million pounds for a single series, making him the highest paid television actor
in the world.
To date, Moore is the longest-serving James Bond actor at twelve years
(from when he was signed in 1973, to his retirement from the role in 1985), and
seven official films (Connery also made seven, but his last Bond film, Never Say Never Again *1983*
is not part of the official EON Productions Bond series.) He is also the oldest actor to play
Bond: When debuted he was 45 and 58
when he announced his retirement on December 3, 1985, as it was agreed by all
involved in the franchise that Moore had got too old for the role by that
point. Moore himself was quoted as
saying that he felt embarrassed to be seen doing love scenes with beautiful
actresses who were young enough to be his daughters.
By 1983, Moore was a famous
philanthropist. Since having filmed
Octopussy in India, where he was shocked at the extreme poverty, Moore has
engaged in humanitarian work. In a
December 2005 interview with Icelandic television, he explains his introduction
to UNICEF and the reason for his continual high – level support of the
organization. His neighbor Audrey Hepburn
in Switzerland told him to help hungry children. He had known her since
his early 20s. She impressed him with her work for UNICEF, and
consequently he became UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 1991. In the UNICEF cartoon “The Fly Who Loved
Me” he was the voice of “Santa.”
His first wife was Doorn Van Steyn, a professional ice skater, ending in
divorce in 1953. After the divorce,
Moore married singer Dorothy Squires.
They divorced in 1968. Squires
died of cancer in 1998. His third wife
was Luisa Mattioli. Married in 1969 and
separated in 1995. The divorce
settlement finalized in 2002. She
reportedly received $15 million in exchange for promise not to write a tell-all
book about their marriage. Luisa
Mattioli was a movie star and director of TV shows.
After his relationship with Kristina
Tholstrup became public and the divorce with Mattioli, Moore married again
. On March 9, 2002 in Copenhagen,
Denmark, Roger Moore and Kristina Tholstrup had a flamboyant wedding. Moore was 75, Tholstrup was 60 years old and they admitted, “We are madly in love.”
Kristina’s first husband committed suicide after his business
failed. She then married Danish
industrialist, Ole Tholstrup, who died in 1990. Kristina inherited an estimated $40 million from Ole Tholstrup. Roger Moore says he
loves Kristina because she is “organized, serene, loving and calm.”
Moore has a daughter and two sons. He underwent major but successful surgery
for prostate cancer in 1993, an event he later referred to as a life-changing
experience. After collapsing on stage
in New York in 2003, he had a pacemaker fitted.
Gambling was always his weakness and favorite past time.
NGUYEN KINH DOANH
MAY 1ST, 2006
REFERENCE: Wikipedia
News clips
Icelandic television