Roger Moore - The Spy Who Fascinated Me

What is common to Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, and Daniel Craig?

Okay. That was easy. They are all actors who played Bond. James Bond.

This fictitious British Secret Service Agent of MI6 has kept at least three generations of action-movie lovers, on tenterhooks; but is yet to be fully understood by the new millennials.

Roger Moore in 'The Octopussy', with Kabir Bedi (standing, with turban)

I just hope the young don’t rate the debonair James Bond, on the same lines as the dumb Austin Powers.

But what made this particular actor, Roger Moore, who passed away this week, special?

It was his suave and smooth style, I think. With his cool-calm and deadpan face, while he performed those gut-wrenching and heart-thumping stunts as James Bond, he personified the spy who loved danger; and the ruthless man, with or without the golden gun, but with a license to kill.

Which is why, perhaps, among all those actors I had watched play Agent 007, I somehow remember Roger Moore’s action-scenes better.

He was not the expressive kind. But, perhaps, it is that very not-so-revealing-demeanour itself, on his handsome face, that made him a ‘perfect’ cast, for the role of that ‘almost perfect’ spy.

It was from the high school boys and from the neighbourhood young men that I first got to hear of the escapades of James Bond.

I used to stand in awe, among those big boys, listening to the stories of the thrilling escapes of this slippery spy.

One of the big boys was a big fan of James Bond. He had had a belt with a buckle shaped like a pistol (with 007 embossed on it). The buckle is etched in my memory, along with the story which the buckle-owner told me -- about ‘Jaws’, a goliath of a man with metal teeth, whom James Bond/Roger Moore beats.

By the time I was old enough to actually watch a James Bond movie, it was already 1983. The movie was ‘Octopussy’.

But Roger Moore had, by then, already made five James Bond Movies, out of the seven he made in his career.

And I had already heard stories from ‘Live and Let Die (1973), ‘The Man with the Golden Gun’ (1974), ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’ (1977), ‘Moonraker’ (1979) and ‘For Your Eyes Only’ (1981) – all Roger Moore’s movies.

So, ‘Octopussy’, you could say, was like a 'coming of age' movie for me. Of course, much later, I had watched all other movies, and I got the full gist of Bond’s character.

Interestingly, in this movie, ‘Octopussy’, James Bond (Roger Moore) is seen fighting the bad guys, in my country. India.

With Indian actors like Kabir Bedi and Vijay Amritraj (Yes, the famed Tennis player acted in a few movies), and with excellent shooting locations like the banks of River Ganges, streets of Bombay, stations of Indian Railways, minarets of Taj Mahal, and lakes of Rajastan’s Forts, this movie made me feel proud.

Roger Moore with Vijay Amritraj (Right, in blazer)

And even before the movie released, I had watched pictures of Roger Moore, from Udaipur of Rajastan State of India, in the LIFE magazine.

Not many people know that while filming ‘Octopussy’ in India in 1983, Roger Moore was shocked at the utter poverty on display, and soon got engaged in humanitarian work.

His colleague Audrey Hepburn impressed him with her work for UNICEF, and consequently he became UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 1991. He was also the voice of "Santa" in the UNICEF cartoon "The Fly Who Loved Me."

He may have acted as a spy who had the licence to kill. But, he was a humanitarian with heart, with reverence for life.

Quotes and Misquotes

“Play it again, Sam". Isn't this the famous line from the film ‘Casablanca’?

No. It's not. Or that's what I came to know.

This line, though supposedly from that film, was never a part of its script. And it was never uttered on screen. The actress Ingrid Bergman actually said something slightly different. But, people just kept misquoting it, to fame!

I had watched the original classic, the black-and-white movie, ‘Casablanca’ five times, maybe twenty five years ago. But I could have sworn I heard her say - "Play it again, Sam."

But now, thanks to YouTube, I searched and found the film’s video clip. And I now know the minor difference, and the correct phrase, from the original.

I quickly did some investigation into 'famous misquotes', and was startled to find many many more!

Lines from books and movies, politics and literature, can be altered completely out of shape, and sometimes be even misattributed to a wrong person.

"Elementary, My Dear Watson", is a misquote! Yes. You heard me right. It is not in any of those Sherlock Holmes' books! The creator of this famous fictional detective, Sir Arthur Canon Doyle had not, in any of his books, used that phrase. Even once!

But how did this line become so famous? Well, such is the mystery of misquotation. It is said that the phrase "Elementary, My Dear Watson", first appeared in a film review in the New York Times, on October 19, 1929. And people have been using it ever since.

Star Trek fans would say "Beam me up, Scotty" was a great line too. But that's another misquote. The closest that Captain Kirk, the head of ‘Starship Enterprise’ ever came to it was an occasional, "Beam us up, Mr Scott".

Many people believe that Mahatma Gandhi said: "If someone slaps you on one cheek, show him the other". But they are unaware that Gandhi himself was quoting Jesus Christ who said it in the Sermon on the Mount. The correct quote was actually this: "If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also." (Matthew 5:39)

But, hang on. There are more historical misquotes. Did you know that Queen Marie Antoinette never said: "If they have no bread, let them eat cake!" And that Machiavelli never said: "The ends justify the means" but it was the Roman poet Ovid who did. Or that Murphy - of Murphy's law - never said, "If anything can go wrong, it will"?

Even the quote attributed to Mark Twain, "The only two certainties in life are death and taxes," should correctly be attributed to Benjamin Franklin who said it first.

Misquotations and misattributions can be primarily ascribed to journalists and speakers who don't always get their facts right.

Unlike in the olden days when word-of-mouth and passing-on-of-information-from-person-to-person was prevalent, today's editors and journalists can actually verify things, more easily. And they should.

With the plethora of web content now available, one cannot simply believe everything in cyberspace.

Of late, I am receiving Whatsapp picture forwards with quotations by famous people. But a bit of research showed me that they never said those lines; in any of their verifiable books, speeches or interviews.

Integrity is a beautiful word. And it must be applied in writing too. Just having good Google search skills, excellent Adobe Photoshop skills, and a huge social media network, does it give anyone the licence to distort Truth?

After all, “Social media like Facebook, Twitter and Whatsapp will make our new generation immoral and irresponsible,” said Mahatma Gandhi.

Oh, Did he? Or didn’t he?