Ian Fleming: His Real Life As A Spy Part 2 The Creation Of James Bond
The books begin. A televised Bond adaptation has an American as Bond, Peter Lorre as the first filmed Bond villain and Linda Christian as the first Bond girl!
THE BOOKS AND THE FILMS
Ian Fleming drew on a variety of sources when writing his Bond novels, including the following:
– the experiences of Patrick Dalzel-Job (1913-2003), a Scot who was involved in various British Army and 30Au commando operations in Norway during WWII,
– Fleming's own experiences in Naval Intelligence,
– his brother Peter Fleming, who worked for the SOE (Special Operations Executive) during the war
– The life of Dusko Popov (1912-1982).
Originally from Yugoslavia Popov became a double agent working for both Germany's Abwehr and Britain's MI6. During a visit to the US on behalf of the Germans in 1941, he informed the FBI of the interest of the Axis powers in America's Pearl Harbor naval base on Hawaii, although the FBI did nothing with this information.
In the event Popov passed on much misleading information about the British war effort to the Germans and is regarded as one of the most successful double agents in history.
General Patton once called Popov "The papillon of the WWII spy game". Whereas Popov was primarily important to Britain's secret services, the Americans relied chiefly on Fritz Kolbe of the Aussenministerium .
This German official was responsible for supplying the US with numerous German plans. The CIA's former boss William Casey (1981-87) called Kolbe "The greatest spy coup of World War II". The British secret services were less sanguine and thought him a "double agent" and that he "passed information of limited value".
One of the people in MI6 responsible for checking Kolbe's information was Kim Philby, a real double agent who worked on behalf of the Soviet Union.
After the end of the war Ian Fleming went back to his first love, writing. On 10 November 1945 Fleming was relieved of his Naval Intelligence duties and initially went to work at the foreign desk of the Kemsley Newspapers group, which eventually led to him writing a column for the "Sunday Times".
He would spend his summers in England, but pass the winters at Goldeneye, his house in Jamaica. Here he would draw on his own experiences, and those of friends and acquaintances, to create a series of stories about a secret agent called "James Bond", an MI6 officer. Bond has an "00" number because he has a licence to kill, and as we have seen the name "James Bond", was borrowed from an ornithologist who wrote a book entitled Birds of the West Indies .
Fleming's first book was Casino Royale (1953).
The story is based on Fleming's own wartime experiences in Lisbon in May 1941. He visited the Estoril Casino and lost a large amount of money on at the tables. It was here too that he became acquainted with several German spies and Dusko Popov. By mid-1954 Casino Royale was already in its third reprinting although virtually no sales were made outside the UK. Even so the American CBS network were interested in filming the story. Eventually it was broadcast as an episode of the "Climax Mystery Theatre" live television show. In this version Bond is a American secret agent, and was played by Barry Nelson. Peter Lorre was the first Bond villain and Linda Christian, Tyrone Power’s wife was the first Bond Girl. Nonetheless this live-to-air version did not create anything like the stir that came later.
You can watch it here:
The next Bond book to appear was Live and Let Die (1954). Once again the story is based on Fleming's personal experiences in the war.
In mid-1941 Fleming had travelled to New York to advise the Americans on establishing an intelligence service. This was the O.S.S. (Office for Strategic Services) the predecessor of the CIA. While in New York Fleming met Edgar Hoover, the head of the FBI, and William Stephenson, MI6's station chief in Washington. By setting the story largely in Jamaica, Fleming was able to draw on his local knowledge to provide an exotic background for the novel.
Ian Fleming's next novel was Moonraker , which came out in 1955. Moonraker involved more spying than its two forerunners, with Bond being required to use his brains as much as his fists when he plays Hugo Drax at bridge. Even so the novel was only a moderate success and was not followed by a breakthrough.
Moonraker was followed in 1956 by Diamonds are Forever (1956). Generally speaking the reception was cool and the book was regarded as being a weaker effort. Set mainly in the US gambling capital of Las Vegas, the story failed to appeal to English audiences.
The next year (1957) saw the appearance of the fifth Bond story, From Russia with Love . Fleming had acquired the necessary experience of conditions in Soviet Russia during his time in Moscow as a journalist reporting on Stalin's show trials. The action takes place in Istanbul, which occupied a strategic position at that period of the Cold War. Indeed Fleming visited Istanbul in the fifties as a journalist reporting on an Interpol conference. This gave Fleming the chance to give Bond a place and a role in the long period of tensions between East and West.
Ian Fleming gradually became better known to the general public, not just because of his books but also because Sir Anthony Eden, who was PM in 1957, stayed at Goldeneye for a while prior to tendering his resignation as a consequence of the bungled response to the Suez Crisis.
In 1958, the Beaverbrook newspaper, The Daily Express, started a daily strip featuring the James Bond character.
In 1961 President Kennedy said that From Russia with Love was one of his favourite books. The presidential seal of approval undoubtedly helped create a US readership for the Bond stories.
Behind the paywall: Spymaker: The Secret Life Of Ian Fleming Ian’s life is explored in this made for TV movie.
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