SIR SEAN CONNERY: What would the 007 films have been without the inimitable Shir Shean?
He was the first – and, in many minds, the best – actor to portray James Bond on the big screen, starring in Dr No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball and You Only Live Twice between 1962 and 1967. Brought back in 1971 to revive the serie
s in Diamonds Are Forever, he also popped up in 1983's Never Say Never Again, the "unofficial" Bond film that wasn't made by Cubby Broccoli.
WHO'S THE DADDY? Though briefly educated at Eton and raised in Pett Bottom, near Canterbury in Kent, James Bond can claim to have some Scottish heritage. The character had a Scottish father, Andrew Bond, and a Swiss mother, Monique Delacroix. According to Ian Fleming's novels, both were killed in a climbing accident when James was only 11. Bond completed his schooling at Fettes College, Edinburgh.
EDUCATION, EDUCATION, EDUCATION: Sir Sean's fee for Diamonds Are Forever was, at the time, a record-breaking $1.25 million – plus a share of the profits from the film. He used the money to found the Scottish International Educational Trust. He also attended the Scottish premiere, at the Odeon cinema on Clerk Street, in Edinburgh.
KILLER SOUND: Scotland's national instrument was given a Bond-style makeover in The World Is Not Enough when Q-branch fitted a set of bagpipes with a machine gun and a flame thrower, prompting Pierce Brosnan's 007 to quip: "Suppose we all have to pay the piper some time, right Q?" To which sorely missed Desmond Llewelyn replies: "Oh pipe down 007."
LICENCE TO "KILT": What a difference a letter makes, as Gladys Knight discovered when she recorded the theme tune to 1989's Licence To Kill. Her song reached number two in the UK Top 40, complete with Knight belting out what sounded like "Licence to kilt" instead of "Licence to kill". The song brought back memories of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, when George Lazenby donned a kilt to disguise himself as genealogist Sir Hilary Bray and penetrate Blofeld's eagle's nest.
