Ian Fleming's Secret Mission Was to Coax Our Richard Burton Into Playing Hero James Bond

Summary

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The name's Burton - Richard Burton. He hardly needs a catchphrase, but one suspects the Welsh actor would have carried that one off rather well. And it seems James Bond author Ian Fleming - one of Burton's favourite authors - also thought so. It has been discovered the writer of 007's original adventures was keen for the Pontrhydyfen actor to play the iconic secret agent role. As everybody knows, the role eventually went to Sean Connery, right, who founded an illustrious career on the womanising spy character. But three years before the debut of Dr No, Fleming wrote a letter indicating he wanted Burton as the movie's hero, with Alfred Hitchcock directing.

Writing in 1959 to his friend Ivar Bryce, whose company Xanadu was planning to make the first Bond film, Fleming said, 'Both Dehn [a Hollywood screenwriter] and I think that Richard Burton would be by far the best James Bond.'

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Ian Fleming's Secret Mission Was to Coax Our Richard Burton Into Playing Hero James Bond

And in a cable to crime novelist Eric Ambler, he added, 'Would Hitchcock be interested in directing first Bond film? Plentiful finance available. Think we might have a winner particularly if you were interested in scri...

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