George Lazenby

George Samuel Lazenby Sr. (born September 5, 1939) is an Australian actor. He was born in Queanbeyan (or Goulburn), New South Wales, Australia, and served in the Australian Army Special forces and as a military unarmed combat instructor. He moved to London in 1964, working as a car salesman and as a model, then as an actor in advertising. By 1968, he was the highest paid model in the world (it is said that in 1967, he made £40,000 directly from modelling, and £60,000 from commercials and product endorsements—equivalent to over a million pounds in 2004). His first serious acting role was as James Bond in the film On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969). It was later rumoured that he had been "difficult to work with" in this project. According to Lazenby however, the difficulties were caused by director Peter R. Hunt refusing to talk directly to him—and this in turn was caused by Lazenby (unaware of studio politics or Hunt's sensibilities) simply being too brusque in passing on a request for Hunt's friends to clear a set before filming. Although it performed relatively poorly on release{{Fn|1}}, in part thanks to a poor publicity campaign, the movie is now considered among the best of the series by many, but not all, fans of the Bond movie series; it is one of the best regarded by fans of Ian Fleming's novels. After the movie, Lazenby's agent talked him into refusing a seven-movie contract on the grounds that the Bond character was out of touch with the times. Unsurprisingly, Lazenby describes this as the biggest mistake of his life.

Trivia

• Lazenby holds the unique distinction of being the only man to ever be both of the top two western culture male sex status cultural icons; he was James Bond for a brief time and the European Marlboro Man from before he was Bond until 1970.
• Lazenby played Bond several times over the years in spoofs and parodies, and even in straight unofficial 007 roles. After playing Bond in the 007 film On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Lazenby then spoofed the Bond role in the films Universal Soldier (1971), Stoner (1974), The Man From Hong Kong (1975), A Queen's Ransom (1976), and Death Dimension (1978).
• Following this, he made an uncredited cameo as Bond in the 1980 Get Smart film The Nude Bomb, played Bond unofficially in the 1983 TV film The Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E., spoofed Bond again in the TV series The Master (1984), and in the 1986 film Never Too Young To Die.
• He also played Bond in several episodes of the TV series B.J. and The Bear in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as well as in an episode of Alfred Hitchock Presents, titled "Diamonds Aren't Forever". Lazenby's roles of "J.B." and "James" in The Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E in 1983, and Diamonds Aren't Forever in 1989, specifically parodied the 1971 Bond film Diamonds Are Forever, in which Lazenby was originally supposed to star as 007.
• A son, Zachary, from his first marriage, died very young from brain cancer.