James Bond•O•Rama.dk got an exclusive one-on-one interview with George Lazenby, when the 76-year old former 007 star visited Oslo in Norway on Thursday 1 September 2016.
While in Oslo, George Lazenby was the guest of honor at a 4K gala screening of his only performance as James Bond 007, ”On Her Majesty's Secret Service”. This marked the first time since the film's world premiere in 1969 that George Lazenby sat through the film from beginning to end. When he was asked afterwards what it felt like watching his 29-year old self playing James Bond on the cinema screen, Lazenby promptly responded:
”I wish I had done it better!”
INTERVIEW WITH GEORGE LAZENBY
PART TWO: THE 1980'S AND BEYOND
By Brian Iskov, Oslo 01.09.2016
Bond•O•Rama (Brian Iskov): ”On Her Majesty's Secret Service” is my favorite James Bond film. George Lazenby: Well, you have good taste. Bond•O•Rama: But you have 60 other credits in your filmography that people rarely talk about. George Lazenby: Oh yeah. They never talk about 'em. Bond•O•Rama: So I thought that's what we're gonna do. George Lazenby: Oh, if I remember them.
James Bond•O•Rama.dk got an exclusive one-on-one interview with George Lazenby, when the 76-year old former 007 star visited Oslo in Norway on Thursday 1 September 2016.
In most of his interviews and public appearances, George Lazenby happily reels off the same 10-15 anecdotes about his brief tenure as James Bond 007. The idea behind this conversation was to take a Random Roles-style approach and dig deeper into his filmography, which after all counts 60 credited film and TV roles and spans almost half a century from 1969 to today.
Bond•O•Rama (Brian Iskov): ”On Her Majesty's Secret Service” is my favorite James Bond film. George Lazenby: Well, you have good taste. Bond•O•Rama: But you have 60 other credits in your filmography that people rarely talk about. George Lazenby: Oh yeah. They never talk about 'em. Bond•O•Rama: So I thought that's what we're gonna do. George Lazenby: Oh, if I remember them.
The short time frame – 13 minutes – allotted to our one-on-one with George Lazenby obviously curbed the level of detail in both questions and answers. As it is, Lazenby tends to go off on tangents (more often than not about his manliness and/or sexual prowess), which is why some of his comments only bear a tenuous relation to the question or the film referred to.
A few extra insights have been added from the Q&A that George Lazenby did prior to the screening of ”On Her Majesty's Secret Service” in the Vika cinema later that same evening.
P.S.: George Lazenby's memoirs have been in the offing for quite some time now, but there is still no publishing date as such. At his press conference in Oslo, Lazenby explained that he had hired an American ghost writer for the job, but that the writer had difficulty capturing Lazenby's particular brand of Australian humor.
On the other hand, a documentary on George Lazenby's life and career, ”This Never Happened to the Other Fella”, is currently in post-production. Directed by Andrew Lumley, the show will air as part of the Limelight Documentary Series on the US streaming platform Hulu.
Morten Steingrimsen, the head organizer of the ”James Bond in Oslo” event, has seen a rough cut of ”This Never Happened to the Other Fella”. He confirms that quite a few of George Lazenby's non-Bond films will be covered in the documentary.
Last night, 1 September 2016, George Lazenby – the 76-year-old former ex-James Bond from Australia – visited Oslo, the capital of Norway. James Bond•O•Rama.dk reports from the event.
The event "James Bond in Oslo" featured a gala showing of George Lazenby's only James Bond film, "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (1969), digitally restored in 4K.
Before the gala screening at Vika Kino, George Lazenby participated in an onstage Q&A moderated by former Bond girl Maryam d'Abo (Kara Milovy in "The Living Daylights", 1987).
On September 1, Bond•O•Rama will be interviewing George Lazenby in Oslo, Norway. The following report chronicles our previous meeting with the former James Bond 007 at the SciFiWorld fair 2014 in Malmö, Sweden.
Being a film journalist and lifelong James Bond 007 fan, I have had the pleasure of shaking hands with Pierce Brosnan and locking eyes with Daniel Craig's steely blue glare. But I never dreamed that I would get to meet the anomaly that is George Lazenby: The man who played the part just once, only to spend his entire life trying in vain to distance himself from it.
George Robert Lazenby was born on 5 September 1939. The brown-eyed Aussie made film history as the male model who filled in for Sean Connery as James Bond 007 in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service, the sixth film in the EON Productions series.
I'd never been an actor before. I became James Bond through my arrogance and ignorance and not knowing I couldn't do it.
Danish first edition Original: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (Jonathan Cape 1963) Publisher: Skrifola (Lommeromanen no. 356) Translator: Rita Damm Cover: (uncredited)
Ian Fleming's eleventh James Bond novel was the ninth to be published in Danish. The title translates as "The game is up, James Bond".
Note: Rita Damm's Danish translation is heavily abridged, although the cover and masthead fail to mention this. Claus Johansen's retranslation from 2002, published by Forum as "I Hendes Majestæts hemmelige tjeneste", is the only complete version of Ian Fleming's text in Danish.
Later editions: ● I Hendes Majestæts hemmelige tjeneste (Forlaget Forum 2002 - new translation) ● I Hendes Majestæts hemmelige tjeneste (Rosenkilde & Bahnhof 2014)
Only one of the 27 James Bond 007 film adaptations (to date) is set around Christmas.
Only this James Bond film contains a newly-composed Christmas song written by John Barry and Hal David.
Only this James Bond tune was originally recorded by a Danish vocalist.
Christmas Eve at Piz Gloria. Framegrab from "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (1969)
The Christmas song "Do You Know How Christmas Trees are Grown?" appears as source music in the film version of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (EON Productions 1969). The track, arranged by John Barry, is sung by Danish singer/actress Nina van Pallandt and an unnamed children's choir. Phil Ramone is credited as producer of the session which took place at CTS Studios in London.
The lyrics for the song were written by Hal David, who also collaborated with John Barry on "We Have All the Time in the World" for the "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" soundtrack. In Jon Burlingame's book "The Music of James Bond" (Oxford University Press 2012), Hal David says that in the case of "Do You Know How Christmas Trees are Grown?", he delivered a finished Yuletide poem to John Barry who then put it to music:
"I think it's the only time, with John, that I wrote the lyric first".
In the clip below, Nina van Pallandt lip-synchs to her recording of "Do You Know How Christmas Trees are Grown?" in the British TV special "Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show" (BBC 25.12.1969):
