Kundura Sinema’s “At 60: Bond, James Bond” program continues in December with Bond films from the ’70s. With “Live And Let Die” (1973), “The Man With The Golden Gun” (1974), “The Spy Who Loved Me” (1977), and “Moonraker” (1979) set to heighten the excitement of the program, Roger Moore remains ‘the best James Bond’ for many Bond fans.

He was born Roger George Moore on October 14, 1927, in the Stockwell district of London.

He began his acting career as an extra in the late 1940s and had his first breakthrough with the famous series of the period, “Ivanhoe” (1958-1959), and continued his screen success with “The Alaskans” (1959-1960), “Maverick” (1959-1961).

He gained international recognition with the series “The Saint” (1962). During this period, producers came knocking twice for the role of Bond, but he had to turn down the offers because he could not break the demanding contract he had signed for “The Saint.”

His role as the adventurous playboy Lord Brett Sinclair in “The Persuaders!”, the popular series he starred in after “The Saint,” put him back on the Bond list, and in 1973 he took over the James Bond role left vacant when Sean Connery announced his retirement.

He was the series’ third, and oldest, James Bond. He was 45 in his first film, “Live and Let Die,” and 58 when he bowed out with “A View to a Kill”…

He created a Bond very different from Ian Fleming’s, and he was much loved. Designed to cater to the modern tastes of the 1970s, the new Bond was now an experienced, more courteous playboy with a gift for humor, who always had a trick or a gadget at hand whenever he needed one.

In his autobiography, he would later put it this way: “Sean played Bond as a killer, and I played Bond as a lover.”

He starred in seven Bond films over 12 years. After Daniel Craig, he still holds the title of the Bond actor who kept the role the longest.

After the Bond films, Moore devoted more of his time to UNICEF work than to cinema; in 1991 he was appointed a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, and he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCm869P4TUA

In 1987, he hosted the celebration of Bond’s 25th anniversary, ‘Happy Anniversary 007: 25 Years of James Bond.’ In 2010, he voiced a cat named Lazenby in “Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore,” a film full of nods to the Bond films.

He passed away in 2017, at the age of 89, in Switzerland, where he had been receiving treatment for cancer.