I grew up in the 1970s with Roger Moore as my favorite James Bond.
Great humanitarian for children's charities, UNICEF.
And even did a PSA against the cruelties to ducks and geese in making foie gras.
And took a reputation-risk narrating a documentary
in the early 2000s about secret UFOs the KGB knew.

But, his most relevance to this forum was introducing young males like me
to so many sexy Bond women.

Nobody did it better.

Same here. The popular pick is Connery but he could never escape from an island by running across the backs of alligators (all without mussing his suit).

It's been a sad day here as Sir Roger was a great pal of Mike's and it's been really sad knowing Roger was ill and dying.
Mike is taking it all as being lucky to have had a lot of great time's with Roger and his family but I know he's devastated.
I haven't said this publicly before but when I was seriously ill in 2016 Mike had been talking about me and I was invited by Roger to come and see him in Manchester and meet him etc
I was actually too ill to go but what a lovely guy (and his P.A is too) to try and do something nice.
Itr's amazing when a great film star is such an amazingly nice guy as well.
Mike has a zillion great stories about him,from history and also his own experiences with him.

Holy !! Roger Moore personally invited you to come see him?! Awesome!!

Yes I know.
Can you believe it didn't mean that much to me at the time.
My head was such a mess back then.
I've actually been watching The Persuaders for the first time ever with Mike over the last couple of months and I really really enjoyed them which I didn't expect to.
He's been educating me re. film and Cult TV,and started taking me to the locations plus he owns cars and props from different shows.
I wish I had gone now of course but Mike said I should just be glad the invite was made and not to regret it.
He was talking to Roger's daughter today and they have such funny stories about Roger.
By the way Mike knows the three girls on your photo's.
Gloria calls Mike 'The Big Guy' and usually see's Britt every year.
He says Maud is really lovely and knows her the best of the three.
When they were making The Man With The Golden Gun Roger decided to call them Mud and Burt and always called them that afterwards.

Meant to put this with my original post, which is no longer editable.

He says they had Tanya Roberts over in 2003 and 2010 but at different places but he's never met Christopher Walken.
He met Grace Jones at the premiere of Quantum of Solace but only said hello.
He says Roger didn't like her very much!

Yes, it was sad news. From the obituaries and tributes he seems to have been a real gent. Back in the 1980s, his last two movies were the first two Bonds I saw at the cinema, so I had a bit of a soft spot for his version.

I actually prefer the harder interpretations (Connery, Craig and the criminally under-rated and forgotten Timothy Dalton), but there's still room for a bit of fun sometimes, even if just as a change of pace from the more serious Bonds. I know Roger Moore got a lot of stick over the years precisely because of the clowning, but he did have a point when he famously explained that you had to play Bond a bit tongue in cheek because this guy was supposed to be a spy and yet every bartender in the world knew his favourite drink!

He was creditably self-deprecating about his own ability ("eyebrow up, eyebrow down"), but in truth he didn't really need to act in his Bond films as they were all built around him. All he had to do was look suave and deliver the deadpan quips, and the rest took care of itself. Put that way, criticism of his acting ability was meaningless.

The thing he never got credit for was how well, for most of his run, he aged. Everyone focuses on how he stayed in the role at least two films too long and was too old by the end (which in fairness he never denied), but this completely ignores how good he looked for his age back in the 1970s. Moore was already 46 when "Live and Let Die" came out in 1973 and yet he still looked far better than Connery (41 in 1971) had done in "Diamonds are Forever", when he frankly just looked like someone's Dad. That Roger Moore was actually three years older than Sean Connery in real life but didn't start making Bonds until a decade after Connery started meant that he was about a dozen years older at every step of the way, but it's not until the 1980s and about five films in that it finally became noticeable.

RIP.

This idea that human beings absolutely NEVER joke around or have fun on the job, to find the humor in the mundane, in death, in screwups, even in the CIA or NSA or the military, is just pure bullshit, in spite of extreme government laws attempts nano-managing the hell out of employees.

I say this from a point of view of common sense & logic, as though humans have absolute mathematically 100% ability at self-control to never crack a joke, as though governments have mathematically 100% absolute nano-level control of the facial expressions of their employees, as if governments should have that level of control over the trivial.

I say this in spite of having never been in the CIA or NSA or military.

A close relative of mine does work for the NSA (computer science). And she is bored shitless. Hates her job. Boring, and above all pointless, as hell. But, she had no choice for obtaining money. Yet, even she is involved in certain fun activities for NSA employees. She even showed me an NSA calendar that the NSA puts out each year that showed the NSA had an actual beauty pageant among its female employees in the 1950s!

So, it's ridiculous when people thought Moore's Bond was a "clown" or in any way "unrealistic" to the spy community.

Anyway, last night I played my CD of 007 James Bond theme songs in honor of Roger Moore. Ranking a few of them, starting with my absolute favorite:

1. "Nobody Does It Better" from "The Spy Who Loved Me"
2. "All Time High" from "Octopussy" (also my favorite Bond movie)
3. "Moonraker" from "Moonraker"
4. "We Have All the Time in the World" from "On Her Majesty's Secret Service"
4. "Diamonds Are Forever" from "Diamonds Are Forever"
4. "You Only Live Twice" from "You Only Live Twice"
4. "Live and Let Die" from "Live and Let Die"

Nobody Does It Better is what they'll be playing at his funeral as they did at Cubby Broccoli's.
Some of the emails Mike has had and some of the stories about Roger are just epic.
He has a load of funny stories about Roger,some unprintable but the main thing is all the crews and people who worked with him just adored him and nobody was more self-deprecating.

There's a nice story posted on Facebook by a Marc Haynes. Here's the link, and also the text of that post if you'd rather just read it here:

https://www.facebook.com/marc.haynes.7583/posts/793204930854561?pnref=story

As an seven year old in about 1983, in the days before First Class Lounges at airports, I was with my grandad in Nice Airport and saw Roger Moore sitting at the departure gate, reading a paper. I told my granddad I'd just seen James Bond and asked if we could go over so I could get his autograph. My grandad had no idea who James Bond or Roger Moore were, so we walked over and he popped me in front of Roger Moore, with the words "my grandson says you're famous. Can you sign this?"

As charming as you'd expect, Roger asks my name and duly signs the back of my plane ticket, a fulsome note full of best wishes. I'm ecstatic, but as we head back to our seats, I glance down at the signature. It's hard to decipher it but it definitely doesn't say 'James Bond'. My grandad looks at it, half figures out it says 'Roger Moore' - I have absolutely no idea who that is, and my hearts sinks. I tell my grandad he's signed it wrong, that he's put someone else's name - so my grandad heads back to Roger Moore, holding the ticket which he's only just signed.

I remember staying by our seats and my grandad saying "he says you've signed the wrong name. He says your name is James Bond." Roger Moore's face crinkled up with realisation and he beckoned me over. When I was by his knee, he leant over, looked from side to side, raised an eyebrow and in a hushed voice said to me, "I have to sign my name as 'Roger Moore' because otherwise...Blofeld might find out I was here." He asked me not to tell anyone that I'd just seen James Bond, and he thanked me for keeping his secret. I went back to our seats, my nerves absolutely jangling with delight. My grandad asked me if he'd signed 'James Bond.' No, I said. I'd got it wrong. I was working with James Bond now.

Many, many years later, I was working as a scriptwriter on a recording that involved UNICEF, and Roger Moore was doing a piece to camera as an ambassador. He was completely lovely and while the cameramen were setting up, I told him in passing the story of when I met him in Nice Airport. He was happy to hear it, and he had a chuckle and said "Well, I don't remember but I'm glad you got to meet James Bond." So that was lovely.

And then he did something so brilliant. After the filming, he walked past me in the corridor, heading out to his car - but as he got level, he paused, looked both ways, raised an eyebrow and in a hushed voice said, "Of course I remember our meeting in Nice. But I didn't say anything in there, because those cameramen - any one of them could be working for Blofeld."

I was as delighted at 30 as I had been at 7. What a man. What a tremendous man.

I love this! What a great story!

After I read this recent story on Roger Moore's medical history it is truly a miracle that he looked so good on camera and that he lived to such a ripe old age.

http://www.villages-news.com/roger-moores-many-medical-problems/

He should have played Superman...the Man of Steel

MK

Mike said that Roger would joke about being ill all the time.
His ex wife did an expose on Roger being a Hypercondriac.
Roger responded by saying he wasn't...a hypercondriac thinks they are ill whereas he KNEW he was ill!
I think we are hooking up with his daughter next month and in October are going to a tribute/memorial.

How did your partner Mike know Roger Moore so well. I thought Roger became a tax exile and had moved to Switzerland since the early 70's. I thought he only visited the UK occasionally for film related work.

I am a Brit living overseas as well...because I emigrated from the UK in 1979 and have lived in Asia and Florida ever since. I only go back to the UK about once every 5-6 years in order to visit my relatives in London and Norfolk.

Mike met Roger through exactly that-film related work.
Roger did leave the UK for the USA in the 70's (because of a mad 95% tax or something!) then ended up living in Monaco and Switzerland.
In London he always stayed at the hotel next to Harvey Nics.
Mike would sort him out with cars and was helpful and in return Roger would sort out autographs etc and sometimes use Mike as a bit of discreet muscle etc and Mike's knowledge esp SVT the film and tv cars was useful to them.
Roger would come to the uk as permitted and his kids live in the USA,Switzerland and London.
Also Roger's step-daughter lived near Cheltenham and Roger was over for quite a while as she was ill for a while with cancer and sadly died.

[The Persuaders.. I forgot about that!!!

Cool stories.. BTW, you would make a great Bond girl!!

Live and Let Die was the first 007 movie I saw in the theatre

The only story I can tell about Roger Moore was that I was in regular communication with comedian Mike Reid in the 1990's (who has since passed away). Before Mike Reid became famous as a stand up comedian and star on "Eastenders" Mike started out his tv career in the 1960's as an unbilled extra and stunt man,,,,so he appeared in fight scenes as a heavy fighting Roger Moore...and also he played Roger Moore's stunt double on several episodes of The Saint....but Mike was a mickey-taker even in the 1960's and ended up getting fired by Roger Moore while working on The Saint. Mike told me that Roger Moore did not appreciate him taking the mickey all the time....but the last straw came when Mike made fun of ........ I think you know what.....Jack Lord and WIlliam Shatner were also very sensitive about crewmembers who made fun of the same thing....it was the unmentionable thing that could get you fired off the set....ha ha

Really surprised to see this - are you saying Roger Moore wore a toupee? Surely not! Really?

Or am I misunderstanding and actually the joke was a (ahem) size-related one?

(And by the way, interesting to see you're British. I'd never picked that up before.)

I was just a kid when The Saint first aired on UK TV and I was not there, so I can only go on what Mike Reid told me. He did not use the word toupee...rather he said it was a "hairpiece" that was used to cover a bald spot at the back of his head. This is only briefly mentioned on Mike;s wiki page

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Reid_(actor)

But then, Mike himself was "follicly challenged" so he was a good match for being Moore's stuntman and body double. Some Saint fan sites claim you can easily tell which stunt scenes were done by Mike cos they claim you can notice the difference in their heights.....but I don't think that is correct cos Mike was only 1 inch taller than Roger Moore....hardly much of a difference. Certainly not as much of a difference as the notorious "Plan 9 from Outer Space" where Bela Lugosi died midway thru filming and director Ed Wood replaced Bela with Ed's chiropractor as a stand in, and Bela's body double was about 8 inches taller than Bela...which was laughable. Then again, some people claim that the new Paul McCartney is 2 inches taller after 1966 when comparing pre-1966 photos of he old McCartney standing next to Ringo.

Yeah....I am still British....and I became an exile like Roger Moore.....though not for tax reasons (I wish). I left the UK in 1979 and worked in Asia and the USA since then....and I got to used to the cost of living being 3-4 times cheaper in the USA than the UK....now I find myself in a position where I cannot come back to the UK, cos I could never afford to be able to buy house in the UK these days....e.g. I can live comfortably in a low cost Florida home with a pool for 250K....but if I returned to the UK I would need a million dollars to buy the same kind of house.....so I could only afford a tiny flat if I returned to the UK.