The Seven Ages of 007: How Daniel Craig Became the Bookend Bond

No Time to Die is a Bond flick like no other for several reasons, one of them being that it’s the only one I’ve ever gone to see immediately after interviewing Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, who’ve been producing these films since 1995’s Goldeneye. The Bond movies are their family business, having been started by their father, Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, with his partner Harry Saltzman six decades ago. Ms. Broccoli and Mr. Wilson were very generous with their time, which gave me the platinum-level problem of having lots more good material than I could Tetris into my four-minute radio piece for Friday’s All Things Considered, which you can listen to below.

Here’s the prose version, which became a related-but-separate piece that wouldn’t have worked on the radio for several reasons, including the fact I wrote it before I landed the interviews.

I have all the thanks in the world for the wonderful and ultra-capable NPR Books editor Petra Mayer, who edited both the prose piece and the radio piece, which meant adding two labor-intensive tasks to what was already a packed week for her. (She hosted a panel at New York Comic Con this week, along with all her usual duties.) Nobody does it better.

Everybody Does It Bitter: A History of 007s Kvetching About Their Jobs

At the end of Casino Royale, the 1953 Ian Fleming novel that begat the James Bond legend, “the bitch [was] dead”… but the bitching had not yet begun!

Here, for The Ringer, is my deeply-sourced account of how no man who has ever worn the most famous tuxedo in movies has ever been happy about it for very long. Except Pierce Brosnan.

Something Completely Different in Becoming Bond

One-and-done 007 George Lazenby in 1969's On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

It's a strange coincidence that Sir Roger Moore, 007 No. 003, died only about 48 hours after the premiere of the very funny Hulu documentary Becoming Bond, about one-and-done 007 George Lazenby — who, incredibly, landed the most sought-after role in showbiz (circa 1968) with double-oh-zero prior acting experience.

I'll never get tired of this real-life story. And the Bond flick that resulted, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, is in my Bond Top Five, way above of any of the Moore entries. Anyway, I wrote about all this for the weekend crowd. And I fan-casted Matt Gourley, again.

I wrote this piece quickly, and it occurred to me only after I'd send it off to my editor, the great Linda Holmes, that I might've mentioned the passage of the documentary wherein Lazenby explains the discovery that turned him from a failing salesman into into a successful one. He might've been talking about acting.