Plus Size Bond Girls: September

James Bond in...Thunderthighs!

RIP Lewis Gilbert

Sad to hear that film director Lewis Gilbert has passed away at the grand old age of 97

Gilbert was the man responsible for some of my favourite films; Alfie, Educating Rita, The Spy Who Loved Me, Carve Her Name With Pride, Reach for The Sky, the list goes on in a career that stretched all the way back to his war days when he joined the RAF's film unit and the First Motion Picture Unit of the USAAF. In the 1950s, Gilbert cornered the market in making British war films such as the aforementioned Carve Her Name With Pride and Reach For The Sky, Sink The Bismarck! and Albert, RN, which ultimately put him on the radar of Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman who chose him to direct the Sean Connery Bond film You Only Live Twice. This proved so successful that Gilbert returned to the world of Bond a further two times with 1977's The Spy Who Loved Me and 1979's Moonraker. He returned to the war genre for Operation Daybreak about the assassination of Heydrich.

Away from action, Gilbert was responsible for the 1966 Michael Caine film Alfie (on the recommendation of his wife Hylda who had visited the hairdressers and met an actress in the stage play) and reunited with Caine again in 1983 for an adaptation of another play, Willy Russell's Educating Rita. This film led to another dual partnership with for Gilbert playwright and star as he went on to direct Russell's Shirley Valentine and to cast Rita star Julie Walters in two more productions; Stepping Out and his final film, 2002's Before You Go.

Gilbert died peacefully in his sleep at home in Monaco on 23rd February.

RIP.

RIP Christopher Wood

Writer Christopher Wood passed away at the weekend, aged 79. Wood's name will be instantly familiar with anyone of a certain age because he was responsible for some pure 1970s entertainment, namely the Roger Moore era of James Bond and the surprisingly successful saucy novel and film crossover series Confessions of...which made Robin Askwith a household name.

Wood wrote a staggering 19 Confessions novels under the name Timothy Lea. These cheap and cheerful paperback offerings focused on the amorous exploits  of Lea, it's first person narrator, as he tried his hand at various employment opportunities. Each book took Wood just five weeks to complete and three of them; Window Cleaner, Driving Instructor and Holiday Camp were made into films starring Askwith, Tony Booth and a host of 70s comic actors, effectively creating the sexploitation genre that the British film industry thrived upon in the 1970s. Wood also wrote Confessions novels feauring the female counterpart to Lea, known as the Rosie Dixon series of novels, one of which became the film Rosie Dixon, Night Nurse. He was also responsible for the Penny Sutton books - the stories of a flighty air stewardess and, as Oliver Grape, he wrote the first person series concerning a teenager coming to terms with his sexual appetites. As Frank Clegg, he wrote Soccer Thug, a novel featuring the thorny football hooliganism.

But it wasn't all cheap thrills, sex and violence. In the previous decade and, following his military service in Cyprus, Wood was a serious writer whose novel Terrible Hard, Says Alice has been compared favourably with Catch 22 and the work of Hemingway.  

In the late '70s, Bond came calling and Wood helped write the screenplays for two Roger Moore outings; The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker. It's easy to see the tongue in cheek charms of this era as being an ideal fit for the saucy, titillating style of Wood's Confessions novels but, in writing the film novelisations (given how each film took only the name of Ian Fleming's original novels), Wood was praised by no less than the literary giant, Fleming's friend and Bond pastiche author, Kingsley Amis; "Mr Wood has bravely tackled his formidable task, that of turning a typical late Bond film, which must basically be facetious, into a novel after Ian Fleming, which must basically be serious...the descriptions are adequate and the acting writing excellent"

In the '80s and '90s, Wood wrote scripts for Roger Corman and the 1985 film Remo Williams. In 2004, he wrote the caustically funny, California Here I Am, a semi-autobiography recalling his work Stateside in the film industry. He died on 17th October in London, aged 79.

RIP Richard Kiel

Sad news that James Bond star Richard Kiel, who played the menacing Jaws (a character who utterly terrified me as a child!) has passed away aged 74.

The 7ft 1.5 inch star who had the condition acromegaly appeared opposite incumbent 007 Roger Moore as Jaws in two 70s Bond movies The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker, as well as appearances in films such as The Longest Yard (also known as The Mean Machine) Barbary Coast, Silver Streak, Force 10 From Navarone, Cannonball Run II and Pale Rider. 

He was also first choice, and actually commenced filming for, the TV series The Incredible Hulk in 1978.

RIP

Girls With Guns

Barbara Bach in The Spy Who Loved Me

Lois Chiles in Moonraker