Australian actor George Lazenby has an upcoming documentary film about his life called Becoming Bond (the film was previously known as This Never Happened to the Other Fella – a title that’s a direct reference to his fourth-wall breaking line in the opening sequence of On Her Majesties Secret Service, his one and only outing as James Bond).
The stranger-than-fiction true story of Lazenby, a poor Australian car mechanic who, through an unbelievable set of circumstances, landed the role of James Bond in 1969, despite having never acted a day in his life. Then after being offered the next seven Bond films and a $1 million signing bonus, he turned it all down…
Following Lazenby’s short venture as 007, his career took in interesting turn with an unusual array of films including an Italian Giallo flick, Who Saw Her Die?, as well as a series of Hong Kong exploitation films: Stoner, A Queen’s Ransom and The Man from Hong Hong.
Becoming Bond will debut on Hulu on May 20th.
This could be very interesting, I’ve always liked Lazenby but what really impressed me was when he did the interview for the 50th Anniversary James Bond documentary, and very openly talked about the decisions he made, his behaviour at the time, and that while he was given bad advice, he did take it!
Ah what could have been….
I agree with you Mike. He had great presence as an action star. I’m surprised he wasn’t able to have a more successful career in the ozplotation genre in the 70s and 80s. He seemed ideal for it.
I think he was the most convincing Bond when it came to the action scenes (just the action scenes). Shame circumstances didn’t allow him to star in Diamonds are Forever and Live and Let Die before Roger Moore took over.
There’s some interesting behind the scenes footage/interview with Lazenby shooting Stoner in the Brian Trenchard Smith documentary Kung Fu Killers. It’s a bit obscure, but can be found on the Australian region 4 dvd release of The Man From Hong Kong.
The doc was filmed in preparation for shooting TMFHK. The premise is that top Australia’s greatest movie stuntman Grant Page goes to Hong Kong to learn about Hong Kong action and Kung Fu. To be honest it looks like he spent one day learning about kung fu and six days in a strip club! Also an incredibly rare opportunity to see behind the scenes footage of the great Angela Mao (she’s gorgeous).
George Lazenby had roles on the five-day-a-week soap operas “Rituals” and “General Hospital.” I personally wish he had appeared on “Santa Barbara” as well. Perhaps he could’ve played a villain who kidnapped Eden Capwell (Marcy Walker’s character) and/or Kelly Capwell (Robin Wright’s character).
I think sadly by his own admission he pissed off the 007 team so badly during production, and then by his behaviour and attitude especially when he publicly dismissed the Bond movies etc…. he made a lot of bad choices, and had a lot of missed opportunities, the meeting with Bruce that lead to him signing the multi-picture deal with GH, and then Bruce passed and he gets to play opposite Wang Yu etc and yeah didnt seem to be in the mind set…. and yeah did soap operas and soft core the Emmanuelle TV series etc, instead of many actioners etc, did love his little cameo in RETURN OF THE MAN FROM UNCLE as JB with the Aston Martin, but very much what could have been….lets see if this docu really takes off