The Search For Bond The final part of an exclusive 3-part article

As pre-production started on For Your Eyes Only it was the personal intervention of Broccoli and United Artists top brass that secured an agreement with Moore to return as 007. But it was a case of déjà vu when the next Bond film Octopussy came around. This time Broccoli found the actor more resistant than ever and so set his sights on several younger successors, notably Oliver Tobias, who had come to international prominence a few years earlier opposite Joan Collins in the controversial sex film drama The Stud.

Born in Zurich in 1947 to a Swiss father and German mother, Tobias moved to England aged 10 to attend boarding school. Encouraged by his mother to study acting, Tobias’ first breakthrough was in the original 1968 London stage production of Hair. Around this time he started appearing in international films but made a bigger impact as King Arthur in the 1972 TV series Arthur of the Britons, before winning more prominent film roles including Arabian Adventure (1979). “The Bond approach was made through my agent,” says Tobias. “And also through the Stunt Association, a lot of whose members had worked with me on all sorts of swashbuckling shows and knew I was handy with all that physical stuff. I was then sent over for some training sessions to prepare for this fight routine that was going to be part of my Bond screen test.”

While all that was going on Tobias met Broccoli and was surprised when the producer took more of a keen interest in him than he did with most other prospective Bond candidates, even taking him shopping one day around the best London stores choosing what he was going to wear as Bond. “He’d say, these are the types of shoes I would suggest, and we got all the gear together. Cubby was almost like a father figure to me. He even took me to his hairdresser and got my hair cut there. I got on very well with him.”

The day of the test arrived and Tobias called in for duty at Pinewood Studios, meeting up with not only John Glen, who was overseeing the audition, but also Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson. “It was all quite nerve-wracking because of the expectancy, of what they expect, you’re jumping into a kind of vacuum, you’re not all starting together, this is an ongoing product where you have to fit in. I was a well versed actor in film technique, but you had to fit into the style of what they imagined. I think I had old Cubby on my side, but there were other considerations.”

The test, so far as Tobias recalls, was a scene from a previous Bond movie, where 007 confronts a sultry woman and is persuaded to relinquish his gun and fall into bed with her. “It was that type of thing. We shot it and it all went well. The fight sequence was somewhat different because they said to me, James Bond fights like this, and I said, well I fight like this. So I never took any bloody notice and just did my thing. And then I waited, but it didn’t work out.”

In 2000, however, Tobias worked with Broccoli’s widow Dana on the historical musical La Cava, which she adapted for the stage from her own novel. “Dana called me, ‘my King.’ I played this Spanish King who gets done in at the end. We did that musical for a year in the West End and I obviously got to know Barbara much better. And we talked about the Bond test and she told me that I was just too young for the role. And I guess I was. I don’t actually regret it, it’s not like; oh God I didn’t get it. The whole process was quite overpowering because you become Bond, don’t you. I’d lived a fairly free and easy life but with Bond, you become it, that’s your life, I suppose, and that’s quite daunting. I remember feeling quite worried about that. It’s life changing stuff.”

Certainly with Tobias, Cubby Broccoli saw a real alternative to the smooth and refined Roger Moore, here was a young actor that embraced the late 70s and early 80s, and his dark, smouldering good looks harked back to the earthy Connery. But how would Tobias have played Bond, had he been cast. “I never really thought about it. I think like everybody you bring your own personality to it. I can’t comment on every Bond actor, certainly the first one was very well cast, so it is a question of casting, and the producer’s discretion, and I think the old man had a good eye for that, old Cubby, and they chose me because I was a certain type. I don’t think after that there’s a lot you can do to change yourself. I’d have just played him as myself. I mean, I’m not going to play Richard the Third, it’s playing Bond; it’s putting on a suit, it’s ladies; that should come naturally.”

For the remainder of the 80s and 90s and beyond Tobias continued to enjoy a varied career, mainly in theatre. He’s also involved with Lasham Airfield in Hampshire where parts of the elaborate airport chase sequence were shot for 2006’s Casino Royale. “We shot a big stunt here at the airfield, so I got to work with the Bond team in the end. Looking back now on my Bond test it was an interesting experience to say the least, and it was a great privilege to meet Cubby, he was a very charming gentleman.”

Another strong contender around this time was Lewis Collins (1946-2013), who’d won huge popularity as Bodie in the hit action television series The Professionals. It was because of this hard-hitting cop show that Collins was for many commentators and fans the perfect choice to be the next James Bond, and a meeting was arranged with Broccoli, a meeting that did not go well. “I was in Broccoli’s office for five minutes, but it was really over for me in seconds,” the actor later revealed to the press. “I have heard since that he doesn’t like me. That’s unfair. He’s expecting another Connery to walk through the door and there are few of them around. I think he’s really shut the door on me. He found me too aggressive.” Collins admitted that during the meeting he adopted a know-it-all kind of attitude, but only as a defence mechanism to hide his obvious nervousness. “When someone walks into their office for the most popular film job in the world, a little actor is bound to put on a few airs. If Cubby couldn’t see I was being self-protective I don’t have faith in his judgement.”

According to Michael Billington, who heard this from a source within EON, Collins was rejected for an entirely different reason, that he asked for $1m to play Bond and so was politely shown the door. Whatever the reason, Collins would have made a tough and down-to-earth James Bond, a radical departure from the whimsy of Moore and perfect for the mid 80s. “It would be nice to get back to the original Bond,” said Collins. “Not the character created by Sean Connery - but the one from the books. He’s not over-handsome, over-tall. He’s about my age and has got my attitudes.”

Curiously, Collin's co-star from The Professionals Martin Shaw was also asked to audition for Bond, after the then 18 year old Barbara Broccoli was impressed by his performance in the hit TV show. Shaw recently revealed that the offer came around 1978 and he said no. “I just didn't want to play him because it dominates everything you've done or go on to do. I was having dinner with the daughter of Cubby Broccoli. She'd seen me in The Professionals and begged me to do a screen test. She was astonished when I said “no thanks,” Although, in retrospect, it might have been a good idea to have had a go at it.”

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