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

With Brosnan gone, Broccoli looked again at the schedule and returned to Dalton who was now available. Well, just. The schedule was so hectic on the new Bond that as soon as Dalton completed his final scene on Brenda Starr he was put on a plane and flown to London, a little jet-lagged but raring to go to work. He hadn’t even had time to carry out any rehearsal for the role. It was another week before he was officially unveiled as James Bond at a massive press conference in Vienna. In front of the world’s media Dalton explained how he wanted to play the role. “I intend to approach this project with a sense of responsibility to the work of Ian Fleming.” Dalton wasn’t just sending out glib sound bites about his respect for the source material, his was a genuine desire to recapture the essence of the literary Bond.

Dalton's Bond debut The Living Daylights was a big hit and his performance highly praised. Confident that Dalton was the man to lead Bond into the 90s work began on his follow up. While Daylights had been to some extent a compromise movie, with much of the script written prior to Dalton’s casting, Licence To Kill was totally constructed around his portrayal and pushed the character in the direction the actor wanted, more in keeping with the spirit of Fleming’s original concept of an agent relying mostly on his wits. “We’ve got the film back in the world James Bond should inhabit,” Dalton said. “We’ve left the tongue in cheek humour and caricature behind.”

Sadly the experiment failed and Licence To Kill performed badly in the crucial American market, selling only half the tickets sold for Octopussy. It didn’t help that big hitters like Indiana Jones, Lethal Weapon 2 and Batman were at the same time competing for cinemagoer’s hard-earned dollars. But even in Europe the film proved a disappointment. Dalton’s desire to take the Bond character back to its roots was certainly applauded by die hard 007 fans and the production team, but it never really clicked with the mass audience.

Over the next few years legal issues kept Bond off the big screen. But what the public really wanted to know was – when a new Bond movie finally appears would it be starring Timothy Dalton. Rumours abounded. In one report Michael Caton-Jones, who had come to prominence with Scandal (1989) and Memphis Belle (1990), was said to have been approached to direct THE PROPERTY OF A LADY, named after an Ian Fleming short story that might possibly have starred either Anthony Hopkins or Whoopi Goldberg as the main villain. Locations included Japan and Hong Kong and the story, involving international nuclear terrorism, would have featured far more fantastical elements than Dalton’s two previous 007 assignments.

In April 1994 Timothy Dalton was filming the CBS mini-series Scarlett, playing another iconic literary figure, Rhett Butler, when he was sent the script for BOND 17. Because of the box office performance of Licence To Kill Dalton knew there were some executives at MGM who wanted to see the back of him. All the time, though, he took solace in the fact that he had the personal backing of Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson. Still, he decided that the time was now right to step down as Bond. “It has been six years since the last James Bond film,” ran his press statement. “And eight years of worldwide identification with the 007 image. As an actor I believe it is now time to leave that wonderful image behind and accept the challenge of new ones. The Broccoli's have been good to me as producers. They have been more special as friends.”

EON opted not to stand in Dalton’s way and released their own press statement. “We regret Timothy’s decision. We have never thought of anyone but Timothy as the star of the 17th James Bond film. We understand his reasons and will honour his decision.”

The various treatments and scripts developed for Dalton’s third outing were now all scrapped and screenwriter Michael France settled down to write what ultimately became GoldenEye. Later, France revealed that he believed Dalton had been made the scapegoat for the recent failure of the Bond films at the box office. “Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli both thought he was a great Bond, and so did I.”

When Dalton stepped down as 007 (or was he pushed) the press launched into a frenzy of speculation as to his replacement: Mel Gibson, Liam Neeson, Hugh Grant, Daniel Day Lewis and Ralph Fiennes were all mentioned. Film critic Gene Siskel proposed Denzel Washington. But as far as the bulk of the press and public were concerned there was only one candidate, and Pierce Brosnan knew it. He was bracing himself for the mass speculation around his name. “When the subject came up I just said to my agent, Look, I want this resolved as quickly as possible. I don’t want to be part of a media circus. I don’t want a long, protracted flirtation – either use me or not, but let’s not fuck around.” Fuck around was pretty much what the producers did, though only a little. In order to make certain Brosnan was the best choice Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson conducted a brief search of unknown actors across the globe. “We didn’t offer it to anyone else although we did look for several months at a lot of different people,” Wilson admitted. “Pierce we considered 10 years before, and the question was who else had come along in the meantime that we could consider.”

One of those actors was Giles Watling. Primarily a theatre actor, Watling was best known for appearances in a number of television sitcoms, notably as the cringing Oswald the vicar in Carla Lane’s Bread. When that comedy finished in 1991 Watling found himself with little work, but a young family and a big house to run. Cash was in short supply. “Then around 11.30 one evening the phone rang,” recalls Watling. “The voice on the other end apologised for the lateness of the call but he felt that time was of the essence. He said he’d seen me in a production of Jamaica Inn at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith recently where I had been playing the rough-tough Jem Merlin. He said he thought my performance was very good. Now at this point I thought I’d got some kind of fan or crank on the line as he hadn’t as yet given me his name. Thank God I didn’t go into patronising mode – instead I asked politely who this was. ‘Lewis Gilbert,’ he said.”

Of course Watling knew of Gilbert’s cinematic pedigree, directing such classics as Alfie and Educating Rita. “He asked if I was working. No actor likes to admit that he hasn’t heard a peep out of his agent in ages. ‘Bits and pieces – nothing grand,’ I lied. Then he said, ‘Would you mind if I put your name in the hat for Bond?’ I had no idea what he was on about and foolishly asked him to expand. He told me that he had discovered that Timothy Dalton’s run as James Bond was coming to a slightly premature end and that EON Productions were casting about for the next man in line. That could well be me. At this point I recalled that Lewis had directed no less than three Bond pictures. My knees went weak. Would I mind? Would I like to think about it? Would I Hell! ‘Thanks for thinking of me,’ I said – or words to that effect. Lewis told me he would have a word with Cubby in the morning. Sadly Cubby was ill.”

Watling experienced an odd combination of numbness and exhilaration; and also a bit of déjà vu. Back in the late 80s he was down to the last two for the part of ‘The Saint’ in a new series of films featuring Leslie Charteris’ hero. He did the screen test, quite well he thought, but the role made famous by Roger Moore and Ian Ogilvy finally went to Simon Dutton and the series failed spectacularly. “The rest of this little episode in my life is something of an anticlimax,” admits Watling. “I mean you would have noticed if I’d actually got the Bond job, so it goes without saying that it went to someone else. Over the next couple of months there were a few more little frissons of excitement. My agent was approached by Debbie McWilliams, who still is, I believe, the EON casting director, saying that Barbara Broccoli would like to see me. My agent was starting to mention money; undreamed of sums. Then someone at EON called me and said that they really wanted to cast Pierce Brosnan as Bond. If they couldn’t get him they would give me a call. They never did. Perhaps ‘The Saint’ might not have been a bad thing after all.”

Watling is good humoured about his 007 close encounter and remains somewhat bemused as to what exactly Lewis Gilbert saw in him. “I guess it was the fact that the role I played in Jamaica Inn was a bit of a rogue, charming with a cruel streak. In addition - even if I do say it myself - I was quite fit at the time, tanned and spent a part of the play wandering around half naked. Bond perhaps? I don’t know. I did do quite some work on how to approach Bond during the time it was a possibility. I worked out and re-read a couple of the books for a start. Bearing in mind Dalton’s earthy, realistic, slightly humourless approach I felt that it might be good to reintroduce some of the fun. After all Bond is a fantasy figure - we have to suspend disbelief. Why not push the boundaries a little; having said all that I really believe that Brosnan was a great Bond.”

CONTINUED