Breaking News - Bond Actor Passes

Roger Moore dies at 89; debonair British actor played James Bond in 7 movies

By Steve Chawkins

Roger Moore, the suave British actor who starred in seven James Bond movies and brought a likable, comedic dimension to the unflappable secret agent, has died after a short battle with cancer, his family said Tuesday. He was 89.

From 1973 to 1985, Moore was Agent 007 in: “Live and Let Die,” “The Man with the Golden Gun,” “The Spy Who Loved Me,” “Moonraker,” “For Your Eyes Only,” “Octopussy” and “A View to a Kill.”

He was often compared with Sean Connery, the Scottish actor who originated the film role and in many ways was the prototypical Bond.

“I’m often asked, ‘Who is the best Bond?” Moore wrote in his 2012 book “Bond on Bond.”

“Apart from myself?” I modestly enquire. “It has to be Sean.”

“Sean was Bond. He created Bond,” Moore wrote. “He was a bloody good 007.”

Born Oct. 14, 1927, in London, Roger George Moore was the only child of police officer George Alfred Moore and his wife Lily Pope Moore.

As a teenager, he showed some talent for art and landed a part-time job as an animator-trainee at a movie studio that made World War II military training films.

He also worked as an extra on films in London and, for two terms, attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

“They taught me to talk ‘properly’ without a South London accent, the art of mime, fencing, ballet (I wasn’t too keen on that) and something called ‘basic movement’, which consisted of wearing swimming shorts and bending and stretching whilst swinging my arms,” he wrote in his 2008 memoir “My Word is My Bond.”

Before being cast as Bond, Moore starred in the 1960s TV series “The Saint” as Simon Templar, a modern-day Robin Hood.

A globetrotting advocate for UNICEF, he was knighted in 2003 for his work on behalf of the organization.