3 replies to this topic

[spynovelfan]

It has just occurred to me that the Blackwell family (of Crosse and Blackwell) has rather a lot of Bond connections:

• Ian Fleming had an affair with Blanche Blackwell, and may have modelled Honey Ryder on her. She gave him a boat called Octopussy. The affair was the inspiration for the Noel Coward play VOLCANO;
• Ursula Blackwell was the wife of Erno Goldfinger, the architect whose name Fleming used for one of his best-known villains. Goldfinger threatened litigation; Fleming threatened renaming the book Goldprick. They sorted it out in the end;
• Fleming played golf with John Blackwell and sold his Thunderbird to him. He also used his name for the Mexican mission outlined at the start of GOLDFINGER. Blackwell taught at a prep school in Rannoch, Scotland, where coincidentally Ian and his family used to holiday as a child;
• At Fleming's suggestion, Blanche's son Chris worked on the film of DR NO. He later became a famous record company magnate - he produced some of Grace Jones' records. He now owns Goldeneye.

Does anyone know of other Bond-Blackwell connections?

[Jim]

Bond's cover in A View to a Kill is James Stock, and Crosse & Blackwell make stock cubes.

[ACE]

Bond's cover in A View to a Kill is James Stock, and Crosse & Blackwell make stock cubes.

LOL - you're a real weisenheimer, Jim!

Nice work on your, er, saucing, snf.

Scraping the bottom of the jar, I know, but Bono spent his honeymoon in Goldeneye courtesy of Chris Blackwell (U2's Island Records label boss), hence the credit on the sleeve of the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack of Brosnan's debut film (to which Mr Hewson co-wrote the title track).

[K1Bond007]

It has just occurred to me that the Blackwell family (of Crosse and Blackwell) has rather a lot of Bond connections:[list]
[*]Ian Fleming had an affair with Blanche Blackwell, and may have modelled Honey Ryder on her. She gave him a boat called Octopussy. The affair was the inspiration for the Noel Coward play VOLCANO;

There are a lot of things credited to Blanche by certain people, IIRC. I think Noel Coward once said that Fleming based Pussy Galore on Blanche. There's a guano tanker named "Blanche" or maybe it's "Blanch" in Dr. No (this is just an assumption by myself - if this is a reference to her I'm sure whatever Fleming was going through had to be pretty juicy ). She also apparently told Ian a similar story that inspired Quantum of Solace -- I don't remember who wrote this one; I'd have to look it up.