Cubby Broccoli - The man with the golden franchise
Cubby Broccoli was the man who made 007 a global superstar – but he should be honoured for so much more, says Geoffrey Macnab
This year is the centenary of the birth of Albert R Broccoli. "Cubby", as he was nicknamed, was the producer who ushered the James Bond movies into existence: the flamboyant Italian-American who brought Ian Fleming's quintessentially British spy to life on screen, and his centenary is being marked in some style with special screenings and events.
Most of us will know Broccoli from the legend on the Bond movies, "Albert R Broccoli Presents" However, his own story remains relatively poorly chronicled. His autobiography When The Snow Melts was published in 1998, two years after his death. (The title comes from an old Calabrian saying: "when the snow melts, you see the dog"). It revealed little-known details of Broccoli's immensely colourful and surprising life story.
On a sunny March morning, I visit Broccoli's heirs: his daughter Barbara Broccoli and stepson Michael G Wilson. They're at the helm of EON, the production company that Broccoli and Harry Saltzman founded in 1961, and that has been making Bond movies ever since. The discreetly luxurious EON offices are close to Hyde Park. Perhaps this is Cubby Broccoli's most unlikely achievement. An Italian-American who shared his name with the vegetable that his ancestors used to grow; a boy born to an immigrant family in a New York tenement and whose father worked on construction sites before becoming a small-time farmer; he managed to put down roots in Mayfair...
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http://commanderbond...n...&item=53884 - The Independent