standard 09 may 2013
Terence Stamp has revealed he had the chance to play James Bond when Sean Connery retired — but blew it with his radical plans for 007.
The 74-year-old actor, an icon of Sixties London, was approached by producer Harry Saltzman when Connery first stepped away from the role after You Only Live Twice in 1967.
“Like most English actors, I’d have loved to be 007 because I really know how to wear a suit,” he said.
“But I think my ideas about it put the frighteners on Harry. I didn’t get a second call from him.
“He took me out for dinner at the White Elephant in Curzon Street. He said, ‘We’re looking for the new 007. You’re really fit and really English.’
“I was very shocked but I thought it was great. ‘The fact is,’ I said, ‘Sean has made the role his own. The public will have trouble accepting anyone else. But in one of the books it starts with him disguised as a Japanese warrior. If we could do that one, I could start the movie in complete Japanese make-up. By the time it came off they are used to me a little bit. I would love to do it like that.’ He wasn’t impressed.”
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