Category: Dates

Geoffrey Holder, who played Baron Samedi in Live And Let Die, died on 5th October 2014.

Multi-talented Geoffrey Holder, who played Baron Samedi in Live And Let Die, died on 5th October 2014 after suffering from pneumonia.

Born in  Trinidad in 1930, Holder worked as actor, dancer, choreographer, director, costume designer, singer, painter and voice over artist. Playing one of the most memorable characters in all the James Bond film, he made the most of his deep bass voice and laugh in the role of top-hatted voodoo villain.

In 1975 Holder won two Tony awards for The Wiz, an all-black version of The Wizard of Oz, for direction and costume design.

John Pearson worked with Ian Fleming and, after his death, wrote his biography. He was born on this day in 1930

John Pearson, who worked for Ian Fleming at The Sunday Times and wrote his biography and then the the fictional biography of James Bond, making him the second James Bond continuation author (after Kingsley Amis), was born on 5th October 1930 in Epsom, Surrey.

As well as the biographies of Fleming and Bond, Pearson wrote about notorious gangsters, the Kray twins, as well as The Gamblers, about the Clermont Set and included John Aspinall, James Goldsmith and Lord Lucan, who notoriously disappeared without a trace after the murder of the family nanny.

Harry Saltzman died on this day in 1994. Together with Cubby Broccoli he founded Eon Productions.

Harry Saltzman, who partnered with Cubby Broccoli to produce a series of films based on Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels, died on 28th September 1994.

As co-owner of Danjaq and EON Productions, Saltzman received co-producer credits for the early Bond films starting with Dr No. However, financial difficulties forced him to sell his stake to United Artists after the release of The Man With The Golden Gun.

As well as the Bond films, Saltzman was also responsible for the Harry Palmer films with Michael Caine (The Ipcress File (1965), Funeral in Berlin (1966) and Billion Dollar Brain (1967), based on Len Deighton’s novels) as well as World War 2 epic Battle of Britain (1969),