Leonard Barr, who played Shady Tree in Diamonds Are Forever, was born in West Virginia on 27th September 1903.
Barr was Dean Martin’s uncle, and with his help attained a degree of success as a stand-up comedian and actor towards the end of his career.
Martine Beswick, who played one of the two fighting gypsy girls From Russia With Love, Zora, and then Paula Caplan in Thunderball, was born in Port Antonio in Jamaica on 26th September 1941.
Kristina Wayborn, who played Magda in Octopussy was born in Nybro, Sweden on 24th September 1950.
John Logan, who contributed to the scripts of Skyfall (2012) and SPECTRE (2015) was born in San Diego on 24th September 1961.
Ian Fleming’s third James Bond book, Moonraker, was first published in the United States by Macmillan on 20th September 1955. It had been published in the UK by Jonathan Cape earlier the same year, on 5th April.
September 18th 1964 saw Goldfinger go on general release in the UK following the Leicester Square premiere the night before.
On 17th September 1964, the third James Bond film, Goldfinger, premiered at the Odeon Leicester Square.
Bond fever had just taken hold and Leicester Square was packed with fans. In the ensuing chaos a set of the cinema’s glass doors was broken and the film started 10 minutes late.
Guy Hamilton, who directed Goldfinger (1964) and four other James Bond movies, was born in France on 16th September 1922. Although he had been approached to direct Dr No (1962), Hamilton chose to turn it down. Following his work on Goldfinger he directed two Harry Saltzman films, Funeral in Berlin (1966) and Battle of Britain (1969). He returned to the Bond series with Sean Connery’s comeback, Diamonds Are Forever (1971) and followed it up with Roger Moore’s first two Bond films, Live And Let Die (1973) and The Man With The Golden Gun (1974).
Robert Wade, who with writing partner Neal Purvis has worked on each Bond film since The World Is Not Enough (1999, with Bruce Feirstein), was born in South Wales on 16th September 1961.
Following their work on Skyfall it was announced that the screen writing duo were retiring from the Bond films. However, they were hired to work on problems with John Logan’s script for SPECTRE in 2014. On SPECTRE Purvis and Wade received credits for the story, along with John Logan, and screenplay, alongside both Logan and Jez Butterworth.
Caterina Murino, who played Solange Dimitrios in Casino Royale, was born in Cagliari on the Italian island of Sardinia on 15th September 1977.
Photo: Caterina Murino by PM – Il Piccolo Missionario. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
