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What do Lord Lucan, Dick Van Dyke, Peter Purves and Robbie Williams all have in common? Believe it or not, they were all in the frame to play James Bond!
Only six men can lay claim to wearing the famous Savile Row tuxedo of James Bond; more have stepped on the Moon. Yet hundreds more came within an inch of winning the coveted 007 role.
Even if Grant had been agreeable, Dr No's limited budget made it doubtful they could have afforded him, and the need to save money was one reason they gambled on Connery, a former milkman from a deprived part of Edinburgh who had competed in the 1953 Mr Universe contest before embarking on his acting career. Jill St John, who later became the first American Bond girl, playing Tiffany Case in 1971's Diamonds Are Forever, recalled Broccoli telling her that when Connery left the office after his interview, every secretary wanted to know who he was. Charles Dance was warned not to go for the part as he'd be typecast and eventually it went to Shakespearean actor Timothy Dalton, who decided that his debut in The Living Daylights would take the character back to the Bond envisaged by Ian Fleming, leaving the 'tongue in cheek humour and caricature behind'.
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