Michael Jackson pleaded with bosses to let him play Bond - but got brutal response

When Sean Connery announced to the world in the 1962 film Dr No that he was “Bond. ’ a movie legend, was born.

But the search for the perfect actor to play the ultimate British spy, created by author Ian Fleming, took at least as many twists and turns as the plots of his novels - with even being considered for the role!

In his new book, The Search For Bond, writer Robert Sellers lifts the lid on the lengths both those casting the spy and those wanting to be Bond went to.

You may think : Sean Connery, George Lazenby, David Niven, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, , and .

In fact, back in 1954, Ian Fleming sold the screen rights to his first novel, Casino Royale, for just $1,000 to the American TV network CBS, and it was broadcast that October, with Bond reduced to an American private detective, played by Barry Nelson.

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But CBS didn’t option further Bond stories, with Susan King of the Los Angeles Times describing Nelson’s portrayal of 007 as “sexless and glum.”

Then there was Bob Holness, the TV presenter better known as the quizmaster on Blockbusters.

He said: “I was offered the chance to play 007 in a live radio adaptation of Moonraker in 1958, I think. It was a great success but movie prospects ruled further radio broadcasts out."

Asked about playing Bond on the big screen, Holness said: “It never occurred to me.”

When Ian Fleming teamed up with maverick Irish filmmaker Kevin McClory, they started considering who they wanted for Bond.

Early suggestions range from Richard Burton to Dirk Bogarde. McClory even had dinner with Swedish boxer Ingemar Johansson, then the heavyweight champion, who was looking for an acting career - but his Swedish accent ruled him out.

A turning point came when Ian Fleming based his 1961 novel Thunderball on a screenplay he created with McClory and screenwriter and producer Jack Whittingham without their permission, In 1963 they successfully sued him for plagiarism and McClory won the film rights to Thunderball - which was later remade as Never Say Never Again.

As a result, formidable producers Albert R Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, then London based, took out an option on Fleming’s novels and struck a deal with United Artists.

The search for the perfect Bond was about to go into overdrive.

From Patrick McGoohan, who turned Broccoli down three times, to Cary Grant, Burt Reynolds, Lewis Collins, Dougray Scott, Clint Eastwood, Jeremy Brett, Partick Mower and Lewis Collins - they considered a massive array of fine established actors and up and coming stars.

More improbable as agent 007 was former Coldstream Guard Lord Lucan, who was to famously disappear from his home in London in November 1974 after his children’s nanny was found murdered.

Author Robert Sellers writes: “No actor to be sure, but the aristocrat’s background was exemplary. He was also an inveterate gambler, playboy and man about town. He even owned a soft-top Aston Martin.

“Broccoli knew Lucan, but only as an acquaintance, probably on nodding terms as they frequented many of the same gambling clubs in Mayfair.”

All Lucan allegedly said of the offer was: “Good heavens!”

But it was director Terence Young’s suggestion of Sean Connery as Bond that struck gold.

Despite Young urging Connery to attend a meeting with Broccoli and Saltzman wearing a suit, he turned up in what Sellers describes as street clothes.

Seller writes: “Young had never seen anyone come more deliberately to antagonise people. “Throughout the meeting, Connery behaved with bloody-minded arrogance. It was all an audacious act, for Connery didn’t want to leave the impression of a starving actor desperate for work. ‘I think that’s what impressed us,’ Broccoli remembered. ‘The fact that he had balls.’”

It was the way he moved that impressed Saltzman, according to Sellers, who continues: “For a big man he was light on his feet, ‘like a big jungle cat,’ Saltzman observed.”

The producers had their man, but the studio was less enthusiastic, and Ian Fleming told a relative that “everything was wrong” about Connery.

But Broccoli and Saltzman stood firm - and they were right.

Fleming was swayed by a female friend over lunch with Connery at The Savoy, who declared he had ‘IT’, and both men developed an immense liking for each other.

Meanwhile, director Terence Young set about transforming Connery into Bond - even making him sleep in one of his new suits to get the feel of it and taking him to fine Mayfair restaurants and casinos.

Sellers writes: “It was a total transformation, a feat of which Henry Higgins would have been proud.”

Dr No raked in the money, with the second film, From With Love, doing even better. Bond now had the Midas touch.

David Niven also played Bond In Casino Royale in 1967. But Broccoli and Saltzman didn’t hold the rights to the book and it was made as a spoof by different filmmakers.

By this point, Connery had announced that the 1967 film You Only Live Twice would be his last movie - although he returned for one more film, the 1971 hit Diamonds Are Forever.

In the meantime, Australian model George Lazenby starred in one Bond Movie, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, in 1969 - having made his name as the ‘Big Fry Man’ in TV ads, who arrived at exotic locations with a large box of chocolates.

Astonishingly, he turned his back on a five-picture deal.

Later asked about Lazenby’s Bond, Sean Connery said: “I thought for somebody who had no previous acting experience, he did quite a good job.”

Of course, Connery left massive shoes to fill. Although most Bond fans agree that Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig all did a superb job.

Probably more surprising are some of the other people who were considered for - or wanted to be cast as - Bond.

They include legendary explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes, who producers courted, but simultaneously heard someone with military experience was being sought to lead an expedition to the Headless Valley in Canada - a job he desperately wanted.

Too hard up to afford the fare for the London interview, he accepted the invitation for the Bond role, so he could get a free ticket.

The filmmakers liked him, but everything fell apart at his meeting with Broccoli.

Sellers quotes Sir Ranulph meeting Broccoli, saying: “He had a big cigar. And he took one look at me and the phrase that he said in front of me, never mind what he might have said after I left the room, was, ‘Your hands are too big and you’ve got a face like a farmer.’ He didn’t mince his words at all. And obviously I didn’t get the role. But I ended up with the job I was after, to lead the Headless Valley expedition.”

Even Release Me singer Engelbert Humperdinck was once in the frame.

But the most incredible story is that of Irish locksmith Roger Barton Smith, who, despite no previous acting experience, spent £200,000 in his pursuit of becoming James Bond.

Three terrible accidents, which included falling out of a window after a safe he was trying to push out, had made him look for a fresh start in the burgeoning Irish film industry,

He landed the role of Pauline Collins’ driver in The Ambassador, and when, seeing him in his suit, the director’s assistant told him he’d make a great Bond, he took them seriously.

Keen to stand out to Bond producers, he invested £20K of savings, plus money from investors in making a short film, Black Velvet - taking his inheritance from his dad early when the money ran out and spending £120K in all.

When he had a non-committal response to his CV from filmmaker Eon, he paid for a 3-day photoshoot in Austria, doing everything from extreme ski jumps and stunts to pictures with attractive women and sports cars, taking 1,800 photos.

Then he hired a friend’s Lamborghini and had another series of photos taken with the hills of Sligo as a backdrop and another with two professional models next to an Aston Martin.

Despite sending four different portfolios to Eon, Smith was left disappointed.

Sellers, who interviewed him, quotes Smith saying: “I’d wiped out my savings and inheritance and I spent over £200,000 in my quest to become 007. But I’ve no regrets. I’d taken a chance and chased a dream.”

Perhaps the most bizarre revelation in Sellers’ book is Michael Jackson’s desire to be Bond.

The Beat It singer had just appeared in The Wiz (1978) with Diana Ross when he had a meeting with his agent Michael Ovitz, who recalled in his memoirs Jackson saying: “I want to play James Bond.”

Ovitz told him diplomatically: “You’re thinly built. You’re too sensitive. You’d be great at it, of course, but it’d be bad for you.”

Michael Jackson as Bond? Surely that would have left even 007 himself shaken and stirred!

• The Search For Bond: How the 007 Role was Won and Lost by Robert Sellers, is out on October 17 published by

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