JAMES BOND BY ANY OTHER NAME

I have a confession to make. I grew up on James Bond Movies. Sean Connery was always my favorite. There seemed to be two types of Bonds: the tough Bond and the foppish Bond. The tough Bonds were Connery, Timothy Dalton, George Lazenby, Daniel Craig. The foppish Bonds were: Roger Moore, Pierce Brosnan and David Niven.

I always leaned more to the tough bonds (although Brosnan's last couple of Bond movies were very good). Even though most people didn't resonate to Dalton as Bond, I thought he was great. His tough, realistic portrayal of Bond just came at the wrong time. 

When they rebooted Bond with "CASINO ROYALE," I was blown away by the screenplay, direction, action and acting. Although I never pictured Craig as a Bond, I was immediately drawn in my his taunt portrayal. 

Now there is a big brouhaha about the possible casting of a Black man as James Bond. Though that may be moot now. Idris Elba says all the public debate has killed off his chances of playing Bond. 

To make matters worse, actor Yaphet Kotto who played a Bond baddie way back in "LIVE AND LET DIE" came out publicly and said James Bond cannot be Black. Which to me seemed a silly statement on his part. How many novels and screenplays which originally had Black or Ethnic protagonists have been white-washed by casting Caucasian actors in the starring roles?

That being said, Yaphet Kotto is correct. Ian Fleming created James Bond as a White man of Scottish ancestry.  

Some people are trying to get around this by saying James Bond 007 is a mantle that many men have worn throughout history. While that is an interesting interpretation, it is not true.

Ian Fleming wrote James Bond as one man. And that man is White.

Although I would like to see Idris Elba play James Bond, I would rather see him cast as a spy who lives the Black experience. 

If it weren't for the fact that the character John Henry in my novel "SPOOK: CONFESSIONS OF A PSYCHIC SPY" is in his early twenties, I would absolutely love someone of Idris Elba's caliber of acting to play him.

However, an interesting thought has come to me. The series of novels I plan to write, will take John Henry through the Cold War from 1961 to 1989 (his character goes off the grid and underground at that point).

My thought is to write the series out of sequence. What do you mean that's crazy? I'm the author. I can do anything I want. One book can be in the 60s, the very next book can be in 89 set during the fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1989, John Henry would be in his mid-forties.

WAIT A MINUTE! THAT'S A GREAT IDEA!

Okay, I'm going to end this post right now.

I've got to get Idris Elba on the phone!

Idris... call me!