In my review of Casino Royale a couple of years ago, I admitted that I had a soft spot for Roger Moore when it comes to my childhood memories of James Bond. In that review, I even quoted Joshua Rich of Entertainment Weekly who said, “For anybody born between, say, 1970 and 1990, Moore, not Connery is the guy with the Walther PPK” (again, I was born in ’67, but as you’ll see below, it still applies).

Entertainment Weekly continues to be kind to my childhood hero. In this week’s issue that arrived in the mail yesterday (yes, we subscribe), I was very pleased to see an interview/profile of the 81-year-old Moore titled, “And the Bond Plays On” by Chris Nashawaty. The article’s a good read whether Moore’s your Bond or not. A number of sections resonated with me (my apologies for highlighting the dig at Craig below):

---

I was 8 years old when I saw my first James Bond film. It was the summer of 1977. I consider myself blessed by the timing. The Spy Who Loved Me was not only the best Bond movie Moore ever made (an opinion he shares, by the way), it was also — thanks to the luscious Barbara Bach and the steel-toothed giant Jaws — one of the best films in the series.

Moore was the first Bond I knew. Like anyone who grew up in the '70s, I'd later catch up with the older Sean Connery films on TV. But they didn't compare. They just seemed like smudgy Xeroxes of the Bond I'd first seen in the theater. And where was the fun? Sure, Connery was more dangerous, rougher around the edges, deadlier with a Walther PPK. But Moore was lethal from 10 paces, armed with nothing more than a cocked eyebrow and a saucy bon mot. And if there was some sort of sexual double entendre in that bon mot, well, all the better for an 8-year-old.

Moore had the good luck to play Bond during the last gasp of the Cold War. Often the plots were needlessly byzantine and downright absurd (the outer-space love story involving Jaws in Moonraker comes to mind). But most of Moore's Bond flicks were catnip to boys who hadn't discovered girls yet. In Live and Let Die, he got entangled in Caribbean voodoo. In The Man With the Golden Gun, the villain had a superfluous nipple. And in For Your Eyes Only, he was chased down the Italian Alps by Aryans on motorcycles — Aryans on motorcycles! Cheese, yes. But served up with just the right amount of ham, thanks to Moore.

Moore played 007 more times than any other actor. By rights of possession, he owns the part. Connery appeared in only six, if you exclude the unofficial and embarrassing 1983 comeback Never Say Never Again (I doubt even Connery wants to include that one). And as any apprentice-level 007 aficionado knows, there were also the blink-and-miss George Lazenby (one film), the placeholding charisma vacuum Timothy Dalton (two), and the so-suave-he-was-almost-bland Pierce Brosnan (four). Now, of course, we have Daniel Craig, who's updated Bond into a sort of sadistic, knuckle-scraping Jason Bourne in a tux. He's serious, flawed, and, if you ask me, kind of a drag.

The knock on Moore has always been that he played the character too lightly. He was too arch. Too jokey. But that seems a bit rigid. Moore's Bond films grossed $1.2 billion worldwide. He took over a hugely popular franchise after its leading man walked and kept it humming for 12 more years. As far as I'm concerned, Moore is, was, and will always be Bond. It's not a critical argument, just one from the heart.

When I explain this to Moore — that the Bond you love first is the Bond you'll always love most, he seems genuinely touched. I think he even calls me ''dear boy'' before turning to Kristina and saying, ''Darling, get Sean on the phone. He needs to hear this.''

---

Good stuff. Read the whole article for more/Moore.