CBC Archives

You must sign in to leave a comment on this clip.

Ian Fleming: the brain behind Bond

Broadcast Date: Aug. 17, 1964

In James Bond, Ian Fleming created one of the immortal action heroes in modern popular culture, but his own life proved more fragile. Five days after his death from a heart attack, CBC-TV's Explorations offers a recent peek into life at The Golden Eye, Fleming's Jamaican hideaway, where the author defends the sex and violence in his works and discusses how his own life experiences helped shape the character that made him famous. Learn the unlikely inspiration for James Bond's name and why tea was the downfall of the British empire in this 1964 interview.

Ian Fleming: the brain behind Bond

• Fleming has another, non-Bond book which has also reached the silver screen: he wrote Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, a childrens' story he concocted while recovering from a heart attack in 1961. He made up the story for his son Caspar.

• Ian Fleming died on Aug. 12, 1964, on Caspar's twelfth birthday. Caspar died of a drug overdose in 1974.

• British actor Christopher Lee, who played Francisco Scaramanga, the eponymous villain in the James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun, is Ian Fleming's cousin.

Ian Fleming: the brain behind Bond

Medium: Television

Program: Explorations

Broadcast Date: Aug. 17, 1964

Guest(s): Ian Fleming

Interviewer: Munro Scott

Duration: 27:16

Last updated:
April 29, 2009