Roger Moore

The son of a policeman and a housewife, Roger George Moore was born on October 14, 1927 in the British capital. From a very young age, he dreamed of devoting himself to drawing comics, but after starting to work in a magazine, he became disenchanted with the world, and decided to become a male model. At the same time, he was taking acting classes at a medium-sized academy.

He made his film debut as an extra in productions such as Dangerous Separation or César and Cleopatra , but from 1953 he moved to the United States, where little by little he was getting important roles in titles such as The Last Time I Saw Paris, with Elizabeth Taylor . , and Melody Interrupted , opposite Glenn Ford and Eleanor Parker . Next she would shoot series like Ivanhoe (1958) and Maverick (1959) .

After divorcing Doom Van Steyn and Dorothy Squires, Moore fell in love with Luisa Mattioli , his co-star in The Rape of the Sabine Women , a fairly typical by-product of Italian peplums. He was married to her for three decades and had three children, until he also left her and married Christina Tholstrup.

His definitive accolade on the small screen came in 1962 when he was chosen as the protagonist of El santo , a television series that adapted the series of novels by Leslie Charteris . He embodied Simon Templar, a modern Robin Hood, who stole from criminals or characters of dubious morality. The character had already been played by actors such as George Sanders and Jean Marais , and would later be taken up by performers such as Val Kilmer , but Moore is the most remembered. He played the character for 8 years and remembers being very happy. “It was like going to the office, but to do a job that I loved,” said the actor.

In 1971, he starred with Tony Curtis in the series The Persuaders , where both were millionaire adventurers who solved mysteries or helped women in need. It was a hit in Europe but not so much in the United States, so it was canceled after the first season. She connected greatly with Curtis on and off screen, and they had such a great time during the 15 months of filming that rumor has it they were popping an average of six bottles of champagne a day.

For fans of terror, Roger Moore did his best work in Darkness , where he was a man who, after suffering a car accident, discovers that an evil double had usurped his identity.

Because Moore had been typecast as Simon Templar, he was offered few roles, at a time when not many TV actors made it on the big screen. But Moore received a visit one day from producer Albert Broccoli, who was looking for a replacement for Sean Connery in the role of James Bond, a task in which George Lazenby ( 007 on Her Majesty’s Secret Service ) had failed years before. Broccoli – who wanted a very famous actor for the role – told Moore: “We need you to play 007, but you have to cut your hair and lose weight.” And the interpreter accepted the challenge.

Moore was right to take the character into his own territory, especially by incorporating a lot of humor. He was Bond for the first time in Live and Let Die , and would later repeat Bond on six other occasions, with The Man with the Golden Gun , The Spy Who Loved Me , Moonraker , For Your Eyes Only , Octopussy and A View to a Kill . Although he continued to be successful, when he finished the latter he was already 58 years old, so he retired due to age. The plots are almost all simple, although they were gaining in spectacularity.

Between Bond and Bond, Roger Moore had time to shoot some action film, such as Sea Wolves or The Cannonball Fools , although his war films Wild Ducks and Rescue in the North Sea stand out . He lent his face to Inspector Clouseau, who had undergone cosmetic surgery, in his brief appearance in The Curse of the Pink Panther , Blake Edwards ‘ failed attempt to continue the saga of the character after the sad death of the great Peter Sellers . .

Since the mid-’80s, Moore has lived quite a ways from the movies, except for the occasional return in a film like the forgettable Fire, Snow, and Dynamite . He also participated in the series The Dream Team , and has briefly participated in various productions, such as Spice Girls: the movie or the Alias ​​series .

Her friend, the legendary Audrey Hepburn , personally asked her when she was about to die to continue her work as a UNICEF ambassador, representing Great Britain. “Roger, the work that Unicef ​​does is very important, I know this because during the war years I was a malnourished girl,” Hepburn told Moore. The actor picked up the baton with great dignity as he has been very active in denouncing cases of child sex trafficking and even traveled to several countries to promote breastfeeding. “It’s so weird to see James Bond promoting suckling babies,” Moore joked.

In 2003, Her Majesty, the very one to whom he had served as James Bond, repaid him for his inconvenience with the title of Sir. In 2007 they put a star on the Walk of Fame.