Charles J. Russhon | |
|---|---|
 Russhon during production of Thunderball , 1965 | |
| Born | March 23, 1911 New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Died | June 26, 1982 (aged 71) Manhattan, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation | Photographer |
Charles J. Russhon (March 23, 1911 - June 26, 1982) was an American photographer and Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Air Force who later became noted for his role as a technical adviser and liaison officer on the Sean Connery and Roger Moore James Bond films of the 1960s and 1970s.
Prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, Russhon worked as a sound engineer for NBC in New York City and for Hollywood-based Republic Pictures in Hollywood. [1]
He served as a photographer in World War II and He served in the China-Burma-India Theater of World War II with the 1st Air Commando Group as the unit's photographic officer. [2] His service alongside the Chindits led him to be awarded the British Distinguished Flying Cross. [3]
He was the first American to photograph Hiroshima after the atomic bomb attack. [4] He attained the rank of lieutenant colonel in the United States Army Air Forces, later transferring to the United States Air Force when it became an independent service in 1947.
After the war, Russhon was a technical adviser to several filmmakers, using his experience from the military. In 1963 he negotiated the use of land in Istanbul from the Turkish authorities during the making of From Russia with Love . In 1964 he obtained rights to use Fort Knox for Goldfinger . The producers acknowledge his help by a sign in the film at Fort Knox that reads "Welcome to Fort Knox - Gen. Russhon".
He was also an adviser on the 1965 Bond film Thunderball and was able to supply the Bell Rocket Belt, [5] the experimental rocket fuel used to destroy the Disco Volante in the film. Russhon using his position was also able to gain access to the US Navy's still experimental Skyhook rescue system which was used to lift actors Sean Connery and Claudine Auger from the water at the end of the film. [6] Russhon appears in Air Force uniform in the film.
Russhon later worked on You Only Live Twice in 1966-67 where he was able to bring Gyrojet weapons into the U.K. [7] and Live and Let Die in 1973 where he was able to stop traffic in New York City for a sequence in the film.
Russhon was a lifelong close friend of the renowned cartoonist Milton Caniff, and provided Caniff with the inspiration behind his ice cream-loving character Charlie Vanilla in the comic strip Steve Canyon , Caniff was well aware of Russhon's fondness for the dessert. [4] though the ice cream cone was fashioned after Charles's addiction to chocolate ice cream, but Caniff decided that 'Vanilla,' with the dangling vowel sounded more ominous. [8]
He died at his Manhattan home on Saturday June 26, 1982, aged 71, and was survived by his wife Claire, and a son, Christian, both of New York City.
Sir Sean Connery was a Scottish actor. He was the first actor to portray fictional British secret agent James Bond on film, starring in seven Bond films between 1962 and 1983. Originating the role in Dr. No, Connery played Bond in six of Eon Productions' entries and made his final appearance in Never Say Never Again. Following his third appearance as Bond in Goldfinger (1964), in June 1965 Time magazine observed "James Bond has developed into the biggest mass-cult hero of the decade".
SPECTRE is a fictional organisation featured in the James Bond novels by Ian Fleming, as well as the films and video games based on those novels. Led by criminal mastermind Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the international organisation first formally appeared in the novel Thunderball (1961) and in the film Dr. No (1962). SPECTRE is not aligned with any nation or political ideology, enabling the later Bond books and Bond films to be regarded as somewhat apolitical. The presence of former Gestapo members in the organisation though can be considered as a sign of Fleming's warnings about Nazi fugitives after the Second World War, as first detailed in the novel Moonraker (1954). In the novels, SPECTRE begins as a small group of criminals but in the films, it is depicted as a vast international organisation with its own SPECTRE Island training base capable of replacing the Soviet SMERSH.
Ernst Stavro Blofeld is a fictional character and villain from the James Bond series of novels and films, created by Ian Fleming. A criminal mastermind with aspirations of world domination, he is the archenemy of the British Secret Service agent James Bond. Blofeld is head of the global criminal organisation SPECTRE and is commonly referred to by the codename Number 1 within this organisation. The character was originally written by Fleming as a physically massive and powerfully built man, standing around 6' 3" and weighing 20 st, who had become flabby with a huge belly.
Thunderball is the ninth book in Ian Fleming's James Bond series, and the eighth full-length Bond novel. It was first published in the UK by Jonathan Cape on 27 March 1961, where the initial print run of 50,938 copies quickly sold out. The first novelisation of an unfilmed James Bond screenplay, it was born from a collaboration by five people: Ian Fleming, Kevin McClory, Jack Whittingham, Ivar Bryce and Ernest Cuneo, although the controversial shared credit of Fleming, McClory and Whittingham was the result of a courtroom decision.
Never Say Never Again is a 1983 spy film directed by Irvin Kershner. The film is based on the 1961 James Bond novel Thunderball by Ian Fleming, which in turn was based on an original story by Kevin McClory, Jack Whittingham, and Fleming. The novel had been previously adapted in a 1965 film of the same name. Never Say Never Again was not produced by Eon Productions, the usual producer of the Bond series, but by Jack Schwartzman's Taliafilm, and was distributed by Warner Bros. instead of United Artists. The film was executive produced by Kevin McClory, one of the original writers of the Thunderball storyline. McClory retained the filming rights of the novel following a long legal battle dating from the 1960s.
Milton Arthur Paul Caniff was an American cartoonist famous for the Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon comic strips.
Steve Canyon is an American adventure comic strip by writer-artist Milton Caniff. Launched shortly after Caniff retired from his previous strip, Terry and the Pirates, Steve Canyon ran from January 13, 1947, until June 4, 1988. It ended shortly after Caniff's death. Caniff won the Reuben Award for the strip in 1971.
Auric Goldfinger is a fictional character and the main antagonist in Ian Fleming's 1959 seventh James Bond novel, Goldfinger, and the 1964 film it inspired. His first name, Auric, is an adjective meaning "of gold". Fleming chose the name to commemorate the architect Ernő Goldfinger, who had built his home in Hampstead, near Fleming's; it is possible, though unlikely, that he disliked Goldfinger's style of architecture and destruction of Victorian terraces and decided to name a memorable villain after him. According to a 1965 Forbes article and The New York Times, the Goldfinger persona was based on gold mining magnate Charles W. Engelhard, Jr.
Shaun Terence Young was an Irish film director and screenwriter who worked in the United Kingdom, Europe and Hollywood.
Bob Simmons was an English actor and stunt man who worked in many British-made films, most notably the James Bond series.
Ted Moore, BSC was a South African-British cinematographer known for his work on seven of the James Bond films in the 1960s and early 1970s. He won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography for his work on Fred Zinnemann's A Man for All Seasons, and two BAFTA Awards for Best Cinematography for A Man for All Seasons and From Russia with Love.
Adolfo Celi was an Italian film actor and director. Born in Curcuraci, Messina, Sicily, Celi appeared in nearly 100 films, specialising in international villains. Although a prominent actor in Italian cinema and famed for many roles, he is best remembered internationally for his portrayal of Emilio Largo in the 1965 James Bond film Thunderball. Celi later spoofed his Thunderball role in the film OK Connery opposite Sean Connery's brother, Neil Connery.
You Only Live Twice is a 1967 spy film and the fifth in the James Bond series produced by Eon Productions, starring Sean Connery as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. It is the first Bond film to be directed by Lewis Gilbert, who later directed the 1977 film The Spy Who Loved Me and the 1979 film Moonraker, both starring Roger Moore. The screenplay of You Only Live Twice was written by Roald Dahl, and loosely based on Ian Fleming's 1964 novel of the same name. It is the first James Bond film to discard most of Fleming's plot, using only a few characters and locations from the book as the background for an entirely new story.
Thunderball is a 1965 spy film and the fourth in the James Bond series produced by Eon Productions, starring Sean Connery as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. It is an adaptation of the 1961 novel of the same name by Ian Fleming, which in turn was based on an original screenplay by Jack Whittingham devised from a story conceived by Kevin McClory, Whittingham, and Fleming. It was the third and final Bond film to be directed by Terence Young, with its screenplay by Richard Maibaum and John Hopkins.
Goldfinger is a 1964 spy film and the third instalment in the James Bond series produced by Eon Productions, starring Sean Connery as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. It is based on the 1959 novel of the same name by Ian Fleming. The film also stars Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore and Gert Fröbe as the title character Auric Goldfinger, along with Shirley Eaton as the ill-fated Jill Masterson. Goldfinger was produced by Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman and was the first of four Bond films directed by Guy Hamilton.
The Battle for Bond (2007), by Robert Sellers, is a cinema history book of how the literary character James Bond metamorphosed to the cinema James Bond. The book details the collaboration among film producer Kevin McClory, novelist Ian Fleming, screenwriter Jack Whittingham and others to create the film Thunderball.
The Incredible World of James Bond was a 1965 television special produced by David L. Wolper for United Artists Television to showcase the James Bond film series and promote the upcoming December 1965 release of the film Thunderball.
Roland Shaw was an English composer, musical arranger, and orchestra leader.
James Bond is a fictional character created by the British journalist and novelist Ian Fleming in 1952. The literary character appeared in a series of twelve novels and two short story collections written by Fleming and a number of continuation novels and spin-off works after Fleming's death in 1964. There have been twenty-seven films in total, produced and released between 1962 and 2021.
Ian Fleming, the writer who created the fictional character James Bond, lived to see the success of his novels depicted on screen before he died. All fourteen books in the series created by Fleming went on to be huge successes on screen. Goldfinger, one of the most epic stories in the James Bond saga, became a fan favourite with Shirley Bassey singing the iconic song, "Goldfinger", that was played for the fiftieth anniversary of the Bond series at the Oscars in 2012. Bond was played by Sean Connery and George Lazenby in the films shot throughout the 1960s. The Bond movies were filmed all across the world and by different directors each time, with some of the old directors collaborating with the new ones. The success of each Bond film lead to bigger budget prices for the following films adapted to the big screen. Each film recovered its budget and won critically acclaimed awards the years that they came out. Of all the Bond films in cinema today, Thunderball is the most successful with the whole Bond series being the third highest grossing of all time in Hollywood cinema.
