Bill Tanner is MI6's Chief of Staff. Tanner is a Bond ally appearing regularly in the novels of Ian Fleming and John Gardner, as well as in Kingsley Amis' Colonel Sun, but did not become a regular cinematic character until the Brosnan and Craig era of films. Among his most prominent cinematic roles was in For Your Eyes Only (1981), in which Tanner was given a bigger part while M was "on leave", due to Bernard Lee's death that prevented him from reprising his role as M in the film. He otherwise has minor roles in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), and appears in two of the four Brosnan films. Tanner appears in four of the five Craig films, taking on an increased role as M's chief aide and a friend and ally of Bond.
In 1965, Amis wrote the authorised spin-off The Book of Bond, or Every Man His Own 007, a tongue-in-cheek guide to being a spy. The book is not credited to Amis, but rather to Lt. Col. William "Bill" Tanner.
Loelia Ponsonby is Bond's shared personal secretary in many of the Bond novels. She is also the secretary for 008 and 0011, both of whom share an office with Bond. She retires and is replaced in On Her Majesty's Secret Service by Mary Goodnight after she marries a member of the Baltic Exchange. For the films, her flirtatious relationship with Bond is transferred to and replaced by Miss Moneypenny. Ponsonby nearly made an appearance in GoldenEye, but she was removed from the final draft. The name of the character may be based on the Duchess of Westminster of the same name.[1]
Charles Robinson
Charles Robinson is the Deputy Chief of Staff at MI6. He first appears in Tomorrow Never Dies, then later in The World Is Not Enough, and Die Another Day. Played by Colin Salmon, Robinson appears to be M's right-hand man and is often seen at her side. When Bond reports in with MI6, he often does so to Robinson.
The 00 Section of MI6 is considered the elite of the Secret Service. Agents with the 00 prefix have proven themselves capable enough in the field to be entrusted with the licence to kill: the authorisation to, at their own discretion, commit acts of assassination and other controversial activities in order to complete their missions, without having to first seek permission from headquarters.
The following 00 agents have been referenced onscreen in the James Bond films. Additional 00 agents, ranging from 001 to 0012, have been referenced in literature and in comic strips.
005 – Seen attending a meeting during Thunderball.
006 – Named Alec Trevelyan, a one-time ally and friend of Bond who is presumed dead for nine years; he is the primary antagonist in GoldenEye.
007 – Can refer to both James Bond and Nomi, MI6 agent holder of the codename in No Time to Die.
008 – Mentioned by M in Goldfinger as a potential replacement for Bond if his mission fails. Bond also mentions this to Goldfinger himself. 008 is also mentioned in The Living Daylights as an alternate choice to assassinate General Pushkin if Bond refuses to do so.
009 – Seen early in Octopussy, killed by twins working for General Orlov. However, 009 still manages to complete his mission by returning a forged Fabergé egg and Bond later avenges his death. 009 is also mentioned in the film The World Is Not Enough as the agent who initially shoots Renard. 009 is mentioned again in Spectre as the intended recipient of the Aston Martin DB10 after it was reassigned from Bond. Bond steals the car for use in his own mission, leaving 009 without it.
A revised version of the character of Felix Leiter appears in the 1954 television adaptation of Casino Royale. In that version, Leiter is a British agent named Clarence Leiter and is played by Michael Pate.
General Anatoly Gogol
General Anatoly Gogol is the head of the KGB in the films The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker, For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy, and A View to a Kill. In his final appearance, in The Living Daylights, the character has become a post-Glasnost envoy in the Foreign Service and is succeeded as head of the KGB by General Pushkin. In the end credits of the film, his first name is listed as "Anatol", although in The Spy Who Loved Me, M referred to him as Alexis.
Gogol is played by Walter Gotell (who also played SPECTRE henchman Morzeny in From Russia with Love). With the KGB, Gogol often allies himself with Bond to stave off the possibility of war with the West, an ideal that is not always shared with his comrades—such as when he argues against Soviet General Orlov's reckless proposal of military conquest in Octopussy, and uncovers Orlov's theft of priceless jewels from the Kremlin.
Only in For Your Eyes Only and A View to a Kill does Gogol act as an enemy, but even then his actions are more those of a respectful competitor. He particularly opposes the methods of the villain Max Zorin in A View to a Kill. General Gogol has a secretary named Miss Rublevitch, played by Eva Rueber-Staier, being some sort of Soviet counterpart to Miss Moneypenny.
In The Spy Who Loved Me, after being briefed on his forthcoming mission to Egypt, Bond holds a private discussion with Gray, to whom he refers as "Freddie". It is never revealed how they know each other well enough for Bond to be so informal. In the next few films, Bond calls Gray "Minister", for most of their scenes include other officials. It is also suggested that he belongs to no particular political party; direct references are made to Margaret Thatcher in For Your Eyes Only, even though he had also held the post in The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker – which were both made during the government led by James Callaghan.
Mathis is a long-time friend of Bond and an agent of the French secret service Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage (SDECE). He is a main character in Casino Royale and a supporting character in From Russia, with Love, Never Dream of Dying and Devil May Care. Mathis captures the SMERSH villain Rosa Klebb, and uses cardiopulmonary resuscitation to keep Bond alive until a doctor arrives after Bond is poisoned by Klebb. In Casino Royale, it is revealed that he originally met Bond on assignment in Monte Carlo prior to World War II, when Bond was trying to crack down on a group of Romanians cheating at a local casino with the use of invisible ink. Mathis is reassigned to work with Bond at the time of the events in Casino Royale, where he poses as a radio salesman, assisting Bond and introducing him to Vesper Lynd.
In the novel Thunderball, Bill Tanner asks Moneypenny to send a copy of SPECTRE's ransom demand letter to Mathis at the Deuxième Bureau. In Never Dream of Dying, he is captured by the head of the Union Le Gérant and is blinded with lasers. Bond later saves him from imprisonment. A younger version of Mathis appears in the "Young Bond" short story "A Hard Man to Kill".
The characters of Mathis and Vesper Lynd are combined to form Valerie Mathis in the original 1954 Climax! production of "Casino Royale". Mathis first appears onscreen in the 1967 version of Casino Royale, played by Duncan Macrae. Here, he is a police officer, prompting Evelyn Tremble (Peter Sellers) to state that it has been worrying him that despite his supposed nationality, Mathis has a Scots accent: "Aye, it worries me too", Mathis replies. In the 2006 adaptation of Casino Royale, Mathis is an MI6 agent, played by Giancarlo Giannini. Mathis is suspected of being a traitor and informant to Le Chiffre and arrested. Upon the discovery that Vesper was the real traitor, Bond advises that MI6 should continue interrogating Mathis because his innocence has not yet been established. Mathis appears again in Quantum of Solace, having retired to an Italian villa given to him by MI6. He joins Bond to bring down Dominic Greene, only to be killed by corrupt policemen working for Greene. Before dying, Mathis asks Bond to forgive Vesper and make peace with her death.
May Maxwell
May Maxwell is Bond's loyal and elderly Scottish housekeeper, who is often mentioned in Ian Fleming's Bond novels. She also appears in several John Gardner novels and the Anthony Horowitz novel Trigger Mortis, as well making a cameo appearance in the first Young James Bond novel, SilverFin. She has yet to make an appearance in any of the Bond films. May is named after the housekeeper of Ivar Bryce, a friend of Fleming.
Sir James Molony
A noted neurologist whose expertise is frequently employed by M and the Secret Services, Molony appears in the novels Dr No, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, and The Man with the Golden Gun.
Sheriff J. W. Pepper
Sheriff John Wayne (J. W.) Pepper is a parish sheriff in Louisiana. He appears in the films Live and Let Die and The Man with the Golden Gun. Played by Clifton James, he is mostly used as comic relief, especially and memorably for his tendency to speak loudly about whatever is on his mind.
In Live and Let Die, he chases Bond's and Kananga's speedboats, believing them to be young people joyriding, but Felix Leiter later has one of the sheriff's superiors introducing him to Bond's mission. His first film appearance also reveals a comedic rivalry with Louisiana State Police troopers, who are shown kidding him when his car is destroyed by a fallen speedboat of Kananga's. After a chase that destroys several police cars, the state police tell him that Bond is a spy and Pepper quips, "On whose side?"
In The Man with the Golden Gun, a vacationing Pepper is shown having a boat tour in Thailand and briefly seeing Bond on another boat (the spectator can hear the notes of the preceding film's main theme where its title is made to better identify Pepper and his relation with Bond's adventures). Later, a gag involving him and an elephant is represented on the screen. He is later the man trying the AMC Hornet that Bond steals from a showroom, and, convinced he is chasing communists (another category he dislikes), "helps" Bond in the subsequent car chase with Francisco Scaramanga's AMC Matador, only to be arrested by the Royal Thai Police together with the British operative.
Both of Pepper's appearances, particularly in the latter film, have been criticised by some Bond fans who view him as symptomatic of the overly comic and slapstick nature of some of the 'Moore Era' movies.[2] Despite this, Pepper does have a loyal following amongst some Bond fans, with Roger Moore claiming, "He gave my first two films a great, fun character", on actor Clifton James's death.[3]
Quarrel
Quarrel is a Cayman Islander living in Jamaica. He first appears in the novel Live and Let Die as Bond's guide while 007 is investigating Mr. Big. Quarrel later appears in the novel Dr. No to help Bond infiltrate Dr. Julius No's island, Crab Key. The only Bond film in which Quarrel appears is the 1962 film Dr. No, played by John Kitzmiller where, as in the novel, he is killed by Dr. No's mythical "dragon", which is actually a flamethrower-equipped vehicle.
As the films were made out of sequence from the novels, for the film adaptation of Live and Let Die, Quarrel was changed to Quarrel Jr. (Quarrel's presumed son), played by Roy Stewart, whom Bond teams up with, and leads him on his boat in multiple scenes, before helping him destroy Dr. Kananga's poppy fields. Curiously, Quarrel Jr. seems to have a great knowledge of the island of San Monique, despite presumably being a Cayman Islander.
John Strangways and Mary Trueblood
John Strangways is a former Lieutenant Commander in the special branch of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. He makes his first appearance in the novel Live and Let Die as the chief Secret Service agent in the Caribbean. Strangways is roughly 35 years old and wears a black patch over one eye. He later appears in the novel Dr. No, where he and his Number 2, Mary Trueblood (a former Chief Officer in the Women's Royal Naval Service), are assassinated for prying into Dr. Julius No's business. Mary Trueblood is based on Fleming's secretary from The Sunday Times, Una Trueblood.[4]
Strangways makes his only appearance in the films in Dr. No, where, as in the novel, he is killed for investigating the title character. Unlike in the novel, however, Strangways does not wear an eyepatch in the film. He is portrayed by Timothy Moxon and voiced by Robert Rietty (who later voiced villains Emilio Largo in Thunderball and Ernst Stavro Blofeld in For Your Eyes Only). Mary is portrayed by Dolores Keator and dubbed by Nikki van der Zyl;[5] both were Jamaican residents and were not in London for the final dubbing of the film.
Tiger Tanaka is an ally to Bond in the novel You Only Live Twice and its film adaptation. He is the head of the Japanese Secret Service (Koan-Chosa-Kyoku) and resides within a secret underground office complex beneath the streets of Tokyo, his identity being the most closely guarded secret in Japan. Tanaka helps Bond disguise himself to look Japanese so that Blofeld will not recognise him. Tanaka arranges for Bond to marry a girl native to the land, Kissy Suzuki, in order to provide extra cover. In the film, Tanaka is portrayed by Tetsurō Tamba. He supplies an army of ninjas to attack Ernst Stavro Blofeld and leads the attack on Blofeld's volcano base.[6] Tanaka also appears in the novel The Man with the Red Tattoo and in the Dynamite Entertainment-published spin-off comic book, Felix Leiter.
In the novel, the character was based on one of Fleming's friends, Torao Saito – although he was not connected to Japanese intelligence, but was in fact a well-known polymath in Japan, being a journalist, writer, photographer and architect.[7]
Valentin Dmitrovich Zukovsky (Russian: Вaлeнтин Дмитриeвич Жуковский) is a former KGB agent turned Russian mafia head who runs a bar, a casino, and a caviar factory. When he was younger (and a KGB agent), a conflict with Bond ended with Bond shooting Zukovsky in the leg, causing him to walk with a limp. However, after leaving the KGB, Zukovsky does not hold a grudge towards Bond, especially when dealing with Bond means turning a profit. Played by Robbie Coltrane, Zukovsky makes two appearances in the films, his first being in GoldenEye before being shot and mortally wounded by Elektra King in The World Is Not Enough. He lives long enough after being shot to execute a trick shot using his cane gun, enabling Bond to escape King's trap.
Dr. Madeleine Swann is a psychiatrist, daughter of Mr. White, who assists Bond in his mission and becomes his love interest in the film Spectre and continues to be a central character in the subsequent film No Time to Die.
Film allies
This section lists allies who each appear in only one film.
(*) Robert Brown also played 'M' in Octopussy, A View to a Kill, The Living Daylights and Licence To Kill. As M's real name and background are not revealed in any of these films, it is possible Brown's 'M' may in fact be Hargreaves.
The James Bond series focuses on the titular character, a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have written authorised Bond novels or novelisations: Kingsley Amis, Christopher Wood, John Gardner, Raymond Benson, Sebastian Faulks, Jeffery Deaver, William Boyd, and Anthony Horowitz. The latest novel is With a Mind to Kill by Anthony Horowitz, published in May 2022. Additionally Charlie Higson wrote a series on a young James Bond, and Kate Westbrook wrote three novels based on the diaries of a recurring series character, Moneypenny.
Q is a character in the James Bond films and novelisations. Q is the head of Q Branch, the fictional research and development division of the British Secret Service charged with oversight of top secret field technologies.
Miss Moneypenny, later assigned the first names of Eve or Jane, is a fictional character in the James Bond novels and films. She is secretary to M, who is Bond's superior officer and head of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6).
Felix Leiter is a fictional character created by Ian Fleming in the James Bond books, films, and other media. The character is an operative for the CIA and Bond's friend. After losing a leg and a hand to a shark attack, Leiter joined the Pinkerton Detective Agency. The name "Felix" comes from the middle name of Fleming's friend Ivar Bryce, while the name "Leiter" was the surname of Fleming's friend Marion Oates Leiter Charles, the then wife of Thomas Leiter.
A Bond girl is a character who is a love interest, female companion or (occasionally) an adversary of James Bond in a novel, film, or video game. Bond girls occasionally have names that are double entendres or sexual puns, such as Plenty O'Toole, Holly Goodhead, or Xenia Onatopp. The female leads in the films, such as Ursula Andress, Honor Blackman, or Eva Green, can also be referred to as "Bond girls". The term Bond girl may also be considered as an anachronism, with some female cast members in the films preferring the designation Bond woman.
Eon Productions Limited is a British film production company that primarily produces the James Bond film series. The company is based in London's Piccadilly and also operates from Pinewood Studios in the UK.
Octopussy and The Living Daylights is the fourteenth and final James Bond book written by Ian Fleming in the Bond series. The book is a collection of short stories published posthumously in the United Kingdom by Jonathan Cape on 23 June 1966.
Ian Fleming Publications is the production company formerly known as both Glidrose Productions Limited and Glidrose Publications Limited, named after its founders John Gliddon and Norman Rose. In 1952, author Ian Fleming bought it after completing his first James Bond novel, Casino Royale; he assigned most of his rights in Casino Royale, and the works which followed it to Glidrose.
James Bond was a comic strip that was based on the eponymous, fictional character created by author Ian Fleming. Starting in 1958 and continuing to 1983, it consisted of 52 story arcs that were syndicated in British newspapers, seven of which were initially published abroad.
"Shaken, not stirred" is how Ian Fleming's fictional British Secret Service agent James Bond prefers his martini cocktail.
"Casino Royale" is a live 1954 television adaptation of the 1953 novel of the same name by Ian Fleming. An episode of the American dramatic anthology series Climax!, the show was the first screen adaptation of a James Bond novel, and stars Barry Nelson, Peter Lorre, and Linda Christian. Though this marks the first onscreen appearance of the secret agent, Nelson's Bond is played as an American spy working for the "Combined Intelligence Agency".
In Ian Fleming's James Bond novels and the derived films, the 00 Section of MI6 is considered the secret service's elite. A 00 is a field agent who holds a licence to kill in the field, at their discretion, to complete any mission. The novel Moonraker establishes that the section routinely has three agents concurrently; the film series, in Thunderball, establishes a minimum number of nine 00 agents active at that time.
Vesper Lynd is a fictional character featured in Ian Fleming's 1953 James Bond novel Casino Royale. She was portrayed by Ursula Andress in the 1967 James Bond parody, which is only slightly based on the novel, and by Eva Green in the 2006 film adaptation.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to James Bond:
The James Bond series of films contain a number of repeating, distinctive motifs which date from the series' inception with Dr. No in 1962. The series consists of twenty five films produced by Eon Productions featuring the James Bond character, a fictional British Secret Service agent. The most recent instalment is No Time to Die, released in UK cinemas on 30 September 2021. There have also been two independently made features, the satirical Casino Royale, released in 1967, and the 1983 film Never Say Never Again.
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