Ted Kennedy: 007 fan to the end

The Kennedy family has a history with James Bond. When President John F. Kennedy told Life magazine that From Russia, With Love was one of his ten favorite books, U.S. sales of Ian Fleming’s novels soared. It turns out his younger brother, Senator Edward M. “Ted” Kennedy, was also a fan.

Mark Leibovich of The New York Times unearthed this nugget in an Aug. 26 feature story about Ted Kennedy’s last days:

As recently as a few days ago, Mr. Kennedy was still digging into big bowls of mocha chip and butter crunch ice creams, all smushed together (as he liked it). He and his wife, Vicki, had been watching every James Bond movie and episode of “24” on DVD.

To read the rest of the NYT report, just CLICK RIGHT HERE.

Weird Man From U.N.C.L.E. cameos

In the 1960s, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer had one spy franchise with The Man From U.N.C.L.E. So the studio decided to use every opportunity possible for exposure, even if it meant putting it into situation comedies or comedic movies.

Take, for example, MGM’s sitcom Please Don’t Eat the Daisies. Here the young boys of the show’s featured family get an uxpected thrill:

Well, as you might imagine some misunderstandings, presumably leading to yuks occur. (We say apparently because we haven’t seen the complete episode). But by the end of the story, somebody else shows up to clear things up:

Now it’s a little unclear on what level we’re supposed to take this. In the end titles, Robert Vaughn and David McCallum are billed as their fictional characters, Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin. Maybe in this fictional universe, U.N.C.L.E. has a sanctioned television show (that the boys watch) a la the 1965-74 version of The FBI?

Meanwhile, MGM also produced a spy comedy with Doris Day and Rod Taylor called The Glass Bottom Boat. The film’s director, Frank Tashlin, was known for sight gags similar to the ones he used when directing Warner Bros. cartoons. Thus, we see this scene:

Geoffrey Jenkins stories back in print

From the Bawiseconsulting blog:

GEOFFREY JENKINS, one of the world’s greatest “adventure-thriller” writers, is coming to iUniverse this fall. The classics, “A Twist of Sand,” and “Hunter Killer,” featuring the famous Jenkins character, Commander Geoffrey Peace, will soon be returning, along with all the other sixteen classic Jenkins adventures, including “A Grue of Ice,” “The Unripe Gold,” “A Bridge of Magpies,” “River of Diamonds,” and many, many more.

Jenkins, himself, a direct protegee’ of James Bond author, Ian Fleming, was born in 1920 in South Africa, and migrated to England, where he first met Fleming…Fleming and Jenkins shared a tremendous mutual respect and were fast friends for life.

When Ian Fleming died, suddenly, in 1964, at age 56, the “James Bond Mania” that swept the world, after the screen performances of Sean Connery as 007 in “Dr. No,” “From Russia, With Love,” and “Goldfinger,” left a void in the literary world of James Bond. In 1966, Geoffrey Jenkins was chosen by the Ian Fleming Estate, (Now Ian Fleming Publications) to write the first James Bond 007 continuation novel, “Per Fine Ounce,” under the pseudonym, “Robert Markham.” Unfortunately, a contractual dispute kept the finished book from ever being published, and anyone who can locate the original manuscript is urged to contact bawiseconsulting@yahoo.com . Eighteen pages of the 300 page manuscript have been located, but in the last forty-three years much has happened, and the Jenkins manuscript of this Bond thriller has completely disappeared, creating one of the greatest literary mysteries of recent times.

To read the entire post, JUST CLICK HERE.