007 degrees of separation of James Bond trivia

001: Barry Nelson (1917-2007) was the first actor to play James Bond in the 1954 CBS adaptation of Casino Royale.

002: Barry Nelson also played the captain of the airline plane in 1970’s Airport. (Dean Martin was only the co-pilot.)

003: Aiport was the last film to be scored by Alfred Newman (1901-1970), who was also composer of the “20th “Century-Fox Fanfare” that starts every film released by that studio.

004: Alfred Newman is the father of film composer Thomas Newman (b. 1955).

005: Thomas Newman is the composer for Skyfall, the 23rd James Bond film made by Eon Productions. It’s his first 007 assignment. He got the gig because he has done other films directed by Sam Mendes, the director of Skyfall.

006: Barry Nelson was once a panelist on an installment of To Tell The Truth, the game show hosted by Bud Collyer (1908-1969), who was the first person to play Superman (albeit on radio, later as the voice of Clark Kent/Superman in movie and television cartoons).

007: That’s all we got; we’ll conveniently ignore the often-cited trivia that Skyfall producer Michael G. Wilson is the son of Lewis Wilson (1920-2000), the first actor to play Bruce Wayne/Batman in a 1943 serial.