Never rile up fans of “The Other Spies.”
A Bond website, Dalton Was Best, got a lot of publicity for declaring that Daniel Craig is now the second-longest serving Bond. The methodology was starting with the time an actor was cast as Bond through the time his replacement was announced.
The Avengers Tv Show on Twitter, using those rules came up with some calculations of spy actors who have much more longevity than any Bond actor.
A #Bond fan seems to have got his theory on how to quantify the length of time an actor has portrayed #JamesBond to go viral.
— The Avengers Tv Show (@AvengersTvShow) February 20, 2017
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1/2
Going by the fan’s rules, all Bond actors would pale into insignificance up against these spies…— The Avengers Tv Show (@AvengersTvShow) February 20, 2017
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2/2#PatrickMacnee John Steed 37yrs#MichaelCaine Harry Palmer 31yrs#PeterGraves Jim Phelps 29yrs#TomCruise Ethan Hunt 20yrs & counting
— The Avengers Tv Show (@AvengersTvShow) February 20, 2017
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Patrick Macnee is 37 years because he began in 1961 as Steed and wasn’t re-cast until Ralph Fiennes in the 1998 Avengers feature film. Peter Graves is 29 years because he debuted as Jim Phelps in 1967 and wasn’t replaced until Jon Voight in the 1996 Mission: Impossible movie. Tom Cruise is at 20 years and counting (21 this fall) because he was the star of the Mission: Impossible movie series that started with the 1996 film.
Len Deighton and Michael Caine
Two more worth mentioning: Robert Vaughn and David McCallum. They were signed in 1963 (when The Man From U.N.C.L.E. pilot was shot) and weren’t replaced as Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin until 2013 when the U.N.C.L.E. film began production. That’s an even 50 years.
But Harry Palmer hasn’t been recast since Michael Caine’s debut in 1965. (He did three theatrical films in the 1960s and two made-for-television ones in the 1990s). By the recasting rule, Caine, in theory, is still on the clock, with his 52nd anniversary later this year.
I doubt these calculations will go viral the way the Daniel Craig one did. Still, you never know what you can stir up.
UPDATE (7:35 p.m. ET): Well, this post stirred up at least a little hornet’s nest.
The Avengers Tv Show received tweets asking about Jim West, Maxwell Smart, John Drake and The Prisoner. This was never intended to be a comprehensive ranking, more like poking fun at the original blog post (and reaction by the British media that made it go viral).
Separately, reader Matthew Bradford ON OUR FACEBOOK PAGE notes another Len Deighton-based production featured a character that may have really been Palmer under a different name. Actually, the explanation is more detailed than that, but Matthew says you can make the case the Palmer role was re-cast, or at the very least the issue deserves an asterisk.
UPDATE II (7:45 p.m. ET): Earlier today a friend e-mailed and raised these questions about the early Bond actor longevity rankings that started all this.
“Do they count the fact of when these guys were NOT under contract?
“Connery after THUNDERBALL?
“Roger after SPY and each film thereafter?
“Dalton until 1994?
Pierce signed for DAYLIGHTS and then released?”
Filed under: James Bond Films, The Other Spies | Tagged: Daniel Craig, Harry Palmer, Mission: Impossible, the Avengers, The Man From U.N.C.L.E | 3 Comments »
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