The Man with the Golden Typewriter (34 page)

(I refrain from vulgarly suggesting to you, “you've got the name let's have the game”!)

First of all, I am terribly sorry that this MM business had gone awry.
⁶
It is really very silly of her as this was a wonderful piece of casting that
would have vastly added to her prestige. I do hope you scramble out all right with some equally splendid girl.

I haven't seen Saltzman's announcement in the
New York Times
, but in fact, as is usual with show biz, nothing has yet been signed, and anyway if they go ahead with their film programme it will be many years before television comes into the picture.

When and if it does, I shall press your suit, if you see what I mean, with vigour.

But I am sure you will agree that if Saltzman makes a success of the films the value of any television series will be vastly enhanced.

Meanwhile I am pestiferated by doctors and lawyers and am rapidly becoming a shadow of the scrambled eggs man you know.

Have just had a cable from Bill Stephenson, please explain the situation to him as sympathetically as you can.

TO HARRY SALTZMAN, ESQ., 16, South Audley Street, London, W.1.

Producers Harry Saltzman and Cubby Broccoli soon discovered, as Cape had before them, that Fleming liked to become involved in the minutiae of production.

31st August, 1961

Dear Harry,

While I remember it, I met last night an extremely intelligent and attractive coloured man called Paul Dankwa,
⁷
who is studying law here but has been very much taken up by the bohemian set, and I have met him on and off for several years.

He told me he had just finished appearing in the film ‘A Taste of Honey'.

I think it would be worthwhile you tracking him down and having a look at him for the role of Quarrel in Dr. No. His address is,
9 Overstrand Mansions, Prince of Wales's Drive, Battersea, telephone Macaulay 5212.

I told him I would mention his name to you and he was very excited at the prospect.

He has all the qualities this role demands and, in particular, a most pleasing personality and good looks.

TO MRS. BLACKWELL, Bolt, Port Maria, Jamaica

Apart from suggesting possible cast members, Fleming decided to organise accommodation in Jamaica for the film crew of ‘Doctor No,' and to arrange a recording studio for the soundtrack. Writing to his neighbour (and mistress) Blanche Blackwell he wondered if her musically inclined son Christopher might like the job.
⁸

25th October, 1961

Forgive the typing but a lot of this is going to be boring stuff for you to pass on to Christopher.

The Company has written to Christopher giving him most of the dope and asking him to be their local contact and production assistant on ‘Dr. No'.

They will probably want him to do such miscellaneous jobs as recommending hotel accommodation and beating down the proprietor, for 60 or 70 people. He will also have to dig out and suggest local actors and actresses for small parts and keep an eye on the labour to see that it keeps working happily during the six or eight weeks they will be shooting.

The suggested location is the Morant Lighthouse area with those swamps behind and the beach you and I know.

I have suggested that they put the team up at Anthony Jenkinson's hotel, but I am not sure if he has enough rooms. Christopher might like to have a word with him about it. But of course they may decide it is too far from Morant and prefer one or other of those hotels up behind Kingston.

They also want to do all their musical score for the picture in Jamaica, and this should be a real chance for Christopher to seek out talent and lease them his recording studio.

I have no idea what fee to recommend Christopher to ask for, but I should think £100 a week for his general services and extra for studio and sound recording, etc. But perhaps he had better wait and see what they offer when Saltzman, the producer, and the rest of them arrive around January 11th.

I am sure Christopher will do this job splendidly and I think he will find it enormous fun.

The producer, Terence Young,
⁹
seems very nice and the man they have chosen for Bond, Sean Connery, is a real charmer – fairly unknown but a good actor with the right looks and physique.

If Christopher does well on this assignment it can easily lead to others in Jamaica and elsewhere and an exciting sideline for him.

All your news about the hedge and the flowers is very exciting. You are an angel to have taken so much trouble and I am longing to see it all.

But this is dreadful news about the car. I have always feared you would run into trouble with it and it's a blessing that you survived. For heaven's sake get something smaller and more manageable for those twisty roads, and stop driving so fast, there's absolutely no hurry!

My Jamaica plans are now changed after many stormy sessions [with Ann] and we come out together around January 20th and have much the same programme as last year.[. . .]

No other news for now, but it certainly looks as if we are all going to have great fun with this film business in January.

TO SIR WILLIAM STEPHENSON, 450 East 52nd Street, New York

Stephenson cabled to berate Fleming for not making enough of his publicity – ‘appears to me that you are haughtily sniffing the end of a Smith and Wesson forty five'.

7th November, 1961

Many thanks for your chastening cable which actually fetched up at the right address. Please use it frequently.

Not much news from here. My host of medical advisers seem to be delighted with my recovery and, as you can imagine, I am losing no time in loosening up on their counsels of moderation in all things.

The film deal with United Artists is going ahead and they are going to film “DR NO” in Jamaica in January and February, and the advance party has already gone out to prospect for location. But, as usual with show business, no actual money has actually changed hands yet.

I shall be coming out to Jamaica around January 18th and will be paying you my usual visit around the middle of March. So please warn The Pierre to lay in plenty of oysters.

TO HARRY SALTZMAN,

Fleming had already received several offers to promote products, all of which he treated with a casual shrug. Whether or not the film company wanted to consider ‘product placement' he left to their own decision. The brand in question remains unknown.

7th December, 1961

My dear Harry,

I have acknowledged the attached but told them to get in direct touch with your Company.

Incidentally, I expect you will be getting similar approaches from other branded products used by James Bond.

I don't know what your policy in this matter will be, but I have personally found that the use of branded names in my stories helps the verisimilitude, so long as the products are quality products.

Admittedly one is giving free publicity to these people, but I don't think it matters so long as their products are in fact really good.

Anyway, over to you.

TO DAVID NIVEN, ESQ., White's Club, 37, St. James's Street, London, S.W.1.

The actor David Niven,
¹⁰
whose TV company had recently failed in its bid to acquire rights to James Bond, wrote on 23 October 1962 to ask if Fleming could think of a suitable character – ‘a high-class crook, à la “Raffles” or a super-modern “Sherlock Holmes” – for him to play in forthcoming four-part series. ‘Will you, dear chum, look back through your files and come up with something a little off-beat that would suit me?' Despite a proposed fee of £1,000, Fleming turned the offer down.

7th November, 1962

My dear David,

I have just this minute come back from New York working on just such a project as you suggest but for an entire television series, and the copyright situation would be terribly snarled up if I went into business with you, and I think I should gracefully decline.

However, why don't we eat a few pounds' worth of Colchesters together (at your expense) some time after you arrive? And if I have had enough baths by then I may have dreamt up a bright idea in one or another of them.

But I should warn you that my brains are boiling with the effort of keeping James Bond on the move, and I confess that my chief reason for Operation Colchester would be to see your endearing mug again.

I have to be in Tokyo from the 14th to 21st and if I eat their deadly blow fish on the wrong day of the month I may not show up, but at any rate I shall depart this life with

Affectionate regards to yourself.

Niven tried again the following year, suggesting that he could write under the pseudonym Charlie Hopkins ‘and thereby not involve your valuable name in anything as tawdry as television!! In any event, don't forget I really
am highly experienced in this line of country and whether you ever do anything with us or not, do not hesitate to pick my microscopic brain.' As further inducement he added that, ‘I suppose you have become my favourite writer next to Chaucer.' Again, Fleming declined.

TO RAYMOND HAWKEY, ESQ., 50 Campden Hill Towers, London, W.11

Raymond Hawkey
¹¹
had produced a ground-breaking cover for the Pan paperback edition of
Thunderball.
His design, which included two bullet holes, was so striking that it inspired thriller writers for years to come.

9th April, 1963

Dear Raymond Hawkey,

Thank you very much for the pulls of the really brilliant cover you have designed. I think it is quite splendid and I don't think the filthy little Pan sign spoils it too much.

But what happens to the skin in subsequent books? Will it change colour?

Thank you also for the amusing photograph of me and Len Deighton. I am sorry to say I thought Evans' piece was pretty skimpy, but don't tell him I said so!

TO ANN MARLOW

Marlow, ever optimistic, wondered if Fleming would be interested in a TV series about incidents in his life.

15th October, 1963

My dear Ann,

It was lovely to hear from you and your television idea sounds very interesting.
¹²

The trouble is of course that I have no control over these television series on which Eon Productions have the option after the completion of three full length James Bond feature films.

So I'm afraid the only course is for you to put your ideas to Harry Saltzman and see if he will wear them.

Naturally I would love to be involved with you over all this, but, as Terence Young should have told you, I have absolutely no say in the matter.

The Simenon interview wasn't bad, but it wasn't very cleverly edited and put together, but I expect it will appear somewhere in the States before long.

Please give my best love to Bill and Mary when you see them next.

With much affection.

TO ANN MARLOW

Despairing, Marlow suggested a programme devoid of Bond called
Here's Fleming!

29th October, 1963

My dear Ann,

At last I have got the picture clear, but I am sorry to say that I simply hate the idea.

I have far too much to do anyway and I also greatly dislike projecting my image any further than I can throw it.

I am terribly sorry, but there it is and you must forgive me once again.

Much love.

 

13

The Spy Who Loved Me

By 1961 Fleming's life had become more complicated than he would have wished. Apart from the stress of writing, which was beginning to wear him down, he and Ann were drifting apart. She was conducting a thinly disguised affair with Hugh Gaitskell, a high-ranking Labour politician, while Fleming was consorting openly with Blanche Blackwell, who owned a nearby house in Jamaica. It was all rather sad.

The turmoil seemed to have had no effect on his output, however. Perhaps it even jolted his imagination, for when he returned from Jamaica he delivered a manuscript that departed radically from the norm. Instead of the standard Bond saga, he had written a pseudo-autobiographical interlude in the life of a young woman named Vivienne Michel. Fleeing disappointment in love, Canadian-born ‘Viv' leaves Europe to travel solo through the Adirondacks on a Vespa scooter. When she becomes involved in an insurance scam at the isolated Dreamy Pines Motor Court, James Bond arrives to rescue her from certain death. It contained some excruciating details that were obviously based on Fleming's early sexual experiences. And the language used by Viv to describe her saviour slipped into the farthest corners of Cartland. But it had its charms, and for the time (and for the author) it was a brave stab at reinventing Bond. At Bedford Square they thought it was just the ticket.

Fleming was on full charge when he handed it in. He had always been accused of writing beneath his abilities and now he had produced something that if not exactly literature was at least new. There was also his
latest book,
Thunderball
, which had just been released and was selling well, and he had delivered the manuscript for
State of Excitement
, his book about Kuwait. Also, as a nod to his status as proprietor of
The Book Collector
, he had been invited to address the Antiquarian Booksellers Association's gathering in late July. He was full of confidence, and riding high on his success.

But his health was failing. For a long time he had had problems with his heart, to which had recently been added difficulties with his kidneys and back. He was uncertain about Bond's prospects and the legal difficulty over
Thunderball
had taken its toll. In early April, while at a
Sunday Times
meeting, he suffered a major heart attack. His friend Denis Hamilton ushered him out of the room and helped him to hospital.

Outwardly, Fleming treated it as no more than a setback. ‘Being ill is heaven!' he wrote on a postcard to his half-sister Amaryllis. On the other side, in a typically wry touch, was a picture of an Aztec crystal skull. Jokingly, he drew a skull and crossbones on the back of the envelopes he sent to his friends. To Percy Muir he wrote that ‘years of under work and over indulgence' had caught up with him. Behind the façade, however, he realised that life would never be the same again.