The Man with the Golden Typewriter (48 page)

Anyway, enough of these maunderings. I must have my “sensitive areas” rubbed (bottom in hospitalese!) Thank you for the spiffing P.C. I am better without visitors but we will gnaw a string of spaghetti when I get out.

1,000nd congratulations on a beautifully accomplished task.

FROM SOMERSET MAUGHAM

Maugham, aged eighty-eight and nearing the end of his life, wrote a sad note to thank Fleming for his latest,
You Only Live Twice.

7th May, 1964

My dear Ian,

Thank you for sending me your new book. I read it, as with all the others, with great delight and excitement. It was very sweet of you to think of me; I was touched and much pleased.

Forgive me for not having acknowledged it before now but I have been very seedy and distraught. I have just returned from Venice, but with the realisation that my travelling days are over – it is a great grief to me.

I hope we meet before too long. I think of you with great affection and should like to see you once more.

TO SOMERSET MAUGHAM, ESQ., C.H., Villa Mauresque, St. Jean, Cap Ferrat

13th May, 1964

My dear Willie,

A thousand thanks for your charming but rather triste letter of May 7th. Cease at once being “seedy and distraught”. Move about as much as you can, even if it's only short distances, and don't forget that today's news wraps tomorrow's fish!

I have been seedy but without being much distraught, pleurisy and shut up in Sister Agnes for two or three weeks.

I shall be about again in a fortnight or so and I am going to try and persuade Annie that we might fly down to Nice and invite ourselves to you for a week-end, if you will have us. I would see that Annie did not exhaust you with her chatter and, as you know, I am as quiet as a mouse. But we both long to see you, particularly as you missed your London visit last year.

If you think this would be a good idea please scribble Annie a note and command her to your presence. She is your slave and will do anything you tell her to.

Now please don't treat yourself like a piece of Venetian glass, it is not your style at all and you have always had the courage and fortitude of ten.

With all my affection,

Dictated by Mr. Fleming and signed in his absence

TO AUBREY FORSHAW, ESQ., Pan Books Ltd., 8 Headfort Place, London, S.W.1.

Aubrey Forshaw of Pan Books wrote to invite Fleming to a party where he was to receive an award for having sold one million copies of
Casino Royale.

20th May, 1964

My dear Aubrey,

I am so sorry that I missed our lunch and, alas, I'm afraid it may be another couple of weeks or so before I shall be fit to take part in this splendid beano you are arranging for me.

Griffie will let you know just as soon as I am back in circulation.

What the devil do these Oscars consist of? I assume they are at least 18 carat and the whole way through, unlike the Hollywood Oscars which are made of the basest of metals!

Anyway, it really is wonderful what you have managed to do with my books, and it certainly is a far cry from the day when you and Cape gingerly handled “Casino Royale” with a pair of tongs and gaze averted!

I don't think much of Harry Saltzman's new jacket for “Goldfinger”. The golden girl looks like a man and there is far too much jazz about the film. Why the hell should we advertise Saltzman and Broccoli on one of
my
books? And on the back I see that Sean Connery gets at least twice the size type as the author.

Seriously, although Saltzman is a splendid salesman, do please keep a sharp eye on this tendency of his to use my books for advertising his films.

Longing to see you as soon as possible.

Dictated by Ian Fleming & signed in his absence.

P.S. By the way, Griffie just tells me you have a different cover in mind once the film is out of the way. She might have said so earlier!

Forshaw replied: ‘Our PAN is 9 
^3∕4
'' high – a replica of a 2
^nd
Century statue owned by the British Museum. It is of bronze, as is the original, but is plated
with matt 18 ct. gold to prevent tarnishing. He stands on a 4” Mahogany plinth bearing a plate engraved with your name, the title of the book and the fact that the book has sold a million copies in our series.

‘Poor man you are now due to receive eight – i.e. all titles except “FOR YOUR EYES ONLY”. Within two or three months this too will reach the million and will be an all time record-holder, short stories being notoriously difficult to sell in any numbers.' He further pointed out: ‘Saltzman's films have done an enormous amount to spread the cult.'

TO WILLIAM PLOMER

20th May, 1964

My dear Wm,

Thank you for warming peecard & spiffing letter. I am satisfied with your reviews [of Plomer's book on Richard Rumbold] except for that pretentious booby Francis King. He reminds me a bit of Grigson
⁶
in the way they PECK and denigrate. I would like to have read great accolades for you, really great ones, but few people can know how much dung had to be shifted by how staunch a beetle. I remember so vividly your throw-away phrases in the Charing X and my immediate understanding of what you had taken on. Odd!

Don't do it again! Write for fun now.

Have just been condemned to another week or so here – but by the best mechanic in England – Stuart Bedford. I could have told him so before he said it. One knows one's old vintage car by now. Reading voraciously but I find I can now only read books which approximate to the
truth
. Odd
stories
just aren't good enough. That's most of the reason I shy away from Bond. Not good enough after reading ‘Diary of a Black Sheep' by Meinertzhagen
⁷
& even Francis Chichester
⁸
with
all its omissions. But in due course I will hack away & you will be honest with me. I don't like short-weighting my readers, myself or you.

Just finished Post's “Heart of the Hunter”. Liked first third but got bogged down in Praying Mantis. You must bring me up to date with him one day. Also Deighton's “Funeral in Berlin” in proof. Amusing cracks but I simply can't be bothered with his kitchen sink writing & all this Nescafe. Reminds me of Bratby. I think Capes should send him to Tahiti or somewhere & get him to ‘tell a story'. He excuses his ignorance of life with his footnotes & that won't stand up for long – nice chap though he is.

Please tell Michael to send me some books – any I.Q. but
good
ones!

Sorry for the long waffle but I've just had the extra sentence & Annie has a smart dinner party & I wanted to communicate.

Gruss aus Beaumontstrasse

P.S. Please read the Amis M.S. & put him right where you can.
⁹
You blew the whistle. You've
seen
the whole game! No reply
please
.

TO WILLIAM PLOMER

June 1964

Another 10 days, Brighton

My dear Wm,

You have calmed my temperature & blood pressure, reduced the albumen in my urine & sent my spirits soaring.

But I would still like to tinker with the book [
The Man with the Golden Gun
] & skip a year. We will discuss, but bless you as usual.

TO LEONARD RUSSELL

15th June, 1964

Dear Leonard,

Forgive the typing and the signature, but I am still not firing on all cylinders.

I will certainly see that you have an early look at “Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang”, but there is so much text that, apart from the brilliance of [John] Burningham's illustrations, I think you may have difficulty in finding room for it.

I wrote the three books three years ago when I got stuck in hospital and someone sent me Squirrel Nutkin which, apart from the illustrations, I thought was most terrible bilge – particularly the idiotic riddles.

Laid low again, I am now thinking of a musical called “Fizz-an-Chips”, but I haven't got further than the title.

I'm afraid I entirely agree with your criticism of my critique of Norman Lewis's book, but I was not nearly as well up on the subject of the Mafia as you – strangely – appear to be. And though I never see him I am devoted to Norman and am sorry that he always just fails to come off.

But you are absolutely right, and it just shows that you must tell Jack never again to ask me to do reviews for him. My eye is absolutely out!

But be a good chap and lend me this definitive work in the “New York Review of Books” which I have never heard of. I promise it will come back to you safely.

Anyway it was lovely to hear from you and I now see that the only way to get more than a short paragraph from you is to offend your critical senses!

Salud.

Dictated by Ian Fleming and signed in his absence

TO DENIS HAMILTON, 25 Roebuck House, Stag Place, London, S.W.1.

15th June, 1964

My dear C.D.,

Forgive the typing and the signature but I am still not running on all cylinders.

It was lovely to get your note, but I am sorry you have been playing the fool in the garden. You must know that all forms of gardening are tantamount to suicide for the normal sedentary male. For heaven's sake leave the whole business alone, it is an absolute death trap.

Alas, next week won't work as with any luck I'm going to be allowed down to Brighton to play ring-a-roses with the Mods and Rockers.

So please let us make it the week after and I will get in touch.

You are a wonderful chap to take my broadsides in such good grace, but I have always felt that we have so much talent on the paper that just doesn't do its weekly stint and is not, from time to time, given the limelight of the leader page.

There are some tremendous names there, often with axes to grind, off their usual beat and I feel it would be a great accolade for many of them to get on the leader page – and a stimulus and a challenge, for the matter of that.

But to draw them out of their shells might need something like a round robin letter or series of small luncheon parties.

But we will hack away at each other in a few days time, and in the meantime, for heavens sake keep away from that blasted garden.

TO PERCY MUIR, ESQ., Elkin Matthews Ltd., Takeley, Bishop's Stortford, Essex

22nd June, 1964

Dear Mr. Muir,

Thank you for your letter of June 19th. Alas, I'm afraid Mr. Fleming has been quite ill. He had a cold, played golf and got very wet, the cold turned to influenza and the influenza to pleurisy. All this of course has proved to be a strain on his heart. He was in Sister Agnes hospital for
some weeks, then at home for two weeks, and last Wednesday he went to Brighton. I expected him back in London tomorrow, but I've just heard that he is not so well and will have to stay another ten days or so.

As you can imagine he is very bored and now he is only allowed to go out every other day. It's all very worrying. However, I know he would like to hear from you so long as you ask him not to reply. He gets exhausted very quickly and sends all his letters to the office, and I know he feels it is rather impolite not answering them personally.

I thought the Book Fair excellent, but the attendance was terribly poor.

Mr. Fleming's address is The Dudley Hotel, Hove, Sussex, so please write and cheer him up, he needs it.

Yours Sincerely,

Secretary to Ian Fleming

 

Afterword

Although Fleming died in 1964, Agent 007 did not. The Bond novels continued to sell in their millions – initially thanks to Pan Books, whose paperback covers were reinvented so often and so inventively that they became almost as iconic as Chopping's original designs. If the literary establishment had once looked down upon Fleming as a sensationalist, his contemporaries would now have given their eye teeth to achieve even a smidgeon of his fame. When Kingsley Amis's
The James Bond Dossier
came out in 1965 Evelyn Waugh wrote to his friend Nancy Mitford, ‘Ian Fleming is being posthumously canonised by the intelligentsia. Very rum.' More importantly, perhaps, his books acted as a touchstone for a new breed of thriller writer.

Fleming's literary estate was managed at first by Ann, who guarded his reputation until her death in 1981, and by his brother Peter along with the agent Peter Janson-Smith. Caspar Fleming led a troubled life, which included a fascination for guns, drugs and Ancient Egypt before committing suicide in 1975. To safeguard the copyright in James Bond, Glidrose commissioned Kingsley Amis to write a continuation Bond novel,
Colonel Sun
, which came out in 1968, following which several other authors have since assumed the Bond mantle.

The grip Bond held on the world's imagination was enhanced beyond measure by his career on screen. Producers Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman took a leap in the dark when they bought the film rights in 1961 (appropriately, they named their company EON: ‘Everything Or Nothing') but their perseverance paid dividends. Fleming's credo had always been that if you wanted to make proper money from writing you had to get your books made into films. And he was quite right.

The first three Bond films –
Dr No
,
From Russia with Love
and
Goldfinger
 – were produced while Fleming was still alive, though he lived to see only the first two. They followed, more or less faithfully, the novels – among the highlights were 007's game of golf with Goldfinger and his duel with Rosa Klebb and her poison-bladed shoes in
From Russia with Love
. Thereafter, Bond took wing, flying in a variety of directions yet always uplifted by a glamour and sense of excitement that reflected Fleming's original vision. The result, managed by the same family-run company, headed now by Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson, is a massive entertainment industry that shows no sign of diminishing.

At the time of writing, Fleming's books have sold more than 100 million copies (excluding translations) and it has been estimated that one in five of the world's population has seen a Bond film. All this from a man who in 1953 offered to flip a coin with his publisher over who should pay for a few extra promotional copies of
Casino Royale
.