George Lazenby

The Most Profitable Lamp in London

George Lazenby walked into the office of producer Harry Saltzman without having shot a single frame in his life. He wore a Savile Row suit ordered by Sean Connery that was never picked up and sported a Rolex Submariner on his wrist. That Australian model wasn't looking for a film career; he simply wanted to prove he could be the most desired man in England.

To convince the production team of On Her Majesty's Secret Service in 1968, he lied about experience in nonexistent European films. Director Peter Hunt bought the act because Lazenby had the physique and the swagger needed to inherit the Aston Martin. During a fight test, he broke a stuntman's nose with one punch, and Saltzman decided he was their man.

And so a car salesman from Queanbeyan ended up earning 50,000 dollars for his first job in front of a camera.

Filming in the Swiss Alps turned into an ordeal of isolation and constant tension. Lazenby didn't get along with Diana Rigg, and he had a frosty relationship with producers who saw him as a difficult upstart to handle. Yet the film released in 1969 revealed a vulnerability that Connery never allowed himself to show on screen.

The Rejection of the Million-Dollar Contract

Before the film hit theaters, his agent, Ronan O'Rahilly, convinced him that the James Bond character was a relic of the past. He assured him that the future of cinema lay in the hippie movement and stories of individual freedom. That's why Lazenby turned down a one-million-dollar contract for seven additional films as secret agent 007.

He showed up at the world premiere with a thick beard and long hair, much to the dismay of United Artists executives.

That decision made him an outcast in the British film industry overnight. Studios saw him as an unprofessional actor who had thrown away the biggest opportunity in commercial film history. In 1971, he tried to revive his image with the drama Universal Soldier, but the production went completely unnoticed by the general public.

He ran out of money and friends among London's high society.

Fate, however, took him to Hong Kong in the mid-1970s. Raymond Chow was looking for a Western face to go up against Bruce Lee in Game of Death, and Lazenby immediately accepted the challenge. Lee's sudden death in 1973 derailed the original project and left the Australian making B-grade martial arts films such as The Man from Hong Kong in 1975.

Oblivion and Nostalgic Redemption

During the eighties and nineties, his presence was limited to cameos that capitalized on his past as a spy, or supporting roles on television. He appeared in the erotic saga Emmanuelle in 1993, and he voiced characters in animated series such as Batman Beyond in 1999. The stigma of having walked away from Bond haunted him for decades like a shadow he could not escape.

In 2017, the documentary Becoming Bond gave audiences a chance to hear his side of the story with brutal honesty. Lazenby admitted that his ego and poor management of his circle ruined what could have been a personal empire. Even so, his only film as 007 began to gain ground with specialist critics, who now rank it among the best in the entire franchise.

His last professional appearance was in the film Mundy, shot in 2024.

On July 25, 2024, he issued an official statement announcing his permanent retirement from public life and from any acting projects. At age 84, he decided he would no longer travel to sign autographs at collectors' conventions. He now lives in retirement at his home in Santa Monica under a strict medical rest regimen after suffering an accidental fall at home in late 2023.