On this date in 1964 Ian Fleming, former WWII naval intelligence officer, journalist and author of the James Bond thrillers, died. He was 56.
I became an Ian Fleming aficionado when I was a pre-teen
in the early 1960s after watching the late, great Scot actor Sean Connery
portray Ian Fleming’s iconic character James Bond in the first two Bond
films, Dr. No and From Russia With Love.
Watching the two great cinematic thrillers led me to join a book club and receive the introductory offer of a 9-volumn set of Ian Fleming's novels, which were the first nine books in my now quite extensive library..
Reading the first two Fleming novels, I was pleased to
discover that the novels were darker and more complicated that the films.
A short time later, I heard
on the radio in my father's car that Ian Fleming had died.
At the time I was already dreaming of becoming a writer. And I was influenced hughly by Ian Fleming's James Bond novels. I loved Ian Fleming's use of exotic locals, nasty villains and beautiful women. And I hoped to one day write thrillers about crime, espionage and terrorism.
Although I have not yet been able to publish my crime novel, I've published more than 50 short crime fiction stories.
Years after reading his novel and watching Sean Connery as Bond in the films, I was thrilled to spend
a week with my wife at Fleming's villa Goldeneye in Jamaica in the early 1980s,
where he wrote all of the James Bond thrillers.
As History.com notes, Ian
Fleming led an interesting, if all too short, life:
On
August 12, 1964, the British author and journalist Ian Fleming, creator of
James Bond, the world’s most famous fictional spy, dies of a heart attack at
age 56 in Kent, England.
Fleming’s
series of novels about the debonair Agent 007, based in part on their dashing
author’s real-life experiences, spawned one of the most lucrative film
franchises in history. Ian Lancaster Fleming was born into a well-to-do family
in London on May 29, 1908. As an adult, he worked as a foreign correspondent, a
stockbroker and a personal assistant to Britain’s director of naval
intelligence during World War II–experiences that would all provide fodder for
his Bond novels.
You can
read the rest of the piece via the below link:
James Bond creator Ian Fleming dies - HISTORY
You can also read my Counterterrorism magazine
piece on Ian Fleming's war and two of my Crime Beat columns on
Ian Fleming via the below links:
Paul Davis On
Crime: My Crime Beat Column: A Look Back At Ian Fleming's Iconic James Bond
Character
Paul Davis On
Crime: My Crime Beat Column: The Ian Fleming and James Bond Phenomenon
