Goldfinger 1964

(Pictured Above: Connery pulls amusing faces for O’Neill on the Goldfinger set.)

By the time of Goldfinger’s production, the Bond movies had established themselves as an ‘event’ and Life magazine in the US ran a cover story about the movie. With this third entry, the long-term potential and appeal of Bond as a movie character had crystallized. In an interview with Esquire in 2012, Terry O’Neill remembered how, ‘On the set of Goldfinger in 1963, everyone had fun. These were the early days when Bond was still a very British kind of film, with loads of humour and Sean goofing around and nowhere near the global franchise it has become.’

On Her Majesty's Secret Service 1969

(Pictured above: George Lazenby as James Bond. Although he only starred in the one film, fans hold Lazenby’s role as Bond in high regard.)

Considered one of the most effective adaptations of a Fleming Bond novel, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service features George Lazenby’s only Bond performance. The plot of the movie turns on Bond travelling to Switzerland and locating the lair of arch-villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld.

Diamonds Are Forever 1971

Astronaut Alan Shepard was playing golf on the moon and those images were front-page in every paper. I knew that Sean always had his clubs with him – so I thought ‘What a great shot. James Bond playing golf on the moon.’

–Terry O’Neill

Live and Let Die 1973

Live and Let Die (1973) was Roger Moore’s debut as James Bond, Sean Connery having turned down one last mission. It is often recognised as the movie that memorably expanded on the importance to the plot of variously complicated pieces of tech. Certainly, Live and Let Die is considered one of the strongest entries of the Moore era, conjuring a tangible sense of menace along with humour and action. Looking back on his debut as 007 in a 1985 Starlog interview, Moore clearly took pride in his distinct characterisation: ‘In Live and Let Die, I didn’t do any of that cold behaviour because that was what Sean would do.’

GoldenEye 1995

GoldenEye marked a watershed moment for Bond, with the character returning to the big screen after a six-year hiatus. The film’s title is derived not from a Fleming novel but from the name of the estate that Fleming owned in the Caribbean. Recalling the movie, Pierce Brosnan noted in an interview with The Guardian in 2019 that, ‘The sceptics were out in full: the world felt there was no need for another James Bond. So the challenge was enormous. I didn’t want to get caught between what Sean and Roger had done. Yet, at the end of the day, my take was a little bit of what both had brought to the role. I leant towards Sean’s style, but I couldn’t deny Roger because GoldenEye was in the tongue-in-cheek style people had become used to. GoldenEye’s success was a great relief.

And don't forget the Bond girls

(Pictured above: One of the best known of Bond’s women, Miss Galore in Goldfinger, portrayed by Honor Blackman.)

Women are vital to the James Bond world, reflecting and shaping audience perceptions of what it means to be a ‘Bond girl’. Over the years, O’Neill’s photographs have helped make the actresses synonymous with the Bond movies. It’s fascinating to look back at his images and to see how the Bond girl has changed.